Bird's-eye view
In this brief but potent section, the apostle John lays a straight-edge down on the claims of those who profess to be Christians. The issue at hand is assurance, but it is an assurance grounded not in flighty emotional experiences or esoteric knowledge, but rather in the rugged terrain of lived obedience. John is writing against an early form of Gnosticism, a heresy that divorced knowledge (gnosis) from ethical behavior. These proto-Gnostics claimed a special, "insider" knowledge of God but lived like the devil. John will have none of it. He provides a series of tests, and the first one here is profoundly simple: you know that you know Him if you keep His commandments. This is not a ladder of works-righteousness we are meant to climb up to God, but rather the fruit that grows on the tree of genuine faith. The argument is a tight spiral: true knowledge of God results in obedience, a claim to knowledge without obedience is a lie, and true obedience is defined as walking in the same manner that Christ Himself walked.
This passage is therefore a potent antidote to the kind of easy-believism that detaches regeneration from reformation. John insists that the two are as connected as lightning and thunder. If the lightning of conversion has truly struck a man's heart, the thunder of a changed life will inevitably follow. To claim the one without the other is to be, in John's blunt assessment, a liar. The love of God is not just a sentiment we feel; it is a reality that is "perfected" or brought to its intended goal in us through our keeping of His Word. This is how we have a settled assurance that we are "in Him."
Outline
- 1. The Test of True Knowledge (1 John 2:3-6)
- a. The Foundation of Assurance: Obedience (1 John 2:3)
- b. The False Profession: The Liar's Claim (1 John 2:4)
- c. The True Profession: Love Perfected in Obedience (1 John 2:5)
- d. The Ultimate Standard: Walking as Christ Walked (1 John 2:6)
Context In 1 John
John's first epistle is not a systematic theology, but rather a series of concentric circles, returning again and again to a few central themes: righteousness, love, and belief. The immediate context for our passage is John's declaration that Christ is our advocate and the propitiation for our sins (1 John 2:1-2). This glorious, objective truth of the gospel is the foundation. But John is a pastor, and he knows that his flock needs to know how this objective reality connects to their subjective experience. How can we know that we have a share in this great salvation? The section from 2:3 to 2:11 provides the first great test of genuine faith, the moral test. It is followed by warnings against worldliness and the test of doctrinal orthodoxy concerning the person of Christ. This passage, then, stands as the gateway to John's tests of authenticity. It establishes the principle that what we do is the truest indicator of what we know and who we are in Christ.
Key Issues
- Assurance and Obedience
- The Nature of Gnostic Lies
- The Perfecting of God's Love
- The Imitation of Christ
- Key Word Study: Ginosko, "To Know"
- Key Word Study: Tereo, "To Keep"
Verse by Verse Commentary
v. 3 And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.
John gets right to the point. The word for "know" here is ginosko, which often refers to knowledge gained by experience. This isn't about knowing God in a merely academic or theoretical way, like knowing a set of facts about Napoleon. This is a relational, experiential knowledge. And John says there is a clear diagnostic tool for determining if we have it. "By this we know." How? "If we keep His commandments." The word for "keep" (tereo) means to watch over, to guard, to observe carefully. It's not a grudging, bare-minimum compliance. It is the careful attentiveness of a son who desires to please his father. Notice the logic: obedience is not the cause of our knowing Him, but it is the necessary evidence of it. It is the external proof of an internal reality. If a man says he knows his wife, but he consistently ignores everything she says and acts as though she doesn't exist, his claim to "know" her is utterly meaningless. In the same way, a profession of faith that is not accompanied by a life of striving obedience is a hollow one.
v. 4 The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him;
John does not mince words. In our therapeutic age, we might be tempted to soften this, to say such a person is perhaps "mistaken" or "immature." John says he is a liar. This is not a slip of the tongue; it is a fundamental misrepresentation of his spiritual state. The Gnostic heretics John was combating were full of high-sounding talk about their spiritual enlightenment, but their lives were a mess. They believed the material world was evil and that what they did in the body didn't matter. John says it matters entirely. A claim to know God that is disconnected from the pursuit of holiness is a lie, plain and simple. And the reason it is a lie is that "the truth is not in him." Truth, in John's vocabulary, is not just a collection of correct propositions; it is a living, active reality that takes up residence in a person. If the truth of God were actually in him, it would be working its way out in obedience. The absence of the fruit proves the absence of the root.
v. 5 but whoever keeps His word, truly in him the love of God has been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him:
Here is the positive contrast. The one who "keeps His word", a broader concept than just commandments, encompassing all of His teaching and revelation, demonstrates something profound. In this person, "the love of God has been perfected." This can be understood in two ways that are not mutually exclusive. It can mean that our love for God is brought to maturity and completion through obedience. Or it can mean that God's own love for us reaches its intended goal and purpose in our lives when we walk in His ways. Both are true. Obedience is the trellis upon which the vine of our love for God grows, and it is also the fruit that God's love for us is intended to produce. This obedient love is the second great indicator John gives us: "By this we know that we are in Him." First, we know that we know Him by our obedience (v. 3). Now, we know we are in Him, a phrase denoting intimate union and fellowship, by the same token. The evidence is stacking up, and it is all pointing to the tangible reality of a transformed life.
v. 6 the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.
John now raises the bar to its ultimate height. To "abide in Him" is to live in constant, dependent fellowship with Christ. If a man makes that claim, there is a moral obligation (ought) that comes with it. What is it? He ought to "walk in the same manner as He walked." The standard for Christian conduct is not a list of abstract rules, but a person: the Lord Jesus Christ. To walk as He walked is the whole of the Christian life. This means a life characterized by humble obedience to the Father, self-sacrificial love for others, and uncompromising opposition to sin. This is not a call to sinless perfection, which John has already ruled out (1 John 1:8). It is a call to a particular direction, a particular pattern of life. Is the trajectory of your life moving toward the pattern of Christ's? Are you walking in the same direction He did? This is the final, practical, and undeniable test. A man who claims to be abiding in the vine will necessarily produce the same kind of fruit that the vine produces.
Application
The application of this passage lands on us like a carpenter's square. It forces us to ask hard questions about our own profession of faith. In an evangelical world awash with cheap grace and decisionism, John's teaching is a necessary and bracing corrective. Assurance of salvation is a wonderful gift, but it is not to be found by navel-gazing or by trying to muster up a certain kind of feeling. True, biblical assurance is found by looking outward to Christ and His objective work, and then seeing the reflection of that work in the mirror of our own lives.
Do you keep His commandments? This is not asking if you are perfect. It is asking about the settled disposition of your heart. Do you love His law? Do you grieve when you break it? Do you get back up and press on in the way of obedience? To claim to know Christ while living in casual, unrepentant sin is to call yourself a liar. The two cannot coexist.
The ultimate goal is to walk as Jesus walked. This means our lives should be a continual study of the life of Christ as revealed in the Gospels. How did He respond to temptation? How did He treat sinners? How did He pray? How did He love the Father? His life is our curriculum. We are to be imitators of Him, and as we are, the love of God is perfected in us, and our hearts are assured before Him. This is not a burden, but a glorious invitation to a life of true and deep fellowship with the living God.