Gooding, David: 4 - Family Likeness

I suggest we skip the final paragraph of chapter two, which has to do with certain heresies that were plaguing the churches of John's day. Save only to notice that in that paragraph, John indicates one of the grave implications of that heresy. They not only denied that Jesus is the Christ, but in so doing, of course, denied his eternal sh- sonship. John points out that if you deny that the Lord Jesus is the eternal Son of God, with that forthwith you deny the fatherhood of God. For the fatherhood of God is not something that came into existence first when God created us, but is an eternal fact about the Godhead. And in denying the Father and the Son, these heretics, of course, ruined or made impossible that great fellowship that God wishes us to enjoy with him. The first great movement of thought in the epistle by John has concerned itself, has it not, with the manifestation of that eternal life that was with the Father, and forms the basis and the content of the fellowship that we have with God. As we said at the beginning, when we talk of fellowship, we are not talking of some vague feeling. We are talking about something very real, very concrete, that we share with God, because God is interested in it, and by his grace we are interested in it, and God and we form a partnership, having share in this wonderful life that was with the Father and has been manifested to us. If you then deny that Jesus is that eternal life that was with the Father, and you demote him to a mere man, however exalted, now you have made quite impossible the fellowship of which John speaks. For in all good conscience, Almighty God is not, if I may so phrase it, sitting down with us, sharing a common interest in some brilliant man. The Almighty is not taking his place with us, sharing an interest in an Elijah, in a Solomon, or even in a Paul. He who is to be the one shared must, of course, by definition, be capable of engaging all the interest of Almighty God, as well as the interest of those of us who are called into the fellowship of God's dear Son. It is our blessed Lord, both God and man, that eternal life that was with the Father but was manifest in the flesh, that is able to form that basis of fellowship between God and man, seeing he is enough to engage the heart of Almighty God completely, and more than enough to fill our hearts as well. This is the promise that he has promised us, says John, even eternal life. Take away our the fact that our Lord is the eternal Son of God, and you've made our share in eternal life impossible. But with that, let us come on now to movement three— sorry, movement two in chapter three. And we shall find that though it deals again with the twin topics that we are interested in, namely the family of God and the world. It carries those twin topics still further. As we have just said, in movement One it was the eternal life that was manifested, and we were invited to have share with God in that eternal life. Now, movement two is going to talk about the manifestation of the Son of God, and the fact that, by God's grace, we have actually been born as his children. And of course, there is a difference, isn't there, between mere partnership, if I may so phrase it, and being a child. Some famous musician, a Yehudi Menuhin, or someone might conceivably, though I can't see how it is, might conceivably invite me one of these days who know two or three notes of music, to share with him in his tremendous love and interest in music. That would scarce make me his son, his child. And God might have invited us to have a common interest with him in Jesus Christ our Lord. But now chapter three is coming forth with the glorious and marvelous statement that God invites us not merely to a partnership. He has made us, he has begotten us, his actual children. We are told in verse one that we already have the status of children. We are called the children of God. And then John adds that we are, uh, uh, we have not on- not only have the status, we are in fact children of God, literally children of God, in the sense that we have God's life within us. Verse twenty nine of chapter two talks about our being begotten of God. In chapter three verse fourteen, John reminds us of that process by which we have come into the family of God. We have passed from death into life. We have a life that we didn't have. And then going to what may seem extreme, in verse nine of our chapter three, John informs us that the very seed of God remains in the believer. There has come a something from God to the believer, carrying the very life of God, as a father's seed conveys life to his child, so God's seed has conveyed life to us, so that we are no longer merely creatures of God, fashioned as his handiwork. We have been begotten of God, with the very life of God passed on to us. Not only so, but as we come to this chapter, we shall find its predominant emphasis is this, that with the coming of that life of God into our hearts, there has come the character of God, just as human life brings with it human character, human nature, so the life of God, when it comes to the believer, brings the nature of God, the character of God. And says John in verse nine of our chapter, whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin because God's seed abideth in him, and he cannot sin because he is begotten of God. Extreme words, doubtless. Words that have caused much argument among the expositors. I shall be interested to hear what you think they mean. I take them to mean that he was who is begotten of God does not practice sin as the norm of his life. It does not mean that he is perfect, for verse, uh, three of our very chapter, a few verses earlier, has said that everyone who has this hope in Christ purifies himself. So here is John telling us that the believer needs to purify himself still. He is not yet perfect. And presumably then he is not contradicting in verse nine what he says in verse three. While the believer still needs to purify himself, yet he does not constantly practice sin as the norm of his life, because the seed of God abides in him and brings with it, therefore, not merely life, but the divine nature. Not only i- is that, uh, a hope in the future, says John, now are we the children of God, already the children of God. This is not some vague hope for when we may become perfect, but already are we the children of God. And moreover, says John exultantly, while we do not know exactly what we shall be, we do know this, that when the Lord Jesus appears again, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. The New Testament affirms that we shall be like him in our bodies. We shall have a body conformed to the body of his glory. We shall be like him, more importantly, in our characters, perfectly like him, morally and spiritually. So now John is taking us further, is he not? In the first movement, he talked of the manifestation of that eternal life, and he was thinking of our Lord's incarnation, his death, perhaps also his resurrection, and the forty days he spent among us after his resurrection. Now, while he still talks to us about his first manifestation, he carries our mind on to that glorious second coming of Christ, when he shall be manifest in all his glory, and lifts up our heart with glorious, pulsating hope that we shall most certainly be like the Lord when he appears. But now, by contrast, let us notice how this second movement, throughout all its verses, talks to us also about the world. And now, from a different angle from that it used when it talked to us about the world in Movement one. In Movement one, we thought about the world as Satan has organized it in independence of God. We thought about it containing all sorts of things that superficially are attractive, seductively attractive. The desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the pride in life's achievements. Now we are to think about the world in its far more sinister and somber colors. For John is going to tell us that there is not just one family, the family of God, there are two families, and there are two fathers, and mankind is in one family or the other. There is no third ground. The believer is in the family of God and has God for his father. God is the source of his life, the source of his character. John is in this movement going to remind us that the world has the devil for its father and the source of its character. Now, this is not wild talk, nor is it a description of lurid criminals. It is a description of every unregenerate man and woman. As Paul would say, they are dead in trespasses and in sins. They walk according to the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience. We do not find it difficult, do we, as members of the family of God, to admit that our life, our spiritual life, the spiritual graces we may have, the spiritual power, the spiritual development, if we have made any progress at all, we owe it all together to God as our source. We now have to face what scripture says, that the unregenerate man is not an independent individual merely. His rebellion, his hatred of God, these things do not merely come from him alone. They come from a higher source. Says John quite bluntly in verse, uh, uh, eight, he that doeth sin is of the devil. This is the source, ultimately, of his sinning. Whereas John does not use the term father, our Lord uses the term father explicitly in a chapter of John's gospel that in a moment we shall look at. When he turned to people that were talking to him and said quite explicitly, you are of your father, the devil. Two sources, two families. And this should help us see the solemn seriousness of the state of men and women in the world outside of Christ. Now, what I propose to do this morning, as we come to the more detailed comment, uh, on this, uh, second movement, is to take broadly its three sections and, uh, consider them under one heading. Let us notice, first of all, the first major section of movement three. It goes from chapter two verse twenty eight. Now, my little children, abide in him. Verse twenty nine. if you know that he is righteous, you know that every one also that doeth righteousness is begotten of him. And goes down to verse ten of chapter three, In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil. Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. That section of our movement deals with the question of righteousness, right and just behavior. Then at the end of that verse ten and verse eleven onwards to the end of the chapter, verse twenty four, the major topic will turn out to be the topic of love. He that does not love his brother, says verse ten, is not of God. For this is the message which you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. And the section goes on to talk about our duty to love. And then in the first six verses of chapter four, we come once more to the topic of belief, of doctrine. And John deals again with the heresies that were troubling the world and the early church, and therefore urges upon us to see once more the importance of right belief about the person of the Lord Jesus. So three areas then, the doing of righteousness, the loving one another, and then the area of our beliefs and doctrines. And I'm going to develop the simple thesis that in these three areas, what John is now going to urge upon us is that if we are indeed children of God, it will become clearly evident by the simple fact that as children of God, we shall bear the family likeness. As in a human family, life being what it is, when parents transmit their life to their children, we find that the children bear resemblance to one parent or the other, or both. It is inevitable. There is such a very real thing as family likeness. And you say of such and such a girl, isn't she like her father? Or of such and such a lad, oh, he's the dead image of his mother. Oh, I can see whose child he is. I don't need to be told. For family likeness is a very real thing. So is it in the spiritual realm, if we are indeed children of God and we have the seed of God abiding in us, in all these three areas that we have mentioned, we shall demonstrate quite clearly the family likeness. We shall become increasingly like God, like the Son of God. And this is indeed how it will be manifest to those around that we are genuinely children of God. Now, in the notes, I have, uh, listed for you, or attempted to list for you, the flow of argument, and I do not propose this morning to go through all the detailed verses, verse by verse. I have tried to do some of that work for you in the notes. Let us for a moment sit back and look at what may be for us a helpful background against which to read this particular part of the Epistle of John. We have already noticed in studying the first movement that the Gospel of John, and in particular chapter eight, proved very helpful in our understanding of what it means to walk in the light. I want to recur now for five or ten minutes to that chapter uh eight in the Gospel of John, to notice how helpful it is also in this idea of the family likeness. That where men and women are truly children of God, they will bear the family likeness. And so I refer to the Gospel of John and chapter eight, and in particular to the story with which chapter eight begins. In most Bibles still, mercifully, chapter eight of John's gospel begins with the story of the woman taken in adultery. Now the pundits tell us that really the textual evidence for the story of the woman taken in adultery is very precarious, and perhaps that story was not originally part of the Gospel of John. And in some modern versions, the whole paragraph is bracketed to indicate that the translators think that perhaps that story was not, uh, original to his writing. Well, if we just looked at textual criticism, perhaps we would agree with the pundits that the textual evidence is thin. If we looked at stylistic evidence, we might decide that the evidence, uh, is thin, that it is part of the original gospel. If we look at the literary evidence, I'm going to suggest to you that the evidence is overwhelming, that that story is part of the overall structure of that gospel. The story of the woman taken in adultery is but one story in a series of stories in the gospel in which women are prominent. And all of them are stories that are peculiar to John, in this fact, either completely peculiar to John, or peculiar in the amount of evid- uh, emphasis that is given to the story. So there they are, and I have listed them for you. You may be able to find others, but there are these at least. There is the story in chapter two of Mary, mother of Jesus, at the wedding in Cana of Galilee. No one else has it but John. Similarly, only John has the story of the woman at Sychar's well in Samaria and the long conversation that our Lord had with her. Only John has, if he has it, the story in chapter eight of the woman taken in adultery. And then John has, and only John has, the long story in chapters eleven and twelve of Mary and Martha at the death and subsequently at the resurrection of their brother Lazarus. Other gospel writers tell us of the women that came to the tomb, including Mary Magdalene, but only John tells us this delightful story, how Mary stood at the grave weeping, and when the Lord appeared to her, at first she thought he was the gardener, but found out he was the Lord, and received from him a glorious message of consolation. Those extra details are peculiar to, to, to John. And I've missed out one here, sorry. That was Mary Magdalene i- in chapter twenty. In chapter nineteen, of course, again, John tells us of the women at the cross, uh, like all the other gospels do, but only John tells us this particular story, how when our Lord saw Mary his mother standing by the cross and the disciple whom he loved, he committed Mary his mother to the care of John. A series of stories then, told at some great length, in which women are prominent, and it won't take two minutes to see that all those stories have at least one theme in common. It is the theme of relationship, is it not? The first story, Mary, the mother of Jesus, at a wedding, and what praise a wedding if it is not the occasion when the great new relationship of husband and wife is officially formed. At that wedding it was that our Lord turned and said to Mary, his mother, very courteously but very firmly, woman, what have I to do with you? It is very much a question of relationship. Think again of that woman in chapter four for a moment, the Samaritan woman at the well of Sychar. She had her troubles, and one of them was this, when our Lord said, go call your husband, she said, I have no husband. My dear, said our Lord, you've said exactly the truth. You've had five husbands. The one, the man you now have is not your husband. Between her and the man she was living with, there was no true relationship. And the woman in chapter eight, in sorrier plight even than the one in four, this was a woman who had been unfaithful to relationships. If you like, you can bracket those two stories together. Look at these two stories, Mary and Martha at the death of their brother, as death came in and severed the relationship, and listen to their lament, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother hadn't died. And the tenderness of our Lord's phrasing, your brother shall rise again. And this one here, Mary, the mother of Jesus, at the death of her son. And the lovely consolation that Christ gave on that occasion, announcing a new relationship, said he to Mary, woman, behold thy son, and to John, son, behold thy mother. Neither were related to each other physically, but here was our Lord announcing a new relationship formed in the family of God. And finally, of course, to Mary Magdalene in the garden. What but the announcement of a gloriously new relationship? Touch me not, don't cling to me, Mary, he said. I've not yet ascended to, to my Father, but go and tell my brethren, I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. And we ponder well, how has it come to be that his Father has become our Father, that his God is our God? And however it has become so, what a glorious new relationship it is. So whatever else they teach us, and they teach us a multitude of other things, these stories home in on this great question of relationship, and let's take this one here in chapter eight that is to our purpose this morning. A woman taken in adultery and roughly handled and brought before the Savior, and we remember how he exposed the hardness of heart and the hypocrisy of her accusers. But is it a sorry sin, isn't it? Adultery. And in the ancient world, if not in our modern one, it had the constant effect that children were born whose parentage was uncertain, who were passed off as the children of one father, when in fact they were the children of another father. Only, of course, there being such a thing as family likeness, sometimes the secret would come out, and a woman's child that was supposed to be the child of her husband bore no relation, looks no likeness to her husband at all, but bore an uncommon likeness to some other man down the street. Listen to what our Lord has to say then in the rest of that chapter eight to the people that came around him. He began to talk to them about the need to abide in his teaching, and they would find freedom. Freedom from the practice of sin. And they got angry. And they said, you know, we don't need your teaching. We have Abraham to our father. Oh, really, said Christ. But do you know what? If Abraham were your father, hmm, you would bear the family likeness, wouldn't you, gentlemen? And you would do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill me, a man that has told you the truth. Abraham didn't do that kind of thing, gentlemen. Then they got nasty. And with a horrible implication, they said, with great emphasis on the we, oh, we weren't born of fornication. They seem to have been referring to the popular notion of the origin of our blessed Lord. They knew he was born of Mary, and Joseph wasn't his father. They didn't believe his virgin birth. They took the other view, and now they say to him, hmm, we weren't born of fornication. We have one father, even God. My dear good gentleman, he said, and once more the principle is repeated. If God were your father, you would bear the family likeness, gentlemen. You would love me. It was in that context that our Lord began to say what John is saying so powerfully in this chapter three, in the beginning of chapter four. He who is born of God will show the character of God. And if people constantly live in unrighteousness, constantly practice sin, hate the people of God, embrace heresy, disloyal to the person of the Lord Jesus, they may profess what they please, but family likeness witnesses against them. He who constantly practices sin is of the devil. And so we have to think this morning, do we not, of this serious matter, the lovely fact that every believer is born of God, is a child of God. But with it the corollary that because this life that God gives us is real and brings with it a divine nature, genuine children of God will begin to show the family likeness. They will begin to do righteousness even as God is righteous. They will begin to love as the Lord Jesus loved. In their doctrines, they will show the loyalty of the family to the apostles and to our blessed Lord. Now let us briefly pre- pick out some of the major points in each of those three sections. Family, uh, likeness then will show itself in righteousness. Family, uh, likeness then will show itself in righteousness. Fully one day, we shall be perfectly like the Lord Jesus. But even now, already the children of God. Granted that we are still imperfect, and we need to purify ourselves, yet the family likeness will already be there. So now let us notice once more a feature of John's writing. We noticed yesterday how carefully he keeps the balance. Where we walk, then how we walk. Or again, love the children of God, don't love the world. Now this morning, look in verse, uh, two. it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. You can't see it. Oh, but look in verse ten. It is made manifest. In this the children of God are manifest. Yes, there is a sense in which it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. And therefore the world does not know us, says John in verse one. The world does not recognize, necessarily recognize a true believer, and doesn't necessarily approve of him. And we should remember that that is not something necessarily to be unduly alarmed about, because they did not recognize the Lord Jesus. They knew him not. And the lovely life of the Lord Jesus that expressed the character of God absolutely perfectly was judged by many men and officially by the nation as being an unworthy life. Too lax, some of them said. Too strict, others said. Blasphemous, others said. And they so disapproved of it that they crucified him in the end. They did not know him. We mustn't therefore be unduly upset if the world finds true Christian character objectionable and says we are too strict or sometimes too lax because they did not approve of Christ, and therefore they will not approve of his people. They do not agree with God's law, they will not like those whose lives express God's law. But when we have noticed that, we should not make that an excuse for lax living and say, ah, well, I've got a terribly bad reputation in the workplace where I work, but never mind, I am a Christian, I don't care what the world thinks because they're no judge anyway. We certainly should not make it an excuse for lax living. For in another sense, it is manifest the children of God. Oh, you can tell, says John, and you can tell equally well the children of the devil. And John supplies us with the test, you'll see, in verse ten. in this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil. Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth his brother. Whereas, on the other hand, whosoever is begotten of God does not constantly practice sin, because God's seed abides in him, and he cannot go on practicing sin. Family likeness. And of course, with irresistible logic, John says to us, you know, if your hope is that one day you will be like the Lord Jesus, perfectly like him when he comes again. Then would you not want to be like him... now? And if you hope to be like him when he comes again, would you not want to be like him when he came the first time? If you have the hope in you that one day you will be like Christ, you will in fact, purify yourself, says John. Let's use an analogy. As you will know, the Israelites, having been redeemed from Egypt, were promised the inheritance of Canaan. Suppose, six months after Moses had left Egypt with the Israelites, you were touring Egypt yourself, and coming round the pyramid, you bumped into an Israelite friend of yours. You said, hello, Eliezer, how are you? Surprised to see you here, I must say. What are you doing in Egypt? Thought, um, I thought you were one of those crowd that were going off to the promised land somewhere. Oh, he says, yes, I am. You are? Oh, yes. You mean to say you're, you're, you're hoping to be in, in, in the Canaan one of these days? Yes, yes, I am indeed, he says. Well, you say, that's funny. For, for Moses and all the others have been left this last six months, and they're miles out into the wilderness now. They've made considerable progress towards the Promised Land. I mean, why aren't you with them? Oh, he says, I don't bother about that much. I thought you wanted to be in the Promised Land. How do you propose to get there? Oh, I don't know. I hope it'll happen one of these days. One of these days I shall wake up and say it's a little bit different. I feel a bit different today. Oh, I know what it is. I mean, I'm in Canaan. Fancy that. Well, of course not. If he had the hope of being in Canaan, by God's grace and miracle, yet he set forward to make his journey of progress towards Canaan. Why, even his progress was not merely geographical, but moral and spiritual, because as he slogged the miles of the desert and made his geographical progress, he was making progress into the experience of God. And so with us too, surely. If we have this hope, says John, fixed on the Lord Jesus, that one day we shall be like him. We shall make every effort now to purify ourselves and make spiritual and moral progress now in the direction of growing constantly more like the Savior. And with many another argument, as I say, John, uh, urges upon us here in chapter three that if we are children of God, genuine children of God, we shall show the family likeness and do righteousness. And then as he comes to his second section of this movement, many another argument he uses to urge upon us that if we are genuine children of God, we shall show the family likeness and that we shall love one another. Indeed, loving the children of God is an evidence, says John, verse fourteen: we know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers. Now, as we said yesterday, we must be careful about this verse. John is not denying or forgetting our duty as Christians to love all mankind. As Christians, we are to not only to love all mankind, we are to love our veritable enemies. But here John is talking about our love of the brothers, and it seems to me important that we must not confuse things. The evidence that we have passed from death to life is not the vague evidence that we vaguely love people in general. It is that we love the people of God as people of God. Tempted to go off and talk about that much misinterpreted verse from our Lord's parable of the sheep and goats, in as much as you have done it unto me, you have done it to the t- unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me. As though a communist only had to love his fellow commonist, and somehow this was evidence that he was a child of God. No, surely not. In that parable, our Lord Jesus is talking of himself as King Messiah. And of those who were kind to followers of the king. And visited them in prison and clothed them when they were persecuted and took their stand with the brothers of the king. And when the king came, he recognized that what they had done to his brothers was in fact done to him. But a very big question is to be asked, how do you become a brother of Messiah? Are all men brothers of Messiah? No, indeed not. Hebrews chapter three tells us quite plainly how we become partakers of the Messiah. It is through regeneration. It is through entering the family of God. It is by being born again that we become brothers of the Messiah and members of the family of God. So don't be surprised, says John, if the world hates you. There are two camps, there are two families. One is the family of God, and one is the world. Now we're not to be paranoi- noic and suppose that the world always hates us. John says quite, uh, a- accurately, don't be surprised if the world hates you. What is it that stirs the hatred of the world against believers? Well, John points out, uh, some examples. Cain threw into a temper at one stage and murdered his brother Abel. Why? Not because Cain was basically irreligious. It all happened in the context of sacrifice and religion. But Cain, but Abel witnessed by his quiet testimony and life and sacrifice. He witnessed that Cain's works were evil and inadequate and not acceptable with God. And Cain flew into a rage and hated Abel because Abel's works were righteous and Cain's unrighteous. Said our Lord to his brothers, the world doesn't hate you, but me it hates. Why does it hate me? Because I testify of it that its deeds are evil. Jezebel hated Elijah for the same reason. Don't you be surprised, says our Lord, if the world hates you on that same ground. For we have to reckon with this, that there are two families. In the child of God, God abides. But our Lord talks of a very sinister influence that abides in the world, and the world lies in the evil one. Person has passed from death to life. And finally, i- in the third of the sections of this movement, he talks to us about false religion. At the end of chapter two, he had warned us about heretics who come out of the church and explains they never were true believers. Now they've come out in their true colors and denied the pre-existence of Christ, denied that Jesus is the Christ, denied the sonship of Christ, and destroyed the very basis doctrinally of salvation. As members of the family of God, we are to remain loyal to the Lord Jesus, remembering that one day he shall come again, and he shall call us to account on this question of how loyal we have been to him doctrinally. But now John, recurring to the theme of heresy, talks not so much of those that come out of the church. He talks of false doctrine that has gone into the world in general, for the world is full of religion. But not all religion is good religion. These false prophets, he says, are of the world. That's why the world finds them attractive. They speak the world's language. The world understands them. They seem right to the world because they are of the world, and in these false teachers is Satan himself. The children of God will show the family likeness. One, in their loyalty to the Lord Jesus, insisting that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. Two, in their loyalty to the apostolic witness. He who is of God, says John, how will you know who is of God and who isn't? When it comes to things religious, he who is of God, says John, hears us apostles. If a man refused to hear the apostles, contradicts the apostles, denies the apostles, however religious he may be, his religion is not of God. It is one of the many forms of the religion of this world. Now, as I say, I have not attempted to cover all the detail. I have attempted to cover some of it in the notes. I thought this morning we would give ourselves a lighter diet and look at background things that might help to cast light upon our passage. And in particular, let me leave with myself and with you this exceedingly practical observation that there is such a thing as family likeness. And because our salvation is real, if we are children of God who carry his life, who carry his seed, we carry his nature and character. And though not perfect yet, we already bear the family likeness and shall be found seeking to make progress and develop it until that great day when our likeness to Christ will be perfected. You are exceedingly patient. And I have trespassed. I hope that isn't bad evidence against me.