Embrace the Truth

 Meditations on the Epistles of Saint John

October 30, 2020

Embrace the Truth

And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.Whoever has the Son has life;whoever does not have God’s Son does not have life.

1 John 5:11-12

John makes a very interesting argument in the first half of chapter five (1 John 5:1-12). First, he continues with his theme that those who belong to God are the children of God, and God’s children are called to love one another. Secondly, he asserts that the love for our brothers and sisters in the church is a witness for God against the evil in our world. John is emphatic about the power of this love:

“For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith. And who can win this battle against the world? Only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God” (1 John 5:4-5).

John then turns to the proof we have that Jesus is, in fact, the Son of God. John states that we have “three witnesses — the Spirit, the water, and the blood—and all three agree” (I John 5:7-8). (The water is Jesus’ baptism and the blood is his crucifixion – thus all of his messianic mission. The Spirit is the inward conviction God gives us that Jesus is His Christ. See Matthew 16:16-17.)

Simply put, John teaches that those who believe the three witnesses are the children of God and have been granted eternal life by God. Those who deny the witnesses are in effect calling God a liar and are not granted eternal life.

In John’s Gospel, he quotes Jesus as saying, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). In the Book of Acts, Saint Luke quotes the Apostle Peter speaking about Jesus: “There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). In addition to the three witnesses of God for Jesus (the Spirit, the water, and the blood) we also have the witness testimony of Jesus, and John and Peter.

My Takeaway: I pray all of our churches will embrace the truth of this testimony and proclaim to the world, “Whoever has the Son has life; There is salvation in no one else!”

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Copyright © 2020 by Alex M. Knight

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.