We’ve been reading John’s epistle where he has shared his eyewitness knowledge of how God wants a relationship with us and made a way to make that happen through Christ.
Now John is writing about how that plays out. Christ is both our advocate, our parakletos – the term means a helper or a legal representative – and our propitiation, our hilasmos, the sacrifice made to make us right with God. It’s like our lawyer or even the police officer giving us a ticket taking on the penalty we owe.
The third word that deserves closer attention is “abide” or “meno” – this is what Christ enables for us, staying, remaining within the grace of God, making our home within His presence.
This all helps us understand one of the key things John is trying to convey, namely how we are to deal with our own sin. He has just told us that all we have to do with our sins is to confess and repent, which naturally leads to the idea that we can avoid changing our behavior and just repent at intervals. But this is like a child who doesn’t worry about dirty diapers, since they are going to get changed anyway. But like that child we are to grow and develop. We are to be focused on living a life that pleases God, like an athlete trains (1 Cor 9). John’s goal and ours is that we do not sin.
But! If we do sin, Christ Himself is advocate and sacrifice for us and for those of the whole world.
That’s the backdrop against which John goes deeper into the discussion of sin. If we say we know Christ in this way, but make no effort to keep His commandments? Then we don’t actually know him and in fact are lying, possibly to ourselves as well. What are these commandments? Christ sums it up as “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.” If we do not love like this, or put ourselves towards that love, then we likely have not really engaged Him as our advocate and propitiation.
Compare this love to romantic love, that draws you to spend more and more time with the object of your affection, that draws you to bend your own desires even personality more and more towards them. How much more should a love for God Himself bend us towards Him and His commandments.
This is difficult. Serving is difficult. Giving money is difficult. Loving our neighbor is difficult. Loving our enemies is even more difficult, let alone those who persecute us! Not just love, but even forgive. And part of those commands is to pass on the knowledge of Christ and His commands (the Great Commission). John tells us we can know if we are Christian if we follow these commands but he never says it’s going to be easy.
– Sermon Notes, Bart Hodgson, Seed Church, Lynnwood WA, September 19, 2021