The Word Made Fresh
1Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and those who love the Father also love the Son. 2We love God’s children when we love God and obey his commandments. 3The love of God means that we obey his commandments, and his commandments do not weigh us down. 4Whatever is born of God overcomes the world, which means that our faith overcomes the world. 5Those who overcome the world believe that Jesus is the Son of God.
6Jesus Christ came not with the water alone, but with the water and the blood, as the Spirit has testified, and the Spirit is truth. 7There are three witnesses – 8the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and they all agree. 9If we receive human testimony, God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God that he has given to his Son. 10Those who believe in the Son of God have the evidence in their hearts, but those who don’t believe have made him out to be a liar because they refuse to believe what God has told us about his Son. 11The testimony is that God gave us life eternal, and this life is in his Son. 12Those who have the Son have life, but those who do not have the Son of God do not have life.
13I am writing this to those of you who believe in the name of God’s Son, so that you can know that you have eternal life. 14We earnestly believe that if we ask anything that is in keeping with his will, he hears us. 15And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we have already been given what we requested of him. 16If you see your fellow believer committing a sin that is not a deadly sin, you may ask God to forgive them, and God will give life to those whose sin is not deadly. There is sin that is deadly, and I’m not suggesting that you should pray about that. 17All sins are wrong, but there are sins that are not deadly sins.
18We know that those who are born of God do not sin. The One who was born of God protects them so that the evil one may not touch them.19We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the evil one’s control. 20And we know that God’s Son has come to help us understand so that we might know the true God. We are alive with his Son Jesus Christ, the son of the true God who gives us life.
21Children, stay away from idols!
Commentary
1-5: John comes full circle in the last chapter, insisting now that loving God and obeying God are one and the same. Obedience is tantamount to conquering, or overcoming, the world. By “world” here John means the “things desired by the flesh or the eyes, or pride in wealth” (2:16). To conquer the world means to overcome these temptations.
6-13: Water and blood in this context is a reference to the dual nature of Christ, human and divine, born fully human in the water of Mary’s womb, proven divine through his death (the shedding of his blood) and resurrection. The Spirit of God testifies to this understanding, he says. Whatever human beings say about Jesus, God says that Jesus is his Son, and God’s testimony is greater than human testimony. God gave the Son. The Son gives life. Whoever has (that is, believes in) the Son therefore has eternal life. Whoever does not believe does not have (eternal) life.
14-17: The granting of forgiveness of sins is bestowed upon the followers of Jesus. Jesus himself said as much (see John 20:23). John makes a curious distinction between mortal sins, which cannot be forgiven, and sins that are not mortal sins, which may be forgiven. Many commentators believe he is thinking of Jesus’ statement about the unforgivable sin of “blaspheming the Holy Spirit” (see Matthew 12:32 and Luke 12:10).
18-20: The “evil one” is the current ruler of the world in John’s understanding of things, but the evil one is being overcome by those who are “born of God,” that is, those who believe in Jesus the Christ.
21: He ends by entreating them to “stay away from idols.”
Takeaway
It can be argued that the first commandment (“you shall have no other gods before me”) gets more attention in the Bible than any of the others. And well it should, because if we refuse to worship anything but God we will overcome the evil one. We will be in the world, but not of the world.