5:1 Whosoever believeth that
Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat
loveth him also that is begotten of him.
John returns to the essence of the gospel message. It
bears repeating many times over because the simplicity of the gospel is easily
perverted either through ignorance or deliberation, 2nd Corinthians 11:3. The
monument of Roman Catholicism is an enduring picture of grace perverted into a
religion and system of works. It is a sharp contrast from the simple message
John proclaims: whoever, whoever at all, believes that Jesus is the Christ is
born of God.
Jesus our Lord warned “unless one is born of water and the Spirit,
he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh,
and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to
you, ‘You must be born again,’” John 3:5-7. We are reborn by “the
washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,” Titus 3:5.
This spiritual cleansing occurs, not by water baptism or sacraments, but “with
the washing of water by the word,” Ephesians 5:26.
The gospel is a message that must be believed, Mark 1:15;
16:16; John 3:16; 5:24; 6:47; 7:38; 8:24; 9:35; Romans 1:16; 3:22; 3:28; 4:5;
10:9-10, 17; 1st Corinthians 1:17-18, 21; 15:1-2, Ephesians 1:13; 1st Timothy
1:16, etc. The grace that the gospel imputes is entirely divorced from human
works, Acts 15:8-11; 16:30-31; Romans 3:20, 27-28; 4:3-6; 11:6; Galatians
2:16-21; 3:2-9; Ephesians 2:8-9; Philippians 3:4-10; 2nd Timothy 1:8-10; Titus
3:4-7, etc. Forgive my little “carpet bombing” but I wanted to impress the
congruity of this message as we find it throughout Scripture. I was once
challenged with this angry question: “where is it written that someone is
justified by faith ALONE?” My response today would be, “Where isn’t it
written?” We will believe what we want to believe at the end of the day, but
God has made this message so constant, so simple, so consistent, that we ignore
the reality of the gospel at our own eternal peril. It is the everlasting
gospel (Revelation 14:6) that has saved since the world’s foundation, Galatians
3:8; 2nd Timothy 1:9; Titus 1:2. It was grace that saved Abraham prior to the
Law (Romans 4:3), and grace that saved David during the Law (Romans 4:7-8), and
it is grace that saves us today. God’s means of saving has never changed.
The result of believing this amazing message of salvation
is the reception of eternal life as a present possession, kept by God’s power,
2nd Timothy 1:12; 1st Peter 1:5; Jude 1:1. Our response should be love from a
pure heart, cleansed by God’s Spirit. If we truly love God it would only be
natural to love His children. Recall that John said earlier: “We
love Him because He first loved us,” 1st John 4:19. John simply
anticipates that, realizing what God has done on our behalf, we should overflow
with love for Him. He has forgiven our sins in Christ. He has imputed the
righteousness of His Son to us and made us joint heirs. He is conforming us
into Christ’s likeness and gives us His Spirit to help us in our daily battles
with sin and temptation. He promises an eternal, Heavenly home where sin is no
more but God’s presence is intimate and forever. We could go on, but this
should suffice to provoke an answer of love to a God who has given so much of
Himself to us at the price it cost Him to purchase us.
It is a little like a very wealthy man buying a shanty at
an outrageous price. Everyone who hears laughs at how much he invested and the
loss he suffered, but he ignores them. Instead of seeing the shanty he
purchased he sees the future home of the young woman he intends to wed and bring
into it. He goes to work renovating the house from within, fixing this,
changing that, removing and adding what needs be to make it a fit home for his
loved one. When it is perfected, she shall move in and they shall be together
always. He wants the best for her, even if she may not deserve such treatment,
because he loves her. When the bride-to-be discovers the lengths he went to in
order to give her a home she is humbled and it provokes respect and love.
Our fellow Christians are being fitted in such a way.
They too will have Heavenly homes, immortal bodies, be joint heirs with the
Lord, dwell in the eternal city, be free from sin’s presence, and be in our
God’s presence forever. If God so loved them while they were His enemies, so
too ought we. The saint who loves God ought to have our love. My question to
everyone (myself included) is this: does your love for God reflect in your
conduct toward His children?
Great post, Ian.
ReplyDeleteTo believe that salvation is not by faith alone requires a lot of cherry picking and distortion of verses. Many of those who hold that Baptism or other works are required insist it is impossible to understand Hebrews.
It is critical people understand what God has done for us if we are to love as God wants us to.