Bird's-eye view
In this magnificent passage, the apostle John pauses to marvel at the sheer gratuity and magnitude of God's love. The central theme is our identity as children of God, an identity that is not a mere title but a present reality, conferred upon us by the Father's astonishing love. This identity has profound implications. First, it explains our alienation from the world; the world doesn't recognize us because it never recognized our Father. Second, it establishes a glorious future hope. While our current state is one of divine childhood, our ultimate state of glorification is not yet fully revealed. What we do know is that when Christ appears, we will be made like Him, for we will see Him in His unveiled glory. Third, this hope is not a passive, dreamy sentiment. It is an active, purifying force in the life of the believer. The one who truly hopes to be like Christ will, by that very hope, strive to be like Him now, pursuing purity just as Christ is pure. This passage, therefore, connects the Father's love, our present identity, our future glorification, and our current sanctification into one seamless, gospel-saturated reality.
John is writing to combat early Gnostic heresies which denied the incarnation and drove a wedge between the material and spiritual realms. In response, John grounds Christian identity and ethics in the objective, historical reality of Jesus Christ and the objective, covenantal reality of our adoption. Our sonship is not a feeling or a secret knowledge, but a status declared and bestowed by God Himself. The entire Christian life, from our new birth to our final resurrection, is an outworking of this foundational truth: we are God's children.
Outline
- 1. The Present Reality of Our Sonship (1 John 3:1-3)
- a. The Astonishing Source: The Father's Love (1 John 3:1a)
- b. The Astonishing Status: Called Children of God (1 John 3:1b)
- c. The Astonishing Consequence: Alienation from the World (1 John 3:1c)
- d. The Future Glory of Our Sonship (1 John 3:2)
- i. Our Present Identity Confirmed: Now We Are Children (1 John 3:2a)
- ii. Our Future Transformation Anticipated: What We Will Be (1 John 3:2b)
- iii. The Beatific Vision: We Will See Him as He Is (1 John 3:2c)
- e. The Purifying Power of This Hope (1 John 3:3)
Context In 1 John
This passage serves as a bridge. Chapter 2 concluded with the promise that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of God (2:29). John now picks up that theme of divine birth and explodes it into a doxology about what it means to be God's children. This section sets the stage for the great contrast that follows in the rest of chapter 3 between the children of God, who practice righteousness, and the children of the devil, who practice sin (3:4-10). The glorious truths of 3:1-3 provide the foundational motivation for the ethical commands that follow. Because we are children of God and because we have this hope of ultimate transformation into Christ's likeness, we must therefore live in a way that is consistent with that identity. The love of the Father is not just a comforting doctrine; it is the engine of our sanctification.
Key Issues
- The Nature of God's Adoptive Love
- The Meaning of "Children of God"
- The Believer's Relationship to the World
- The "Already/Not Yet" of Glorification
- The Beatific Vision
- Hope as a Motivator for Sanctification
A Love Bestowed
John begins with an exclamation: "See!" or "Behold!" He wants us to stop and stare, to be gobsmacked by the reality he is about to describe. The love of the Father is not something we earn or achieve; it is a love that has been given or bestowed upon us. The Greek word here is dedoken, a perfect tense verb, indicating a past action with ongoing results. God gave this love at a point in time, and the results of that gift continue into our present reality. This is not the sentimental, squishy love of modern pop culture. This is a robust, covenantal, and effectual love. It is a love that does something. It doesn't just feel; it acts. And its supreme action is to take rebels and enemies and make them sons and daughters.
The greatness of this love is measured by its effect: "that we would be called children of God." In the Bible, a name is not just a label; it reflects the reality of the thing named. When God calls us His children, He makes us His children. This is the doctrine of adoption. We were by nature children of wrath (Eph. 2:3), but in Christ, God has adopted us into His family, giving us all the rights and privileges of sons. This is a greater miracle than creation itself. To create a man from dust is one thing; to make a son out of a sinner is something else entirely.
Verse by Verse Commentary
1 See how great a love the Father has given to us, that we would be called children of God; and we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.
John calls for our stunned attention. Look at this! Consider the quality, the sheer alien nature, of this love. It is a love from another world, a "what manner of love" as the old King James puts it. The Father has given it to us. It is pure gift, unmerited grace. And the purpose of this gift of love was to produce a particular result: that we should be designated, named, and constituted as children of God. John then adds the emphatic confirmation, "and we are." This is not a future hope or a polite fiction. It is a present, settled, objective reality. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, your fundamental identity right now is that of a child of God. Then comes the consequence. The world system, which operates on principles of pride, rebellion, and self-interest, cannot recognize or understand us. There is a cognitive disconnect. Why? Because the world never recognized our Father. When the Son of God walked the earth, the world looked at Him and saw nothing but a troublemaker from Nazareth. Since we bear the family resemblance, it is no surprise that the world is blind to who we truly are. To be known by God means to be unknown by the world.
2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not been manifested as yet what we will be. We know that when He is manifested, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.
John addresses his readers with the affectionate term, "Beloved," which itself reinforces the theme of love. He repeats the central truth for emphasis: now we are children of God. This is the "already." But there is also a "not yet." Our future state has not yet been fully revealed or made manifest. We are like princes living in disguise; our royal status is real, but our full glory is veiled. But John gives us a glorious certainty to hold onto. "We know." This is not speculation. We know that when Christ is manifested at His second coming, a profound transformation will occur: we will be like Him. This refers to our final glorification, where we will be freed from all sin, mortality, and weakness, and be conformed to the image of the glorified Christ. And what is the mechanism of this transformation? It is sight. "Because we will see Him just as He is." This is the Beatific Vision. To see the unveiled glory of Jesus Christ is to be changed by it. The sight of His absolute perfection will have a perfecting effect on us. The vision of Christ is transformative.
3 And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.
This glorious future hope is not meant to be an escape from present reality. It is meant to shape our present reality. Anyone who genuinely possesses this hope, a hope that is fixed on Him (Christ), will be actively engaged in the business of purification. The hope is not in an event, but in a Person. Because our hope is to be like Him then, our business is to become more like Him now. This purification is not the basis of our salvation, but the evidence of it. It is a process of sanctification, of cleansing ourselves from sin and worldly defilement. The standard for this purification is absolute: "just as He is pure." Christ's own perfect purity is our model and our goal. We will not attain it perfectly in this life, but the direction of our lives will be set by it. A true hope in future glorification always produces a present pursuit of holiness. If there is no pursuit of purity, the claim to have this hope is a sham.
Application
This passage is a potent tonic for the Christian soul. First, it grounds our identity in the unshakeable, objective love of the Father. Our worth and status are not determined by our performance, our feelings, or the world's opinion of us. They are determined by the declaration of God: we are His children. This is a truth to be preached to ourselves daily, especially when we feel the accusation of the devil or the scorn of the world. We are not who they say we are; we are who God says we are.
Second, it gives us a robust and realistic expectation for our life in this world. We should not be surprised or dismayed when the world misunderstands us, mocks us, or opposes us. The world is simply treating us the way it treated our elder brother, Jesus. To be out of step with the world is a sign that we are in step with God. We are resident aliens, and our citizenship is in heaven.
Finally, and most practically, it connects our future hope to our present conduct. The doctrine of glorification is not pie-in-the-sky escapism. It is fuel for the engine of sanctification. The certainty that we will one day be perfectly like Jesus should motivate us to fight sin and pursue righteousness with all our might today. We are not just waiting for a transformation; we are participating in it. Every time we choose obedience over sin, every time we kill a lustful thought, every time we extend forgiveness, we are acting in accordance with the glorious future that God has promised us. The hope of seeing Jesus face to face is the greatest possible motivation to want to have a face worth showing Him.