¹¹Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God. ¹²Demetrius has received a good testimony from everyone, and from the truth itself; and we add our testimony, and you know that our testimony is true.

As John closes off his letter, he cycles back to black-and-white statements, the kind for which he is known. When it comes to good and evil, there are only two realities, with no in-between, no nuances. A person either acts in a good way, or he acts in an evil way. Of course, John is talking about outward acts, but he ties these actions back to our relationship with God. The one who does good is “of God,” and the one who does evil “has not seen God.” So, then, to be “of God” would be equivalent to seeing God. Conversely, the one who does evil is not “of God,” for he “has not seen God.”

We know that John is not talking about physical sight, for as he wrote in his biography of Christ, “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him” (John 1:18). Further, Jesus said, “No one is good, except God alone” (Luke 18:19). But John uses the expression “see God” as a reference to spiritual sight. It was John who, alone of the four gospel writers, records the healing of the blind man who said, “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see” (John 9:25). Following that story, Jesus spoke of spiritual sight and spiritual blindness.

Through faith, believers can do good because we are “of God,” who is goodness in Himself. His goodness is inherent; ours is derived. We get a head start living in His goodness that He promises us:

We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. (1 John 3:2b)

And now John uses, as an example, someone who is doing good, a man named Demetrius. He has a reputation for being “good,” and everyone recognizes that. John infers that, by his definition of good as being “of God” and seeing God, Demetrius stands on the right side of the good-and-evil dichotomy. This accolade comes right on the heels of John’s denunciation of Diotrephes, of whom he writes, “I will call attention to his deeds which he does, unjustly accusing us with wicked words” (3 John 10). There’s no question on which side that man stands!

To summarize, we see the apostle John giving his judgment on two different individuals, one doing good and one doing evil. He concludes from their actions and behavior that one is a genuine believer and the other is not.

Lord, help me live well so that no one will question the genuineness of my faith.