Chapter 2 (NIV–the verses in this chapter were taken from this version. Each chapter will be from a different version to avoid copyright issues.)
The Test of Knowing Him
v. 3, We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands.
(Bible Knowl Comm NT) “It seems obvious that a life of fellowship with God in the light ought to lead to knowing Him. … Jesus promised His disciples a special self-disclosure that was predicated on their obeying His commands (John 14:21-23).” This is how readers can know “whether their experience of fellowship with God has led them really to know Him in a personal way.” By obedience.
(Moody) “Obedience is … a fruit evidence, or result of regeneration.”
(Life) “2:3-6 … “True Christian faith results in loving behavior; that is why John says that the way we act can give us assurance that we belong to Christ.”
(Vincent’s II) “We know. Or, perceive. By experience, from day to day; distinguished from we know, expressing absolute immediate knowledge of a fact once for all. Compare 1 John iii. 2.” “That we know. … literally, have come to know.” (Wiersbe) “2:3-5 Jesus taught His disciples what belonging to Him means—to live in Him. … Just as the branch gets its life by remaining in contact with the vine, so believers receive their strength by maintaining fellowship with Christ.”
v. 4, Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person.
(Bible Knowl Comm NT) “He is seriously out of touch with spiritual reality.”
(Moody) This does not refer to the believer who occasionally sins, but to the unbeliever who “lives in constant disobedience, denies the reality of sin, is repulsed by believers, and does not believe in the incarnation.”
(ESV) “Assurance of salvation is possible… Here the test is ethical: do professing Christians have a change life and keep the Lord’s commandments? … obedience as a pattern of life does give evidence that one has been born again.”
FIRST JOHN 2 MEDITATION vv. 3-4.
John makes this love clearer with the words of Jesus in John 14:21-23. When we have His commandment and keep it, then He and the Father will reveal themselves. Then we will come to know Him. When we are in the Word, we receive the commandment. If we know the truth of the Word, then we’ll obey it. If these receive/do steps are an ongoing reality, then we’ll know Christ more because we’ll be walking in His footsteps laid out in the Word. All commandments lead to Christlikeness. As Christ had the commandments from the Father and kept them, so do we. We’ll identify with His humble and obedient life of faith in God. We will experience His life working through our obedience to the Word.
This precludes people from knowing God in a relationship apart from obedience. The knowing comes from the experience of obedience. There’s no knowing of, or intimacy with, God except by following through on the word we receive. Through the experience of doing what He says will we receive this wisdom of God.
In John 7:17, Jesus says, “If anyone wills to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority.” Do we want to do His will? Those with a seeking heart and obedient spirit will give the amen to the doctrine Jesus teaches. Jesus said His doctrine comes from the Father (John 7:16). When we have and keep the commandments, we’ll live differently as His people, and those around us may see the difference. Then we could tell them that the Lord taught us; our training comes from above.
If this part of the epistle is addressing the Gnostic heresy, then it is dismissing any cult from knowing the truth because the word of God is not the source they are following; they are not following the Jesus who spoke those words as the Son of God.
