Transcript

ANNOUNCER: In the book of 1 John, when beloved are being addressed, are these beloved, saved people or unsaved? How can we be sure one way or the other? We thank you friend for joining us today. This is Grace in Focus, a radio broadcast and podcast brought to you by financial supporters and the Grace Evangelical Society. Our website is faithalone.org. I’d love you to go there to find out more about us and especially our upcoming National Conference, May 18th through the 21st. It’s going to be held at Camp Copass in Denton, Texas, a beautiful camp on a lake. You will love the people, the teaching, the surroundings, and our theme this year is “Believe in Christ for Life”. Find out all the details, get registered at faithalone.org. 

And now with today’s question and answer discussion, here is Bob Wilkin, along with Sam Marr. 

SAM: Well Bob, we’ve got a question from Dana on 1 John 4:7-8. Her question is, do these verses imply that all of the beloved or brethren may not yet be born again? 

BOB: Okay, so would you read 1 John 4:7-8 so we can see what, and this was Dana?

SAM: Yep. 

BOB: Okay, by the way, I went to Dana Junior High School. Named after, you know who was the famous author named Dana? 

SAM: I don’t know any. 

BOB: Richard Henry Dana wrote Three Years Before the Mast, which I read about half of it, but I’ve finished it, but it’s interesting book. Anyway, Dana’s asking, are all the beloved born again? So please read it. 

SAM: Yep. 1 John 4:7-8, “Beloved, let us love one another for love is of God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love, does not know God for God is love.” 

BOB: Okay, so if we go up just a few verses, John says “You are of God, little children, and have overcome them”, he’s talking about the world and the false teachers, he whom he calls the antichrist, “and you have overcome them because He who is in you is greater than he that is in the world.” That verse alone clearly establishes that we’re talking about born again people, because they’re “of God”, and “of God” in 1 John doesn’t simply mean they’re born again, it means they’re in fellowship with God. And then he says “little children and have overcome them”—an overcomer is a victorious believer. One who has overcome false teachers is victorious. 

If you go back to 1 John 2:12-15, one of the three designations is young men, and he says you’ve overcome the world and you’ve overcome the devil. We know from Revelation 2 and 3 that the overcomers are those who are going to rule and reign with Christ. So verse 4 makes it clear he’s talking about believers, and then he says “because He who is in you is greater than he that is in the world”. Well the Holy Spirit is not in unbelievers, He’s only in believers. And so this is clearly talking about believers, and then he says “they are of the world”, meaning the false teachers, the antichrist from verses 1 through 4. Therefore they speak as of the world and the world hears them. Then he says “we are of God”, “we” meaning believers who are in fellowship with Him, overcoming believers. He who knows God hears us. 

That is not talking about all believers, that’s talking about believers who know God in their experience. “He who is not of God does not hear us.” Well that includes unbelievers, but it also includes believers who are out of fellowship with God and are not listening to apostolic truth. And then he says “By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error”. And then he says “Beloved”, which is talking about the believing readers who were in fellowship with God. 

So this is more than believers. It’s believers in fellowship with overcoming believers. “Let us love one another.” Well that’s a theme as you know. You took 1 John with me last semester and we translated through 1, 2, and 3 John, and this is a theme in 1 John about this is the commandment. It’s an old commandment and it’s also a new commandment—that we should love one another. “For love is of God and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” 

One of the things Dana I think is missing is that, notice there’s two things. What are the two things it says about the person who loves? Beloved, let us love one another for love is of God and everyone who loves is two things— 

SAM: Is born of God and knows God. 

BOB: Yeah. So born of God and knowing God may be seen by many is the same thing, but they’re not seen as the same thing here by John. Because you can be born again and not know God in your experience. Remember in John 14, Jesus said to Philip, “Have I been with you so long and yet you don’t know me? Well, you can know God in one sense, but not in the other. 

Can I make a brief joke here? Okay, this is one of my favorite stories. I used to be a golfer. I golfed from about age 12 to about age 45 and I’ve not golfed for decades. One of the things about golfers is sometimes they get to the course on Saturday morning at the crack of dawn so they can be the people who are kind of waking up the course. They’re the people with the dew on the ground and everything else. And this guy was one of those guys and he was out there and he’s on the sixth hole and he’s getting ready to putt and he’s with his buddies and a funeral procession is going by, you know, with the lights on and everything. And he looks, he takes his hat off, he puts it over his heart and he looks down and he doesn’t putt. Well, it takes like 45 seconds for the procession to go by. And his buddies are like, Bob, I can’t believe—you know, normally you’re not the kind of person that’s going to be sentimental like that. And he said, yeah, but she was a good wife for 40 years. You like that? You’re laughing—

SAM: I’m laughing. And I’m glad that you’re not that Bob. 

BOB: Thank you. And yes, I would not miss her, her memorial service. But the joke is well taken. Aren’t there a lot of married couples where they really don’t know each other? You can be with someone for a long period of time and not really know what makes them tick. And so it seems to me in terms of knowing God, it’s two things, but look at verse eight, read verse eight again. 

SAM: “He who does not love does not know God for God is love.” 

BOB: Do you notice something that’s missing in verse eight that was found at the end of verse seven? “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” Something’s missing there. What was the end of verse seven? It says, “everyone who loves” is two things. 

SAM: Born of God and knows God. 

BOB: And knows God. Now verse eight, he who does not love does not know God. What’s missing? 

SAM: The born of God. 

BOB: Yeah. It doesn’t say he who does not love is not born of God and doesn’t know God for God is love. No. He’s clearly suggesting that a born of God person may not know Him. By the way, we used to sing this with Campus Crusade for Christ. And I think we missed the fact that verse eight didn’t say he who does not love is not born of God and does not know Him. 

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BOB: And so Dana’s question is, are all the beloved born again is, absolutely, yes. There’s no such—and not only are they born again, but the people he’s writing about are overcoming believers in fellowship with God. And by the way, look back at chapter three on the command to love one another. Remember where he says he who has the world’s goods and doesn’t present them for his brother, how does the love of God abide in him? See 3:17, 1 John 3:17, “But whoever has this world’s goods and sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from him. How does the love of God abide in him?” And then he says, “My little children let us not love in word and tongue, but indeed in truth.” Doesn’t that sound a lot like James 2? Read James 2:15-16, where you get a guy saying the right things, but not loving in deed and in truth. 

SAM: Yeah, James 2:15 says, “If a brother or sister’s naked and destitute of daily food and one of you says to them, depart in peace, be warmed and filled, but do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit?”

BOB: Yeah, well, notice they say a good thing. Be warmed. Hey, I hope you get the clothes you need, the jacket you need, whatever. And be filled. I hope you get the food you need. I’m going to even pray for you, but you don’t give them what’s necessary. What use is that for them, or for you, because 2:14 starts with what does it profit, my brethren. And so James 2:15-16 is parallel to 1 John 3:17-18. And the point is, by the way, in James 2:15-16, how does it start again? 

SAM: “If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food”— 

BOB: And…

SAM: “And one of you says to them”— 

BOB: So notice it’s one of you. 

SAM: Oh, yeah. 

BOB: It’s one of the brethren and it’s one of their spiritual brothers or sisters. In other words, this isn’t someone on the side of the road that holds up a sign and goes, need money or sometimes they’ll be honest and say, need money for beer, right? But that’s not what this is talking about because we don’t know those people, right? They haven’t been vetted. For all we know that maybe somebody who’s got plenty of assets and they’re just panhandling, or it may be somebody who’s a drug addict and is going to take the money and use it for drugs or an alcoholic that’s going to use it for alcohol. 

This is one of you. This is somebody in your local church. In fact, James 2:15-16 flows from James 2:1-13. And that is talking about, don’t kowtow to the rich that come to your church, but make sure you treat everyone equally, including the poor. The point here is a believer is capable of not loving his fellow brothers and sisters. 

And by the way, I don’t know about you, Sam, but if you’ve looked at the statistics in our country, this is even a problem in families, right? There’s a lot of divorce in our country. There’s a lot of abusive children in our country. All the countries of the world, right? These are problems. So loving one another is not even automatic in your family unit. Many of us came out of dysfunctional families and even if our parents wanted to be very loving, they had a real hard time because they were alcoholics or because they were rageaholics or whatever. 

But the call for all of us is to love one another. And if you think, by the way, that all believers love one another, then guess what happens, Sam, when you find that you’re snapping at your kids or snapping at your wife? What happens to your assurance of salvation? 

SAM: Yeah, you start to question, am I born again? 

BOB: Right? If you look at your works, you’re always going to see that you fall short of the glory of God. None of us is perfect. And we don’t want to base our assurance of our salvation on being a good neighbor, being a good boss, being a good husband, being a good wife, being a good parent, being a good child, etc. 

We base our assurance on the promise that whoever believes in Him will not perish but has everlasting life. We stand on that. Now, as far as being an overcomer, yes, we need to see that we’re loving one another because that is crucial to being an overcomer. But that’s not something that’s crucial to our assurance of salvation. 

Great question, Dana. And what are we going to do, Sam? 

SAM: Keep grace in focus. 

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On our next episode: how many conditions are there to be born again? Please join us and until then, let’s keep grace in focus.