1John 3:15 - On Killing Off Your Brother (or Sister)...

"Every the [one] hating the brother of him a manslayer is."

-Hate = murder.  Murder is murder, but so is hating your brother.  Or sister.  That's how God feels about it.  That's how He sees it.  He cuts us no slack here in the least.  It is the antithesis of life, one who takes life, who extinguishes life.  Opposing and running counter to the ways of the Life-giver.  This is particularly true when that hatred is directed towards a brother.  Who in their right mind would so disrespect their Dad and undermine His family by hating their brother, whose blood and kinship they share?  Exactly.  Cain, that's who.  John just talked about him.  Cain butchered his brother, cut him down in cold blood.  Oh, such sad brokenness, that one would get to the place where they would carry out such a heinous, UN-loving act.  Against a fellow family member.  In the world, you get something like that, you get hate, but things should not, must not be this way in the church.  Not like this.  Not like this.

-And let's think about this.  What is hate?  Because we're not talking about literally terminating another person's life here.  We're not THAT depraved, are we?  No, what we're talking about such intense personal dislike for another person that you terminate the relationship.  They are dead to you.  You kill them off in your heart.  Every time you see them, in fact.  If you see them.  You for sure can't stand them, you go out of your way to avoid them, can't say one nice thing about them, the very sight of them makes you angry and totally quenches the Spirit in your heart.  And meanwhile the Body of Christ is fractured.  No, things should not be this way.  Brother, sister, if this is you, you need Jesus.  If this is me, I need Jesus.  I need Him to intervene.  I need Him to help me begin to see this brother or sister as HE sees them.  Begin to see that they are not the enemy.  They are broken and oh-so-needy (just like me) - but not in need of my murderous glances and bitter avoidance.  No, they need forbearance and forgiveness.  They need love and grace (just like me).  And prayer - prayer not for fire and brimstone to rain down on them from heaven but prayer for mercy and grace, prayer for them the way they would pray for themselves.  They are not my enemy.

-But, there is another hater.  A murderer from the beginning (John 8.44), that one.  The evil one.  He is the enemy of our souls, and of the family of God.  He set out to deceive, yes, but his intentions were surely murderous, to destroy the life and beauty which God had so meticulously crafted.  If he can't steal the glory, he's gonna destroy it.

-But so, hating our brother is tantamount to murder.  And Jesus broadened things still further by including anger and arrogance/disrespect ("you fool") in the list of capital crimes against our fellow family members (Matthew 5.22).  It is a complete contradiction of terms.  How can the life and love of God be in a person who would be so unloving towards another child of God, a brother or sister in the faith?  No such loveless life-taker would have eternal life abiding in them.  It shows that their darkened heart is shut off from God, in utter depravity and deception.  Not in the family.  Now, to be sure, there is room for repentance.  Always.  Come to Jesus today, fall on your knees and beg Him to have mercy on your soul, receive His free offer of forgiveness and eternal life, allow Him to recreate in you a new life and heart of love, love which covers a multitude of sins and missteps and offenses and differences and even the slightest of slights.  But most assuredly, there is no quarter for hate (or anger or disrespect) anywhere in the family of God, not here, not now, not ever...!

1John 3:14 - Mostly dead, true love - and true life!

"We are having come to know that we have passed out of the death into the life, because we are loving the brothers.  The [one] not loving remains in death."

-So, what you get in the world is hate - and death.  Remaining in death.  The default state of the unbelieving heart, this.  Death.  Dead to God, dead to glory and the life that is found in Him, and destined to be separated from Him for all eternity.  Shut off from His Light and goodness and love.  A walking spiritual corpse, for all intensive purposes (real life walking dead - spiritual zombies?).  And for the one who does not love the brethren, they are remaining that way still, still dead in their sins, regardless of what motions they have gone thru, what experiences they have had or what professions they have made.

-Passing out of death and into life.  Think about it.  This is the precise opposite direction of the normal course of the world.  Normally we are all passing from life into death.  The dying walking dead.  Mortal, mostly dead, soon to be fully dead (all too soon).  But Jesus throws the bus in reverse, heading in the exact opposite direction, entirely brand new destination.  Life.  Eternal life.  Whoever believes in Him has eternal life (Jn 5.24).  What we are talking about is a total change of address, of outcome, of identity.  We are talking about passing out of death and into life.  Surely we want to be sure about this.

-This then is the ultimate litmus test.  What you get in the church - or should - is love.  True love!  And life!  John is desperate to hammer home this point, that here is how we know for sure that we are genuine believers, that we have eternal life - because we LOVE the other ones who are following Jesus, not hate.  We're not hating them - or treating them as if we did.  This true love and true life go hand in hand, inseparable.  The true life of God is found and lived out in caring committed community.  Let me say that again - the true life of God is found and lived out in caring committed community!  John puts it in the first person, not pointing any fingers here, looking at our own hearts and lives and asking, do WE love our "fellow" believers in Christ?  Do we, are we living like this, walking in love for our family?  And that is the question, because if I do not love it shows that I do not actually believe.  And I might not be a "fellow" believer after all...

1John 3:13 - On amazing Jesus... And amazing hate, how can it be?

"You [all] do not be marveling, brothers, if hating you the world [is]."

-That which is a marvel or a wonder, amazing, which causes one to marvel or wonder, it causes amazement.  Often we are talking about something marvelous, of wonderous, even miraculous proportions - Jesus calming the storm (Matthew 8.27), casting out demons (Matthew 9.33), healing the sick (Matthew 15.31).  We also see Pilate wondering at the silence of Jesus before his accusers (Matthew 27.14), and Jesus wondering at the faith of the Roman centurion (Matthew 8.10), as well as the hard unbelieving hearts of the Jews (Mark 6.6).  He had given them His best stuff, and still they didn't believe!  Amazing!  Now that would be something, wouldn’t it?  To amaze Jesus?  Lord, please let me be more like the Roman centurion than the unbelieving Jews... What we are seeing here, though, is an encounter with that which is out of the ordinary, something unexpected.  Zacharias’ unexpectedly delaying in the temple (Luke 1.21).  Jesus expiring earlier than Pilate expected (Mark 15.44).  Encountering that which is REALLY unexpected.

-What we don’t really expect is to be hated for following Jesus.  It IS amazing on a certain level that those around us, in the world, would in fact HATE those who are pursuing love and doing what is good and right.  To be sure, HOW we follow does play into it, but THIS you would not expect, to be mistreated for doing good to others, right?  Particularly not in the West, the cradle of Christendom.  Ultimately, regardless of where you live or how you might be following, if/when you begin to name the Name of Jesus, you're gonna get it.  Expect it, John says.  It’s the whole Jesus thing, the Light of the world and darkness hating the Light thing.  Jesus actually told us to expect this - John 15.18.  It was already happening in those days (John 17.14).  It should come as no surprise.  The two millennia of church history are littered with the debris of persecution and martyrdom - the children of the devil hating the children of Light, mistreating them and even killing them, primarily because - by virtue of loving the darkness - they HATE the Light.  Jesus said we are the light of the world.  When we align ourselves with the Light, we become a beacon ourselves, reflecting the very same Light from which those who walk in darkness try to hide.  In their proud unsurrendered rebellion they do not want what they do to be exposed, to be exposed as falling short and missing the mark.  They will reject us and our message.  They WILL hate us.

-Question: is there anyone who hates me?  Not because of how weird I might be or something I did to offend them, but because I am following Jesus?  If not, it is probably fair to ask myself, am I shining the Light?  How much?  How much am I shining the Light around others, towards those who need it?  To what degree am I aligning myself with Jesus, living to make Him famous?  Is it truly loving to dim or otherwise obscure my light to keep from offending eyes accustomed to darkness?  May God give us the grace and wisdom and discernment - and boldness! - to let our (not so) little light shine, like a lighthouse, a beacon of hope (hopefully!) in a dark and stormy sea of darkness.  Come what may...

1John 3:12 - Archetypical Antagonist Extraordinaire

"Not as Cain - out of the evil [one] he was and he slew his brother.  And for the sake of why did he slay him?  Because the works of him were evil but those of his brother [were] righteous."

-NOT as Cain.  The archetypical antagonist extraordinaire.  The quintessential bad example.  Bad boy.  Bad apple?  They usually don't fall far from the tree...  Regardless, Cain did not live into this ideal of loving his brother.  Just the opposite, in fact.  He slew his brother.  Struck him down him in cold blood.  Ugh.  He hated his brother.  John's point is that in failing to LOVE his brother, he thus became the prototypical "child of the devil".  He was not necessarily begotten by the devil in the strict sense, but his parents had sinned, he was born into sin, separated from God in his heart and born to instinctively choose what is not right, and as he grew older he increasingly aligned himself with the prince of this world and with all those who oppose God and what is right.  Indeed, John just gave us the obvious characteristics of children of the evil one - they do not practice righteousness (they don't work hard at it), AND they do not love their brother, and Cain did neither.

-Darkness hates the light, it always has (John 3.20).  Any whose heart is not right [towards God], whose hearts are proud and unsurrendered, are naturally more inclined to hate what is right (esp while my heart insists on staying in that place of proud defiance).  We dislike and disrespect those who try to do what is right, who align themselves with righteousness.  Have you ever noticed that?  Think of all the ways in which the irreligious can tend to disparage [and try to dissuade] those whose heart is to try and do what is right.  Goody-2-shoes.  Do-gooder.  Goody-goody.  Rule-follower.  Self-righteous.  Holier-than-thou.  Sanctimonious.  Pious.  Moralizing.  Hypocritical.  Full of hypocrites.  Totally negative connotations, all.  These folks, are they not simultaneously trying to prop up their own position while trying to tear down these others?  Granted, there is too much sad truth to a charge of hypocrisy in the church - even those who try to practice what is right will continue to fall short.  And of course the way forward is always one of humility.  Often times the best we can do this side of glory is that when we do mess up we try to make it right.  Ours ought not be the way of pretense and pretending that we have it all together.  Far from it.  Aligning ourselves with the light, with Jesus does not mean that we are perfect, only that we are forgiven.

-Though Cain was born into a state of disobedience and separation from the life of God - just like his brother - he had a choice.  And we do not know exactly when he really went away from God in his heart.  His parents had some kind of a relationship with the Lord.  He and his brother were both "raised in the church".  We see them both bringing offerings, at least going thru some motions of worship.  And then we read that God did not accept Cain’s offering (Genesis 4.5).  That passage does not state specifically what was wrong with Cain’s offering per se, but clearly his heart was not fully right.  He responded in anger - towards the Lord AND towards his brother.  It could be that Cain’s heart was not right leading up to this (whereas his bother’s heart was right), or perhaps he fully and finally went away in his heart after this time.  But he was fully a child of the devil before he slew his brother.  Murder did not make him a spiritual monster - that happened before, and is why he eventually did kill his brother.  His anger waxed murderous.  It is interesting to note that Cain, who was exiled because of his deeds, became an object lesson for Israel, a forerunner, if you will, in that Israel - God's "chosen people" - in the days of Jeremiah was guilty of all kinds of unrighteousness, including the shedding of innocent blood, and was similarly facing exile (cf Jeremiah 7.5-7).  And as in the days of Jeremiah, so they were in John's day, in these days of the early church, (so-called) people of God hating their brothers.  Living in anger towards their brothers and sisters.  Friends, Jesus said anger doesn't just lead to murder, it is in fact tantamount to it (Matthew 5.21-22).  It is just as heinous in God's economy, in God's family.  The need of the hour, yes even in our day as well, is for God’s people to LOVE one another, to pursue it!  To forbear with and to forgive one another, to pursue peace and things which make for building up one another, and to pursue righteousness together, no matter the cost.  That's how family should roll.  Surely this is not too difficult for the Lord!  Surely this is what He wants, and what the world needs now.  Surely His grace and His power are more than sufficient...!

1John 3:11 - The What AND The Why Behind It

"Because this is the message which you [all] heard from [the] beginning, in order that we may be loving one another."

-In order that.  This word (it’s a significant single word in the Greek - hina) always speaks to purpose, to result/outcome.  It is the big picture, end-game goal, the why behind the what.  So let's not miss the significance here, when John says, in order that we may be loving one another.  In other words, loving one another is not only the what, it is also the why.  It is what we do, should do, must do, of course.  The new-old command, which John says once more that his readers heard from the beginning.  But here he doesn’t call this a command (aka "the word") as he did in 1John 2.7.  Here he is describing a message, a broader category of teaching, and this whole message was delivered with a purpose in mind, a desired outcome, specifically love.  John elevates this here as the why behind and above all that we do.  It’s a nuanced approach for making his point, a slightly different tack than simply conveying a command to love.  When given as "just" a command, the implicit assumption is that the big picture God has in mind is obedience.  "I’m telling you, love one another, and what I want is for you to obey, to do what I say."  And of course there is nothing wrong with obedience.  Obedience is good - but there's something more, way more.  But when stated like it is here in this verse, the focus is shifted somewhat.  The emphasis is on love.  Love gets just a little more love.  It’s as if the Lord is saying, "This message I’m giving you, I’m giving to you, SO THAT you will love one another.  What I want more than ritual and rote obedience, what I SO want, for you (both individually and corporately) and for the whole world, as well as for the sake of My Name, for My glory, is LOVE, is for My people - YOU - to love one another."  Does that make sense?

-John does restate here that this whole notion of loving one another, it is nothing new.  These believers and really all believers had been hearing this message from the beginning, from the very inception of the church.  The body of Christ and the localized assemblies thereof is to be characterized by love for one another, a family of brothers and sisters who show they are family by their faithful joyful sacrificial love for one another, hilarious generous sharing of their time and their talents and their treasure, their hearts and their lives, children of God who resemble their loving heavenly Father in this one respect as much as anything.  Love one another is more than a command, one of hundreds of such imperatives which we can sort of take a stab at, which we can generally approximate, try to do our best to comply with and hopefully check off our spiritual to-do list at least most the time.  It’s way more than that.  It’s not just one more thing to do.  In the horizontal plane, it is THE thing to do.  This is to be the outcome, it is the desired result of the message which we have heard.  All our hubbub, all our commotion, and programming, and emphases on buildings and tithes and sermons and preachers - the goal of all of this is love (1Timothy 1.5).  THIS is our "BHAG" - Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal.  For all our talk of processes and systems and new strategies - failing here, we fail ultimately.  Love.  This is our so-called widget.  Loving our people, our brothers and sisters in Christ, well.  In order that we may be loving one another...  Let it be so.

1John 3:10 - SPS (not GPS) and The Mother Of All Moves

"In this it is obvious the little child of God and the little child of the devil.  Every the [one] not doing righteousness is not out of God, also the [one] not loving the brother of him."

-John restates his two most salient litmus tests for us here.  So easy to tell them apart, these two groups of people.  Plain and obvious, right out in the open, in plain sight, plain for all to see, plain as the nose on your face, as plain as day.  In the spotlight.  Children, sons and daughters of different fathers.  Polar opposites, in fact - just like their dads.  The proverbial acorn landing not far from the tree at all.  Two ways to tell them apart, these children of God and children of the devil.  The former do what is right, and they love other believers, as a general rule.  And the latter do not.

-Those who would be fairly described as children of the devil do not wind up in that diabolical family in the same manner, however.  In fact, we all start out as "children of the devil", do we not?  There is no seed planted, no faith involved.  We simply grow up walking in those same shoes we were born with, doing what comes naturally, me-first, rejecting God and His truth and His ways.  And His people.  There is no changeover whatsoever.

-And that’s the primary point, isn’t it?  With the children of God, there is a change.  There is this change of mind, a change of heart.  There is a radical change of family.  And a change of address, abandoning the kingdom of this world altogether, and moving into the kingdom of heaven.  Address: heaven.  It's the mother of all moves.  You need to mail out those old change-of-address cards, 'cuz Alice doesn’t live here anymore.  But it’s not about geography, is it?  It’s about where my heart is - and my subsequent behavior.  It’s not where I am physically, it’s not about gps.  Nor is it about circumstances.  This is SPS: spiritual positioning system.  Who I am (becoming) should come oozing out of my spiritual pores regardless of where I find myself.  I (begin to) resemble my (new) heavenly Father.  I (begin to) do what He do, what is right, and I (begin to) love my brother, those others who name the Name of Jesus.  Failing to do these two things, absent this change, it is safe to question whether I am even a child of God to begin with.  Good chance I haven't made that move in my heart.  Thus these two markers give us a pretty good idea of who’s who.  And rather than an exercise in finger-pointing, the best way to proceed with this knowledge is with self-examination.  Take a look at my own life, and take courage or fair warning based on what I see (or don’t see) in me.  How am I doing at doing what is right and at loving my brother?  Is it in me?

1John 3:9 - Guaranteed Seed, and a Divine Cocktail?

"Every the [one] having been begotten out of God sin is not doing, since His seed in him is remaining, and he is not able to be sinning since out of God he has been begotten."

-His seed.  God’s seed.  The ultimate sin-eradicator, this - we know that for sure.  God’s seed resides permanently within the heart and life of a believer, this one who has been born of God.  But commentators are actually quite divided over what John might specifically have in mind here: God’s power.  Or God Himself (His Spirit, or His nature).  Or God’s truth, His Word.  Or a pious (i.e. regenerated) spirit.  Or a general divine principle of life.

-Zooming out, in this letter we see that we who are having believed have multiple things ‘abiding’ in us: the Word of God (1John 2.14), the ‘anointing’ (i.e. Holy Spirit - 1John 2.27), the love of God (1John 3.17), and God Himself (1John 3.24, 4.12-13, 4.15-16).  So it could very well be that the "seed" of God to which John refers here then is not an either/or, nor is it merely a principle per se but rather a combination or sum total thereof, a divine cocktail of sorts - God Himself, His Spirit energizing His Word within our hearts and lives such that there is a new creation, this entirely new quality of life.  That which germinates from this germ, from this seed of God, is like God.  God-like.  Godly.  A seed, by its very definition, is that which develops into another of the same kind (cf Genesis 1.11-12).  God’s seed in us develops divinity, it reproduces a godly life in (and thru) us.  Guaranteed.  Obviously the analogy breaks down at a certain level, inasmuch as the vagaries of actual seed-sowing in the tired, fallen fields of this planet are exacerbated by challenges of conditions of seed and soil as well as those of water and sunlight and temperature.  Meaning, in the physical realm, not every seed which Mary-Mary-quite-contrary sows in her garden actually germinates (germination rates vary from between 40-80% - at least those are the standards set by the "US Federal Seed Act")(not long ago I tried to grow some pine trees from seed, and out of like 36 seeds, only a handful of them germinated, only one is still alive and growing).  But God is the Master Gardener.  His germination rate is 100% - the point being that God’s seed is guaranteed to germinate AND bear fruit springing up to godliness and eternal life.

-Now, John is not going so far as to say that the believer is completely unable to sin (not in this life, at least).  But rather, they are not only able to NOT sin, but they are UNABLE to go on sinning, to continue in it unabated.  Believers will still make mistakes - but they will also make things right when they do (usually sooner if not later).  And sin will be trending down, godliness will be trending up, further up and further in, towards God Himself.  God has permanently planted His seed in this life of a believer, and this seed invariably brings forth a harvest of... Himself.  Of godliness.  Of belief and faith and trust and hope and peace.  Of righteousness.  Doing what is right.  Everyone.  Each and every person who truly trusts in Jesus.  Guaranteed.

1John 3:8 - On destroying the destroyer...

"The [one] doing the sin out of the devil he is, since from the beginning the devil is sinning.  Unto this the Son of God was revealed, in order that He should destroy the works of the devil."

-An age-old rebellion, this.  Older than the hills, a desperate attempt to supplant God and install me on the throne of my universe.  And the rabble-rousing ringleader has a name - diabolos.  The devil.  The one who accuses (falsely).  The Hebrews knew about him.  They called him Satan, also meaning accuser.  He accuses God of being a liar and not worthy of being in charge.  Among other things.  He comes up with all kinds of accusations, some of which may contain a grain of truth, yet all of which are false.  It’s what he did with Eve.  It’s what he did with Job.  It’s what he do.  He accuses.  He lies.  He steals and destroys.  He has done this from the very beginning, John says, meaning the original beginning, that beginning of time, the earliest of times (cf Proverbs 8.23, John 8.44).  The original sinner, this one.  Not lawless, per se, in that he had the law, if you will, God’s truth - he beheld it with his own two eyes.  And he chose to reject and rebel against it, against the one Who made him, against the one true God.  To this day he incites rebellion and doubt towards God and the truth about Who He is.  All in this diabolical endeavor to insure that God is not worshipped above all else, and that what He wants does not come to pass.  This is the textbook example what the Bible calls ‘sin’.  A futile effort, really, and ultimately doomed to fail.  yet the devil persists, persists in instigating rebellion and inciting evil throughout our world, engendering both unspeakable horror and passive indifference.  It makes no difference, as long as the God of love and truth is dishonored.  Thus John here rightly states that the person who persists in sin, in their mark-missing behavior - regardless of any profession to the contrary - is essentially "out of the devil".  They are working with him, walking in rebellious lock-step with this one who would hold them captive to do what he wants instead of what God wants.

-And yes, he is doomed to fail, as the ultimate heavenly irony is that the Son of God has come to destroy the works of this one who destroys.  It’s what He do.  John here says that this is the purpose for His coming, it’s why Jesus came.  And He WILL do this - it is locked and loaded.  The reason for the delay, in case you’re wondering, is the compassionate patience and forebearance of God, full of mercy, so loving the world and not wanting any to perish along with diabolos in their rebellion, but for all to come to repentance, to believe and turn around and come back to Him in their hearts, as many as possible.  But rest assured, one day, it - all of it - will all be put right, fully and finally, the devil and his works and his minions will be destroyed, and love WILL win, love and truth together, personified in the One Who IS the beginning and the end of all things.  Son of God, let it be so.  

1John 3:7 - Ultimate Heavenly Originals

"Little children, let no one be deceiving you.  The [one] doing the righteousness is righteous, just as that One is righteous."

-The sad truth is that little children are easily deceived.  They are naturally trusting.  And John continues to be concerned for his readers, these believers.  He cares about them, with the care of a father.  He is concerned that somehow they may be persuaded to compromise in this area of righteousness, of doing what is right.

-Deception is fundamentally about perverting or otherwise hiding the truth, or some aspect of it.  This is why John has throughout this letter been emphasizing the truth, reminding his readers what they know.  And WHO they know.  They know Him Who IS righteous (3x).  And faithful.  He is pure.  There is no sin in Him.  He is the Holy One.  He is the True Light in Whom there is no darkness whatsoever.  

-And He is the God of love.  Make no mistake, the person who has been accepted by God and made right in His eyes is in fact the one who does what is right.  They are like Him, increasingly so.  They act like their heavenly Father, the One Who so loved them and begat them.  And so, they will love, like their Father, the God of love.  They will love those who are sons and daughters of their Father, their brothers and sister in Christ.  And beyond that, the followers of Jesus the Righteous One (Who lives in them!) will be practicing all other forms of righteousness.  They will pursue this lifestyle of doing (trying to do) what is right.  The doing is not the means to the end - it IS the end.  It is the result, the byproduct, it is the outflow of who they are.  Their deeds reveal their true identity.  So, make no mistake, do not deceive yourselves or let anyone else deceive you into thinking any differently.  The one who is really in right standing in God’s eyes will do what is right, just like Him.  All the time?  Maybe not entirely.  But consistently, and trending upward, for sure.  But "like Him" was the whole idea to begin with.  Image bearers - that was the original intent.  Which means we, God's children, are (becoming) brand new contemporary replicas of the original, ultimate heavenly originals... Truly remarkable!

1John 3:6 - Inconceivable!

"Every the [one] in Him remaining is not sinning.  Every the [one] sinning has not seen Him nor has he known Him."

-There is no sin in Him, our beautiful breathtakingly good Savior, Jesus Christ - thus a "sinning Christ-follower" then becomes the ultimate oxymoron.  There can be no such thing.  Sin and our Savior are incompatible.  They do not, cannot, MUST not co-exist.  Mutually exclusive, diametrically opposed, worlds apart, polar opposites.  It’s like the age-old challenge of trying to get those two little oppositely-charged magnets to try and stick together.  It just ain’t gonna happen.  Inconceivable.  And it is inconceivable that sin and righteousness, darkness and light, would co-exist.  They cannot, by their very definition.  Darkness is the absence of light.  Sin is the absence of Christ, it is casting Him out of mind.  Thus we have our next litmus test.  Every one who is remaining in Christ is not sinning, not continuing to cast Him out of mind.  Present tense - meaning sin is not an ongoing action in their lives.  They do not keep on sinning, not after receiving a knowledge of the truth, not after receiving God’s sinless Son as their Savior, because they are now God’s child (cf John 1.12), begotten from above, a brand new creation, and sin does not continue unabated in them.  They do not continue to practice it, because God does not produce sinners.  He makes people like Him.  Which, when you think about it properly (with humility), is also quite inconceivable.  Mind-boggling, that the end game here is that we will be (more and more) like Him.  That was always the plan, of course, but each one of us is a hot mess and quite a long ways away from fitting in to "like Him"... Nevertheless, having said that, things should definitely be trending upwards, heaven-wards, for the professing Christ-follower.  More like Him.  More of Him and less of me, less sin.  Sure there will be cycles of up and down, there will be the occasional slip-ups and transgressions.  But they will (should)(must!) become less and less frequent.  He must increase, I must decrease.  And so must sin.

-But so it is safe to say - John is not afraid to say it - that every one who is sinning, present tense - continuing action in the present - has neither seen nor come to know Christ.  The person who persists in doing the things which God hates, who continues in a lifestyle which is ungodly, casting Him out of mind (and life), not like Him at all - this one does not know the Lord.  Sin is the absence of Christ.  John is not talking about occasional, intermittent sin.  He’s not talking about those who actually struggle against their sin.  Remember, we’re not talking about being in a place where we have no sin, or where we claim to have no sin.  We will all still fall short this side of heaven.  Nobody is perfect.  But things should be trending down in this regard.  We confess our sins and give them to Jesus.  Again, more of Him and less of me-and-my-sin.  We’re talking about a lifestyle, a pattern, a heart-and-mindset.  And the heart-and-mind which is clearly set on sin most likely has not set their hope in Christ.  Not yet.  But it’s never too late...!

1John 3:5 - The Ultimate Busboy and Carpenter Gone Wild

"And we are having come to know that that One was revealed, in order that the sin He should take up, and sin in Him it is not."

-That’s right, Jesus is the Ultimate Busboy, if you will.  He came to clean the dirty tables of our broken lives, to take up and take away our gross dirty plates, the filthy rags of our unrighteousness.  This is why He came, why His Father sent Him in the first place.  The Father did send the Son to be the Savior of the world - and that not only to save us from our sins, but also to remove them from the scene entirely!  Gone with the wind, if you will, completely and forever, as far as the east is from the west...!

-The plan is for my table - and yours - to be spotless.  The plan is for us to be like Him - 'cuz sin IN HIM IS NOT.  Sin is not in Him.  This One, He is Him Who knew no sin (2Corinthians 5.21).  Not one dirty spot or blemish or the teeniest tiniest hint of it whatsoever.  His table is impeccably incomparably clean.  That tablecloth is spotless, white as snow, not a fold or a crease or a wrinkle to be found anywhere.  In Him, there is no sin.  And that is precisely why He was revealed, and what He wants to do for us - to make us more like Him.  It’s not just for salvation, a little dash of fire insurance, a spiritual get-out-of-jail-free card.  Jesus came to clean and set your table, but oh so much more than that.  It's a complete big amazing home makeover, in fact!  The ultimate fixer upper.  He came for transformation.  Metamorphosis.  Caterpillar to butterfly.  Old things gone, all things made brand spankin’ new.  A new creation, spotless, unblemished, beautiful, breathtaking.  Not just slapping on a new coat of paint or a few updates here and there.  It’s not about a house flip - we’re talking about total renovation, down to the studs restored and remade to even better than before!  He is a carpenter, after all...!  :)  HGTV might call it Carpenter Gone Wild (or something to that effect...)  And clean?  We're talking a new floor so clean you could totally eat off it!  Obviously the process will not be completed this side of heaven, but make no mistake, all who have trusted in Christ in this life are (or should be) experiencing various stages of this wondrous massive reconstruction project.  Debris and old busted accoutrements dumped out and hauled away like the trash that it is.  Talk about an extreme makeover - this old house, the tent which is our life, is gonna be unbelievably glorious.  Just like Him...

1John 3:4 - Guilty as charged...

"Every the [one] doing the sin also the lawlessness is doing, and the sin is the lawlessness."

-Pure Jesus, for sure.  Meanwhile, we (so much of the world which God so loves) have lives which are not so pure.  Not becoming any purer at all.  These are the ones who are engaging in sin in an ongoing way.  Habitually.  Me-first to the max.  It’s like they are practicing precisely how to do something which God hates.  John here says that this is not only sin, it is lawlessness.  One might ask, what’s the difference?  The two are relatively synonymous, but would there be any significance to a nuanced difference between sin and lawlessness, and why is John going there at this point?

-The word for ‘sin’ in the Greek literally means to miss the mark.  To err, be mistaken, to miss or wander from the path of uprightness and honor, to go wrong.  To wander from the law.  It sort of implies that one has a mark to begin with.  Alternately, the word for ‘lawlessness’ literally means just that.  The person or people do not have the law.  It was often applied by Jews to Gentiles.  It’s probably slightly more of a deragatory term, at least for Jewish/religious ears.  Godless pagans, strangers to the law, and not much more than creatures of instinct, carrying out their ignorant fleshy instincts and more or less strangers to God, to His covenants and character.

-But these are essentially the same thing.  That’s exactly what John says here.  Sin IS lawlessness.  We’re not talking about the occasional transgression, about those who struggle with and still struggle AGAINST their old habits.  We’re talking about those who keep on doing sin, who practice it, even after supposedly receiving a knowledge of God and His law and possibly even professing hope in Jesus.  John says, uh uh.  No way, José.  That cannot be.  The one who continues to break God’s laws is no different, certainly no better than the one who never had a knowledge of the law in the first place.  They look no different than an unbeliever.  Life apart from God, a practical atheist, living like there is no God, like He doesn’t even exist, ‘cuz He certainly doesn’t appear to exist in my life when I am practicing sin and living and looking exactly like the seasonally-happy and hopeless pagan next to me.  And this is where we get labeled hypocrites, those of us who profess belief in God, when we say one thing with our lips and yet say something entirely opposite with our lives.  GUILTY AS CHARGED (too many of us).  Things should not be this way.  Not like this.  This is not at all what God intended.  Next verse..

1John 3:3 - Pure Jesus

"And every the [one] having this hope upon Him is purifying himself, just as that One is pure."

-Pure.  No blemish or stain or contamination whatsoever.  We who are following Christ are in this magnificent purification process, all the impurities of sin and brokenness gradually, slowly yet surely being smelted out of our lives for good.  For good.  Our world is filled with this stuff called ‘ore’.  Iron ore, gold ore, various kinds of rock like bauxite, hematite, magnatite - which essentially are precious metals which are completely intermingled with what amounts to waste rock.  Basically, the metals are contaminated.  And it is entirely possible to obtain pure precious metal from these ores, but the process usually involves heat.  A lot of heat, enough to melt rock, a melting and breaking down of the ore so as to be able to separate out the waste from the precious metal and produce something which is pure gold.  Completely uncontaminated.  That is what is happening to us, John says.  When the Pure One is finished, we will more closely resemble Him.  Understandably this is a very stressful process for the ore, which is why the ore needs to reminded (often?) of its true potential, needs to keep in mind a bit of how the process works.  Purification, refining is not a quick or an easy process.  But the results are absolutely worth it.  In the words of Kenny Bania, that's gold, Jerry!  Gold!

-Now, that which cranks up this whole purification process in my life is hope.  Hope.  We all hope for something, hope IN something.  Could be a relationship, in my spouse or kids.  Could be in my IRA, or my job.  Or my house.  My health.  Where is my hope?  The purifying begins when I first place my faith, my hope and trust in Jesus, this One Who is purity incarnate.  He comes into my life and wants to bless me and make me more like Him - which means refining.  Gonna get rid of those nasty contaminants.  So gotta turn up the heat.  Here comes the stress.  Hardship.  Breaking.  Loss.  All kinds of circumstances which actually challenge my hope but which ultimately secure even greater hope and trust in this One Who is my Great Golden Hope and Perfect Purifier.  As long as I keep my eyes fixed on this One Who authored and perfected this whole faith thing (Hebrwes 12.1-2), I will find that while the process isn’t easy per se (it could in fact be compared to running a marathon), it is tremendously effective at producing more of Him and less of me in my life.  Paul declared, it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me (Galatians 2.20).  He must increase, I must decrease (John 3.30).  More of Christ-in-me, and less of me-in-me - pure Jesus.  That’s both Who He is and what He’s up to, and that’s what the world needs.

1John 3:2 - From Unrecognizable to Unmistakable!

"Beloved, now little children of God we are, and not yet has it been revealed what we will be.  But we are having come to know that if He should be revealed, like Him we will be, since we will see Him as He is."

-Beloved.  Yes, we are loved - by God, Who has brought us into His family.  That right there oughta be enough to put us on shouting ground!  And we are loved also by John, our brother, this one who journeyed with our Savior in the flesh and who suffered so much for His sake and who loves us enough to take the time to write us this note of encouragement and exhortation.

-And yes, we are God’s children.  He has brought us - the ones believing in Jesus - into His family, and we are so deeply loved!  He is our Daddy!  While this reality is perhaps not so physical, not real visceral in this life, there is some tremendous and practical positional truth to this at this point, there is a spiritual reality to all this, which gives rise (or should) to overflowing comfort and unspeakable joy in the here and now.  But wait, there’s more!

-There is more to the story.  There is still more yet to be revealed.  John says it has not yet been revealed what we will be.  He says there will be some yet-to-be-seen tangible physical reality which will become readily apparent when we finally are in the presence of our heavenly Father, face-to-face.  John says we will be like Him.  There will be some kind of obvious family resemblance - which makes sense, doesn’t it?  Kids generally grow up to resemble their parents.  I think he’s basically saying here, you know, it would make sense that as God’s children there would be some kind of family resemblance, right?  And while there should some emerging hints of it at least in this life, we can’t fully see what that is this side of eternity.  But take my word, when that day of revelation, that glorious day of rejoicing comes and we finally see God our Father in person, we will see the resemblance.  It will be unmistakeable.  "Yes, I see the resemblance" - that’s what people say, isn’t it?  And that’s what we’ll say.

-And grab hold of this: We will be. Like. Him.  Just the way God intended it from the very beginning - made in His image, right?  Like Him.  Not in all His manifold infinite perfections, but there will be these ways in that day in which we finally fulfill our destiny and fully reflect as we were originally intended the glories of our breathtakingly good Father, our heavenly Maker, this One Who made us and has remade us to be like Him.  And isn’t it just like Him, to bring this whole creation story full circle, that that which He set out to create in the beginning and which was subsequently marred and broken and renderered almost unrecognizable by sin, should be set right, finally finished and fully restored?  Paradise and the glories of God on full display for the enjoyment and celebration of all God’s creation, first and foremost of which are the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve - the crown jewel of all creation, who are the children, the offspring, if you will, of God Himself.  Life - the universe itself - as it was always intended to be.  What a day of glory THAT will be...!

1John 3:1 - Amazing love, and family matters...

"See what sort of love He gave to us, the Father, in order that little children of God we should be called - and we are.  Because of this the world does not know us, because it did not know Him."

-Family.  We are actually members of God’s family.  Thru Jesus.  Thru Jesus, God has adopted us as His children and brought us into His forever family.  John says, see this.  It is a command.  Stop and look.  Take notice, and take it in, that the God of the universe, God almighty, thrice-holy and sublime in His manifold perfections, has done all that He has done in order to bring us into His family.

-Before we go deep on family we need to talk about love.  One sixth of all the mentions of love in the NT occur in this letter, and to this point John has only mentioned it 5 times.  There are 40 more mentions of love to come in these last three chapters (so get ready!).  So far John has mentioned the love of God and the love of the Father, and here he tells us to stop, and look, behold, and take notice, take note of this love, what kind of love, what great great love God has given us.  There is no end to His love, no instrument in the universe with which to measure how high and deep and long and wide is the Father’s unending overflowing love.  For us.  Boundless.  Limitless.  Inexhaustible.  Amazing.  Look at it - take it all in, if you can...!  It'll take you forever - which, I believe, is precisely the point...

-But I think we as moderns have quite a diluted and distorted view of how significant this is, not only that God loved us, but that He brought us into His family.  Back in the day, family was the foundation, the building block of society in the ancient world.  Family was everything.  It was all about your family, your clan.  Family provided safety and security and stability, education, health care, elderly care, child care - so many things we moderns farm out to others.  We are far more prodigal, freely ranging far from home, often living apart and even estranged from those whose blood flows through our own veins.  Part of the reason we live apart is because the wealth of our society affords us that "luxury" (if it can truly be referred to as such).  We can often survive just fine on our own apart from parents or grandparents, or kids to care for us when we’re old, or even a spouse.  Gone in many ways are the days when being an orphan or a widow or an alien was truly a life-threating proposition.  But gone in many ways are many of the values which used to be attached to this idea of family.  We readily and eagerly head away from home to make our fortune in the world, we jump in and out of relationships almost at a whim, we let others raise our kids, we (begrudgingly?) kick aged parents to the curb (i.e. to the nearest nursing home) - not all of us, of course, but the economics allow (force?) us to do so and society tells us it’s the new normal.  Everybody’s doing it.  The world, sadly, doesn't know Him or this kind of love.

-It has been called the death of the nuclear family, trumpeted by so-called progressives, lamented by conservatives.  And to be fair, it isn’t all bad, right?  Our day does allow tremendous opportunity for so many, for learning and for making a difference in the world.  We tend to have copious amounts of discretionary time - for good or bad.  Certainly there are increasing ways in which brokenness puts pressure on marriages and families and on caring for kids and parents alike.  Let’s in no way minimize the challenges associated with trying to make ends meet or care for children and aging parents.  But in so many ways, in this place of a "new normal", family seems to be increasingly fragmented and fleeting.  And let's not even get started on how the iPhone is affecting both current and future families...! :)  I do think - let's be honest - that at least a portion of this so-called new normal is driven by more selfish motives.  Maintaining or attaining a certain lifestyle.  Preferring comfort and convenience and feeling good over what is arguably much harder work.  Family - keeping it together, making it work - can be hard work, to be sure.  Kids - nuff said.  But one thing which is vanishing with these ancient values is the ability to really appreciate what it means to say that God has brought us into.  His.  family.  And in heaven, family is forever.  It MEANS something, some of which has been lost.  So we just can’t be thinking of family in these modern terms - if we do, we fail to grasp the significance of this transaction.  Oh yeah, family.  That’s nice, I’m sure.  But who needs it really.

-We think we don’t need family anymore.  But we’re dead wrong.  We need this place of kinship, of perfect love and acceptance.  We need this place and this heart to which we can run when we are hurt or scared or alone or don’t know what to do or where to turn.  We need this source of divine wisdom and timely encouragement and tender compassion.  We need this place of safety and shelter from life’s battering storms.  And we need a Father.  A perfect Daddy.  Not (EVER) absent.  Not silent.  Not closed up, all distant and aloof.  What GREAT love He has lavished on us!  He wants to be our Daddy!  He longs for us to turn to Him in our hearts as trusting children not just when we’re in a pinch but every day, naturally, as instinctively as breathing.  Stop and see, behold, take notice of how great a love our Father has given to us, to call us His children and bring us into His family.  Forever and ever, with no end, no limits...  So, who’s your Daddy?  And not only who's your Daddy, but who's your family?  How are we doing as a spiritual family?  Being reminded that our Daddy loves us and we are his children reminds us that we are brothers and sisters - we belong to each other, together, and we need each other, in the truest and ancient and most enduring sense...!