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The question has come from you to me. What exactly is meant by the term myth? Which I used when I reported that some theologians will say that the story of the virgin birth, the story of the resurrection, is a myth. Now, to give them their due, they are not saying that the story of the virgin birth and the story of the resurrection are nonsense. They're using the term myth in a technical way, in a way it is not normally used in general conversation. They are meaning a story that is made up, and it is not historically fact, but that it conveys a truth.
Now we are all aware, uh, of such stories in our own English heritage. In my infancy, I was taught a story of a farmer and his son who set off to market. And originally, uh, the son rode on the donkey and the father walked, and some people came along the road and they said that was very bad, a bad son making his poor old dad walk, you see. So the boy got off and the, and the farmer got on. And as they were going along the road, they met a lot of other people, and they say, what terrible people they are, poor old donkey having to support this tremendous weight, do you see? So the father got off, uh, do you see, and uh, loaded the thing up with the chattels then.
They went along a little bit further, and they met another group, and they said, poor old donkey, fancy man carry that uh, big load of goods, you see. So they took the go- loads off, and they got a long pole, and they tied the donkey upside down by its legs onto the pole and carried the donkey. And when they were walking over a bridge, the whole thing gave way, and the donkey got lost in the river. Now, gen- ladies and gentlemen, it's no good saying, oh, that's a very interesting one. Where did that farmer live, in County Antrim or County Down? East Anglia. East Anglia, someone is suggesting. You'll see. All wise stories come from East Anglia, you'll see. As he knows.
It's no use asking where did he live and what, when was he born and so forth. The story isn't historical. It's a made up story, but it conveys a lesson, namely that if you try to lead, to please everybody, then you'll end up by pleasing nobody and suffering a lot of loss yourself. So while it isn't historically true, it conveys a truth that is, uh, uh, uh, permanently valid. It is in that sense that some theologians want to say that the story of the virgin birth is not historical. It is a myth. It's a story made up by the early church to convey their belief that Jesus is somebody special.
And sometimes when people hear it explained like that, they say, oh, well, that sounds very reasonable. That's what makes it all the more dangerous, of course. Because the apostles themselves inform us that these things are not myths in that sense, stories made up to convey a permanently valid truth. They actually happened. We are eyewitnesses, says John. We handled him, we touched him, and says Peter, we actually saw what actually happened on the Transfiguration Mount. And all the apostles and five hundred brethren and more join in to tell us that, yes, Jesus did bodily rise from the dead.
Some of them actually handled him and saw he was not a spirit but had flesh and bones. But with that, we come now to our, our passage for this second session, and it's the passage that begins in chapter uh two of John's epistle, two twenty nine. Let us read just a few verses. If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone also that doeth righteousness is begotten of him. Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called children of God, and such in fact we are.
For this cause the world knows us not because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that when he shall be manifested, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And everyone that has this hope set on him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. So with that, we come now to the second major movement of thought in this great epistle. You may remember that in our first studies last week, for convenience sake, I suggested that we should divide this epistle into three movements of thought, each beginning with a manifestation.
First of all, the manifestation of the life eternal. The second movement beginning with the manifestations of the Son of God and of the children of God. And the third great movement of thought beginning with the manifestation of the love of God in Christ, historically, and in his people. And then we notice that each, uh, movement of thought ends up with a very solemn warning. First one, the warning that we were considering this morning against antichrists who deny that Jesus is the Christ.
False Christs, therefore, a warning against them. In the second movement of thought, it's a warning against believing the spirit of falsehood as distinct from the spirit of truth. False spirits. And in the final verses of the book, the third movement ends with a warning against false gods. This is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. And you will now see, I hope, that these three movements of thought, though they appear to repeat themselves, are not simply repeating themselves.
They are repeating, of course, the basic message, but in each one there's a slight difference of emphasis, both in the manifestations that are talked of at the beginning, and of course in the warnings at the end. Then we noticed, uh, last week that when you look at these three movements of thought, they introduce us to, uh, in each of the three, to these two opposites, the family of God versus the world. And last week, where we were, when we were considering movement one, we thought of the family and its members united in the love of the Father and in the love of one another.
Standing opposite that was the world. Now this time, in this first movement, it was the world in all its seductiveness and attractiveness. A world that is constantly, uh, uh, brandishing before us its attractiveness and trying to get our love and affection away from the Lord and to itself. And we're told that that world and all that's in it is not of the Father. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. So it is very much a question of our heart attitude and the world in its seductive attractiveness.
Now we're going to move on into this second section, and notice that though it's going to repeat, eh, basically the same kind of message, it has, of course, characteristic differences. So we're going to ask ourselves now, as we come to think of the family in movement two, what advance do we have? What extra things are they that are now taught us about the family of God in movement two in addition to what we were taught in movement one? And similarly with the world, what additional features, what special features are concentrated here, concentrated on here in movement two uh, eh, that we didn't have in movement one?
And let's go straight to it then. Uh, first the additional ideas, the progress of thought here in movement two when it comes to the family. Now already, of course, I have talked about the family in the first part of the epistle, and the epistle itself implies it by referring to the people of God as children, as young men, as fathers, by referring to God as our Father. So already the idea of family was explicit in movement one. But notice how gloriously it is added to now as we come to the beginning of chapter three.
Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called children of God. We have the status of children of God, that we should be called, not by some empty epithet, some courteous description that isn't really true. It is really true. We have the status of children. We are rightly called children of God, and we owe that status not to the fact that we have arrogated it to ourselves and in our sentimentality said all people must be children of God. No, no, we have been had that status conferred upon us, and what tremendous love of God it is.
Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God. And not only. Now, as some of the manuscripts have it, and in my judgment and in the judgment of many others rightly have it, the additional words, and we are, meaning that we not only have the status of the children of God, we're not only called children of God, but that itself represents the reality. We are in actual fact, as to our nature, we are the children of God. So now we're going to come to the heart of the matter.
This fellowship we are in is not just superficially called a family, it is a real family. For consider the origin of this fact that we are children of God. Says verse two twenty nine, chapter two verse twenty nine: If we know that he is righteous, you know that everyone also that doeth righteousness is begotten of him. It isn't merely that we have come to share in some interest, like two people might be brought together because they share interest in amateur photography, and we have come together with God because we shared interest in theology with God.
No, no, it is in- in infinitely deeper than that. We are brought together in fellowship because, in actual fact, every believer has been begotten of God. Just as I had a common interest between myself and my father, because I had the life of my father, he begat me. So every believer in the Lord Jesus has his fellowship with the Father because he actually shares the life of the Father. He has been begotten of the Father. So says verse two twenty nine. And not only the life of the Father, but look in chapter three and verse nine. Whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin because his, that is, God's seed abides in him, and he cannot go on practicing sin, which is the force of the Greek word, because he is begotten of God.
And this tells us a marvelously interesting thing. Begotten of God, we have the life of God, and what is more, the seed of God abides in us. Now that is an interesting term, because as medicine has increased, we have come more and more to consider the wonders of our human physical life. I'm told by those who knew my esteemed father that I resemble him in lots of things, not only in the shape of my face, that some people think regrettable, but in the color of my eyes, for instance, and in the thinness of my hair, and in all sorts of funny little mannerisms.
And the learned medics tell me that that is in great part because with the life of my father came my father's genes, and with those genes that abide in me, all sorts of things that control my nature and behavior. And the wonder of the thing is that the believer in Christ not only has the life of God, but with it the very seed of God, with it the very nature of God. Oh, here is no cheap salvation, my dear good friends. It isn't that Jesus has been kind and loving and now says, try and behave like children of God. It is a glorious fact of divine generation. When we were born again, we received the very nature of God.
Oh, let's hug that gospel to our hearts and then go out and preach it. How many religious folks there are that are trying to do like Israel had to do in Egypt. They had to make bricks without straw, didn't they? It's extraordinarily hard work. And these folks are trying to behave like children of God without, first of all, being born again as children of God. Oh, this is not logic chopping. It isn't trying to score points off other denominations or anything like that. This is the fact, the glorious fact of the gospel. Why should people be deprived of it? They need to be told not merely to try and imitate the Lord Jesus. They need to be told that there is this great regeneration available to them.
They can be born again. They can receive the life of God and the very nature of God. His seed abides in him, says John. That does not mean that we are already perfect. Verse three tells us that we still have the need to purify ourselves. In spite of that, we are already children of God, already such, and when the Lord Jesus is manifested, then we shall be transformed completely. We shall be like him. So you can see that we have moved on in section two.
The family is not merely a fellowship, it is a real family in which the members have the very life of the Father. We move on as well in this movement Two when we come to consider the world. Now we have to discover something very startling and somber. In movement One, we were thinking of the world and its seductive attractiveness that very often attracts our hearts even when we are Christians. Now we're going to see the world in a much more somber light. For just as there is a genuine family of God, now we're going to find out that there is a family of the evil one.
So we are told in verse, uh, uh, four now that sin isn't simply trying to satisfy yourself independently of God. Last week, when we were thinking of the nature of the world and its attractiveness here, and all that's in the world, the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, we were thinking about the world as a state of heart and as a setup in which people try to satisfy themselves apart from God. And the things that they're interested in can be beautiful things, can be the highest that man knows, music and literature and delightful things, home and family and business and hobbies.
But they're in it independently of God. God is not in all their thoughts. They're trying to satisfy themselves without God. Their goals are to be found not in God, but in the world. Their standards, their ambitions, their criteria are this world as distinct from the Father, and their very enjoyment of it takes them further away from the Father. A tragic beauty, then, about that world. But now we are to be told that worldliness involves something much more sinister. In its sinfulness, it is lawlessness, says verse, uh, four of chapter three, which ought to be translated into a stronger English word.
It is positive rebellion. It's not just doing without God, it is positive rebellion against God, because God has his laws. And to say, oh, well, I don't need him and I can get along without him. No, sir, because he's forbidden you to try. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was good to look at, but to touch it without God's permission was, of course, rebellion. And in this chapter, we shall need to face this somber reality, because the Holy Spirit is after curing us of worldliness, and to be con- cured of worldliness will mean, in the first place, facing the diagnosis that sin isn't just a little charming eccentricity, nor a sort of a, uh, pioneer independence of spirit.
It is positive rebellion. If anyone were here not saved, I should have to remind them right now, not being saved is rebellion against God, isn't it? Because he commands men everywhere to repent. Ah, but uh, then we are told that this world, yes, it can be an attractive place, but now look at three thirteen. Marvel not, brethren, if the world hates you. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that your next door neighbor won't speak to you, uh, uh, uh, and treat you abominably.
They're charming people. We're talking about the world now, as presently we will, we shall see, as a great system of thought and organized ideas that lies contrary to God, is fathered by a spirit who is in absolute rebellion against God, and in consequence, that world will hate the genuine child of God, because that child of God, as our Lord explained it thus, he said, if you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, for that very cause the world hates you, because you belong to a kingdom against which fundamentally they are opposed.
And in their unrepentance, of course, ultimately they fear the other world. They fear the one who to them has become the great enemy, the spoiler of their joy, and ultimately they hate him. And all who belong to his family, they will, in that fundamental sense, hate. And now we come perhaps to what is the most somber thing of all. As I have already hinted, we are to learn in this second movement that just as the believer's source of life and character is God, the believer is a child of God, as we have said, he has the seed of God in him.
So the unbeliever, this world, are children of the devil. Look at verse ten: In this the children of God are manifest and the children of the devil. That is a heart-chilling expression, isn't it? As real as is the family of God, with the children of God behaving because they have the very nature of God in them, so there are children of the devil whose behavior finds its ultimate origin in the devil himself.
As verse twelve reminds us, we are not to behave as Cain, who was of that evil one. So let me now, as we are surveying this, uh, second movement, point out to you the features of these two contrasting families, as we shall find them in movement two. In this family, there is God as the Father. He has begotten us. We, uh, he is our Father.
But similarly, there is another Father. Came as of that evil one, children of the devil. As our Lord himself said in John eight to certain gentlemen around him, you are of your father, the devil. So the believer is described as a child of God, but over on the other side, unregenerate are referred to as children of the devil. In the family, there are brothers. The opposite is the world.
Marvel not, my brothers. If the world hates you, there is a whole system of thought. There is a society of people that finds its basis ultimately, whether they know it or not, its thought forms, its ideas, its ambitions, they have derived, whether they know it or not, from the satanic majesty. Examples are, if you might s- take examples of three, particular example is Abel, in the family of God, and on the other side, Cain. And in the great family of God, we do him honor as we mention his name, the glorious son of God himself, the Prince Redeemer, our Savior.
Standing over against him, in the family of the devil, is the Antichrist. In the family of God, again we honor him as we mention his name, there is the Spirit of God. Spirit of truth. And on the other side, four verse six, the spirit of falsehood. These are somber things, my brothers, my sister, but if we would understand men and women and live holy lives ourselves and in compassion go out to folks who are unregenerate, we must face the stark diagnosis of where the unregenerate stand.
And I want to say that while this is solemn, it is not wild talk. It was our Lord Jesus, wasn't it, who said, and he didn't say it to the prostitutes and the tax gatherers. He said it to gentlemen who professed to be his disciples. But when he pointed out to them that to be really his disciples, they must continue in his word, and then they would know the truth, and the truth would make them free from the bondage to sin, they grew angry. And they said that they weren't going to have him coming round and interfering with their personal lives like that in this moralistic fashion, you see, and laying down the law. They'd never been in bondage anyway. And he said, but I was talking about the bondage of sin.
And then they got very indignant. You come here telling us that we're slaves to sin. You think you're talking to? We have Abraham to our father. God is our father. He had to tell them sorrowfully enough, you are of your father, the devil. And you will remember then, from your knowledge of John chapter eight how our Lord impressed that on him by pointing out in their lives the family likeness. Ha. He said, you see, if you were Abram's children, you'd behave like Abram, wouldn't you?
But of course, Abram didn't go around seeking to kill me, and Abram didn't get angry when he was told the truth. If you were really children of God, said he, you would love me because I came forth from God. If you were genuine children of God, you would bear the family likeness, and of all those trays of family features, surely this is the most lovely. If your God were your father, you would love me. Oh, my friends, may I stop and ask you, in your heart of hearts, what reaction do you find? I'm not wearing my heart on my sleeve, but do you love the Lord Jesus?
So now, um, we have then this, uh, uh, family of God, and no member of it will find it difficult to admit that his salvation and grace and love and power comes not from himself, it comes from God. They are his children, with his seed and life and grace. Then the man of the world, similarly, is not just an isolated, independent, self-contained, self-motivated individual, though he might think he is. He too is influenced, empowered by a father, that is the devil.
In Ephesians chapter two, Paul reminds us of what we were when we were in our unconverted days. We walk, says he, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. It's he that sets the thought pattern of this world, he that sets a good deal of its fashions of thought, and people walk according to the fashion of this world, unknowing that it is set by the prince of the power of the air. And so much is that so that now conversion is described in verse fourteen of our chapter.
We know that we have passed from death into life because we love the brethren. Conversion is nothing less than that. Transferring out of a kingdom of death into a kingdom of life. Having thus surveyed the, the, the, the, uh, whole movement briefly, let's come now to its, uh, formal contents. I'm going to suggest to you, leaning hard upon the commentator Robert Law, that in this movement there are three parts once more.
Our being members of the family of God will be tested, our profession, that is to say, of being members of the family of God tested. The mark of the family of God is that they love one another. Mark of the family of God is that they stand by the doctrinal belief in the deity and true humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ. So let's come briefly then to this first thing, family likeness.
The true child of God, we are told, will of necessity bear the likeness of the Father because he has the Father's life. One day, verse two tells us, we shall bear that likeness fully, for when we shall see him, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. But even now, while we're still imperfect, and we still need to purify ourselves, yet even now that likeness is discernible. So shall we notice once more a feature of John's writing, how he keeps ideas in true balance.
And we shall have to try to keep this idea in balance in our mind. You see, verse one tells us, and verse two, that there is a sense in which the children of God are not yet manifest, and you can't tell, can you, which is which by just looking at them. Ah, but then verse ten tells us that there is another sense in which the children of God are manifest.
Oh yes, you can tell them. As plain as eggs are eggs. Yes, so there is a balance of thought, isn't there? In the one place we're told the world does not recognize the children of God. And this is a ground of some encouragement to us, for we remember that when the Lord Jesus was here, the world didn't recognize him either, did they? It's not only that they said he wasn't the chi- the Son of God, he wasn't the Messiah, but when they watched him behave, they found his behavior shocking, actually. Some of the religious people, and they were the ones that were most offended, some of the religious people said he couldn't possibly be the the Christ of God.
Look at the company he keeps. He's to be found drinking coffee, or whatever else they drank, with prostitutes and tax gatherers. Very doubtful. They will say. And therefore they, they, they disagreed. They didn't recognize him. He didn't seem to them to be a true portrayal of the God that they knew. Indeed, there was one gentleman, his name was Saul of Tarsus. He was a fervent worshipper of God. And Jesus Christ, he was such a denial of God, as Saul of Tarsus understood it. And Saul of Tarsus vowed to obliterate the name of Jesus from the earth.
The fact was, of course, that Saul of Tarsus was worshiping an imaginary God. He didn't really know God at all. But if the Lord Jesus wasn't recognized, it is under- understandable, isn't it, sometimes the world fails to recognize the true child of God, and we'll think we're wrong. Stand for righteousness, ladies and gentlemen, as you doubtless have heard in many discussions, uh, in the media recently, and you'll be told that that's a moralistic position. And you want to have the compassion of Jesus. He said adultery was okay. No, he didn't, of course, did he?
He said to the adulteress, neither do I condemn you. That is to say, he wasn't saying adultery, uh, is okay. He was saying adultery is wrong. The law demands the death of the sinner, but our Lord Jesus, in his compassion, didn't inflict the penalty. But that's a very different thing from saying that adultery is okay. Our blessed Lord, compassionate enough, he bore the penalty for us sinners. He didn't say that sin is all right. It is an egregious, uh, confusion of thought to say that if only you were Christian, you would ha- take the permissive line in morality.
Our Lord says the very opposite. Says he, you Pharisees seem to be strict, but I tell you straight that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the righteousness of the Pharisee, you shall in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven. He stood for righteousness. And the world didn't recognize him, and in the end crucified him. Alas, as much of the religious world as of the atheist. So the world could not recognize, or possibly wouldn't recognize us. On the other hand, we mustn't make that an excuse for lax behavior, may we? For sometimes the reason why the world doesn't recognize us is, as Christians, because we're not behaving as Christians.
We're doing all sorts of horrible things to one another and to our unconverted friends, and misbehaving in business and showing evil temper and worldly standards of life. So that we must be a balance here, though in one sense it is not yet manifest what we shall be. Already it is as plain as a pikestaff. In this, says John, the children of God are manifested, and the children of the devil. And if a man is to be found constantly practicing unrighteousness, says John, he can say what he likes, he's not a child of God. He is of the devil.
And in light of that, therefore, the other mark of the children of God is that if we have this hope in us that one day, when the Lord appears and we see him, we're going to be like him. If we really have that hope in us, it is the fact, isn't it, that we shall purify ourselves even as he is pure. What's the use of my saying? Oh yes, I do believe that one day I'm going to be like the Savior, but I'm not worrying too much about it now. That's a contradiction in terms.
And sometimes, perhaps it has happened because we have so stressed the eternal security of the believer, that he that believeth has everlasting life. We've forgotten to stress the other side, that those who do have eternal life, everlasting life, and have this certain hope that one day they're going to be like the Savior, will want to be like the Savior now. My brethren, my sisters, this is not an exhortation. John doesn't say you ought to purify yourself. He gives it as a fact. A true believer will purify himself, even as he is pure. Thus, the true believer, in spite of his imperfection, is revealed now as being a genuine man or woman, in spite of their many failings and shortcomings.
Come near them, and you will find that in their hearts there burns this desire. It is the life of the Spirit of God within them. It is the very nature of God within them. There burns this desire that they want to be more like the Savior, and they discipline their lives to that end by the grace of God, even now. With that then, let's turn to our study group.
