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.
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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.
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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).
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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).
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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.
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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).
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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).
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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.
