The Culture of Hope Founded on Faith
1 John, Part 5 – The Unbeliever
After his introduction, John compares the basis of assurance of salvation as opposed to the reasons to suspect that someone is a non-believer. Rather than look at the comparisons as they are written, I divided the listed characteristics of the unbeliever from the characteristics of the believer in order to take a closer look. This form of study is called analysis and it involves separating similar components of the writing in order to look more closely at each piece of the text. In a later part of this series of studies I will put them back together again as they are written in order to look at the relationships between the parts.
- 1 John 2:4. “He that says, I know him, and keeps not his commandments, is a liar and the truth is not in him.”
- 1 John 2:9, 11. “He that says he is in the light and hates his brother, is in darkness even until now … he that hates his brother is in darkness, and walks in darkness, and knows not whither he goes, because that darkness has blinded his eyes.” (See also 2 Cor. 4:4)
- 1 John 2:15b-16. “If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.
- 1 John 2:19. “They [i.e. antichrists] went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.”
- 1 John 2:22-23. “Who is a liar but he that denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist that denies the Father and the Son. Whosoever denies the Son, the same has not the Father.”
- 1 John 3:4, 8. “Whosoever practices sin transgresses also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law … He that practices sin is of the devil, for the devil sins from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.”
- 1 John 3:10b. “…whosoever does not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loves not his brother.”
- 1 John 3:14b-15, 4:8, 20. “He that loves not his brother abides in death. Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer: and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. … He that loves not knows not God; for God is love. … If a man say, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar: for he that loves not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?
- 1 John 4:3. “And every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come and even now already is it in the world.
- 1 John 4:6.”He that is not of God hears not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.”
- 1 John 5:10. “He that believes not God has made him a liar, because he believes not the record that God gave of his Son.”
- 1 John 5:12. “He that has the Son has life; and he that has not the Son of God has not life.
According to 1 John, then, the non-believer is a liar, is in darkness, loves the world, is incapable of love like God’s, is incapable of true fellowship with believers, persistently practices sin, denies Jesus as Messiah, is deceived by the spirit of error, makes God a liar because of unbelief, and does not have life because he does not abide with the Son of God. All this is the opposite of what the believer is, does, and represents; as Psalm 32:1 says, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” We’ll look at that side of 1 John next week.
Update/Prayer Request: Once again Dan had excruciating joint pain this week, a reaction to the antibiotic he started Saturday. He stopped the meds on Wednesday and the pain is now virtually gone along with the rash that has also plagued him for some weeks. The episode has left him debilitated and exhausted. The good news is that at his appointment yesterday (Thursday) the doctor did a scope revealing no apparent infection remaining, just some ongoing clear drainage which could be allergies this time of year. “You can go on an antibiotic holiday,” said the doctor. Praise God for continued healing. We do not know why Dan had to go through that kind of pain, but we do know that God continues to carry us through all the trials of this stage in our lives.
