1st John Overview: Part 1 – Key Themes and Teachings | Puritan Reformed Church

Good Lord's Day, he's risen.

We will be continuing in 1st John today, we'll be singing Psalms 2 and 110. We will be reading from Exodus, Deacon Rodriguez will be reading Exodus 3.

Great.

All right, and then, so let's begin with the, we have a council meeting today with an examination for Mr. McNeer for coming to the Lord's table and becoming a communicant member and I believe that's everything.

The Shema and Prayer for Worship

So let's stand for God's word. Call to worship is from Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 4 through 9. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.

You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. You may be seated. Let's pray. Father, we ask that you would bless this time of worship to build us in the knowledge of.

You.

We ask that you would cause us to see you as glorious. We pray that you would remove the veil from our eyes more and more, that you would cause the hardness of our hearts to be displaced with flesh, with life, that you would cause us to be renewed after the image of Christ.

Father, we pray that you would remove our self-deception, that you would remove the lies that we believe and put truth in its place. Father, we ask that you would build up your church, that you would add to our numbers and add to our right forms, that you would reform us and help us to continue to reform after your word.

Father, we ask that you would add children to the church and that you would add adults to the church, whole families. Father, we thank you for the addition of Abeling Esther Schaefer. We ask that you would bless Ariana and help her to heal and recover from giving birth.

We also pray that you would bless Deacon Schaefer as he cares for his wife and new daughter. We ask that you would help them to be able to be returned to us swiftly and that you would help us to rejoice in giving the covenant sign to another child.

Father, we pray that you would help us to do your law. Father, we know we are breakers of your law. We do not do what we ought and we do many things we ought not. And Father, we ask that you would help us to hate sin and to put it off.

We ask that you would help us to love righteousness and to put it on. We ask that you would more and more cause us to do your law in the earth. Father, we pray that you would help us to desire to obey you and that we would obey promptly and sincerely, that we would view sin as horrendous and wicked and disgusting and awful and as a thing to be thrown away, and that you would cause us to see the beauty of holiness and righteousness.

Father, we ask that you would give to us the things that we need to do our duties, that you'd provide for us, that you would give us our daily bread. We ask that you would help us to have the resources we need to do our duties in every sphere.

We pray, Father, that you would forgive us for our failures and for the guilt of Adam and for our unbelief, even from the first moments of our conception forward. Father, we ask that you'd forgive us for all of these things.

You would look upon the death of Christ as sufficient to pay this debt. And we ask that you would view us as righteous, because he kept the law perfectly. Father, we ask that you would help us, knowing we have been forgiven much, to love much.

Love you, our neighbor, our brother. Father, we ask that you would help us to be quick to forgive others. Father, we pray that you would help us to remove causes of temptation and stumbling from our midst, that you would help us to avoid going into places of temptation and being causes of temptation.

We ask that you would help us to organize our time, our space, and our relationships in such a way that we're encouraged to righteousness. And, Father, as we have evil desires in the midst of even well-formed places and schedules, that you would help us to put off evil desire, that you would deliver us from the habits and influences and false doctrines and wicked desires of our flesh, the world, and the devil.

We pray these things knowing that you have the authority and power to give, that you are the God who will glorify himself. And so we pray this by the mediation of Jesus Christ, and with great expectation that it will be heard, we pray, amen.

Exodus 3: The Burning Bush and God’s Name

Deacon Rodriguez, please come forward. Please open your Bibles to Exodus chapter 3. Please stand for the reading of God's word.

Exodus chapter 3. Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the back of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the mist of a bush.

So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not.

Burn.

So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the mist of the bush and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, here I am. Then he said, do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.

Moreover, he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. And the Lord said, I have surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows.

So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppressed them. Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.

But Moses said to God, Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt? So he said, I will certainly be with you, and this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you.

When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain. Then Moses said to God, Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they say to me, What is his name?

What shall I say to them? And God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to you. Moreover, God said to Moses, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob has sent me to you.

This is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations. Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob appeared to me saying, I have surely visited you and seen what is done to you in Egypt.

And I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Parasites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, to a land flowing with milk and honey.

Then they will heed your voice, and you shall come, you and the elders of Israel, the king of Egypt, and you shall say to him, The Lord God of the Hebrews has met with us, and now please let us go three days journey into the wilderness that we may sacrifice to the Lord our God.

But I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not even by a mighty hand. So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all my wonders, which I will do in its midst, and after that he will let you go.

And I will give you, and I will give these people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, and it shall be when you go that you shall not go empty handed, but every woman shall ask of her neighbor, namely, of her who dwells near her house, articles of silver, articles of gold, and clothing, and you shall put them on your sons and on your daughters, so you shall plunder the Egyptians.

Psalm 2 and the Messianic King

All right, Psalm 2, Why do pagan nations rage on, and the people plot in vain?

Kings of earth do set themselves up, and the rulers counsel take. Against the Lord they plot together, say against the Messiah, Let us break their bands asunder, let us cast their cords from us. He who sits in heaven will laugh, the Lord will view them with scorn.

He will speak to them in wrath, and vex them with his displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I'll declare the sure decrees of what the Lord has said to me. You alone are my son, truly this day I've begotten you.

Ask of me for your inheritance, all the nations I will give. Even to the ends of the earth, all will be your possession. You will break them as with iron, like a pot dashed to pieces. Therefore kings, be wise, and judges of the earth instructed be.

Serve the Lord with holy fear, and so rejoice with great trembling. Kiss the son, lest he be angry, and you perish from the way. When his wrath kindles but little, blessed are all who trust in him.

Why do pagan nations rage on, and the people plot in vain? Kings of earth do set themselves up, and the rulers counsel take. Against the Lord they plot together, say against the Messiah. Let us break their bands asunder, let us cast their cords from us.

He who sits in heaven will laugh, the Lord will view them with scorn. He will speak to them in wrath, and vex them with his displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I'll declare the sure decrees of what the Lord has said.

You will break them as with iron, like a pot dashed to pieces. Therefore kings, be wise, and judges of the earth instructed be. Serve the Lord with holy fear, and so rejoice with great trembling. Kiss the son, lest he be angry, and you perish from the way.

When his wrath kindles but little, blessed are all who trust in him.

You may be seated. Okay, raise your hand if you have the hand up. Okay, raise your hand, lower your hands. Raise your hand if you don't have the hand up. Okay, we need one up here.

Thank you.

Another one there. Okay, we got two. All right, so we're looking at 1 John. And we have gone through 1 John. What I want to do is give you a sense of the structure of it. And I want to walk you through and compare the parts.

So we'll see how far we get through that. If I have to, we'll do it in the evening too to wrap it up. But I think I can manage it. We'll see what we can do. 1 John, so you got the handout. Look at that first page.

This is the chiastic structure. The middle of the book is about judging the confession of another person. And the way that the handout has it, this is the wording that comes from Pastor Kaiser's outline of the chiasm.

And he cites a number of other people. So I've got the wording there. So I disagree about the precise meaning of the center of the chiasm at H. Okay, but he has the structure. I think the structure is very good.

And I think that this is, when you see the comparison parts, we'll see that. So the headings of the different sections might alter some by how I'm interpreting some of the verses. But I think that the structure to compare parts does a good job.

So you've got an outline that's meant to make it so it's easy for you to go and see the structure. And I wanted to also, if you look at page 2 of the handout you've got, from that same image, you've got the image there from Pastor Kaiser's summary of John.

He has these big sections that are on the image there. You can see he's got kind of these bracketed sections where he says there's a theme of light. And then there's the theme of love and sonship and the themes of witness and assurance.

Those are certainly big themes. But I'm not sure that I would necessarily predominate those sections. Those are important themes. I would more just say to you they're themes rather than that they dominate some of those sections.

The other thing is the structure of the book is an interesting sort of way it starts. When you think about the chiasm, the idea, remember just a reminder, a chiasm is a structure that is sort of a V shape on the outline.

It's called a chiasm because a chi is a letter in Greek that forms an X. It looks like an X. So if you imagine a chi, if you were to take an X and you were to cut it down the middle, if you cut it down the middle from top to bottom, that leaves you with sort of a sideways V.

So a chiasm is a structure that gives you that sideways V. Now, I want to suggest to you that there's a neat thing where the book starts out with basically the idea of God's revelation and the apostolic deposit.

There's a bunch of heresies and false doctrines that get refuted. And then it concludes with we have knowledge of stuff because it's been revealed to us. So there's sort of this, that's the really zoomed out structure.

Go to page three of the handout. I'm going to start going through the text with you and giving you some of the big things again. Okay, so we've got, I've laid side by side the comparative parts. So you've got A and A prime.

A prime is an easier way of saying A followed by apostrophe. So here we are. We have A and A prime. So these sections are the parts that match up. So verses one to four of chapter one read as follows.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled, namely the word of life. The life was manifested and we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us.

That which we have seen and heard we declare to you. That you also may have fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that our joy may be full.

Okay, now well, we're going to see in the later letters of John. One of the things he says is that there is no greater joy than to see your children walk in the truth. This is super selfish, right? He's just like, I'm all about me.

That's what John's saying here. He's going, I really just want you guys to walk in the truth so that I can be happy. You go, I mean, caring about you walking in the truth seems to be kind of selfless.

I mean, it seems like he's concerned about you, right? Okay, yes. Christian law, the law of God, tells you to seek the interest of other people. And that's how you seek your own interest. The good life is the life of applying the law of God, not only to yourself, but also to others.

Just seeking their good. So his desire is to see the church walk in the truth. And the result would be that those whom he teaches, if he sees them walk in the truth, he will have joy seeing those whom he has taught walk in the truth.

Now, take note of that for a second. If you want to be joyful, you need to get the knowledge of God. You want to do what God commands. And you also want to see others, especially those who are under your authority, walking in the truth.

These are the things to pursue. And our vows as a church are organized around that in terms of the duties we commit to. We say, we commit to knowing God, knowing the truth. We commit to acting according to the knowledge of the truth, the knowledge of God.

And we commit to spreading the knowledge of the truth, the knowledge of God. That's the good life. That's the life that increases your possession of God. And it's the life that also brings joy. Now, the word of life is the thing that gets central attention here.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled. Namely, the word of life. The word of life is this eternal thing.

This relates back to John. In the beginning was the word. The life was manifested. This is the idea that there's an incarnation, but also the giving of prophecy. And we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life.

Notice that. There's this eternal life that is the logos, the word. This word was manifested. They saw it. They bore witness to it. They declared it. One thing that liberals want to do is to make it so you don't trust the Bible.

There's lots of ways to do that. There's the, like, places where there are not contradictions, but where they try to make it look like a contradiction. There are questions about the text itself. Well, which text is really the true one, or is your translation reliable?

These are all things that can be dealt with in study. But one of the things that gets done, that attacks at a really basic level, is the idea that there's some sort of gap, a distance, between the word that's revealed to us and the eternal word.

And there's no gap there for the Apostle John. When you get the word written out by the Apostle John, there's no distance or gap between that and the eternal word. These words, as we understand them and believe them,.

These words, it's the word.

It's the eternal word.

It's the logos.

It's the mind of Christ. And we get it. It's given to us. It was declared, and it's heard, and it can be understood, and it can be believed. When you believe the word, you're believing Jesus. You're believing the logos.

You're believing the eternal word. And when we possess that word, we have a koinonia, we have a fellowship, a communion with the Father and with the Son and with the Holy Spirit. We share in the possession of that word, and we share it with each other.

One of the things that's happened in the 20th and 21st centuries is a domination in some places of this philosophy called existentialism that says that really your choices are what make reality, and your choices are the thing that define who you are.

And this comes from sort of this thought that the truth comes after matter, that thoughts are a product of the fizzing of brain chemicals or the sending of electrical signals between neurons. And so, as a result, there's sort of this material reality, and then there's sort of thought comes out of that material reality.

This is a response to a naturalistic materialism, an atheistic secular worldview. And this idea that you can sort of define the reality and make it so that you just an evolved thing from animal grunts and squeals.

So language doesn't really carry thoughts. It just kind of signals relating to experiences, but there's no carrying of thoughts. Do you see the desperate loneliness with a common goal? We are not alone.

We are not alone in a crowd. We have a crowd of those who share a common faith, that share truths, that share a purpose, that have gifts to serve each other,.

That share a God who rules.

This is the fellowship that we have. We are not alone. And this Word is not just marks on a page. It's an eternal mind. And you remember in John chapter 1, it says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God.

So you go, Oh, He's God, and He's also with God. So there's more than one person who's God. Like it's repeated here. That which was with the Father and was manifested to us. He was with the Father. There's a Father and a Son.

They're distinct persons. So this right here, this is super important four verses. It's amazing. And it's about how we have words from God. This is a Sola Scriptura text. This is a text about we have the eternal Word.

We have the eternal life. We have that which was declared. This is the apostolic deposit. So the conclusion of the book, chapter 5, verses 13 to 21, A prime. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

So he is writing because he wants to give an epistemological support. He wants to make it so that you can have knowledge. He wants to make it so that you can prove from the Word, which is the authority.

I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. And so there's this ability to have assurance. And that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.

Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.

Not only do we have a fellowship with each other and with God, but we also have a fellowship in the inheritance, a koinonia, a communion in the inheritance. So that when we ask for it, we are given blessings out of that inheritance.

We ask the Father, and by the mediation of the Son, we receive that inheritance. If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin, which does not lead to death, he will ask, and He will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death.

So we're to pray for each other when we see each other in sin, and ask for God to give repentance. This idea that when we see a brother sinning, and we might lose a brother in fellowship, it's a great loss.

A part of the body being hacked off or plucked out. So we pray that God would bring repentance. We have expectation that God will do it. There is sin leading to death. And then we're told about this subcategory.

I do not say that he should pray about that. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin not leading to death. All unrighteousness is sin. Anytime you're sinning, you're committing unrighteousness. Righteousness is defined by the law of God.

Righteousness is justice. Unrighteousness is injustice. Justice is defined by the law of God. The law of God defines sin. By the law of God is the knowledge of sin, we're told in Romans. All sin is unrighteousness.

And all unrighteousness is sin. Now there's a subcategory of sin that does not lead to death. And there's a subcategory of sin that does lead to death. There's sin leading to death. I do not say that he should pray about that.

All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin not leading to death. So what is the sin leading to death? I told you this before, but it's key. And hopefully it makes it more clear when you put it side by side with this idea of the earlier piece of the chiasm.

And you say, we have the Word of God. We have the Word of Truth. The sin leading to death is false prophecy. It's pretending to have a word. It's the presumptuous putting forward of thus saith the Lord.

I do not say that he should pray about that. You pray against that. We know that whoever is born of God does not sin. That doesn't continue in sin. And this is about how you judge other people. And so we have this idea of judging the word that's brought and judging the confession of another.

That's the central point of this book. The book is about judging a profession of faith, judging teaching, and judging teachers. Profession, teaching, teachers. That's what this is about, judging. We know that whoever is born of God does not sin.

But he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him. In other words, God preserves them. God causes them to repent. God causes them to stay in the Word and to retain a confession.

God causes them to resist stumbling and to overcome. Because he gives them faith, and he causes their faith to overcome. So you look. You can't read their mind. You look at those things. Verse 19. We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.

The church is of God. The apostles are of God. The idea that there are those who confess the truth. It's a distinct body. The church is distinct from the world. Notice the world being used here as a separate part.

This is uncontroversial. It's only when we get to places where it says things like, you know, he's the propitiation for the whole world, that people all of a sudden want to reject all the nuance of the word ever being used to mean anything other than every single individual.

Okay, look. Right here. We've got world being used to refer to a subset of the human race that is exclusive of the church. We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.

Two distinct societies. The antithesis. City of man, city of God. Verse 20. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding that we may know him who is true. He came, he was incarnate, and he gave to us his word, and he causes us to understand.

We know because of the revelation that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true. In his Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life, right? Christ is the life. Christ is the truth.

As you know the truth, you are knowing Christ. And what's this designed to do? Little children, those who believe, I've written to you because you believe. That's what he says up at verse 13. Little children, keep yourselves from lies.

Keep yourselves from false gods. Keep yourselves from idols. Amen. Now, that's the outside of the sandwich. If this were an In-N-Out burger, this would be like, I don't know, what do we have? H in the middle?

So we've got like an extra piece of cheese or meat here. So we've got, I don't even know, I can't count that fast. So we've got a lot, it's like a 6x6 or something like that. We've got here a lot of layers.

So B and B prime. Let's go to page 4.

Verse 5.

This is the message which we have heard from him and declared to you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. In other words, he's truth and there's no falsehood in him. He also doesn't change.

Elsewhere we have like there is no shadow of turning in him. There's no period of transition where what was true becomes false or anything like that. There's no change in God's mind. This is the message which we have heard from him and declared to you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.

In other words, you must believe the word of God. You must believe the word of God.

It is truth.

If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. So now, if we say, that's a confession, right? That's somebody says we have fellowship with him. And then they give a second testimony called their works.

And their works are sin and they won't repent. You believe that second testimony, which contradicts the first, and you know they're liars.

They're lying.

They're not practicing the truth. But if we walk in the light, now that's a second testimony. There's what we say and how we walk. If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.

And the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin. So this cleansing, we have the forgiveness that comes from the removal of guilt, but there's also this idea of sanctification, this ongoing growth.

So, we have fellowship with each other if we share the true faith, but we also get to share in the work together, and we get to share in the blessings of that work together, if we're applying the law of God.

If we all just are a law to ourselves and we do not care what God commands, and we do not care about the work he gives us to do, then guess what? We're not going to advance in the same direction. We're not going to be unified.

We're not going to accomplish anything. Everyone will do what is right in their own eyes, and they will have no king. We have King Jesus as head of the church, and we are to obey him and to advance in the same direction at the same time.

You judge the profession by the walk. If there's unrepentant sin, the profession is to be viewed as false. Verse 8, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. So a person who says, I don't sin, my behavior is the standard of behavior.

If I do it, it's good. That right there shows that they have deceived themselves, and the truth is not in them. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

So now, there's this idea of ongoing sanctification. When you repent of sin, it helps you to grow in sanctification, in holiness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.

Those are two distinct sayings, verse 8 and verse 10. So notice this. Here are three false claims that we've been shown how to refute. John is holding our hands through very practical apologetics. This is ecclesiology apologetics.

Both of those words will get you nowhere with most people because they'll go, what are you talking about? Ecclesiology is the doctrine of the church, and apologetics is how you defend Christianity. So this is about how you defend your doctrine of the church.

If we say that we have fellowship with Christ, and we walk in darkness, we have a false confession. John's giving to us a useful way to argue against these people, against an uncredible profession of faith.

Then another thing that's a marker of a not credible confession of faith is to say, I have no sin now. I used to sin, but not anymore.

I'm doing very well.

That claim, he says, is a lie. We need to confess our sins. You're going to keep sinning. You need to confess sin. If you say I have no sin, you're a liar. You've deceived yourself. And then verse 10, if we say that we have not sinned, past tense, so ever.

I was righteous at my conception. I was righteous as a toddler, and I'm righteous today. I have no need of forgiveness. It's good for you that Jesus died for sins because you are the worst. But for me, doing very well.

That one, that right there, liar. These are three things that help you to say liar. B'. This is He who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ. Not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth.

For there are three that bear witness. The Spirit, the water, and the blood. And these three agree as one. The other one's about how to discredit witnesses. This is about witnesses that help us to establish a claim.

The Holy Spirit is an infallible witness. We have the witness of baptism. And we have the witness of the Lord's table. These three witnesses, the words of the Holy Spirit, and the sacraments instituted by the Lord Jesus Christ, and infallibly witnessed to us in the Scriptures by the Holy Spirit, these are three witnesses.

And it's not just two witnesses, which is the minimum sufficiency for establishing a legal claim.

It's three.

By the mouth of two or three witnesses, let things be established. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater. For this is the witness of God, which He has testified of His Son. And then basically I just bolded the rest of the text, because this is what's being witnessed to.

Think about this. Think of the emphasis. The Holy Spirit witnesses to it. The water of baptism witnesses to it. The Lord's Supper witnesses to it. This seems to be important. So what is the thing that was witnessed to?

He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself. In other words, the Holy Spirit's in you. If you believe in the Son of God, you have the Holy Spirit in you as a witness. You will have assurance of salvation based upon that testimony of that witness.

He who does not believe God has made God a liar. Bad move. Mistake. Undo. Control Z. Check yourself before you wreck yourself. This is a terrible decision. Do not make God a liar. He who does not believe God has made Him a liar.

If the Word of God says a thing and you do not believe it, red alert. Because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son. And this is the testimony that God has given us eternal life.