The Christian faith was built on the foundation of truth. We know that the Incarnation of God is real. We know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
1 John 5:20-
"And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true, and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life."
John yearns for believers to have that complete assurance of our faith and the foundations of our faith. Every teacher gets satisfaction when her students have mastered the skills she has taught them. John is no different. He reminds us of the foundations of our faith so that we can have that comfort in truth.
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"And we know that the Son of God has come..."
Remember how John teaches his readers to know truth from error?
1 John 4:2
Knowing who Jesus is may be the most important step of growth in a believer's life. God and Jesus are one.
John 1:1 & 14
Gal 4:4
You would be amazed at the number of professing Christians out there who do not even believe Jesus is God....let alone that He was born of a virgin. As sad as that is, it shouldn't surprise us after reading 1 John.
But to fully comprehend what it was that God did, we must realize that Jesus Christ was sent here to God's own for a purpose.
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"...and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true..."
Remember the answer to my question about why did God create?
He has no needs of His own. So we know He did not create to fulfill any needs. Why did He create?
To be known.
Luke 24:44-45
In this familiar passage of Scripture, we see the resurrected Christ walking and talking with some men. But He has not yet opened their eyes to see Himself as He really is. Can you think back on a time when you knew who Jesus was.....but He had not yet opened your eyes to who He truly is?
Now that you know Him, can you see why it was so important for Him to be known by you? Not for any need of His, but for your very existence:
John 15:1-8
Notice in verse 5 what Jesus says...
"Apart from Me you can do nothing..."
God knows that to know Him is life everlasting. Without knowing Him, we can live but for a time.
2 Cor 3:5
Our sufficiency is from God. It is He who opens our eyes to the truths of His word. Why? That we may know Him. For to know God is to know everlasting life. For our God is true.
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"...and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ."
Knowing the God who is true requires that we be in Him who is true. This is not done of our own accord. Only God can draw in His children.
Matt 16:13-17
Eph 2:8-10
God created to be known, and He made us to do His works because His works are perfect. Having the knowledge of Christ did not come from our own minds or wills. It was given to us freely through Christ Jesus and of His own will.
This is the intimacy of the relationship of God to His children. How can we boast about this relationship when it came about from no effort of our own, but out of the mercy and love of the Creator?
John works hard to remind his readers that we may have that assurance that comes from knowing Christ and being in Him.
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"This is the true God and eternal life."
Let us not forget to whom John is writing: believers amongst false teachers.
John so yearns for us to walk with Jesus as he did. He yearns for us to know Christ as he did. But most of all, he yearns for us to know who God is and that our God is not like the gods of the other religions.
We love and worship and serve the living God...the True God....the eternal.
There are so many world religions. This happened because of man's sin and arrogance. God scattered His people and gave them different languages, but in so doing, He did not remove the desire to worship something greater than ourselves.
In each human being is a desire to worship. Yet it is our sin that keeps us from worshipping or acknowledging a Holy God.
Rom 1:18-23
Instead we worship the creation....ourselves, the earth, the stars, the moon, etc. We worship the creation because there is no conviction of sin in creation. The moon does not punish us for not obeying it. The moon does not punish us for not loving it.
Although many religions teach that storms, low tides, famines do occur when creation us angered....we know these things happen because sin entered into the world. Even in Mexico today, many people will row small boats or canoes out to the ocean and drop fruit baskets and flowers in hopes of making the sea so happy it will not storm or flood the land. And these are Catholics who still have not let go of the pagan practices of the Aztec, Mayans, and Incas of centuries past!
We can see throughout the world man's attempts to create gods in his own image: flawed, imperfect, understanding, and forgiving. This way, man can do what he wants when he is equal to the god he created. We see this in Greek mythology where the gods were vain, adulterers, murderers, etc. just like the men they were ruling over!
Who wouldn't want to answer to a god like that?
But to know the God of the Bible is to know the True God.
Is 9:6
John 18:37-38
A popular TV show in the 1990's was "The X-Files". It's famous tag line was: "the truth is out there..." revealing just how important it is to people to have the truth.
God placed inside His finest creation the desire for truth. We spend so much time wanting and searching for the truth, but when we discover it, we claim there is no truth....it is all relative.
So how can we know the absolute truth?
John 14:6
John 1:14
John 8:32
To know Jesus is to know that absolute truth.
And to know that truth is to know the eternal life:
John 11:25-26
John 5:21
As we finish up here for today, we can look back on 1 John 5:20 and know that our God is the one true God and that Jesus Christ and God are One.
It feels good in a world of insecurities and lies that we can know the Truth and have comfort and peace in that knowledge.
We can walk this earth with an understanding now only because of what Jesus has done for us: opened our eyes.
Take time today to thank the Lord for giving you this understanding of the truth and the eternal. Not all people have been given this understanding. But all people have been given the knowledge of the Creator. So we are without excuse.
"For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse." Rom 1:20
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Life Application
When I first read the first chapter of Romans, it was in a Bible study by Dr. R.C. Sproul. He went into verses 18-24 so deeply that I walked away changed forever. I saw things in those verses that went along with what I was seeing with my eyes.
I took a philosophy course at ASU West thinking it would be atheistic in worldview since so many philospohers are, but I was wrong. The professor was a Christian who was able to teach philosophy according to Romans 1 without even having the Bible there.
He basically took us through all the religions of the world beginning with materialism (or evolution) which is a religion. I was amazed at how he showed us, through creation only, how God exists...and not just "any god" but The God of the Bible.
I sat utterly amazed at how this man was able to show me what Paul was saying in Romans 1:18-24. We are all without excuse because God has made it perfectly clear who He is in creation alone.
That class still encourages me to this day. I am grateful to have had excellent teachers in my Christian life who have shown me what scripture says and how to apply it to my life. But Jesus is the supreme teacher who opened my eyes to His words and gave me an understanding.
And for that I am eternally grateful.
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Until next time....
"We have shown what this seeing of God is, and have represented in some measure how great is the blessedness of so seeing Him. And if what we have heard is believed and cordially to any instructions from the Word of God that are to point out the way to us wherein we may attain to this blessedness....we are here told of a much truer and greater blessedness that any treasure of silver, and gold, and pearls can yield; and we are also told of the way whereby we may assuredly become the possesors of it by Him who certainly knows."
-Jonathon Edwards 1703-1758 (Altogether Lovely, 1997, p. 166)
Blessings,
Ruth
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