Alive To God

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.)

Do Not Love the World

v. 15, Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.

(FSB) “2:15-17 In these verses, John exhorts believers to oppose the values of the evil one. He also remind his audience that those who love and obey God have the gift of eternal life.”

(Bible Knowl Comm NT) The world “as an entity hostile to God… is always a seductive influence which Chrisian should continually resist. … The world competes for the love of Christians and one cannot both love it and the Father at the same time.”

(Cultural) “God summoned Israel to love him and be consecrated as holy to him, rather than following the pagan values of the nations around them (Lev 20:23-26; Dt 18:9). Likewise, Jesus’ followers must avoid any values in their cultures that conflict with his interests.” (Life) “2:15-16 Worldliness is also internal because it begins in the heart and is characterized by three attitudes. … When the serpent tempted eve (Genesis 3:6), he tempted her in these areas. Also, when the devil tempted Jesus in the wilderness, these were his three areas of attack (see Matthew 4:1-11). … Do your actions reflect the world’s values or God’s values?”

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.)

v. 5, But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him:

(Bible Knowl Comm NT) “…obedience to God’s Word (‘His commands,’) v. 3) results in a rich and full experience of God’s love: God’s love is truly made complete in him. …an obedient believer has a deep full-orbed acquaintance with ‘God’s love.’ ”

(Moody) “perfected” = “matures. … Love for God expresses itself in obeying His commands.”

(Vincent’s II) “Keepeth His word. Note the changed phrase: word for commandments. The word is the revelation regarded as a whole, which includes all the separate commandments or injunctions.” “Is the love of God perfected. … the obedient child of God is characterized, not by any representative trait or quality of his own personality, but merely as the subject of the work of divine love…” “The phrase the love of God … It is not possible to settle the point decisively, but I incline to the view that the fundamental idea of the love of God as expounded by John is the love which God has made known and which answer to His nature. … This interpretation does not exclude man’s love to God. On the contrary, it includes it. The love which God has is revealed as the love of God in the love of His children toward Him, no less than in His manifestations of love to them. The idea of divine love is thus complex. Love, in its very essence, is reciprocal. The perfect ideal requires two parties.” Footnote: “the genitive case, of God, of the Father, represents God as the subject of the emotion.” (Cultural) “obeys his word. To do so had always been a way of showing love for God.”

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.”

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 NKJV and NIV link the following two verses to the preceding verses in chapter 1.

v. 1, My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.

(Bible Knowl Comm NT) “The statements in 1:8, 10 about believers’ sinful tendencies do not encourage sin; they actually put perceptive Christians on guard against it.” “Advocate … The thought here … is of a defense attorney who takes up the case of his client before a tribunal. … admirably illustrated in His prayer for Peter (Luke 22:31-32). … Jesus asked the Father to prevent Peter’s faith from collapsing.”

(Moody) 2:1-2 addresses 1:10 to prevent leniency, that confessing sin is not to be the norm; and severity, that if anyone sins, it is not hopeless, because we have an Advocate. “His atonement satisfies God’s just demands regarding our moral failures, thus securing forgiveness.”

(Vincent’s II) “If any man sin, we have. By the we have, John assumes the possibility of sinful acts on the part of Christians, and of himself in common with then, and their common need of the intervention of the divine Advocate.” (Wiersbe) “To people who are feeling guilty and condemned, John offers reassurance. … the best defense attorney in the universe is pleading your case.”

The Basis of Fellowship with Him (NKJV)

v. 5, This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.

(Bible Knowl Comm NT) “As Light, God both exposes man’s sin and condemns it. If anyone walks in darkness, he is hiding from the truth which the Light reveals.”

(Vincent’s II) “God is light. … Not a light, nor the light …” It is “in His very nature.” It “is not a metaphor.”  “In Him is no darkness at all. It is characteristic of John to express the same idea positively and negatively.” Greek: “And darkness there is not in Him, no, not in any way.”

(Moody) “This summary … assesses three false claims in 1:6-2:2.” (Life) “If we want to have a relationship with God, we must put aside our sinful ways of living. To claim that we belong to him but then to go out and live for ourselves is hypocrisy.”