The True Emphasis of 1 John Might Shock You

1 John as Pastoral Assurance for Believers

You tell me. I mean, this is a flyover. These are like citations from every single chapter of 1 John. And you tell me what his emphasis is. And you tell me, is he unsettling these dear people, or is he writing to reassure them and comfort them because they've been abandoned by false professors, and because they've been bombarded by false teaching?

Right? I think it's the latter. I'm going to just read a few of these, John, and then I'll be done for me. But just let this avalanche, 1 John avalanche of comfort, do that for your souls, dear listener.

Here we go.

Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.

But they went out that it might become plain that they are all not of us. But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth.

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God, and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared.

But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is. By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before Him. For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and He knows everything.

Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. In this the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent His only Son into the world so that we might live through Him.

In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us His Spirit.

Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because He first loved us. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. We know that we are from God and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true.

And we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. So you tell me what the emphasis of that letter is. I mean, that is remarkable, man. Pastoral, gentle, comforting, reassuring.

He is telling them over and over and over again what you said earlier, John. He is establishing their identity and their relationship to God because they've been through some stuff. So maybe that's helpful to somebody out there.

It encouraged my heart reading it, so.

James and the Emphasis on Grace

Yeah, well, I mean, even in James, we forget how many times she says, my brothers, my brothers, my brothers, my brothers. And I love this one, James, people forget James is the one who says, and he gives more grace.

Amen.

He gives more grace. It's interesting how we have been trained to read our Bibles from a legalistic, pietistic perspective. We're not obeying to gain, to maintain or somehow not lose. And that's a difference, right?

Obedience Flows from Christ, Not a Gospel of Sincere Obedience

When we emphasize obedience and we do not feed on Christ, our obedience will always be wrong-hearted and wrong-motivated. So the whole point of the podcast is it's not the gospel of sincere obedience, but it's the gospel of Jesus Christ.