The Passing Darkness of Old & the Shining Light of the New | 1 John 2:7-8

ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church

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So, today,

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I'm going to actually continue preaching on 1 John. And it's funny because this reminded me of a story, a little nugget from church history.

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It's about our friend, John Calvin, the second generation French reformer of the

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Protestant Reformation. So, it's interesting because John Calvin had no interest in becoming a pastor, a preacher, none of those things.

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He just wanted to be basically like a bookworm and bury himself in the library and just write books all the time.

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He wanted to be a scholar. But there was another fiery

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Frenchman by the name of William Farrell who actually had invited him to come to Geneva, Switzerland in order to start the work of reforming the church because the reformation was already underway from Martin Luther and the ones before him because he was the second generation of reformers.

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So, he did a little bit more than invite him. He actually put

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God's, threatens God's curse on him if he disobeyed the call to go to Geneva.

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And so, that really put the fear of God in Calvin and he ended up being convinced to go, maybe afraid to die or something otherwise.

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But he decided to go and they started preaching.

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So, him and William Farrell started preaching and attempting reforms in Geneva. The problem was that the governing council of Geneva totally resisted their ideas and really didn't like them.

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So, they basically ran them both off on Resurrection Day back in 1538.

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So, this was a while back. So, he gets kicked out and in his exile,

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Martin Busser who was a German Protestant reformer urged Calvin to continue doing ministry in Strasbourg which is the northeastern part of France.

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And Switzerland borders France, the eastern part of France as well, so everything's kind of close. But it's funny because one article says that the gentle Busser could be as strongly urgent as the thundering

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Farrell. He warned Calvin not to be like Jonah in fleeing from God lest he too experience the wrath of God.

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So, I mean, everybody was just putting the fear of God in poor Calvin. And this gets really interesting because Calvin ended up in Strasbourg for three years.

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So, he was also persuaded to go reluctantly and he ended up in Strasbourg for three years ministering to French refugees, basically

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Protestant refugees, many of whom were fleeing from Roman Catholic persecution at the time. And he was very happy in Strasbourg and this is where he also met and married his wife,

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Idelette, and had no interest whatsoever in leaving, especially not to Geneva.

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So, when his friend and fellow reformer, Pierre Viret, tried to convince Calvin to go back to Geneva, his response was, why could you not have said that at the cross?

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For it would have been far preferable to perish once for all than to be tormented again in that place of torture.

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So, you can see... Tell us how you really feel about Geneva, Calvin. And then, when he was formally invited to come back to Geneva, Calvin's response was, rather would

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I submit to death a hundred times than to that cross, referring to Geneva, on which

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I had to perish daily a thousand times over. So, I really got a kick out of reading

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Calvin's letters. It's really a lot of fun. So, nevertheless, however,

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Calvin reluctantly, needless to say, agreed to return to Geneva and they were desperate at this point.

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Geneva was absolutely desperate. They had nobody to fall back on. They basically begged him to come back and offered him much more freedom to implement reforms this time.

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So, after his golden three -year exile, Calvin returned to the city that expelled him, feeling constrained by God's will to resume the work that he had started.

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Here's the kicker. It was in September in 1541 when he stepped back into the pulpit and continued his exposition of the text, picking up right where he had left off three years ago, as if nothing had happened in between.

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And it's interesting because there's a quote here from a book that I found. It says that Calvin at once had reassumed his pastoral duties at St.

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Peter's. He left us an account of his first sermon there on Sunday, September 16th, when he continued his exposition, and we don't know what book it was that he was preaching on, but at the place where he had stopped three years ago before on Easter Day, 1538.

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When I preached to the people, everyone was very alert and expectant, but entirely omitting any mention of the matters, of these matters which they all expected with certainty to hear,

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I gave a short account of our office. Then I added a moderate and recommendation of our faith and integrity.

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After this preface, I took up the exposition where I had stopped, by which

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I indicated that I had interrupted my office of preaching for the time being, rather than that I had given it up entirely.

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So he just basically said, oh, it's just a little interlude, nothing to worry about, let's get back to work.

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So, this is really a fascinating story. There are so many morals that are packed in this story.

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I could literally start a whole series of sermons and church history lectures on it, but I want us to focus on one particular point, the last one in particular.

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So Calvin, he firmly held to the preaching method known as the Lectio Continua, which is

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Latin for continuous reading. It is the continuous, systematic, expository preaching that the reformers and titans of church history favored.

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So here at Thorn Crown Covenant Baptist Church, we also tend to favor this Lectio Continua.

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Preaching that continuously and consistently explains the Scriptures by rightly cutting them.

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Rightly cutting them through the analogy of Scripture, the analogy of faith, the law gospel distinction, all of those important hermeneutical methods for interpreting

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Scripture rightly. And that systematically unpacks the doctrines of the

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Bible into a coherent worldview and body of divinity or a body of sound doctrine.

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So therefore, in accordance with the Lectio Continua, I'm gonna pick up right where I left off many moons ago in 1

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John chapter two, verses seven through 11, like Calvin did, except that I actually wanna be here.

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So that's one difference. So turn with me now to 1 John chapter two, starting in verse seven.

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Gonna read our text for today. You can see from the title of my message is that Obeying the

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Law of Love, Sins Passing Darkness and God's Shining Lights. And so it was considerably difficult to come up with a title because John just packs a ton of theology and doctrine into just a single verse, a single word sometimes, as we're gonna find out.

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We're gonna explore it. So 1 John chapter two, starting in verse seven.

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And God's word says, "'Beloved, I am writing to you no new commandment, "'but an old commandment that you had from the beginning.

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"'The old commandment is the word, the logos, "'the doctrine or teaching that you have heard.

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"'At the same time, it is a new commandment "'that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, "'because the darkness is passing away "'and the true light is already shining.

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"'Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother "'is still in darkness. "'Whoever loves his brother abides in the light "'and in him there is no cause for stumbling.

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"'But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness "'and walks in the darkness "'and does not know where he is going "'because the darkness has blinded his eyes.'"

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Amen. So there's a lot to unpack here. But before we dive straight in, last time

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I preached on 1 John, before my exile, I had concluded on verses three through six in chapter two on holy words and holy habits.

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The word for that in Greek was peripateo, peripateo, our lifestyle or our habits that reveal who we belong to,

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God or the devil, God's grace and mercy or God's wrath and justice.

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So John's first letter pronounced all throughout, pronounces very strong categorical judgments about the marks, the habits of both true believers and unbelievers, religious liars and hypocrites.

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In fact, there are five holy habits that John has identified or marked and admonished us with in his letter thus far.

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Some of which he repeats and exemplifies later on in our text today in verses seven through 11. The first one, the first holy habit is fellowship or koinonia, the

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Greek word is koinonia, fellowship with both the God of Scripture and with other true believers, ideally in a local church like ours, like this one.

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This means first and foremost that we have true fellowship with God by believing his gospel by faith alone, not by works of the law, but by faith alone and are striving to follow

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God's word in everyday life, primarily summarized in the commandment, the two great commandments to love

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God and love your neighbor. We should also desire to maintain fellowship with other believers in a true church.

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Like I mentioned, the marks of which are the marks of a true and biblical church are the faithful preaching of God's word, the proper administration of God's sacraments, which is baptism and the

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Lord's supper. And the third by extension is the biblical, the exercise of biblical church discipline, biblical church discipline, or in other words, facing the consequences of your sin and facing consequences that may involve kicking you out, excommunicating you, et cetera.

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So, and for more information on this fellowship, this holy habit, you can also take a look at chapter 26 of both those 1689

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London Baptist Confession and the Westminster Confession of Faith. Now, and this is alarming, and I've mentioned this before several times that a lot of churches don't do church discipline.

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They don't exercise biblical church discipline. There's all this cowardice and this fear of confronting people and of dealing with people's sin, but if you don't, a little leaven will leaven the entire lump of the church.

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And that's why it's important to exercise it biblically in order to keep the church clean and pure.

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So the second holy habit is walking in the light, walking in the light, or continually and habitually seeking to learn the truth of God's word and applying it to our lives in humble obedience.

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Walking in the light, and John repeats this motif all throughout the letter, light, darkness, light, darkness, darkness, light.

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So it means that we are actively maturing in our understanding and able to discern with a biblical fidelity and truth and error from the teachings of others, like the

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Bereans did when they searched the Scriptures daily to see if what the apostles were saying was true, even though it came from the apostles themselves.

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The word of God is the highest authority. So this is one of the most important holy habits that God stresses throughout all of Scripture, throughout all of Scripture.

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And it is sadly, grossly neglected these days.

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People are more focused on experience and on emotion and on all this other stuff that is not even secondary concern.

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So, if you're not continually seeking to learn and apply the truth and growing in the grace and knowledge of Christ and His word, your sanctification will be hindered, your assurance will waver, and your sins will almost certainly ensnare you.

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It's a very dangerous thing to neglect this holy habit.

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The reason is because we are primarily sanctified by the truth, like Jesus said, by God's word.

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And if you are not in taking God's word, you are in serious trouble and you will suffer consequences.

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This includes reading, listening to, studying, meditating on the Bible and memorizing it as well.

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Church history, such as the story I just told about John Calvin. So, we practice what we preach here.

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Creeds, confessions, and catechisms, and other books, sermons, podcasts, and lectures that teach and apply sound doctrine, the truth.

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The third holy habit is confession of our sins to our heavenly

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Father, to those we have sinned against, and to Jesus Christ, our righteous, sin -bearing advocate, our sin -bearing defense attorney, our lawyer, our paraclete.

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In the Greek, the word is paraclete. This is the key also to not falling into the dungeon of despair when we struggle to keep the positive commands of Scripture, the ones that say, do this, do this.

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Love your neighbor, love God, do this, that, and the other, and to maintaining biblical assurance.

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The reason is because we all still sin, even as believers we still sin. The difference is repentance and confession of sin.

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With respect to our justification or our legal standing before God's throne, judgment throne, it means that we have repented, which is a change of mind, a change of conviction from not believing the truth to believing the gospel, the truth, and it means that we have also acknowledged the fallen error of our sinful ways, and we understand and accept the gospel.

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We believe it, in other words, understand and accept it as true, and Christ's mediation and propitiatory wrath -satisfying sacrifice as the one and only true hope of our salvation.

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With respect to our sanctification now, this is after we are saved and become believers, this is to our progress, our progressive walk with God after becoming believers, it means that we confess our sin, even now as believers, we confess our sins to God regularly in prayer, and to those we have sinned against in order to seek forgiveness and reconciliation.

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That is the proper way to exercise church discipline as well. So, another very important holy habit there.

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It's to balance out the rest. All of these have to balance each other out, so it's not just you have to do everything perfectly, no, that's not the case at all.

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We still sin and we have to respond appropriately with repentance and reconciliation and confession.

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So, the fourth holy habit now is abstaining from sin.

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Abstaining from sin, which means not sinning. God is emphatic about how we as believers must constantly struggle against sin and against our flesh, against our flesh, our still fallen, unredeemed physical bodies.

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All of the other holy habits listed help us to abstain from sin as well. They all sort of, they're syncretistic.

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They work together to help us exercise

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God's will in loving obedience and gratitude. So, therefore, one of our primary goals in life must be to not sin, to not sin, to avoid sin, to abstain from every kind, form, and appearance of evil.

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According to numerous scriptures, but especially 1 Thessalonians 5 .22. Incidentally, I was listening to a really good podcast called

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Theocast, I highly recommend it. It's hosted by two Reformed pastors with which we share many of the same convictions, very similar convictions.

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But this particular episode was a little, oh, I may have to follow up with them about that.

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The title of it says it all. It's called Not Sinning Is Not the

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Purpose of Your Life. And that one just kind of, you know, having been preaching through 1

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John, you know, there's a slight correction there that needs to be made.

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Not sinning should most definitely be one of your life's primary goals and purposes.

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It's certainly not the only one, but it must be a primary one.

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After all, 1 John 2, the very chapter that we're on, the first verse says, my little children,

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I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin. You know, as pastors, we really need to be careful not to properly balance all the biblical priorities that God has instructed and commanded us to do without becoming lopsided.

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That's what always tends to happen with those who lose their balance because they're either too shallow or superficial and they don't encompass the whole counsel of God.

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One of the means of which is the lectio continua to preach through the whole counsel of God, the whole

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Bible. So, in addition to that, we also have mortification, which is putting to death our earthly members, according to Colossians 3, 5, and numerous other verses, putting to death our thoughts, words, and actions that violate

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God's word by denying ourselves in order to master sin and gain control of our bodies, our unredeemed bodies, which also include denying our flesh through fasting and the other means of grace that God has given us.

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So now, the final holy habit that makes up our peripateo, our walk with God, our holy walk with God, that reveals whether we are walking in the light and not in darkness is striving and growing in obedience, striving and growing in obedience, or keeping his commandments, keeping his word, and following Christ.

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This consists of all the other previous holy habits. They're pretty much all summed up in this one.

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In the words of the Westminster Larger Catechism, it is purposing and endeavoring constantly to walk with him in all the ways of new obedience.

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So, you can't just do the commands that you're comfortable with, you gotta do them all. All the ones that apply to you, you need to obey and do, and strive to do, and to learn to obey and do.

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Now, important reminder, do not misunderstand what these passages teach us, because we don't wanna veer off into extremes or imbalances again.

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When John makes these strong categorical statements, black and white statements, you're either saved or you're not, you're either in light or you're in darkness, he is talking about, he is describing the overall characteristics of a person's walk.

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This is what he means by their peripateo, their walk, their lifestyle, their habits.

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So, it does not mean that you must maintain personal, perfect, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience and conformity to God and his law, and completely stop sinning after becoming a

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Christian, obviously not. After all, 1 John, once again tells us that if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

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So, you need to acknowledge that you still sin, because guess what, you do, every single day, right?

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We all need God's grace and mercy and his means to empower us to gradually grow in holiness, so, that about wraps up these five holy habits that John has led us to thus far, and I came up with a little acronym so that we can remember it by, it's called,

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I don't know how to pronounce this, CAWFS, CAWFS, C -A -W -F -S.

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So, C being confession of sin, A being abstaining from sin,

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W being walking in the light, F being to, what was the

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F? Uh -oh, F is to, is it follow?

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Fellowship, sorry, fellowship, that's right. I get it confused with the K, the koinonia. Fellowship, and S, striving to obey, striving to obey.

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Okay, so, that being said, let us now return to our primary text in 1

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John 2, verse seven. I'm gonna read it again, but this time using the

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Amplified Bible. So, in chapter two, starting verse seven through 11, we read, beloved,

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I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have heard, which you have had from the beginning.

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The old commandment is the message, the doctrine or teaching, the logos, which you have heard before from us.

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On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true and realized in Christ and in you, because the darkness of moral blindness is clearing away, and the true light, the revelation of God in Christ, is already shining.

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The one who says he is in the light, or in consistent fellowship with Christ, or claims to be, and yet habitually hates, or works against his brother in Christ, is in the darkness until now.

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The one who loves and unselfishly seeks the best for his believing brother lives in the light, and in him there is no occasion for stumbling, or offense, he does not hurt the cause of Christ, or lead others to sin.

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But the one who habitually hates, or works against his brother in Christ, is in spiritual darkness.

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So, in other words, it's not really his brother, because he's a false pseudo -Christian, a hypocrite.

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He is in spiritual darkness, and is walking in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

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So, question, is this passage about law or gospel?

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Law or gospel? I want us to help build up these holy habits, to practice what we preach, of asking ourselves these important questions when we read and study scripture.

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This is one of the most important questions to answer up front. Is this passage law or gospel?

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Is it a command? Is it an imperative? Is it something that we are called to do? Or is it something that is a promise?

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Something that is done for us on our behalf? Is it gospel? So, if you look at the key words and phrases, it will reveal to us what it is.

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Now, there is some gospel in it, such as in verse eight, which says, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true and realized in Christ and in you, because the darkness is clearing away, and the true light, the revelation of God and Christ, is already shining.

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So here, it's magnifying Christ and His word as the light, the light that enlightens us, and that enables us to be lights ourselves.

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But it is, nevertheless, top to bottom covered with law.

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There, you see repeatedly the word commandment. So when you see the word commandment and those kinds of things, it's telling you very clearly, this is talking about law, okay?

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So, let's dive in now a little bit more deeply with all the cutting and dissecting tools that we have at our disposal.

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And I've mentioned them many times before, the analogy of faith, the analogy of scripture, the law gospel distinction, all of those things.

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Properly interpreting scripture in light of the other scriptures, and not contradicting one scripture with another.

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And also, harmonizing the doctrines that the scriptures teach us.

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What doctrines does this teach us? Does the word teach us? So, we're gonna do a little detective game here.

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Another question, what is this word, this logos that John's audience has heard, or this old new commandment that John refers to here?

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So, let's reread verses seven through eight. See if we can find out. So, in verse seven, we read, "'Beloved,

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I am writing to you no new commandment, "'but an old commandment that you have heard "'from the beginning.

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"'The old commandment is the word that you have heard. "'At the same time, it is a new commandment "'that

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I am writing to you. "'Which is true in him and in you, "'because the darkness is passing away "'and the true light is already shining.'"

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Okay, so, this is what's so challenging, but also richly rewarding about studying

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John's letter, first letter. God and the Apostle John are loading their words once again and jam -packing them with meaning.

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But we have to look carefully so that we don't miss it, what it's telling us. So, they appear to be tying together the apostolic preaching of the gospel to the

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Old Testament that was veiled in darkness for various reasons, but is now revealed in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

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In other words, they are showing us the relationship between the law and the gospel through Jesus Christ.

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He is the sticking point, the connection to everything. The centerpiece of the

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Bible. It's how it all makes sense. And that's why

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Jesus said, when the people, when he was resurrected and the people were talking on the road to Emmaus, they couldn't even recognize him.

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And Jesus said, well, what do you mean? So, what's going on here? And he started to go through all over the

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Old Testament, the prophets, the law, the Psalms, everywhere, showing them how it's foretold, how his coming was foretold.

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So, how exactly is this the case?

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I mean, I just, I made a statement, but I didn't exactly prove it. How exactly?

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Well, I thought you would never ask. But first, we need to ask another important question.

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What is it that is true in him and in you? What does that which refer to?

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So, we have two questions here. What is the true, what is, sorry, what is it that is true in him and in you, and what does the which refer to?

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The which, okay? In other words, which is true in him and in you?

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Now, for those of you who were around when I first started preaching on 1

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John, this should sound familiar to us, right?

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This should sound very familiar in the very first verse of the first chapter.

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We had a very similar interpretive question at the beginning where John says, that which was from the beginning.

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That which was from the beginning. So now, theologian

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Gordon Clark helps us to understand that grammatically, this can either refer to the commandment or the logos or both in this context.

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So that's one of three options there. Let's put our thinking caps on and work through this, okay?

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So John uses the word true to describe it.

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That's a key point. He uses the word true. Which is true in him, that is

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Christ, and in you? So this tells us something about how to make sense of it because a bare commandment is not actually true.

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Just like a bare question is not true. They can be neither true nor false because they are not propositions or declarative sentences.

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Okay, so when I say, go clean your room, that's neither true nor false. Or if I ask a question, say, hey, how are you doing today?

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That question is neither true nor false. You can't, it's not a declarative sentence.

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So a declarative sentence, for example, would be when

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John says that the darkness is passing away. That is either true or false.

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Is the darkness passing away or isn't it? And of course, knowing that God cannot and does not and it is impossible for him to lie, we know that this is true, amen?

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If you doubt God's word, you've got other issues that we would need to talk about. So this means then that the term being referred to here must either be the logos or both the logos and the commandment because we know it cannot be the commandment on its own.

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That wouldn't make sense. So we also have the earlier precedent that John set in the letter, which points us to the term referring to both the commandment and the logos.

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He's done this before in a fascinating way. More specifically, what

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John appears to be saying is that Christ himself, the logos, like the gospel of John says, the logos, in the beginning was the word, the word was of God, the word was

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God, that is the logos. Christ himself, the logos, is the embodiment of the gospel, which is also the logos, the message.

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Both are the logos. And that the truth of the gospel is exemplified in those who truly believe and have been transformed by the gospel.

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That's how all of it comes together. It is Jesus Christ, the focal point of this passage, once again.

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So we see there, the gospel, the message is clearly there in Christ.

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Now, and we see that because of God's regenerating power, because the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, it regenerates us from death to life and gives us a new peripateo, a new lifestyle, new habits, new ways of obedience.

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Amen? So now what about the law? What about the commandment? Where does that fit into this?

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Here is where Christ is also the perfect fulfillment, the perfect obedience of the law of love.

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The commandment, which the passage later on alludes to with loving your neighbor.

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Okay, so Christ is the perfect embodiment of that law of love. He obeyed

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God's law perfectly. He is the law and he obeys it perfectly.

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That's why his perfect righteousness can be imputed to us because he earned it on our behalf through his perfect life.

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His active obedience is what we call in theology. So this now brings us to a very important theme, a very important theme that I wanna present to you.

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It is the continuity and discontinuity of God's law and God's covenants.

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Very important theme. How much of God's law in the

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Old Testament continues on to the New Testament? How much of God's covenant, if any, continues on to the

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New Testament? How much of it is discontinued? How much of it is continuous, continues on to the

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New Covenant? This is a critical issue of how we make sense of the covenants because it is the backbone of the entire

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Bible. The Bible is full of God's covenants and various different covenants.

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And we need to rightly understand them to make proper sense of the scriptures. Now, in chapter 19 of the 1689

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London Baptist Confession, which is called Of the Law of God, we read, section one, God gave to Adam a law of universal obedience written in his heart and a particular precept of not eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, by which he bound, he obligated him and all his posterity to personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience, promised life upon the fulfilling of it and threatened death upon the breach of it or the breaking of it, and endued him with power and ability to keep it.

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So what this means is that there has always been a law that has been binding on humanity, always.

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It is what we call the moral law. So it would have, in other words, it would have been wrong to steal, to murder

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Adam or Eve, lie, all of those things. It was always wrong. There was never a time when it was okay to do those things.

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So I just, I realized that I forgot to answer my own question. So let me answer the thesis here.

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What I should have said earlier is that we hold to the perpetual continuity, the continuity of the moral law before, during, and after the fall when

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Adam and Eve fell and disobeyed God. Before, during, and after. But the

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Jewish ceremonial and civil laws that were given to the nation of Israel were discontinued.

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They were abrogated or repealed or discontinued because the old covenant was discontinued with it.

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It ended. Although some of those laws still have moral benefit and application to our time, to today.

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But they are not binding in the same sense that the moral law is, like the 10 commandments.

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That is the summary of the moral law. Now, which leads me to the next section in the confession.

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Section two says, the same law that was written first in the heart of man continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness after the fall and was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai in 10 commandments and written in two tables, the first containing our duty towards God and the other six, our duty towards man.

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So there are other systems of theology, other systems of theology that have a different understanding of the law.

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Namely, especially dispensationalism and new covenant theology. But this is why it's important to make proper sense of these issues, these covenants and the continuity and discontinuity of the law because these other systems struggle to account for the morality of certain actions that are not explicitly stated in the

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New Testament. Again, we need to harmonize the whole counsel of God.

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One of those issues being incest. That's one of the other issues that becomes an issue for these other systems to reconcile biblically.

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So Christ, and this is another important clarification that we need to make because not everybody agrees with this.

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But it's what the Bible says, so you should. So Christ also did not so much give new commandments.

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He did not give so much. It wasn't so much that he gave new commandments, but rather he expounded correctly the

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Old Testament law. He clarified and corrected it, including the moral law.

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He drew out their implications. So in other words, he drew out the spirit of the law in addition to the letter of the law.

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So in other words, don't commit adultery. Well, yeah, physical adultery. No, Jesus said, if you look with lust with a woman or man who is not your spouse, you are guilty.

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You are an adulterer at heart because you are betraying the spirit of the law. You're visualizing yourself in an adulterous affair.

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You're an adulterer at heart. So Jesus was consistently magnifying and expounding the extent of the law, the spirit of the law.

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And so to many, it seemed like it was new because they were so bogged down by false man -made legalistic pharisaical traditions.

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And that is precisely what Jesus was doing when he harmonized the law, showed its extent, and refuted the abuses, contradictions, and perversions of the man -made laws of the scribes and the

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Pharisees, which you see in the Gospels all throughout. Now, this is highly relevant to our passage in 1

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John, back in 2, 7 -11, for reasons that we already touched on, but also there's more.

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There's more here. This brings us to the next question now. Another question.

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What exactly is the darkness that is passing away in 1

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John 2, 8? Let's read it again, one more time.

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So in verse eight, we read, at the same time, it is a new commandment that I'm writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

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So this is very compelling because, again,

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John appears to be packing the words that he's using. He's packing them with many different layers of meaning.

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And so a prevalent issue that John has addressed repeatedly throughout the letter is very clear, should be very clear up to this point, and that is the issue of religious hypocrisy.

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Religious hypocrisy, such as the false religiosity of the scribes and Pharisees. So claiming to walk in the light and yet hating your brother.

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Saying one thing and revealing by your habits, by your peripateo, that you are totally against what you profess.

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You are a hypocrite, in other words. So that appears to be one aspect of what

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John is referring to here, that false religiosity and hypocrisy of the

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Pharisees. And it is, in a sense, true that the influence of the scribes and Pharisees pretty much passed away.

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That their darkness, the cloud of darkness that they placed upon Israel, that influence passed away when

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God judged the second temple and destroyed it in Jerusalem. That was the symbolic end of the old covenant, the destruction of the temple.

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And they pretty much disappeared after that. They were no longer an issue after that.

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So, however, we have to bear in mind that their spirit is alive and well today.

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Needless to say, right? We've all probably seen religious hypocrisy. And it is prevalent in many false religions today, particularly in the

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Roman Catholic Church and its papacy. The papacy in particular, that is just blasphemy personified, but it is the essence of religious hypocrisy.

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So, but there's another darkness that John may also have had in mind.

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There is another darkness that John may have also had in mind here. And I want us to turn to a passage that I recently preached on that is at the heart of the law gospel distinction and of the entire

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Bible. In 2 Corinthians 3, verses seven, sorry, in 2

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Corinthians 3, verses seven through chapter four, verse six. Okay, so it's a lengthy passage, but I want us to read through it carefully because this is going to answer or reveal,

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I think, what John is telling us very clearly, very clearly. So, in 2

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Corinthians 3, starting in verse seven, we read, now, if the ministry of death carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the

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Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, well, will not the ministry of the spirit have even more glory?

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For if there was a glory in the ministry of condemnation, the law, in other words, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory, the gospel, in other words.

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Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all because of the glory that surpasses it.

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It surpasses it, it outshines it. For if what was being brought to an end came with glory much more, will what is permanent have glory?

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So something was discontinued and something has replaced it that is permanent. Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses who put a veil over his face so that the

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Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end, which is the old covenant.

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But their minds were hardened for to this day, when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted because only through Christ is it taken away.

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Christ is the answer, the key to all of this. In other words, he is the gospel, as John literally tells us, he is the embodiment of the gospel, his life, his death, his work, he did it all, he paid it all for us.

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So, yes, to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts, over the

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Jews specifically. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.

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Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled faces now, undarkened, unveiled, uncovered faces, behold the glory of the

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Lord, which is Jesus Christ. And are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the

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Lord who is the Spirit. Now, continuing on in chapter four, this is gonna get really, it's just gonna explode with light here.

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So, therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways.

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We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's Word, but by the open statement of truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God.

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And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, who are reprobate, who are unbelievers, who do not believe the gospel, who do not believe in Jesus Christ as their sole

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Lord and Savior. So, they are perishing.

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In their case, the God of this world has blinded, blinded, with what?

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Darkness, the minds of unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel, of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

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He is the glory of God. He is God, the God -man. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.

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For God who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

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To that, we should all give a hearty amen. This appears to be exactly what

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John is referring to in his passage. In his letter, the darkness of religious hypocrisy and the veiled unbelief, ignorance, and incomplete knowledge of what the

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Old Testament foreshadowed and pointed to, which is the shining true light of Jesus Christ and His glorious gospel of salvation by faith alone, through Christ alone, to the glory of God alone, through the authority of Scripture alone.

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And I think I missed one. What was the fifth one? But it's all from His work and His glory.

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He did it all. So that's definitely a lot to chew on there.

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I'll go ahead and end this here. But this is just something I wanna leave you all with.

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And this really is fascinating how when you read Scripture, you need to really seek to imbibe the whole counsel of God.

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And that's why we encourage you all to study systematic theology and confessions like the London Baptist Confession, the catechisms, because they help us to get the big picture.

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Because if you don't have this big picture, you're gonna miss it. If you're not familiar with what the Bible says in 2

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Corinthians, you're gonna miss what 1 John is telling us in that passage. So that is the exercising of the analogy of Scripture and the analogy of faith.

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That is how we make sense of the Bible. That is how we prevent ourselves from stumbling or veering off into extremes like lordship salvation, like pietism, like all of these inconsistent and superficial theologies that do not properly harmonize the whole counsel of God.

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We need all of God's truth for our walking in the light.

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Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermons of Thorn Crown Covenant Baptist Church, where the

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Bible alone and the Bible in its entirety is applied to all of faith and life. We strive to be biblical, reformed, historic, confessional, loving, discerning

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Christians who evangelize, stand firm in, and earnestly contend for the Christian faith.

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If you're looking for a church in the El Paso, Texas area, or for more information about our church, sermons, and ministries, such as Semper Reformanda Radio and Thorn Crown Network Podcast, please contact us at thorncrownministries .com.