Sin is the real issue in the great war that is being waged in the heavens between God and Satan. Satan rebelled against God and introduced sin into the universe. The Bible tells us that one third of all of the angels followed him in his rebellion and that they were cast out of heaven. Satan's doom is certain. He has already lost the war. But before he is cast into "the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone," he is waging a desperate war to thwart God's purpose for the creation of man. Satan hates God, and especially the Son of God, Jesus Christ, and he will do anything to lessen His glory. Thus, because of God's great love for mankind, the souls of men form the great battle ground in this celestial war.
Sin is the transgression of the laws of God's kingdom. God's laws are a reflection of His character and He can never excuse sin nor can He allow the least bit of it into His glorious and holy kingdom. Thus, Satan knows, as no one else can know, that if he can get men and women to sin he will thwart God's plans for mankind. God has wonderful plans for man, most of which are hidden from our view, because God says that, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." I Corinthians 2:9 Because God loves man so much, Satan hates all men everywhere with an implacable hatred and he will do everything in his power to keep us from enjoying the wonderful blessings of God.
There are just two classes of people in this world—there are sinners and there are saints. Every person in the world who has arrived at accountability will fall into one group or the other. Sinners obey the laws of Satan's kingdom of darkness and saints obey the laws of God's kingdom of light. There are no saintly sinners nor are there sinning saints. As the apostle John says, "He that committeth sin is of the devil." I John 3:8 The commission of sin is the proof that one is living in Satan's kingdom and righteousness is a proof that one is living in God's kingdom. "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil" I John 3:9, 10 All of the verbs in this sentence are in the present tense. Thus, the meaning is more clearly seen by translating it, "Whosoever is born of God is not sinning, for His seed remains in him, and he cannot be sinning because he is born of God. In this the children of God are clearly seen and distinguished from the children of the devil." (My own translation.)
Is it not clear from the above that sin is the separating factor between the Christian and the non-Christian? John says that it is just this that makes the children of God manifest. God's dear children do not sin. Satan's children do sin. This is the difference between the two. And it is not possible by church doctrines or any amount of reasoning to change this. Christians are like their Lord and sinners are like their lord.
In spite of these clear statements by the apostle John many people twist certain things that he says so that they make him contradict himself right in the same epistle and sometimes within one or two verses of each other. This is a terrible travesty of justice and these people will one day pay for it because their doing so is not the result of ignorance but of a deep seated hatred for holiness. John was not a fool. He was hand picked by our Lord and I have no doubt that the Lord chose a very wise and intelligent man for the great service that he performed. But these holiness haters make John into an idiot by interpreting him in such a way that he is guilty of the grossest contradictions. Because of this constant attempt to twist John's words I will try to clarify his epistle to the innocent hearted. But I realize that no matter what I say holiness haters will not accept it.
When John wrote this epistle, there was a class of people entering into the churches that caused a great deal of trouble by introducing damning heresies and leading the unwary astray into sin. These men were called the Docetists or Gnostics (a word that comes from the Greek and that means the knowing ones) who claimed to have a higher form of knowledge, a knowledge that lifted them above the need of the saving grace of God through Jesus Christ. In order to understand John's epistle (and also the epistle of Jude) one must clearly understand this particular error that he wrote against. And although this error in its pure form is no longer in the church, a modern form of it is still running rampant and leading men and women into sin and spiritual death. I will discuss this at a later place.
Let us begin by examining the basic belief of the Gnostics. This belief had its rise in Persia and Babylon and is still the fundamental belief of almost all eastern religions. I do not wish to belabor the point so I will just give a simplified explanation of that creed. It goes something like this. In the universe there are two levels of existence, spiritual reality, which is good, and material reality, which is evil. God is a spirit and thus spirit is pure and without any sin whatsoever. As a matter of fact, it is impossible for sin to exist in the spirit world. However, the material universe is by its nature inferior to the spirit world and is tainted with evil in such a way that evil is an intrinsic property of the material world. Just as it is impossible for sin to exist in the spiritual world, it is impossible for the material world to exist without sin. This idea is called dualism.
Now let us look at the end result of this way of thinking. First, it says that as long as we are in the flesh we will be sinful and will sin. We can do nothing about it because it is the nature of the material world to be evil. However, since it is in the nature of the flesh to sin, we are not really guilty of those sins because sin is absolutely unavoidable. On the other hand, if I have become spiritually alive through this higher knowledge, the real me is my spirit and that is eternally pure with absolutely no possibility of being tainted with sin. This means that the Gnostic would live a debauched life and yet claim to be a holy person because the real man is the spirit man and that man is pure and without sin. When he dies, the evil fleshly part of him will fall away from him and disappear and only his pure spirit nature will exist and he will then rise up to God's holy heaven as a pure, spotless saint. It is like a beautiful diamond in a dung pile. The dung can never cause the diamond to be anything other than a diamond. Remove the diamond from the dung pile and it is clean and beautiful.
This led the Gnostics to deny that Jesus came in real flesh and blood. After all, according to Gnostic theology Jesus could not be sinless if He had a real body. Thus, they claimed that He did not really come in the flesh. His body was not real. So it would follow that his sufferings and death were not real since He only had a phantom body. This also led them to deny the resurrection of the body and the judgment of sinners. The Gnostic believed that the real person was the spirit and that thus he was sinless and had never had a sin nature inherited from Adam nor had he ever committed sin. Thus, he felt no obligation to deny himself any lust at all and he had no need of a savior, that is, he denied the only Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now let us examine a portion of John's first epistle and it will become obvious that it is this horrible doctrine that he is combating, after which the epistle will become clear to the reader as never before. So looking at I John 1:1-3, "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ."
Let us notice that John is testifying that Jesus was real, that He had a real physical body that one could touch and handle and see. Now why do you suppose that he would make a point of that? Well, let's look at I John 4:2, 3 "Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist." What John is saying becomes clear when you realize that he is dealing with that Gnostic error which says that Jesus was sinless because He didn't have a real physical body. They claimed that if He had had a real physical body He could not have been sinless. So His body must have been spiritual and only looked like it was flesh. So John is making it plain that sinlessness has nothing to do with the flesh or material existence because the body of Christ was no different than any other body, and He was sinless.
In the last part of I John 1:1-3 he is telling us that we can only have fellowship with God through the life that is in His Son. This life was manifested to John and John handled it and touched it and fellowshipped with it. And because he had fellowship with Jesus who was flesh, he also had fellowship with the Father who was Spirit. This clearly says that there is no antagonism between flesh and spirit.
"And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full." I John 1:4 This is a very important statement. It tells us that Christianity is supposed to give us a fulness of joy. Think of that! A fulness of joy is supposed to flood our souls because we are children of God. How is it with you, dear reader? Do you have joy unspeakable and full of glory? Do you find it necessary to fill up your life with worldly pleasures in order to enjoy life? Don't deceive yourself about this because you will be the loser if you do. Does joy flood your soul day and night? If your joy is full, then you do not have gloomy times and good times. You will only have good times. So how is it with you?
"This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." I John 1:5 This is the message that the apostles received from Jesus Himself. Please note this. All of the apostles' preaching and epistles are supposed to make this message plain to us. God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. God and everything about God is antithetical to darkness. This means that it is impossible for God to overlook sin or be blind to sin. When God comes into contact with sin and darkness, sin and darkness must flee from His presence. Sin can no more dwell in the presence of God than darkness can dwell in the presence of light. They are by their natures mutually exclusive.
"If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth." I John 1:6 John is a very forthright and blunt man. He is not an educated scholar like Paul. John does not engage in complex logical arguments like Paul. John knew that there were Gnostics in the churches who claimed to have fellowship with the Father even though they walked in open sin. John does not try to use logic to convince them that they are in error. John merely says that they are liars and know nothing about the truth. You see that in this whole epistle John constantly affirms that he that committeth sin is of the devil. This message never changes throughout the epistle.
But John is not just negative. No, he gives us a message of hope. "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." I John 1:7 What amazing news this is! Just think! All may have fellowship with the Father by availing themselves of that cleansing fountain! Oh, precious promise! Oh, wonderful news for that soul that wants to be clean and free from that nature of sin within him.
In this verse John is referring to the sin nature and not to committed sins. How do we know this? Well, only brethren can be walking in the light because walking in the light implies that we are not sinning. We cannot be sinning and walking in the light at the same time. Since the reader may not understand this, let us digress for a moment.
All men are born with the nature of fallen Adam within them. This is called original sin or the sin principle or the old man or the Adamic nature by the theologians. This is darkness and cannot have fellowship with the Father. When we convert, our sins (plural-committed sins) are forgiven. The Holy Spirit breathes life into our dead spirits so that we can now commune with the Lord. But that old nature is still there and the new believer will soon feel it in his breast trying to cause him to sin. I am not talking about temptations from Satan. I am talking about a natural propensity to sin. It is that fallen nature of Adam that we received by inheritance. And this must be removed because Paul tells us that the carnal mind is enmity against God and can never be subject to Him. So how can that nature enter into a pure heaven? Obviously it cannot. How can that nature have true fellowship with the Father in whom is no darkness at all? Obviously it cannot.
So John tells us that if we will walk in the light, that is, walk obediently to the Lord, the precious blood of Jesus Christ will cleanse us from our sin (singular-the sin nature) and purify our hearts. Notice that he is writing to Christians here, not unbelievers. Nobody can walk in the light but a Christian. Thus, the natural result of walking in strict obedience to the Lord is that we will be led to that cleansing blood that will remove the very taint of original sin from us so that we can have fellowship with the Father both here in this life and in the world to come.
Please note that the sin nature cannot be forgiven because there is no guilt in it. I did not ask for nor choose to have a sin nature anymore than I asked for blue eyes. I was born with both and inherited both. I need no forgiveness for my sin nature any more than I need forgiveness for my blue eyes. But I do need to have my heart cleansed from that sin nature. And thanks be unto God, Jesus shed His blood for that cleansing as well as for forgiveness of my sins that I have committed before I met Him.
So let me paraphrase I John 1:7 in this way, "If we walk in obedience to the Father, we have fellowship with Him, and the path in which He leads us will lead us to that cleansing fountain of the precious blood of Jesus Christ and that fountain will cleanse the old Adamic nature from our souls so that we can have spotless fellowship with the Father here and hereafter." Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. John tells us that the blood of Jesus can and will cleanse our hearts from the sin nature that we inherited from Adam so that we can see God. What amazing and wonderful news! Jesus not only can but He will destroy the work of Satan in our hearts and make us perfectly clean in God's sight. This is what John is saying. Hallelujah!
All holiness fighters who love sin hate this doctrine and will do all that they can to twist it to say something else. The holiness fighters of John's day were the Gnostics. John knew that they would deny that they had a sin nature that needed to be cleansed. So in anticipation of their cavil he says, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." I John 1:8 Now notice that he again used the singular. He did not say that if we say that we do not sin or have no sins. He is talking about the sin nature that we are born with, the fallen nature that comes from Adam. The Gnostics denied that they were born with a sin nature. So John plainly tells them that they are liars.
After dealing with the sin nature John wants to deal with committed sins because the Gnostics claimed that they are guilty of no sins. So he says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." I John 1:9 Now John is speaking of acts of sin because he uses the plural "sins." This always refers to acts or deeds and not to a state. So John plainly states the doctrine of forgiveness of past sins and the subsequent cleansing of our life so that we do not sin again. After all, if we are cleansed from all unrighteousness, how much unrighteousness is left in us? Obviously, none. And if I have no unrighteousness, then I am not sinning. It is not that this is hard to understand. The problem lies in the hearts of sinful professors of Christ. Put very simply, they love their sins.
The Gnostics claimed that they did not sin and never had been guilty of sinning and had no need to confess sins and no need to be cleansed from unrighteousness. They claimed that their evil bodies sinned but that they themselves were not guilty of those sins because the real them was their pure spirits. In anticipation of this John says, "If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." I John 1:10 You see, God said that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But these wicked professors of Christ refused to acknowledge guilt for their sins and rejected the salvation and cleansing that is experienced through confession and plunging into the fountain of the blood of Christ.
Let us look at it again as though John was speaking to a group of Gnostics.
John: If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
Gnostics: Well, John, that is very nice but we do not have and never have had a fallen nature in our spirits that needs to be purged out of us and the evil nature in our flesh can never be cleansed because evil is part and parcel of the material body.
John: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
Gnostics are silenced.
John: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Gnostics: But John, our vile bodies may and often do commit the worst of sins, but our pure spirits, the real persons, are in no way partakers of that. Thus, we have no sins to confess and need no forgiveness. We are righteous in all of our ways in our spirits, although our bodies are very unrighteous, and we need no cleansing.
John: If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
Gnostics are again silenced.
When looked at in this way, we avoid making John to be guilty of self-contradiction. It makes all of the verses sensibly consistent and it accords with the rest of his epistle.
Now let us ask the purpose of his epistle. Why did John write this epistle? Well, he tells us the reason in the very next verse. "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not." I John 2:1 There it is. John expects us to live above sin. The Gnostics said that we cannot do it and that it doesn't really matter. John says that we can do it and that it matters very much because sin is the thing that tells which kingdom I am in.
TO SIN OR NOT TO SIN, THAT IS THE QUESTION
So we come back to my first statement. Sin is the real issue in this great war. And it seems that no matter how clearly this issue is stated by the various men of the Bible, Jesus included, there are always those professors of Christianity who are lovers of sin and the world that will twist the holy words of this holy book, spoken by those holy men under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to say that we cannot be free from sin in this life and it doesn't really matter. The Gnostic said that it doesn't really matter because sin is inherent in the flesh and God will not blame us because we cannot avoid it. The Calvinist says that we cannot be free from sin in this life and it doesn't really matter because when we accept Christ as our Savior we are wrapped in His robes of righteousness and God does not see our sinfulness. Calvinism and its variations are merely the modern forms of Gnosticism. For this reason John's epistle is still a potent weapon in God's arsenal against sin.
I say Calvinism and its variations because there are relatively few true Calvinists today. There are some orthodox presbyterians and a few others that still hold to predestination and the other points of Calvinism, but they are a very small minority of the modern day Calvinist. The vast majority of modern Calvinists hold only to one of Calvin's points, that is, the final perseverance of the saints, what we call "once saved, always saved" or "eternal security." And this is interesting because Calvin believed that his theology depended on all points being true. He recognized that for his system to withstand logical scrutiny all of the points must be valid. So Calvin himself would condemn the modern variety. Yet few modern Calvinists believe that by sovereign decree God has created some to salvation and others to damnation, that we have nothing to do with it because it is decreed beforehand by God. They recognize that such a doctrine makes God worse than Hitler or Stalin. It makes that God of love into a fiend.
Although Calvin is normally accredited with being the author of his theology, this is not true. His name is tacked onto it merely because he published it. But it appears that Augustine in the 5th century held to a similar view. But even he was not the inventor of that terrible doctrine. The Sadducees held to a similar doctrine centuries before Augustine. Actually it made its first appearance in the world in the garden of Eden. Let us take a clear look at the modern doctrine so that we can trace it to its origin.
Basically, what the doctrine of eternal security says is that once a person receives Christ as his Savior he can never lose his salvation. In other words, he is eternally secure. The consequence of this doctrine is pure antinomianism, i.e., lawlessness. It cannot possibly be a doctrine that produces godliness because human nature is such that man almost always gets as close to the line as possible and where there are no legal restraints, he will follow his desires to fulfill the lusts of the flesh.
This is why almost all people speed unless they see a police car. It is the threat of a ticket that causes almost all people to restrain their lawless desire to speed. It is the threat of a divorce that makes many men and women avoid adultery. It is the threat of AIDS that causes some homosexuals to remain straight. It is the threat of pregnancy that causes some women to avoid fornication. It is the threat of jail that keeps many men and women honest. Remove these threats and most people will give in to their lusts in a heart beat. This is the result of being fallen creatures. So how can you expect a person that claims to be a Christian and has not had his heart purified from the old Adamic nature to refrain from fulfilling his lusts if he is eternally secure. It will never happen.
Now it may be that a professor of Christianity will restrain himself from the grosser forms of sin because he doesn't really want to be a whore master or a gambler or a drug user or a drunkard. But the real test is in our separation from the world. Nice sinners do not commit the gross sins. My mother and father were nice sinners. They never committed adultery. They never were drunk. My father was not a swearer. They were good people. But they were sinners.
The real test is in our relationship to this thing that the Bible calls the world. The Bible says that the world is an enemy of God and that to be merely a friend of the world is to be at enmity with God. So a person may get out of gross sins and yet remain at enmity with God. Let the eternal securitist be called upon to quit watching the sinful TV programs and see what happens. Call upon him to give up his country and refuse to kill in war and see what happens. Ask him to avoid politics because it is Satan's kingdom and see what he will do. Ask a Baptist to refrain from going to the beach in her swim suit and see what she says.
Does the eternal securitist really believe that there is nothing wrong with watching sinful acts on TV or at the movies? Can you honestly say that a Baptist or Presbyterian would deny that to watch overt sex scenes on the TV or at the movies is sinful, that they would say that to take pleasure in sin is not sinful? I think that I can safely say that all of them in their hearts know that to take pleasure in sin is sinful. Yet, will they trash their TV sets? Will they cease going to movies? No. Why? Because they think that they can do this and yet remain a Christian. In other words, this horrible doctrine produces licentiousness in its adherents because it removes the threats.
It is the world where these people fall very short. They love the world and would even kill and die for it. Think about it. A sinful government led by a sinful president tells you that you must kill people for your country. But Jesus Christ who is called the Prince of Peace says that we are to follow peace with all men and holiness without which we cannot see God. The world says kill and the Lord says do not kill. Who will they obey? The world or the Lord? If they obey the Lord they will have to suffer reproach and maybe even persecution. Almost invariably they will obey the world. That is where the real battleground lies. Do I obey God or man? If I obey God, I suffer. If I obey man, I don't. We instinctively flinch from suffering. So only when we know that to avoid this present suffering I may suffer forever will I have a deterrent to my fleshly weaknesses sufficient to lead me to do right under any and all circumstances.
Now Satan knows that sin brings separation from God because when he sinned he was kicked out of heaven. Satan cannot directly touch us. He has great power but only the power of deception. His great labor from the beginning has been to deceive and induce men and women to sin. Let us look at the beginning of the conflict. We find it in the book of Genesis. In the second chapter God commanded Adam not to eat of the fruit of a certain tree. If they should eat of it, He assured them that they would die. In the third chapter Satan persuaded Eve that they would not die. In essence he said that God is a liar and does not say what He means. This was the introduction of Calvinism into the world. Satan told Eve that she could sin with impunity. Eve believed Satan and we know what happened.
This is where that horrible doctrine began. Satan is the father of lies and a lie is untruth and untruth is the opposite of truth and Jesus is the truth. Thus, a lie is the very basis of all sin and truth is the basis of all holiness. Satan is opposed to Jesus and sin is opposed to holiness. "What concord hath Christ with Belial?" asked the apostle Paul. Obviously none. What concord has sin with holiness? Again, obviously none. What concord has a sinner with Christ? Again, obviously none. A sinner sins because he is a sinner and all who sin are sinners. But Jesus is God and in Him is no darkness at all. Thus, it is manifestly impossible for a sinner to be in Christ and it is equally impossible for the pure robes of Christ's righteousness to cover a sinner.
To plead for sin in Christians is to plead for the kingdom of darkness to exist in the kingdom of light. It is saying that there is concord between Christ and Belial. To labor to twist the holy scriptures so that one may justify his love for the world and sin is to labor to prove that Satan is more powerful than Jesus Christ. Sin is the work of the devil, according to John, "He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." I John 3:8 Jesus came into the world to destroy sin because sin is the work of the devil. But these justifiers of sin in Christianity are saying that Jesus is incapable of destroying Satan's work in man. In other words, they are saying that Jesus does not have power to deliver a man from the works of Satan. (Is this not Gnosticism?) They are saying that man will and must sin until death because Jesus in incapable of cleansing us from all sin. So with the right hand they lift up Christ and with the left hand they lift of Satan. And they must be left handed because they make Satan more powerful than Christ.
This ought to be very plain and clear to any thinking person, but I am afraid that it is not. The love of the world is deeply planted in sinful man. Religion will not remove it. Even a religion which uses the precious name of Jesus is incapable of ridding the dark heart from the love of the world.. Satan loves all of the churches that magnify his power in the name of Jesus. Satan dances with glee when he hears some Dr. so-and-so or some Reverend so-and-so labor to convince poor souls that Jesus cannot and will not cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Satan's most ardent followers are so-called ministers of Christ that preach that we must sin as long as we are in the body. And, generally speaking, the people love to have it so.
THIS IS THE LOVE OF GOD
Throughout this marvelous epistle John labors constantly in his fight against the lovers of the world and sin. He attacks the question from various angles so that nobody will be without excuse. Let us now look at his attack against those people that claim that they love God while they are in sin. He says with his usual plainness, "For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous." I John 5:3 Let us examine this carefully.
John emphasizes two point in this sentence. First, he tells us what the love of God is. The love of God is not feelings. It is not words. It is not singing and poetry. According to the apostle the love of God is simply obedience to His commandments. In other words, we cannot love God if we disobey Him. Any claim to love for God while we are sinning is foolishness and folly of the worst kind. Second, John says that to the true Christian God's commandments are not grievous. If a man truly loves God, he will not find it hard to be obedient because he has a passion for pleasing God. So we can say that if God's commandments are not grievous or hard we can and will readily do them if we love Him.
Now let us look at what the eternal securitist says. He says that we can never live above sin in this life. He says that we will and must sin every day in thought, word, and deed. In other words, he is saying that we find God's commandments to be too hard to do because they are grievous to us. In some very strange way these people will look at the plain words of the apostle and say that they believe him and believe that it is Holy Scripture and then contradict him in the same breath. And they seem unable to see this fantastic lapse of logic.
I wonder if a Baptist theologian would believe his wife if she had an affair with another man but claimed that she really did love him. Can you see him accepting it if she is caught in the act of adultery and then looks him in the eye and says that the problem is that it is too grievous for him to expect her to be faithful until after death? She assures him that she loves him supremely and even tells her lovers how much she loves her husband, but it is too much to expect her to be chaste because she cannot possible be true to her husband. What do you think? Will that theologian that says the same thing about our relationship to God accept his wife's infidelity?
Consider a man's relationship to his country. Can a man love his country and serve his countries enemies at the same time? Can a man love his country and be a traitor at the same time? Of course, all men will freely acknowledge that this is foolish. Yet, millions of eternal securitist will claim that a man may love God but serve Satan at the same time. To sin is to obey Satan and whom we obey, that is who we serve. It is impossible to serve God and mammon at the same time.
I freely acknowledge that if the eternal securitist is correct when he says that we must sin until death then we are not to blame. But I would like to ask the eternal securitist which sin he feels that he must commit. Must he commit adultery? He has no choice in the matter? I think that his wife would disagree with him. Must he commit murder? Must he use the Lord's name in vain? Must the Baptist woman dress immodestly and after the fashions of the world? Does she not have a choice in the matter? Must I watch ungodly movies and TV? What sin must I commit because I have no choice in the matter? No Baptist has ever told me just what sins he must commit. And if I do have a choice in the matter, then I sin only because I want to sin. And that is just the point. The eternal securitist does not live a holy life and does not want to live a holy life simply because he wants to partake of certain sins and pleasures of the world. And he allows himself to be deceived because he wants to be deceived. He wants his world and his Christ too.
LOVE NOT THE WORLD
Let us examine another of John's statements. "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world . If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever." I John 2:15-17
The world system and the things in the world are, according to John, antagonistic to God. It is impossible to love the world and God at the same time. Why? It is simply because, as is stated in verse 16, this world system belongs to Satan. Everything in it was invented by Satan for the sole purpose of turning the minds of men from God. All of its fads and fashions and entertainments and sports and politics are the inventions and under the control of Satan. And in these last days the world is being perfected so that man can do quite nicely without God. In addition, gross sensuality and paganism are becoming acceptable to many so-called Christian churches in these last closing days.
When Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment, "Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." Matthew 22:37 Notice that Jesus mentions three areas in which we must give our all to God: the heart, the soul, and the mind. This encompasses the flesh, the mind, and the spirit. Now let us compare what Jesus said to what John said.
In verse 16 John also points out that all sins fall into one of three categories: the flesh, mind, and the spirit. Sin is the illicit desire and use of otherwise legitimate things. For instance, the desires of the flesh if used within the bounds of God's laws are not sinful, i.e., sex in marriage, good tasting food, etc. All sins of the flesh, the so-called gross sins, are perversions of our natural appetites and are greatly offensive to God.
Our minds are also to be totally dedicated to the glory of God. Thus, we may write and sing truly elevating and spiritual songs, music that does not reflect the spirit of the world. We may study the sciences with the intent of glorifying God. We may enjoy the fellowship of our families and our brethren in a way that glorifies God. We may enjoy nature in a way that glorifies God. These are legitimate uses of our minds. But Satan's world is designed in such a way as to take our minds from God. All of the fads and fashions of dress are designed to make one attractive to the opposite sex, even to the point of producing lust. The sciences are all dedicated to proving that the universe is not the workmanship of God's hands. Medicine is designed to make man forget his maker and to trust in man's abilities. Sports are designed to create competition and pride. Education is designed to glorify man and to exclude God. The world is by its very nature anti-Christ and anti-God. And this should be no surprise since Jesus said that Satan is the Prince of this world.
Then, of course, there is the heart or spirit, that place where either God or Satan dwells in our affections. The heart must belong to God because it is His temple. But Christ cannot have concord with Belial. Thus, Christ cannot dwell in that heart that allows Satan and Satan's kingdom to have sway. Since the heart cannot be a vacuum, Satan always dwells where God is not. The heart that does not have the Holy Spirit indwelling automatically has the spirit of Satan there. It matters not that a person has not consciously chosen to serve Satan. If that person is part of the world, he is ruled by Satan.
John introduces this idea of the world into his epistle because the Gnostics were given to all of the pleasures of the world. They claimed to be followers of God while they were living in gross sins of the flesh, while they were engaged in all of the pleasures of society, and while they were actively engaged in that form of idolatry that is found in gnosticism. Our modern Gnostics are much the same. They fill their churches with adultery via divorce and remarriage. Many of their members engage in dating, necking, and even fornication. They are enamored with the fads and fashions of dress. They are taken up with the sports and politics of this world. And their God is not the God of the Bible who said, "Be ye holy, for I am holy." Their god is a god that allows sin and worldliness. This is idolatry.
LET US HEAR THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER
The Bible is made up of three things that relate directly to us today: God's commands, God's promises, and God's warnings. In order to fully understand how these things relate to us, we must realize that the Bible was not written to unbelievers. Paul tells us why the Bible was written, "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works." II Timothy 3:16, 17 The Bible was written that the man of God, the Christian, may be perfect. So, clearly, the Bible was not written for unbelievers.
If this is true, and Paul says that it is, then every part of the Bible applies to the Christian, not just selected parts of it. In other words, God's commands, His promises, and His warnings and threats are all applicable to the believer. But eternal security eliminates two of the three. If eternal security is correct, God's commands are no longer commands to us once we are saved (they become God's suggestions) and God's warnings are no long warnings to us once we are saved (they become like the empty warnings of a mother to her child). Only His promises apply to us. Thus, vast portions of the Bible becomes meaningless since it was written for the believer. After all, if the Bible was written to and for the believer, then the commands and warnings are for the believer or else the Bible is nonsense.
We are saved by faith and the just shall live by faith. These are clear statements of the apostle Paul. We are saved and made just by faith in the shed blood of Christ. And we remain just by walking in faith. But faith in what? Faith in God's commands and promises and warnings, faith that God means what He says. Faith in His commands will lead us to obedience. Faith in His promises will bring gracious encouragement. And faith in His warnings will lead us to a sacred dread of offending Him.
Let me quote something from a book Pen Pictures from Paul by W. G. Heslop in speaking of all evil doers, including those that profess salvation. "Having followed the decoys of the Devil and having loved sin rather than holiness, they shall forever be given over to their own evil choices. Hell is a world of ungrateful and rebellious wretches who have deliberately chosen a life of sin and who have turned against and turned upon a kind, loving, and compassionate God. Hell is a world of God haters, Christ rejecters, holiness despisers, and sin lovers."
Thus, we come to the end of this treatise. Much more could be said, but I am convinced that if the words of Holy Scripture are not sufficient to convince a person mine will not accomplish it. I can only end this with the words of the wise man of Jerusalem, the son of David. The Preacher said, "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil." Ecclesiastes 12:13, 14 This is possible to man only because, "if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." I John 1:7