Victory in Jesus: A Sermon on 1 John 5:1-5

The following is a lightly edited transcript from a sermon I preached on May 17 entitled “Victory in Jesus” from 1 John 5:1-5. This is not an essay written for the eye, but a spoken message put to print with a few revisions to aid in understanding.

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Please turn in your Bibles to 1 John 5:1-5.

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

Recently I put a brief article on my blog. I don’t think I have ever started a sermon by reading one of my blog posts, and I hope not to very often. But it will set up this morning’s sermon, so here it is:

Whenever counseling Christians looking for assurance of salvation, I take them to 1 John. This brief epistle is full of help for determining whether we are in the faith or not. In particular, there are three signs in 1 John given to us so we can answer the question “Do I have confidence or condemnation?”

The first sign is theological. You should have confidence if you believe in Jesus Christ the Son of God (5:11-13).  John doesn’t want people to be doubting.  God wants you to have assurance, to know that you have eternal life.  And this is the first sign, that you believe in Jesus.  You believe he is the Christ or the Messiah (2:22).  You believe he is the Son of God (5:10).  And you believe that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh (4:2).  So if you get your theology wrong about Jesus you will not have eternal life.  But one of the signs that should give you confidence before God is that you believe in his only Son Jesus Christ our Lord (4:14-16; 5:1, 5).

The second sign is moral. You should have confidence if you live a righteous life (3:6-9).  Those who practice wickedness, who plunge headlong into sin, who not only stumble, but habitually walk in wickedness-should not be confident.  This is no different than what Paul tells us in Romans 6 that we are no longer slaves to sin but slaves to righteousness and in Galatians 5 that those who walk in the flesh will not inherit the kingdom.  This is no different than what Jesus tells us in John 15 that a good tree cannot bear bad fruit and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.  So if you live a morally righteous life you should have confidence (3:24). And lest this standard make you despair, keep in mind that part of living a righteous life is refusing to claim that you live without sin and coming to Christ for cleansing when you do sin (1:9-10).

The third sign is social. You should have confidence if you love other Christians (3:14).  If you hate like Cain you do not have life.  But if your heart and your wallet are open to your brothers and sisters eternal life abides in you. One necessary sign of true spiritual life is that we love one another (4:7-12, 21).

These are John’s three signposts to assure us that we are on the road that leads to eternal life. These are not three things we do to earn salvation, but three indicators that God has indeed saved us. We believe in Jesus Christ the Son of God. We live a righteous life. We are generous toward other Christians.  Or we can put it this way: we know we have eternal life if we love Jesus, we love his commands, and we love his people.  No one of the three is optional.  All must be present in the Christian, and all three are meant to be signs for our assurance (see 2:4, 6; 4:20; 5:2).

John belabors the same points again and again. Do you love God?  Do you love his commands?  Do you love his people?  If you don’t, it’s a sign you have death.  If you do, it’s sign that you have life. And that means confidence instead of condemnation.

That’s what I wrote on my blog. It is basically a summary of 1 John, and especially a good summary of 1 John 5:1-2. Somewhat surprisingly, there was a good deal of controversy surrounding this blog post. I want to share some of the comments because they are indicative of what many people think, perhaps even some of you. I’ve edited some of the comments for length, and have put them into my own order. But this will give you the gist of what the comments were like.

Comment #1

I grew up in church my whole life and recently (within the past 5 yrs) understood the scriptures in a completely different way. It led me to doubt my own salvation but more than that, doubt my relationship (or lack thereof) with this holiest of holy God of the universe.

As someone who’s been struggling with this for some years, I am sorry to say this brief explanation can be so misleading. Not to be hateful. I follow your blog regularly and respect what you do. But who out there can confidently say they live without wickedness within or love their fellow “christians” without fail?

Comment #2

I have also spent time doubting my salvation. All these items can be false indicators. And they are confusing, and they leave room for human judgement. Am I my own judge? Is my brother my judge? Who will decide that I am loving well or living well or that my doctrine is correct? Certainly He is my judge. We must submit ourselves to Him and He will show us what it means to have assurance of salvation.

[Rom 8:16 NASB] 16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.

Comment #3

The problem with articles such as this is that definitive, objective answers are not provided.

Nobody, not even Kevin DeYoung lives a perfectly upright and moral life. While Kevin doesn’t advocate sinless perfection here, it is very difficult to know if sin that you struggle with is part of your sanctification battle, or indication that you are making a practice of sin and are therefore not saved. The question about quantifying is not to say “how much sin can I practice and still be saved?’ but rather, “I have done awful things in my life, I still struggle with sin, and how do I know if I have changed enough to be confident?” Kevin DeYoung cannot quantify this.

To the third point, absolutely we need to love others in the Body of Christ. But every person reading this, including the writer, loves his brothers and sisters imperfectly. If one is honest with themselves, they see this. How close to perfect must your love be before you have assurance of salvation.

Comment #4

Is this the gospel? After all this is the gospel coalition website. What message are they preaching?

Comment #5

TGC, please, it’s time for a lengthy sit-down interview with Kevin. This is salvation we’re talking about here.

Comment #6

As a Christian who is currently stumbling and struggling, this article is pretty discouraging. I feel hopeless in the midst of my sin, and hopeless that I have failed to live a morally upright life and I imagine myself knocking on heaven’s gates one day and being denied entrance. Even though in my heart of hearts I know that I have encountered God’s love and have known Him… Can one so easily just look at the lack of moral uprightness in my life and say that I am not a Christian? Isn’t this failure, this sin the exact reason that I need Jesus and needed Him to give His life on the cross?

Comment #7

I’m a little surprised and disappointed that Mr. DeYoung says nothing about faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross, and that he gives the appearance of leaning in the direction of trusting in one’s own works for salvation, even if he does not intend to do so.

While we do bear fruit, we bear it imperfectly, and we will always see our best works tainted with sinful actions or motivations. And Mr. DeYoung, as well intended as he may be, ultimately makes salvation rest on me and my efforts rather than on Christ and the cross.

One entire article was written in response. It was thoughtful and well written. Here’s part of it.

Some [people when talking about assurance] urge folks to ask themselves if they really believe, if they really love their neighbor, if they really live a moral life. But no matter how well intentioned such an urging might be, rather than helping, it is pouring the poison of doubt into the souls of those for whom Christ died.

Look inside yourself to answer, “Are you a Christian?” and you will find a heart that is deceitful above all things (Jer 17:9); a heart from which flow evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander (Matt 15:19); a conscience that testifies that nothing good dwells in you, that the evil you do not want to do, you nevertheless keep right on doing (Rom 7:18-19).

Look at your deeds to answer, “Are you a Christian?” and you will find that all your righteousness is as filthy rags (Isa 64:6); and if such be your righteousness, how dirty and defiled must be your unrighteousness. Look at your deeds and you will find that even when you have the desire to do what is right, you don’t have the ability to carry it out (Rom 7:18). Even if you did all that you were commanded, you must still say, “I am an unworthy servant; I have only done what was my duty,” (cf. Luke 17:10). If such be the response of a person whose has kept all God’s commands, then we who have broken those commands are worthy of nothing but punishment, now and forever.

Thus, to answer, “Are you are Christian?” by looking inside ourselves, or by looking to our deeds or love of the neighbor, is to drink the poison of doubt. In fact, the more Christians look at themselves to see whether they are Christians, the more they will become convinced that they are not Christians.

The answer is found not within us but within Christ. Our assurance is in his objective, external work of salvation on our behalf. Not in our hearts but in the heart and life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ we receive assurance that we are the children of God…

How do you know you’re a Christian? Not because your heart is good and pure but because the heart of Christ pulses with a love for you that will never end. Not because your deeds are righteous but because he has been righteous on your behalf and clothes you with that righteousness. Not because you have lived for him but because he has lived and died and risen again for you. Not because you asked him to be your Savior but because while you were yet a sinner, Christ died for you, chose you, called you, and washed you clean in his own divine blood.

Reading the comments and subsequent article you can boil down the objections to five points.

1. This is salvation by works.
2. We should never look at ourselves for assurance.
3. None of us really love God or love our neighbor.
4. To think that we really love God or our neighbor is prideful.
5. This way of assurance makes me doubt my salvation.

What should we say to these objections? Here are responses to each of these objections.

Objection 1: This is salvation by works.

You may think: “This causes people to rest on their righteousness rather than on the finished work of Christ.” Clearly that is not what I mean to say; in fact, it is not what I do say. These are not three things we do to earn salvation but three indicators that God has indeed saved us.

We are talking about signposts. How do you know you are driving on the right road in the right direction? Sometimes we need signs, especially when traveling in a foreign country where they drive on the opposite side of the road, to let us know that we are going in the right direction. These signs are not instructions on how to build the ladder to heaven, but evidence, fruit, indicators. Any notion of salvation by works or that we rest in our works rather than in Christ would be inconsistent with scripture.

Perfectionism is ruled out. It is well established in scripture that everyone sins, we all need to be forgiven, we all need to be cleansed, we all need an advocate: somebody who can argue our case before the Father and say because of what I did these sinners ought to be forgiven and made clean and counted righteous. Salvation by works is ruled out.

Objection 2: We should never look at ourselves for assurance.

Again, some people may argue, “Look, there is too much emphasis on I. What I believe, what I do, how I love, how I act. The Bible does not want us to look at what we’re doing but at the objective work of Christ outside of us.” This is one of those statements that is three-quarters true. It is true in what it states—we should look to the objective work of Christ outside of us. Where it is misleading is to say that means there is never any room to find assurance of evidence in our own life.

1 John was written in part so that we might know, that we might see, that we might discern truth from error by looking at people’s lives—what they do, what they believe, how they act. For example, 1 John 2:5, “by this we may know that we are in him.” How do you know if you are in him? Answer: “whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.” That’s how we know. Are we walking as he walked? 1 John 3:10, “By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil.” We are suppose to look at evidence and what is the evidence? “Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.” Again in 1 John 3:14, “We know we have passed out of death into life,” how do we know that? “because we love the brothers;” verse 19, “by this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our hearts before him;” Verse 24, “whoever keeps his commandments abides in God and God in him and by this we know that he abides in us.” So we are meant to see something. Over and over we hear, “by this we know.” It sounds very pious to say we’re never meant to look at any external evidence just look to Christ. But scripture says over and over that there is evidence to know how people are living their lives.

In 2 Cor. 13:5 it says, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith.” That is a scriptural injunction, to examine yourselves. That doesn’t mean we become narcissistic and navel gazing. But there is a place to examine ourselves and see if this fruit is really evident in our lives.

This is what we find in the Reformed Confessions. The Canons of Dort say that assurance is not produced by any private revelation. Assurance, says Dort, springs from three things: “from faith in God’s promises, which He has most abundantly revealed in His Word for our comfort; from the testimony of the Holy Spirit, witnessing with our spirit that we are children and heirs of God; and lastly, from a serious and holy desire to preserve a good conscience and perform good works” (5.10). The Westminster Confession of Faith says pretty much the same thing. The “infallible assurance of faith” is “founded upon the divine truth of the promises of salvation, the inward evidence of those graces . . . . [and] the testimony of the Spirit of adoption.” One the second point (evidences of grace), the Confessions lists four proof texts: 2 Peter 1:4-11, which urges us to make our calling and election sure by the diligent effort to grow in godliness and bear spiritual fruit; 1 John 2:3, which testifies that we know we belong to God if we keep his commandments; 1 John 3:14, which assures us that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers; 2 Cor. 1:12, which speaks of rejoicing in the testimony of a good conscience.

Clearly, the Confessions teach that a transformed life is one sign, not the only and not the cause, of our right standing with God. So there is a place in the Christian life to know that we belong to Christ by seeing evidence of it.

Objection 3: None of us really love God or our neighbor.

To be a Christian, you have to be willing to think carefully, to make careful distinctions. Because it is in one sense true: no one loves God and our neighbor as we should. We know we need to love God better; we are imperfect in our love; we often feel convicted of our failures. That is the normal Christian life. But if we think we have no love for God, no love for our neighbor, we cannot make sense of scripture.

1 John 5:2, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.” John is operating with the category there are people who are born of God and they love God and they obey his commandments; verse 1, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.” So if you are born of God, these three things are happening in your life. You believe in the Son of God, you love God, and you love the people of God, if you are born again. If the one category—none of us really love God or love our neighbor—is an empty set, then the other category—truly born again of God—is an equally empty set. John Stott says, “The true Christian, born from above, believes in the Son of God, loves God and the children of God, and keeps the commands of God.”

The Gnostics wanted to separate morality from religion but God cannot be separated from himself. Calvin says, “He who loves him [God] must necessarily have his heart prepared to render obedience to righteousness. The love of God, then, is not idle or inactive.”

Look at this remarkable statement in verse 4, “everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world.” If you struggle and do not feel like a victorious Christian that very may well be the normal pattern of the Christian life. But if you succumb to sin, do not turn from sin, your life is habitually marked by sin, you revel in sin, then you are at odds with what scripture tells us to do and expects us to be. It is expected that those in Christ overcome the world. That means Christians set the ways of the world—the desires of the flesh, desires of the eyes, the pride of life—aside.

There is a difference in asking, “How do you know you’re a Christian?” and asking, “How do you become a Christian? How do you become right with God? How can you be justified before God?” You are not saved because your heart is pure. God does not tell us to clean up our life and then he will save us. But we are not wrong to look for good works as evidence of Christian fruitfulness in the life of a true believer—the one who overcomes.

Objection 4: It is prideful.

There is no room for boasting in the Christian life, and if you are drawn to compare yourself to others, then that is wrong. It is the new birth that makes this life of obedience possible—not because we woke up one morning and thought we would become a Christian and tried real hard to get our life together. It is by God’s sovereign work of grace that you have new life and a new spirit and a new heart. Of course there will be some evidence of this new life. When a woman has a baby, the baby is the evidence of the new life. If you never saw the baby, then you would wonder if she had really given birth.

These signs are not the cause of regeneration but the consequences of regeneration. So that our attitude toward God and his commandments changes. The commands are not burdensome, not only because of the nature of the commandments but because of our new nature. What felt oppressive has become freeing. What was dread-inspiring has become a delight. His yoke is easy and his burden is light. The victory that overcomes the world is our faith. That is a surprising twist. We believe the promises of God, fighting the fight of faith. It is not boasting to say, “I worked harder than any of them,” if you then say, “though it was not I, but the grace of God that is within me” (1 Cor. 15:10).

God’s grace saves us from our sin and saves us unto righteousness. Anything else makes Christ only half a Savior. Christ not only saves us from the penalty of sin, he also saves us from the power of sin. We need a category for obedience in the Christian life that is not meritorious or perfect, with weakness and failings and yet it is genuine, heartfelt, sincere, God-pleasing obedience. There are a lot of Christians who live their entire life thinking they cannot do anything that will please their heavenly father. And many times we think it is more spiritual to think this way. But there is a way, as God’s people, to live a life that is obedient to him, not perfectly and it is not what earns your salvation, but it is sincere and genuine. The Westminster Confession says that our works are also accepted in Christ, so that God, “looking upon them in his Son, is pleased to accept and reward that which is sincere, although accompanied with many weaknesses and imperfections.”

Objection 5: This makes me doubt my salvation.

This is the most personal and pastoral objection. There are some who should doubt but not those who desire holiness, hate their sin, and flee to Christ. 1 John is written in order that we might have confidence. It is not meant to make us doubt. It is meant to make us discerning, and through discernment to have confidence. John’s letter summarizes that we are children of our heavenly Father. There are false teachers out there. Don’t listen to them. I want you to be confident in your position in Christ. Don’t run after sin. Run to Christ. Walk with Christ. Then your joy will be filled to overflowing.

To those who ask, “How do I know if I am loving enough?” let me give you three words: trajectory, community and apology.

Don’t measure how you’re doing today compared to two days ago but look over months and years. Is there growth in godliness? Is there love for the things of God? Look for a long term trajectory.

Next community—assurance is a community project. The closer to get to a holy God, the more you see your own sin. We need each other to point out the fruit in our life. There are people we all know that we would like to model our Christian walk after, but none of them are sinless or earned their salvation. We don’t refer to them as sinless, but as godly. We see it in other people, but it can be difficult to see it in ourselves.

Thirdly, apology, in other words, repentance. One of the signs that you are walking in the light is that you are honest about having walked in the darkness. This doesn’t mean you do not sin anymore or that you still do not have some dark times. It means that you bring your sin into the light and are honest about it and repent and come to Christ . We are meant to have a clean conscience. Born again Christians are changed Christians—the change may be stumbling, imperfect, full of temptation, much struggle, but the change is never the less real, heartfelt, sincere and discernible.

This message is fundamentally all about Christ. Am I in Christ? Do I cling to Christ? Do I run to Christ? Am I being conformed to the image of Christ? As you are conformed to the image of Christ you will say, I love righteousness. I hate sin. I desire to please my Father. I trust his goodness. I believe that greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.