1–3 John by Allen David L.; Hughes R. Kent;

Author:Allen, David L.; Hughes, R. Kent;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1-4335-0285-2
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2013-04-18T16:00:00+00:00

Faith and Obedience Are the Grounds of Our Assurance (vv. 23, 24)

The heart of Paul’s appeal is seen in verse 23. We are given a twofold command: “believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ,” and “love” fellow believers. Here is the first use of “believe” in the letter. When John says we are to believe in the “name” of God’s Son, the use of “name” for Jesus is a literary device called metonymy, which means using the part as a reference for the whole. Here Jesus’ “name” is a reference to his whole person. Trusting in the name of Jesus suggests trusting in all that name implies. Calvin’s point is well taken when he says that John’s reference to “the name” refers to preaching. The only right faith is that which embraces Christ as he is preached in the gospel.12 “This” refers to “commandment” and is placed first in the clause for emphasis. When John speaks about “his commandments” in verses 22c and 24a, in both places the phrase is placed in the forefront in the clause for emphasis. The content of the command contains the full name “Son” and “Jesus Christ.” Since the word “commandment” is singular, a shift from the plural “commandments” in the previous verse, John is combining both the concept of believing in Jesus and loving the brothers into a single action. What we have is one command with two parts: believe and love.

When John says we are to do these two things “just as he commanded us,” he is referring to Jesus’ command to do these things, reiterated several times in John’s Gospel. Isn’t it interesting that John tells us it is a command to believe in the name of Jesus? The gospel is not only something to be believed but something to be obeyed, and all people are commanded to repent and believe the gospel. This concept is not unique to John but is found as well in Paul. In his Areopagus sermon he said to the Athenians, “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:30, 31). Likewise in Romans 1:5 Paul speaks of the gospel as something to be obeyed when he says the reason he was given grace and apostleship was to “bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name.” John himself tells us that he wrote his own Gospel so that people would believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved: “But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31). Notice how in this key verse in John’s Gospel there are five words that occur in 1 John 3:23: believe, name, Son, Jesus, and Christ.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.