First John

This is the Victory

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: I John 5:1-4, This is the Victory

Genre: Sermon

Lesson: 14 of 16

Track: #14

Year:

Dictation Name: RR308G14

[Unknown Speaker] Let us worship God.

Lord I love the habitation of Thy house, the place where Thine order dwelleth. I was glad when they said unto me “let us go into the house of the Lord.” Let us pray.

Our most good and gracious God and heavenly Father we thank You for Your goodness’s to us each day which are more than we can number. We thank You for Your salvation through Jesus Christ which brings us here as Your children and fellow brethren. We pray that You would encourage us in our activities this coming week, we pray that we might use the rest that we have from our labors this day secure in the knowledge that You care for us to strengthen us that we might serve You with renewed energy throughout the coming week. Help us to focus on our responsibility to You, not just in deed but in word, in thought as well.

We pray that You would encourage us in our responsibilities, especially in the midst of a world that cares little for the things of Your word. We pray that You would encourage us as individuals in our faith, in our walk with You. Encourage us as families, encourage our children; we pray that You would work in and through them and we pray that You would draw them ever closer to You and help them to stay strong in their walk with You and keep them from temptations. We pray that You would encourage us in our vocations, we pray that You would strengthen us and help us to have the satisfaction of working as to the Lord in all that we do. We pray that You would help us with our relations one with another, we pray that you would help us to show the love of Christ in all that we do. We pray that you would help your word working in and through us to overcome the weaknesses of our personalities and our temperaments so that we might accomplish something good and that we might be sanctified through Your Spirit working in us in many areas of our life and our responsibilities. We pray that You would be with all those who worship together this day in Your name.

We thank You that there are many that speak many different languages of many different races throughout the world and we thank You that Your gospel has gone to every corner of the world. We pray that You would encourage the activities of those who spread it even this day. We pray especially for those who suffer persecution because they named the name of Christ in many different areas, in many different contexts. We pray that You would encourage them to stand fast and secure in the knowledge that you are their strength and their rock and their fortress. Bless now this time we have together in Your word, we ask this in Christ’s our Savior’s name, amen.

Is first John chapter five, verses one through four; I John chapter 5 verses 1-4. The title of this morning’s sermon will be “This is the Victory”. I John chapter 5, verses 1-4.

“Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him.

2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.

3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.

4 For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.”

[Rushdoony] We come now to a climax in our study of I John. John has laid the foundation in what precedes these verses, what he is about to say here. He does not ascribe faith to man. When we think of faith we tend to think in the word possible sense “I believe” as though it were purely mine; it is mine, but it is the gift of God. “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ (the Messiah) is born of God:” So that what marks him is not what he has done but what God has done in him. “And every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him.” Here John strikes at Judaism and every form of belief since then that feels that it is truly Godly because it says it believes in God. What he says is you do not truly believe in God unless you believe in Jesus Christ, He is the test. And so we have to love Jesus if we truly love God.

Now one of the problems of our time is that when we think of having faith we think of it as our act, “I accepted Jesus Christ, I chose Him.” No, what John is saying is that God chose us and therefore for us to put ourselves in the position of priority is to deny God. God chose us, He implanted in us the will to believe. Everything we have done since we became a Christian is the act of God in us.

“2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.” What is the test of being a Christian? Well, John says, two things: it is to love God and keep His commandments. Then we truly love one another, we love our fellow Christians because it is the work of God in us, so what John is doing is now to stress the God centered aspect of our faith. It is not of us, it is not because we were smart enough to believe, but because God by His grace implanted faith in us, and so we must love God and keep His commandments. This is why so many of the interpretations of I John are so false, they just look at the word love interpret it in a humanistic sense, and say that “this is what the faith is about, we love one another.” Quite the contrary, God implants the faith in us which produces a love for Him and it readied us to keep His commandments.

“3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.” To many people look at the law of God and say “His commandments are hard.” They are indeed if you’re an unbeliever. If you’re a believer then it is your joy, your way of life, to keep God’s commandments, then His commandments are not grievous, on the contrary they are a blessing. So to love God means we keep His commandments. Now that’s an interesting definition of keeping the law, it is the love of God. We love God and we show it by obeying His law-word. This is very, very far from the interpretation all too common in our time, that you love God but His commandments you can disregard. But John says you cannot love God without loving His commandments.

“4 For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” This is one of the great verses of the Bible, it’s sad that it is not better known in our time. In the past at times it has been one of the verses best known, almost every Christian knew it by heart. “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” Now that in itself tells us a great deal, the idea that is prevalent in to many circles in our time is that “Well we believe that things are going to go from bad to worse and we are going to see the triumph of unbelief, but if we suffer God will bless us.” This is nonsense, what John says is “this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” To overcome the world is to triumph over it, to defeat it totally, radically; and who is it that overcometh the world? Whoever is born of God overcometh the world. So we are the people of victory. When we believe we have a partial victory in that sin and death no longer have dominion over us. Then step-by-step we triumph at one thing or another until finally when our time here is ended we go to the place of victory.

“Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world.” Now John sees here very clearly the world and the Christian as at opposite ends, at war one with another; and he very clearly depicts that war as ending in a victory for the people of faith. This is why verse four has at times been one of the most memorized verse in the Bible, like John 3:16 it has been seen as summing up our faith. “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” Not our personal believing, but the faith we affirm, the faith in Jesus Christ as a word of God, God incarnate, the faith in the Bible as God’s word for us. When we have that faith which is given to us by God we overcome the world. Well in a sense that seems like a strange statement because however strong we believe and how much we’ve been able to do as we get older we begin to die. In the process we suffer a great deal, I can tell you about that, and it’s not easy. But what God tells us sin and death came into the world through the fall, we overcome it in Jesus Christ, so the last word about us is not sin, or death, but eternal life in Christ. It means that the worst thing this world offers us, sin and death, is simply the gateway to eternal life so that instead of being sad about sin and death, we have the joyful assurance that we are victors over sin, and death is only a gateway, not a victory over us, but the opening up of eternal life.

Now what John has been doing throughout, and especially in this passage, is to stress not our believing, but God’s work in us. God tells us this is the faith, believe it, obey it, trust in it, because then it becomes something more than your personal opinion, it is God’s work in you. So that you can say “perhaps I have a problem here and there, this or that experience is making life more difficult for me, but I know this, all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. So we cannot lose, as we get older and as we die it all works together for good because we are born of God and therefore we love Jesus and we love God the Father and we keep His commandments, which are not grievous, but a blessing.

For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world, and this is th victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” We should all know that verse by heart, it is one of the most triumphant statements in all of scripture. Let us pray.

Our Father we give thanks unto Thee that we are born of Thee, that in Jesus Christ we have overcome the world and the worst that the world can confront us with will lead us only one step closer to Thee, how great and marvelous are Thy ways oh Lord our God, and we praise Thee, and we thank Thee, in Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson?

As you can see people have taken the word love and in the humanistic sense have used it to walk {?} the whole meaning of John, which is from start to finish a very, very God-centered word.

Yes?

[Audience member] {?} Serves as the beginning and the end of our faith, it is in Jesus Christ Himself. It’s not our ability that’s effective, it’s Christ. Because like you said, He works in us both to will and to His pleasure. So when I’m obedient to Him it’s because He is {?} it’s by His strength, by His wisdom, by His power, I’m able to overcome.

[Rushdoony] Right. We have been armed by God with faith. It’s like saying, perhaps it’s not the best illustration, until we believe we are like men in a war without any weapons, and suddenly says “you’re my people, I’m arming you so that you can defeat the enemy at every term.” It’ll be like going into battle with a machine gun rather than your bare hands. So this is why John stresses the fact that our faith is not of us, it is of God, and therefore it is a power far beyond anything we can imagine. Because if it were simply our believing well, we believed in a lot of things and it hasn’t done us much good. But when God implants in us faith, a supernatural fact, then we are able to face the world triumphantly.

[Audience member] The difference of the faith, we need a knowledge for all this, faith is substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, is that knowledge that He has is faith, because if I didn’t have faith I can’t have the knowledge of Him, but if I have the knowledge of Him I can’t do what he says.

[Rushdoony] We cannot separate faith from knowledge; faith is the beginning of true knowledge for us.

Well if there are no further questions let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father we thank Thee for the pleasure of worshipping Thee, of studying Thy word, of knowing how great Thou art, and how marvelous are Thy ways. We pray that Thou would speak to each of us, to strengthen us and bless us, to watch over us day by day so that in all things we follow and obey 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.