“By This” in 1John

When reading through John’s first epistle, I was intrigued by a phrase repeatedly used by John.  It was, “by this, we know”, or “by this,” such-and-such is known.  So, I made a list of the twelve times John said we know something “by this”.  Here they are:

1. Who Knows God?

1John 2:3. By this, we know that we have come to know him: if we keep his commandments.

1John 2:4–5. He who says, “I know him,” and does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, the love of God truly is perfected in him.  By this, we know that we are in him.

Lesson: Every person who knows God obeys Him.

=======

2. Who Loves God and His Children?

1John 5:2. By this, we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments.

1John 3:10. By this, the children of God and the children of the Accuser are distinguished: everyone who is not doing righteousness is not of God, as well as the one who does not love his brother.

Lesson: Every person who loves God and His children obeys Him.

=======

3. Who Showed Us What Love Is?

1John 4:9. By this was the love of God made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, that we might live through him.

1John 3:16. By this, we have come to know love, in that he laid down his life for us; and so, we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

Lesson: Jesus showed us what love is by suffering and dying for us.

Paul explained this when he wrote, “Rarely will someone die for a righteous man, though for a good man, one might possibly bring himself to die, but God commends to us His kind of love, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:7–8).

=======

4. How Do We know We Love People as Christ Loved Us?

1John 3:18–19. My children, let us not love in word or with the tongue, but in deed and in truth.  And by this, we know that we are of the truth, and we will assure our hearts before Him.

1John 4:16b–17a. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.  By this, love has been perfected among us.

Lesson: We love as Christ loves when we put love into practice.

Jesus told his disciples, “I am giving you a new commandment, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, so you also must love one another” (Jn. 13:34–35).  But they could not obey that commandment until the kind of love Jesus had was given to them at Pentecost, as Paul said, “The love of God is poured out within our hearts by the holy Spirit which is given to us” (Rom. 5:5).

=======

5. How Are We Perfected in the Love of God?

1John 4:16b–17a. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.  By this, love has been perfected among us.

Lesson: We are perfected in God’s love by abiding in it.

=======

6. How Do We know that Christ Is Still Living in Us, and We in Him?

1John 4:12b–13. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.  By this, we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.

1John 3:24b. By this, we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit that He gave us.

Lesson: The Spirit tells us if we are walking in love and if God is living in us.

Paul told the saints at Philippi that if they were in any way failing to walk in the perfect way of Christ, then God (through the Spirit) would let them know (Phil. 3:15).

=======

7. How Do We know That We Have Received the Spirit of God?

1John 4:2. By this, the Spirit of God is known: every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ when he has come into a person is of God.

Lesson: The Spirit of God confesses Christ every time

he enters into someone’s heart.

Jesus described this experience to Nicodemus when he said that the Spirit of God would always make a sound when someone receives it (Jn. 3:1–8).  The disciples experienced this on the day of Pentecost, when they received the Spirit and it spoke in tongues through them (Acts 2:1–4).

=======

8. How Do We know Who Is of God and Who Is Not?

1John 4:6. We are of God.  He who knows God listens to us; he who is not of God does not listen to us.  By this, we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

Lesson: Those who are of God believe and obey what John

and the other apostles taught.

The children of God who have gone astray may still be God’s children, but they are no longer “of God” if they no longer will listen to what the apostles taught.

Free To Be You

As he was saying these things, a certain woman in the crowd lifted up her voice and said to him,

“Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts which you nursed!”

Luke 11:27

Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world.”

Therefore the Pharisees said to him, “You are bearing witness of yourself; your witness is not true!”

Jesus answered them, “Even if I bear witness of myself, my witness is true.

I am one who bears witness of myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness of me.”

Then they began to say to him, “Where is your father?”

Jesus answered, “You don’t know me or my Father; if you had known me,

you would have known my Father, too.”

Then they said, “Who are you?”

And Jesus said to them, “Even what I said to you from the beginning.”

John 8, excerpts

Sometimes, such as during the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ preaching was so astonishing that his disciples were spellbound, unable to speak.  Most other times, however, his followers felt perfectly free to interrupt Jesus with questions or comments.  That tells us that Jesus made people feel relaxed and engaged, for he was down-to-earth and personable; he participated in no staged events.

Jesus was also interrupted at times by his enemies, which means they were not intimidated by him.  This was God’s doing, not theirs.  God did not want anyone in Israel to be intimidated by their Messiah, and to this end, He gave Jesus a body that was unattractive and gifted him with no stylish form.  Isaiah said, “He will have no form or majesty, and when we see him, there will be no beauty that we should desire him” (Isa. 53:2b).  Consequently, “He was despised and rejected by men, . . . and we did not value him” (Isa. 53:4).

If anyone loved Jesus, it was not for his looks or smooth style.  It was because of what they felt when they were around him.  And if anyone spurned Jesus, or forsook him, it was for the same reason: his unpretentious righteousness made them feel something they did not want to feel.  Jesus was the same Jesus everywhere he went, the Jesus that God had made him, but human reactions to him differed.  For some souls, Jesus was easy to love, and for others, he was easy to hate, and it all depended on the condition of their hearts.

God designed it that way.  He is a wise God, and in His wisdom, He set everyone in Israel, both sinner and saint, completely free to be themselves.  And He still does.

You Don’t Have To

Do not marvel that I told you that you must be born again.

John 3:7

Sometimes, people are told that they must be born again, but that is not the complete truth.  When Jesus told Nicodemus, “You must be born again,” what he meant was, “If you want to be saved, you must be born again.”  That is the complete truth.  If you don’t want to be saved, you do not have to be born again.

Earlier in his conversation with Nicodemus, Jesus had told him the complete truth: “Unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”  So, if you want to enter into eternal life and see the kingdom of God, you must be born again.  If you don’t want to live forever, you are free to refuse the new birth and live a wicked life; nobody can stop you.  It is your privilege from God to refuse His Son and die in your sins.  You are perfectly free to choose to go to hell.