13
Holy Affections
(1 John 3:19-24)
We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight. This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us. (3:19-24)
Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) may rank as the greatest theologian America has ever known. He ministered during the First Great Awakening, in the early eighteenth century, being used by God to help spark one of the most notable revivals in American history (a Second Great Awakening occurred in the early nineteenth century, and the Layman’s Prayer Revival took place in 1857-1858). Along with George Whitefield and others, the Holy Spirit used Edwards to draw countless numbers of sinners to genuine repentance and saving faith in the gospel. The sermons he preached and the works he wrote powerfully called people to obey the gospel of Jesus Christ, turn from sin, and embrace the authority of Scripture and personal holiness, all of which led them to find their fulfillment in glorifying God.
The impact of the Holy Spirit through Jonathan Edwards and his colleagues, in igniting a widespread response to the gospel, meant that the assurance of salvation quickly became a major issue. The call to embrace the gospel, obey the Word of God, and persevere in holiness overwhelmed many of the new converts. People questioned whether or not they were doing all they should and whether or not they were truly saved. In response to those concerns, Edwards, in 1746, wrote his classic book A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections. This monumental work argues that the most accurate proof of salvation is the presence in one’s life of holy, religious affections—a zealous and biblical inclination toward righteousness, evidenced by practical good works. Because Edwards saw the danger that Satan would counterfeit conversions, he was careful to warn his readers that it is possible to have an initial, positive interest in the gospel (like the seeds on shallow soil and weedy ground in Jesus’ parable; Matt. 13:1-23) and yet not possess true saving faith. However, when the grace of God is truly planted in a person’s heart, it will always result in a changed nature (cf. 2 Cor. 5:17), marked by an abiding desire to live a holy life.
Of course, Edwards’s teaching did not originate with him. He drew it from the New Testament, as summarized in the book of James: “Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself” (2:17). His understanding also represented the historic Reformed view that true salvation is a permanent gift from God that inevitably results in righteous living.
In contrast, the historic Arminian position teaches that salvation is conditional, guaranteeing nothing beyond an initial experience of desiring holiness. Thus Arminians believe Christians can and do lose their salvation (through unrepentant sin, disbelief, or denial), and along with it their ability to perform good works. Believers are left with a very fragile kind of assurance according to this view, because salvation itself can be forfeited, eternal life ended, and the Holy Spirit withdrawn due to the Christian’s failures.
The twentieth century saw the emergence of a third position on assurance, one that combines certain elements of the other two. This view (often called the no-lordship or Free Grace view) denies that there is any necessary connection between justification and sanctification. Thus, it teaches that justified people are saved forever, even if they have only a temporary manifestation of and interest in obedience and holiness. In other words, once a decision is made to follow Christ, the individual is deemed saved no matter whether he or she overtly denies the faith or merely lives the rest of his or her life uninterested in matters honoring to the Lord. (For a critique of this teaching, see my book The Gospel According to the Apostles [Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1993, 2000], 5-20, 193-216. And for extensive, additional exposition on the nature of the biblical gospel, see my prior book, The Gospel According to Jesus [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988, 1994].) This view wrongly bases assurance on the past fact of a one-time profession, not on the present, consistent fruit of a holy life.
In contrast to the erroneous views of Arminianism and Free Grace, which either make assurance impossible to keep or provide the wrong criteria for sustaining it, John wrote this epistle so that those “who believe in the name of the Son of God,… may know that [they] have eternal life” (5:13). He wanted his readers to be certain of their salvation, possessing an assurance that was both legitimate and lasting. With that in mind, John concisely offers five familiar attitudes in verses 19-24 that true believers will consistently manifest in their lives. By examining themselves (cf. 2 Cor. 13:5), they can know for certain that they are saved, because their lives will be characterized by: gratitude for God’s grace, boldness in prayer, submission to God’s commands, faith in Jesus Christ, and appreciation for the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Each of these elements derives from the theme of love, most recently mentioned in verse 18 of this chapter: “Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.” Thus John maintains his emphasis on the noblest of virtues (1 Cor. 13:13) as he spells out these perspectives.
GRATITUDE FOR GOD’S GRACE
We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things. (3:19-20)
Every human being is born with the law of God written in the heart and with a conscience to accuse or excuse, depending on how the person acts in regard to that law:
For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them. (Rom. 2:14-15)
This means every person has some degree of self-knowledge and some innate ability to recognize right and wrong.
Those who are Christians have embraced the truth of Scripture, by which they were regenerated (1 Peter 1:23) and are being sanctified (John 17:17). They desire to know and obey the Word (cf. 1 John 2:3-6; 3:6-10). And when believers obey the Word of God, their consciences inform them that they did the right thing (Rom. 9:1), giving them joy and godly confidence (2 Cor. 1:12). Similarly, if they sin, their consciences indict them on account of their wrong thoughts, words, or actions (John 8:9). If believers persist in sin, implicitly the conscience will make them fearful, depressed, and insecure (cf. Pss. 32:3-4; 38:1-8; 40:11-12). They will then begin to question the genuineness of their profession of faith, on account of their prolonged disobedience. While they cannot lose their salvation (if they are truly saved), they can begin to lose the assurance of that salvation due to a plaguing conscience that accuses them. Until they properly deal with their sin, their conscience, empowered by true, Spirit-aided knowledge of the scriptural standards for holiness, will continue to painfully remind them of the blatant discrepancy between what they profess and what they practice.
The conscience then is God’s guilt-producing warning device, given to every person to confront sin. In the same way that pain is a physical warning mechanism that tells people they have a bodily injury or illness, the conscience is a spiritual warning mechanism that alerts of conduct dangerous to the soul. Of course, to function effectively, the conscience must be informed by the right standards, because it is only a reactor to the person’s convictions about right and wrong. If ill-informed by falsehoods and lies, the conscience will still react to those untruths that govern an individual’s beliefs (e.g., Muslim suicide bombers).
Conscience is thus not in itself an independent system of morality. Rather, it operates based on whatever knowledge and belief system that informs it, and in response to the cultural conditions surrounding it. If the level of moral and spiritual knowledge is drawn from any other source than Scripture, the conscience (like that of the Islamic suicide bomber who is convinced he is doing God’s work) will function in response to those false ideas. It can be silenced not only by being misinformed, but by being constantly ignored or overridden, until it is scarred and unresponsive (1 Tim. 4:2).
That is why it is crucial to know God’s law accurately (Pss. 19:7-9; 119:1-8; Luke 11:28; John 8:31-32; James 1:21-25) and allow it to properly inform the conscience. It is the law of God empowered by the Spirit that awakens people to their sinful condition and need of salvation (cf. John 16:8-11; Rom. 7:9-10). The sinner, seeing his true wretchedness as one guilty before God, is then faced with the reality of divine wrath and judgment against him, offset by the offer of mercy and deliverance through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (cf. Luke 18:13).
In salvation, by the work of Christ on the cross, the wrath of God is propitiated and the guilt of sin removed from the forgiven sinner who then comes to enjoy the exhilarating, heartfelt deliverance of heavenly grace (cf. Eph. 2:1-9; Col. 2:11-14; 3:9-10). One of salvation’s most gracious gifts is a cleansed conscience (cf. Heb. 10:19-22), meaning it ceases to accuse. Just before salvation it accuses most intensely, but afterward the accusation stops and the believer goes from fear to joy, dread to hope, and anxiety to peace. The writer of Hebrews refers to this work of God when he writes: “How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Heb. 9:14). In Hebrews 10:22 he speaks of “having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience” in salvation.
Still the apostle John understood that at times true believers can struggle with their assurance. Some of his readers may have been so overwhelmed by the memory of their past sins and awareness of present ones that they found the thought of God’s forgiveness nearly impossible to accept. Their overactive consciences, beleaguering them with their own shortcomings, perhaps made it difficult for them to have a settled confidence in their right standing before God. So John wrote to encourage those believers and enable them to accurately evaluate their own spiritual condition. In so doing, he sought to solidify their conviction, rightly inform their conscience, and strengthen their assurance with a true understanding of their transformation and its evidences. (For a fuller discussion of the human conscience, see my book The Vanishing Conscience [Dallas: Word, 1994], 35-75, 229-55.)
The phrase we will know translates a form of the common Greek verb ginōskō, which means “to know,” “to learn,” “to find out,” or “to realize.” John’s use of the future tense indicates that what his readers would eventually grasp was not something intuitive or indefinite, but a promise based on an existing reality. This point is strengthened by the next short phrase by this, which most naturally refers back to verse 18’s admonition for brotherly love. When believers know they have sincere love for one another, they can be certain that they are of the truth (the phrase literally reads, “out of the truth we exist”). Only those who have been genuinely converted through the supernatural work of God possess the sacrificial love that John describes in verses 14-18, which issues in the submissive obedience that John delineates in verses 4-12.
The truth in view here is the written truth of Scripture (Ps. 119:160; John 17:17), which encompasses the truth incarnate in the Lord Jesus Christ (John 1:9, 14; 7:18; 14:6; 1 John 5:20). Belief in the truth marks all who repent and believe (2 Thess. 2:10, 12-13; 1 Tim. 3:15b).
Believers enjoy an assurance based not only on what Scripture promises to those who believe (Ps. 4:3; Phil. 1:6; 2 Tim. 1:12), but, on a practical level, based on the presence of a serving love for fellow believers (cf. vv. 13-18) and a desire to live in holiness (cf. vv. 4-12). These qualities, because they come from God, cannot exist in a person who is still unregenerate. Assure comes from the future active indicative of the verb peithō and means “will persuade.” Some lexicographers give “to tranquilize” as a possible definition, which could have an interesting connotation in this context. Even though believers stand before Him, in the awesome, intimidating presence of the absolutely holy God (Ex. 15:11; 1 Sam. 2:2; Rev. 15:4), they can have a calm, tranquil, confident heart and an affirming conscience (Acts 23:1; 24:16; 2 Cor. 1:12; 1 Tim. 1:5; 3:9; 2 Tim. 1:3).
Being in the presence of God terrified even the noblest of saints. Moses “hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God” (Ex. 3:6). The prophets Isaiah (Isa. 6:1-5) and Ezekiel (Ezek. 1:26-28) also felt great fear as they stood in the presence of holiness. After witnessing one of His miracles, the apostle Peter “fell down at Jesus’ feet, saying, ‘Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!’” (Luke 5:8). He and fellow apostles James and John were traumatized on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. 17:1-8), as was John when he saw the glorified Christ (Rev. 1:12-18). Although believers are no longer slaves to sin but to righteousness (Rom. 6:16-18), the remaining sin within their unredeemed humanness (cf. Rom. 7:14-25) could make God’s holy presence very frightening were it not for the gracious gift of assurance.
Those who have been justified by faith are at peace with God (Rom. 5:1) and enjoy the peace of God (Phil. 4:7). Nevertheless, a believer may experience unnecessary guilt as his heart condemns him. But there is a higher court than the human heart, for God is greater than our heart and knows all things. If He has declared believers righteous in Christ, then they are righteous. Thus Paul wrote, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). And no one can ever separate them from the saving love of God in Christ (8:31-39). He sees believers’ greatest, most profound failures, and He knows far more about their weaknesses than even their consciences do (Pss. 1:6; 103:14; 139:1-6; Prov. 24:12; Heb. 4:13). Yet God has forgiven those who by faith in Christ have been adopted into His family (Rom. 8:14-17). Moreover, He is at work in their hearts, continuing to cleanse them from the sin that still lingers there (cf. Phil. 2:12-13). He looks beyond the remaining sin and sees the holy affections He has planted in them that demonstrate the transformed natures of His children. Therefore even when overwhelmed by their sinfulness believers can say with Peter, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You” (John 21:17; cf. Rom. 7:14-25).
BOLDNESS IN PRAYER
Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him, (3:21–22a)
Doubt ceases when believers are walking in faithfulness and obedience, because the heart does not condemn so that insecurity and fear give way to confidence before God. Such assurance causes believers to enter God’s presence with certainty (Eph. 3:12; Heb. 10:19; cf. 2 Cor. 3:4; 1 Tim. 3:13), so that whatever they ask in prayer they will receive from Him. The word rendered confidence (parrēsia) means “boldness” and “freedom of speech.” It describes the privilege of coming before someone of importance, power, and authority and feeling free to express whatever is on one’s mind. For believers it means coming into the presence of our loving heavenly Father without fear (cf. 2:28; 4:17) and with full assurance that whatever we ask we receive from Him (cf. 5:14; John 14:13-14; 15:7, 16; 16:23-24). The writer to the Hebrews used a form of parrēsia in 4:16: “Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
Some might consider that approach presumptuous. But obviously, any requests believers make to God must be in accordance with His will (cf. Matt. 26:39, 42). John R. W. Stott provides helpful insight in this regard:
John does not mean to imply that God hears and answers our prayers merely for the subjective reason that we have a clear conscience and an uncondemning heart. There is an objective, moral reason, namely because we keep his commandments, and, more generally, do those things that are pleasing in his sight. Obedience is the indispensable condition, not the meritorious cause, of answered prayer. Whatsoever we ask, we receive describes the Christian’s habitual experience (the verbs are in the present tense), and Candlish is right to point to the incarnate Son as the supreme example of pleasing God and so being heard by God (Jn. viii. 29, xi. 41, 42). The statement echoes our Lord’s promise, where the same two verbs occur: “Ask, and it shall be given you … for every one that asketh receiveth” (Mt. vii. 7, 8). (The Epistles of John, The Tyndale New Testament Commentaries [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964], 149; emphases in original)
Boldness in prayer is therefore clear evidence of a changed heart. Because they know God as “Abba! Father!” (Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6), believers realize that anything they ask within His will (cf. John 14:13-14) He is going to hear because He has promised to meet all their needs (Phil. 4:19; cf. Ps. 23:1; 2 Cor. 9:8).
SUBMISSION TO GOD’S COMMANDS
because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight. (3:22 b)
Having emphasized boldness in prayer, John continues to focus on assurance by again highlighting that believers willingly submit to God’s commands because they desire to bring Him pleasure. John’s purpose here, however, in tying the concepts of answered prayer and active obedience together is not to give believers a selfish, ulterior motive for obeying. As one commentator explains,
Is John stating two prerequisites to answered prayer? Really not. Obeying God’s commands must never be done under compulsion or for the purpose of [selfishly] receiving [earthly] rewards. The Christian fulfills God’s command with a cheerful heart that expresses gratitude. John is saying that when we obey his commands, we are doing what is pleasing to God. By adding the clause and do what pleases him, John rules out any notion of merit; pleasing God flows forth from love and loyalty. Implicitly John reminds his readers of Jesus. During his earthly ministry, Jesus always sought to please the Father by doing his will (John 8:29).
The basis for answered prayer is not blind obedience but a desire to please God with dedicated love. And God fulfills our requests because of the bond of love and fellowship between Father and child. (Simon J. Kistemaker, 1 John, New Testament Commentary [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004], 317)
John’s emphasis then is on true, heartfelt obedience (motivated by love), as opposed to a false, external legalism (motivated by selfish ambition and pride). Jesus declared this truth to His apostles in the upper room:
If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. (John 15:7-10)
Throughout the New Testament, the necessity that believers keep His commandments is explicitly or implicitly indicated by every command given to them (e.g., Matt. 7:21; 16:24; John 14:15; James 1:22). Doing the things that are pleasing in His sight should motivate everything Christians do; as the rich benediction of the epistle to the Hebrews says:
Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. (13:20-21)
FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST
This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. (3:23)
Having entered the Christian life through the God-given gift of faith that endures (Eph. 2:8-9), Christians can draw assurance from the reality that they never stop believing in the name of His Son Jesus Christ; the faith that saves can never die. This foundational faith is in response to His [God’s] commandment and results in continued obedience to His mandate to love one another (Eph. 2:8-10; Heb. 12:1-2).
Saving faith contains three inseparable and essential elements, which John has reiterated throughout the epistle: faith, love, and an eagerness to obey. In this verse, believe translates an aorist form of the verb pisteuō and refers to a point in time when one believed. But that act produces continuing results that last for the remainder of a believer’s life. The object of faith is the name of … Jesus Christ; His name denotes all that He is (including the fact that He is both Savior and Lord, cf. Phil. 2:9-11). Believing in the name of Christ is an important, oft-repeated New Testament theme (John 3:15-16; 20:31; Acts 16:31; cf. Mark 1:15; Luke 24:47), especially in this letter (2:12; 4:2, 15). It was the reason John wrote both his gospel (20:31) and his first epistle (5:13).
While this command to believe certainly is directed at those who have yet to trust in the saving work of Christ on the cross, it also has direct bearing on the lives of the redeemed. To those who already believe, R. S. Candlish exhorts,
Keep on believing. Continue to believe more and more, simply because you see and feel it more and more to be “his commandment that you should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ.” Unbelief, in you who have believed, is aggravated disobedience. And, as such, it is and must be especially displeasing to God. It is his pleasure that his Son should be known, trusted, worshipped, loved; honoured as he himself would be honoured. You cannot displease the Father more than by dishonouring the Son; refusing to receive him, and rest upon him, and embrace him, and hold him fast, and place full reliance upon him as redeemer, brother, friend. Do not deceive yourselves by imagining that there may be something rather gracious in your doubts and fears; your unsettled and unassured frame of mind; as if it betokened humility, and a low esteem of yourselves. Beware lest God see in it only a low esteem of his Son Jesus Christ. (R. S. Candlish, 1 John [Carlisle, Pa.: Banner of Truth, 1993], 339)
A mark of genuine saving faith is that its level of confident trust in Christ only grows deeper and stronger over time.
Love translates a present, active form of the familiar New Testament verb agapaō; the sacrificial love not of feeling, but of will and choice. The present tense of the verb signifies that love is to continually and habitually characterize a believer’s attitudes and actions, as the apostle John has repeatedly made clear (cf. Luke 6:31-35; Gal. 5:13, 22; Phil. 1:9; 1 Thess. 4:9; Heb. 10:24; James 2:8). That love will express itself to all men (Gal. 6:10), but especially to fellow believers, just as Jesus commanded (John 13:34-35; 15:12, 17). This is another reminder from John to his readers that faith in Christ and love for the brethren are inseparable, and that they are both realities and imperatives for all Christians.
APPRECIATION FOR THE INDWELLING HOLY SPIRIT
The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us. (3:24)
The blessing promised to the one who keeps His commandments is that he abides in Christ and He in him. The term translated abides (from the verb menō, “to stay, remain”) is one of John’s favorite words for salvation (see John 15:4-10) and is a repeated reference in this letter (cf. 2:6, 10, 24, 28; 3:6; 4:13, 16). (For more on the theme of abiding, see the earlier discussions of 2:6 and 2:28 in chapters 5 and 10, respectively, of this volume.) That shared life is possible only by the Spirit whom He has given (cf. Luke 11:13; 12:12; John 14:16–17, 26; 15:26; Acts 1:4-8; Rom. 5:5; 8:11, 16; Gal. 4:6; 5:16, 22; Eph. 1:13-14; 1 John 2:20, 27; 4:1-2, 13).
To be sure, the workings of the Holy Spirit include an element of the mysterious; they cannot be controlled or fully understood by frail, sinful human beings. Nevertheless, the results of those workings are readily apparent, as Jesus told Nicodemus by means of a familiar illustration: “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). As the effects of the wind can be seen, felt, and heard, so the Spirit’s working in lives is manifest and those who see that work will know by this that He [Christ] abides in them.
It was the Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:9) who made saints’ spiritually dead souls alive (John 3:5-8; Titus 3:5), gave sight to their blind eyes, caused their sinful hearts to repent (cf. Acts 16:14), and drew them in faith to Jesus (1 Peter 1:2). It was the Spirit who placed them into the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13) and gifted them for ministry in the church (1 Cor. 12:7; cf. Rom. 12:3-8; 1 Peter 4:10-11). It is through His illuminating instruction that Scripture comes alive for believers as they read and meditate on it (1 Cor. 2:10-14; cf. Eph. 6:17). The Spirit also energizes the saints’ prayers (Eph. 6:18; Jude 20) and intercedes for them (Rom. 8:26-27). He leads and guides Christians (8:14) and assures them that they are children of God (vv. 15-16; Eph. 1:13-14).
Salvation is not a one-time event but a way of life and entails a willingness to follow Jesus no matter the cost (cf. Luke 9:23, 57-62). The presence of genuine holy affections—gratitude toward God, boldness in prayer, submission to His commandments, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and an appreciation of the Holy Spirit’s power in their lives—all characterized and undergirded by a continual love for other believers—marks those who persevere in this true faith (cf. Rom. 2:7; Col. 1:21-23). The presence of those godly virtues gives those who manifest them true assurance (2 Peter 1:8-10; cf. Phil. 1:6; 2 Tim. 1:12b) and confidence that they have been born from above by the power of God.