First John

I John 2:1-6, Law

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: I John 2:1-6, Law

Genre: Sermon

Lesson: 2 of 16

Track: #2

Year:

Dictation Name: RR308A2

[Introducer] Let us worship God. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. It is better to put trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. Oh taste and see that the Lord is good, blessed is the man that trusteth in Him. Let us pray.

Our most good and gracious God and heavenly Father we praise You for Your goodnesses to us each day. We are not worthy to come before you but for the blood of Jesus Christ which has atoned for our sin. We thank You for goodness to us and Your so great salvation, we thank You that this has given our life meaning and purpose and hope. We thank you that we have direction and guidance in your revealed word. You’re better to us than we are to ourselves. We pray that you would encourage us and strengthen us in our understanding of our responsibility to you, to those around us. We pray that you would encourage us to ever greater faithfulness in an unfaithful generation.

We come before you now as sinners who stand before you only because of the blood of Jesus Christ. We acknowledge our failures, our sins, we ask you even now to forgive them, to restore us to a proper relationship to you, we pray that you would help us to recognize our sins, to confess them, and to see ever to put them behind us so that we might serve you better. We pray that you would encourage us therein because of the teaching that we have from the word today. WE pray that you would encourage because of the fellowship that we have together, pray that You would bless all those today, we think especially of a number of our company who are ill, we pray that you would strengthen them. We think also of those that travel today, we pray that you’d give them traveling mercies, keep them safe and free from all harm while they’re on their way from home and return them to their loved ones soon. Bless now this time together in Your word, we ask this in Christ our Savior’s name, amen.

The scripture passage for this morning’s lesson is the first epistle of John, Chapter 2 verses 1-6. The first epistle of John, chapter two, verses 1-6.

“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:

2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

3 And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.

4 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

5 But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.

6 He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.”

[Rushdoony] Our subject this morning is law, as we have seen while modernists see I John as a letter dealing with love, scholars have said rather that it deals with God and His law. Love is a very popular subject in our day because it has become really a religion. Humanism is a religion and it has more than one plan of salvation. One means of salvation in Humanism is salvation by law, or by politics, by the state. It’s a very popular program and plan of salvation. At every election time candidates who are Humanistic run as though they have salvation to offer if elected, and of course the more they are elected the further we are from salvation.

Then second love is seen by many as the solution to all human problems, speaking here of the individuals love. It has taken over the doctrine of marriage so that marriage is supposedly founded on love. This is a fairly new idea in history. Over the centuries in Christian history marriage has been founded upon faith, and a desire to work together in the faith for a Godly purpose; not romantic love, but faith, predominates.

Then again we have the doctrine of salvation through Jesus Christ, and this is what John in this letter is talking about. This is what he says in the first verse when he warns them “that ye sin not.” It’s so very often commonplace that antinomianism becomes the means of salvation for Christians, and this is what John, according to some scholars, concentrates on, to deal with the evil notion of antinomianism, as though because Christ saves us, not the law, the law is useless. But the law is our way of sanctification; it sets forth the righteousness of God. This is why John goes on to say “if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” Sin is the great human problem, and the answer to it is Jesus Christ the righteous, the one who keeps the law. And what is it that we are summoned to? To righteousness in Christ, and righteousness means keeping the right way, or the law. Jesus Christ the righteous is the answer to man’s need. He is the propitiation for our sins, nothing else can remove sins. The great roadblock between God and man is man’s sin and John says the propitiation, the only solution to the problem of sin, is Jesus Christ.

“And not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” Now this does not mean universal salvation, that every man is saved, but that Jesus Christ is a Savior not only for the Jews, but for all the peoples of the world. We forget that at the end of the first century there were two ostensibly Christian groups that held that Jesus Christ was the Savior of the Jews, and no-one could be saved unless he first became a Jew. Which would mean that you would have to go to the Rabbi’s and study with them, or some Rabbi who had supposedly becomes Christian, and then be converted to Christ.

Jesus Christ is the Savior of the whole world, “and hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.” Now could anything be plainer than that? How do we know God? Not because of our love, but because we keep His commandments, that means the Bible and its laws. Every commandment from Genesis through Revelation is a law-word from God, and we are to keep it. So the Christian is defined, he is one who has been saved by Jesus Christ, the propitiation for our sins, and because we know Him we keep His commandments, that’s very clear. So how can people see this as anything but a teaching of the gospel?

“4 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” Now it amazes me how people can read that and still say “this letter is a gospel of love.” What he says very clearly is if we do not keep His commandments and claim to be Christians, we are liars and the truth is not in us; that’s a very plain-spoken statement, it allows for no exceptions, and it tells us very clearly how many, many who call themselves Christians are not so. The truth is not in them.

“But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected:” Keep His word is a synonym for keeping His law. The love of God is perfected in those who keep God’s law. Why? Because to keep His law is to love Him. How much does a child love a mother or father who is totally contemptuous of their word? Never obedient; that’s not love, that’s contempt. So John is emphatic, the love of God is brought to maturity in those who keep His word. We should remember that in the Bible the word “perfect” means “mature”. It meant that over the centuries, if you look at the preamble to the constitution what does it read? “We the people of the United States in order to form a more perfect union.” What? More perfect, well if perfect means total in its flawlessness then none of us can qualify in this world. But if perfected, perfect, means mature then the text makes sense. “Whoso keepeth His word, in him verily is the love of God brought to maturity.” As little children we begin by obeying our parents and we are taught by them to love and obey God, and the love of God is brought to maturity as we obey God.

“Hereby know we that we are in him.” To be in Christ, to be in the Lord, is not some mystical experience, not some vague feeling as many make it. And I’ve known many a person years ago who would get up regularly and talk about loving God, and you know they didn’t. They were lawless, and yet they claimed to love God. I recall one woman in particular who never missed a chance to get up in a testimonial service and testify to the Lord, supposedly, but actually to herself because she was always having such glorious experiences, and the Lord was so precious to her. And I recall on one occasion when her mother got up and quoted to her three verses that rebuked her, that made clear that “whoso keepeth His word in him, verily, is the love of God brought to maturity: Hereby know we that we are in Him.” John is repeating himself to make his point all the more emphatic. How strange it is that people who claim to be Bible believers and believe the Bible from cover to cover read this without ever thinking it has anything to do with the law of God. Some, when you question them on that, say “Oh, well that was only for those who were born into Judaism, like the disciples of Jesus. But when the New Testament era ended that no longer applied.” And where does it say that? “Oh well we know that, it’s obvious.” Well it’s not obvious to me.

“6 He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.” If you claim you abide in the Lord then you ought to prove it, you ought to walk as He walked. Now the expression to walk in the Lord means to be walking in terms of obedience to Him, faithfulness to His law-word. So John is emphatic, “he that abideth in him ought also himself so to walk even as he walked.” John’s letter thus is a mighty statement which declares that the old and New Testaments are really one book. It was not until Marcion the heretic that it was divided into Old and New Testaments. It’s a sad fact that the second century heretic has affected us to this day and scholars know it, but they’ve never said anything about it. But it was one book, when you read a New Testament quotes the Old testament as the very word of the Lord, and when you read the epistles reference is made to the Old Testament and to the Lord and His words as one word, never does the New Testament say “well that’s a part of the Old Testament” never. They preached out of the Old Testament for the first century until the New Testament cannon was closed, they preached out of the Old Testament. They used it to tell the birth of our Lord, of His death, and of His resurrection; it was the Bible.

You hear sometimes that it was a couple of centuries later that the church finally decided upon the cannon. That idea is held, unhappily, by some Protestants, it is truly a Catholic view because it says the church decides what the word of God is. Well God decides what His word is, not any church. And what John is saying, we have one word, one word, we are indeed saved by Jesus Christ the righteous who is the propitiation for our sins but we must keep his commandments, we do know that we know him if we keep is commandments. That’s so very plain. When the church returns to this unity of the word the church will gain a power it has not known in recent centuries. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God how great and marvelous art Thou, how magnificent Thy word. Give us grace to keep your commandments, give us grace to be obedient and faithful to love Thee with our whole heart, mind, and being, and with every action of our lives. We thank Thee our Father that Thou art our Savior. In Christ’s name, amen.

Are there any questions about our lesson?

Yes?

[Audience member] Rush when did the Roman Catholics insert the apocryphal books into their scriptures?

[Rushdoony] The apocryphal books were included in the Bible after the Reformation because they could not answer in Rome the protestant charges that a great many doctrines that were taught by the church were not in the Bible, including prayers for the dead for example.

Well by including some apocryphal works they were able to say “everything is in the Bible.” And in Catholic doctrine the apocryphal is in equal standing with the Old and New Testaments. Now that is a position that was taken at the council of Trent. Now it’s rare that you hear anything about the apocrypha in the Catholic Church, or the Episcopal Church, and one or two others that retained it.

[Audience member] Is any of it true?

[Rushdoony] What?

[Audience member] Is any of it true?

[Rushdoony] Well the apocryphal has some good things and bad things in it. It’s not inspired but often it is faithful to what the Bible teaches and often unfaithful. Thus first Maccabees gives us some history, it’s Jewish history, not especially important to us, but II Maccabees gives us some things that for us are heresy, and so it goes. Some of the apocryphal books are really paraphrases of the Psalms, but while they’re beautiful, and we can read them with appreciation, they’re not the inspired word of God. The apocrypha is less and less mentioned in any of the churches, especially since the middle of the 20th century it has been fading.

Yes?

[Audience member] You say, was it the Church of England that retained the apocrypha?

[Rushdoony] Should say rather it adopted it. It wanted to keep a olive branch in both directions of Lutheranism and the Reformed Churches, and the Catholic churches, so it put in a good word or two for the apocrypha and it uses passages from it in its selectionary. But in any Episcopal seminary that I know of, and I went to know, it’s never referred to.

It used to be that older Bibles, when I was young, would somehow include the apocrypha because they were sold to people generally, and Episcopalians were among the purchasers. The Protestants just ignored that section. But I haven’t seen a recent Bible without the apocrypha. No doubt they are still so published, but it’s quite rare.

Are there any other questions?

If not, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Lord and our God we give thanks unto Thee that Thou are our God. We thank Thee that hitherto Thou hast blessed us, and all Thy promises to us in Jesus Christ are yea and amen. Bless and prosper us in our work. Be with Andrew as he preaches in Oregon this day. Bless those of our number who are absent from us, heal the sick we beseech Thee. And now, go in peace God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, amen.