Turn in your Bibles with me to
1 John chapter 2. A few weeks ago, I preached on the Word of Life from verse 1
and 2. I wasn't really planning on going
through the whole book of 1 John, but what happens is when I preach
on one thing, I look at the next and say, yeah, I need to preach
on that too. Maybe it'll develop into a whole Bible study. That's okay, I've preached on
this book several times, first, second, and third John, in the
years I've been in the gospel ministry. But there's so much
interesting truth here. All truth is interesting, but
some of it just seems to grab you more. And you're living in
the Christian faith and struggling through all this stuff that we
have to go through, and we want to grow in grace and in knowledge.
And this is what caught my eye. Let's begin reading in verse
7. I want to show you something here, and this has to do with
what I call Christian ethics, Christian thinking. How to think
like a believer. Because when you see scriptures
like this, it might confuse you. It's not meant to do so, but
if you know how to think. You know, I used to teach middle
school, and I took on the task of trying to teach students how
to think. How stupid was I? But anyway, no, I'm just teasing. But that's really what I learned
working with kids that young. They don't even really know how
to think. So you gotta teach them. But that's the way we are
as believers. We've got to learn that. And
so look at verse seven. He says, brethren, I write no
new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which you
had from the beginning. Now we've already looked at that
about keeping his commandments and what he's talking about here.
And when you talk about keeping his commandments, you've got
to learn to think in terms of the gospel. The gospel's got
to be your foundation. It's got to be your umbrella.
It's got to be written on your heart. And the gospel is opposed
to any notion of salvation or any part of it conditioned on
you or me keeping His commandments in the realm of what we would
call the law of God, things like that. Now are we to be earnestly
in our lives trying, seeking to obey God in everything that
He says? Yes, there's no doubt about that.
But at our best, at our best in that struggle and in that
endeavor, we still fall short, and listen to this now, this
is how we ought to think, we still fall short of the perfection
of righteousness that can only be found in the person and work
of Christ. Now it's also called New Covenant
thinking. We're in the New Covenant. When
you read verses like this, we're not thinking in terms of the
old covenant law of Moses. Now, that was truth for a time,
and some of that truth is eternal truth, but it's changed. Now, it's not that God changed.
God doesn't change. But the law of God as it pertains
to his people under the new covenant is not the same as under the
old covenant in this sense now. I'll give you one example. I
could give you many examples. But one example is, why aren't
we slaughtering lambs and bringing them to an altar? That was a
command of God under the Old Covenant. They were to sacrifice
sheep, lambs, and goats, and bullocks. Why aren't we doing
that? Because those things were types
and pictures and foreshadowings of the ultimate fulfillment of
that, that can only be found in the Lamb of God, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Those things were given to that
nation Israel, who were a rebellious people now, to show them the
impossibility of salvation by their law keeping. It was given
because of sin. And that was the moral law. You
think about the Ten Commandments. And even the Ten Commandments
as they apply have changed. And not saying that, the Bible
says, thou shalt worship the one God, the Lord God. Well,
that's the same under the New Covenant. It says thou shalt
not kill. Well, that's the same under the
New Covenant. That hadn't changed. But that was enforced before
the Old Covenant law, the Ten Commandments. But let me show
you how the Ten Commandments has changed in this sense. The
main sign of the Old Covenant Law of Moses was the Sabbath.
Did you know that? There were other signs, significations,
just like the main sign under the New Covenant is the cross
of Christ. Not the piece of wood now, talking
about his person and his work. But it was the Sabbath, and you
know, they were to rest on the seventh day, the Sabbath. Well,
what is our Sabbath under the New Covenant? Our Sabbath is
not a day. Now listen to me. Sunday is not
the Christian Sabbath. It's the Lord's Day. It's the
first day of the week, signified by the resurrection of Christ.
It's the day that we are to come together and worship as well,
but it's not our Sabbath. Sabbath means to rest. That's
what it means. And I am gonna rest today. I
just got over an 11-hour drive on Friday night. I've got to
rest. But it's not for religious reasons. It's because I'm old,
you know, and the body is just giving out, you know, that kind
of thing. But Sunday's not the Christian Sabbath. What is the
Christian Sabbath? Christ is the Christian Sabbath. We rest
eternally and spiritually in him. That Saturday, or really
it was the seventh day Sabbath under Yoka, was a picture and
a type of a believer's eternal spiritual rest in Christ. You
can read that in Hebrews chapter four, but there are other passages
too. I had a Seventh-day Adventist
ask me one time, he said, he said, where in the Bible do you
see that the Lord changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday?
And I looked at him, I said, you don't see it. And he was
kind of shocked, because he's been used to having professing
believers say, well, you know, it's not there. But I said, I
can show you where the Sabbath has changed. And I took him to
Hebrews, and he didn't know what to say. What did Christ say? Come unto me, all ye that labor
and are heavy laden, and I'll give you what? Rest. So our rest isn't a day. It's
good to take a day off, folks. Don't get me wrong. And it's
good to set this day aside to come and worship the Lord. That's
a good thing. Because we're commanded to not
forsake the assembling of ourselves together. It was the apostles
who began on the first day of the week. And that's what we
follow up with. And that's good. And don't forsake it. Because
it won't do you any good. And if you're a believer, you'll
suffer. Now, I'm not talking about punishment that fits the
crime or anything like that. But I'm talking about how you
won't grow in grace and in knowledge. You're commanded to worship the
Lord. But it's not a day. And so we
are technically not under the Ten Commandments as a system,
even though we're just as responsible to follow God and obey His commands
as in any day. Cain, who committed the first
murder, he was commanded not to kill, and he broke that commandment. Well, when he says keep his commandments
here, Brethren, I write no new commandment to you, the old commandment.
And then look at verse seven, he says, the old commandment
is the word which you have heard from the beginning. Now that
old commandment, we're thinking in terms of the new covenant,
thinking in terms of the gospel. Certainly the gospel is not new. It's an old commandment. Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. The Messiah,
the person and work of Christ. You know how old that message
is? It's timeless. It's eternal. Over in 2 Timothy
chapter one, I believe it is, verses nine and 10, Paul spoke
of a salvation which was given to God's people in Christ before
the world began. And that is in the mind and the
purpose of God. That's what that's talking about. And in time that
works out as God providentially and powerfully brings his people
under the gospel and reveals Christ to them, the person and
work of Christ. Abel and Cain were commanded
to believe the gospel. Adam and Eve were commanded.
Abel believed it, Cain didn't. And Abel, it wasn't that he was
a better guy than Cain. He was just one of God's people,
one of his sheep. And God brought him under the
gospel, probably through his parents, Adam and Eve, who taught
it to him. I'm sure they taught it to Cain, too. But Cain was
like the natural man. The natural man receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them. They're
spiritually discerned and understood. God left him to himself and he
perished. So that's certainly not new to
the Apostle John here. He first heard it from Christ
when Christ called him and the other disciples unto himself
and he taught it. So he says, brethren, I write
no new commandment unto you. What is the commandment? Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and continue in him and love the
brethren. That's what he's talking about.
Now this is new covenant thinking. What does that include? Thou
shalt not kill, yeah. If you love your brother, you're
not gonna kill him. Thou shalt not commit adultery. All of those
things, all right? But the commandment that he's
talking about that identifies, and look, look back up. Look
at verse three. Hereby we do know that we know
him. Now what? What is it that identifies
us as true believers? Now, there are unbelievers who
go through this life never committing the act of murder or the act
of adultery or thieves. There are unbelievers who do
that, but that doesn't mean that they know Christ. We can look at, if you study
world history, you'll see A lot of famous people who were moral,
sincere and dedicated, but in a false religion. So what is it that we, hereby
we can know that we know Christ? Believing on, do you believe
on Christ, the Christ of this book now? There are counterfeits,
remember. Remember Paul talked about that
in 2 Corinthians 11, Galatians chapter 1. John speaks of it
in 2 John. I believe in the Christ of this
book, who he is, what he did, why he did it, and where he is
now. Who is he? He's God, man. You say, well,
that's mind-boggling. I'm glad it is. Somebody said,
I can't figure that. I'm glad you can't. I'm glad
that God is bigger than you and bigger than me. But that's who
Christ is. He's God, manifest in the flesh. God-man. Every bit God, every
bit man without sin. The perfect God-man. What did
he do when he obeyed the law unto death? He, listen, he saved
his people from their sins. He didn't try to save anybody.
He's not trying to save anybody now. He's saving his people from
their sins. He sealed it. I mean, he did
it. There's no failure here. I've
heard preachers say that there'll be multitudes in hell for whom
Christ died. That's a lie. The reason they're
in hell is because Christ didn't die for them. And I know people
think, well, that's mean. No. You better go back and think
biblically. New Covenant. He is the propitiation,
it says up here in verse two. That means he's the sin-bearing
sacrifice who brought satisfaction. So we believe in Christ, who
he is, what he did, successfully sealed the salvation of all of
his sheep. You say, well how do I know if
I'm one of his sheep? What did he say in John 10? My sheep hear
my voice. And what is his voice? It's the
preaching of the gospel. And he said, I know them and
they know me. How do you come to know him?
Through the preaching of the gospel and the power of the Holy
Spirit. Everyone who believe it. That's
the gift of faith that God gives to his people. He gives them
the gift of life. Because we're all born spiritually
dead, fallen in Adam, he gives us life. You hath he quickened
who were dead in trespasses and sins. He gives us the gift of
faith, for by grace are you saved. Through faith in that, not of
yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man
should boast. He gives us the gift of repentance,
and he keeps us, causes us to persevere, continue in the faith,
and he won't let us go. Who shall separate us from the
love of God in Christ? How many times we quote that
in Romans 8? Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? We're sinners, but God does not
charge us with our sin. He charged our sins to Christ.
God made Him, Christ, who knew no sin, that we might be made
the righteousness of God in Him. So we stand before God forgiven
of all our sins by the blood of Jesus Christ. We stand before
God righteous by His righteousness imputed to us. And you see that. Well, that's been the way it's
always been, as far as salvation goes. So it's no new commandment. It's the word you heard from
the beginning. It's never changed. Even when God gave the law to
Moses, that commandment didn't change. Salvation has never been
by the works or the wills of men and women. It's always been
by the work and the will of God. But now look at verse eight of
1 John 2. He says, again, a new commandment
I write unto you. Wow, now wait a minute here.
Paul, you just said it was an old commandment that you heard
from the beginning. Now you're saying it's a new commandment.
What is it? Which is it? Are you just trying to confuse
us? No, now you gotta listen to it. Again, this is where we
learn to think biblically, think like a Christian, think. under
new covenant gospel terms. He says, again, a new commandment
I write unto you, which thing is true in him, in Christ, and in you. It is new only in the sense that
it has been newly manifested and established by the coming
of Christ into the world. His first advent. and in his
accomplishment of salvation for his people through his obedience
unto death as the surety, the substitute, and the redeemer
of his people. The Bible says, for Christ is
the end of the law, the fulfillment, the perfection of the law, for
righteousness to everyone that believeth. So it's new in that
sense. It's old, it's eternal. It was
given us in Christ before the foundation of the world. It was
revealed to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3.15, the seed of woman. And
in the first sacrifice in Genesis 3.21, where God slew an animal
and made him coats of skin, that's a picture of how God justifies
the ungodly. It was told to Abel and Cain.
Cain didn't believe it, Abel did. Noah found what in the eyes
of the Lord? What did he find? Grace. God didn't look down from heaven
and say, well, the world's gone to pot, but Noah, he's a better
guy. No, Noah found grace. Why didn't
Noah find grace and the others didn't? God said, that's my business. You tend to your business. You're not God. Neither am I. But he did say this to Moses.
He said, that's my glory. You remember when Moses said,
show me your glory? And he said, OK, I'll show it to you. I'll
be gracious to whom I will, and I'll be merciful to whom I will.
That's God's will. That's God's business. You say,
well, it doesn't matter what I do. Well, you think like that
if you want. But you're trying to play God when you say that. Your business is to seek the
Lord. Seek his truth. Get into this book. Listen to
the preaching of the gospel. That's what Christ's sheep do.
That's what God's elect do. So it's an old message, but it's
new in this sense. The Messiah who was set up before
the beginning of the world, always in the mind and purpose of God,
who justified the ungodly, that was revealed on earth after the
fall, Genesis 3.15, Genesis 3.21. That was pictured and typified. First of all, that was revealed
to men like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the gospel of grace. How was Abraham justified? Romans
chapter four, by the imputed righteousness of Christ who was
to come. How are you justified? By the
imputed righteousness of Christ who's already come. And that was set up before the
foundation of the world. So there it was during the 1500
year period of the Old Covenant Law. And then the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, descended
into this world as he was conceived in the womb of a virgin by the
Holy Spirit, united himself with that sinless humanity, was born
of that virgin, grew in wisdom and stature, and then walked
this earth as the savior of his people. That was new in time,
but not in truth, purpose, and reality. Do you understand that? He came in time. The Bible says
in Galatians 4.4, in the fullness of the time, God sent forth his
son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them under
the law. So it's new in him. That's the new covenant. A better
covenant. And of course now the new covenant,
you understand, is the fulfillment in time of that eternal covenant
of grace made before time. And then he says, which thing
is true in him and in you. Now what is he talking about
there? When does it become new to you? when God reveals it to
you in the new birth. When God providentially brings
you under the gospel, and by his power through the Holy Spirit,
gives you spiritual life from the dead. Gives you eyes to see,
ears to hear, hearts and minds to understand. He gives you a
new life, a new spirit. Some people call that a new nature,
and that's okay as long as you don't take that too far. He gives
you faith, repent, that's called the new birth. You know, when
a baby is born into this world physically, that baby's new,
isn't he, or her? Well, when you're born again
spiritually, you're called a new creature or a new creation. And
who created you? Who created you the first time
physically? Huh? God did. Who created you the
second time spiritually, the new birth, if you are born again,
evidenced by faith in Christ? God did. You wanna see that? Turn to John chapter one. And
I can show you a multitude of scriptures on this. But look
at John chapter one. Now the Bible is clear that if left to ourselves, we
won't believe in Christ, we will not choose Christ, we will not
accept Christ if left to ourselves. The Bible's clear on that. I
probably quote this verse a lot on our TV program because people
don't know this. People think that we're born
with a spark of goodness And as I said before, just get a
preacher to fan the spark and get it into a flame. That's not
true in the scripture. We fell in Adam into a state
of spiritual death, depravity, with no desire for the things
that glorify God. Now that doesn't mean that we
naturally can't be religious or moral in the eyes of men.
Like Christ said to the Pharisees, you do indeed appear righteous
unto men, but you're not. He said, told the people, except
your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes
and the Pharisees, you shall no wise enter in the kingdom
of heaven. But look at verse 11 of John 1. He says, he came
into his own and his own received him not. Now he's talking about
people there who did not receive Christ. They did not believe
in Christ. But he says in verse 12, but as many as received him,
Oh, some did receive him, believe in him. And it says, to them
gave he power to become the sons of God. Now that word power there
doesn't mean ability, it means the right, the privilege. Do you call yourself a believer?
A son or a daughter of God? What gives you that right to
claim that? If a Little child came to you,
whom you've never seen before, and called you daddy or mama.
Would you believe him right away? Well, no. You'd have to do some
research. Well, if you weren't their daddy
or their mama, they don't have the right to say that to you.
Now I claim to be a son of God, a child of God. What right do
I have to say that? It says, to them gave he the
right to become or to be called the sons of God, even to them
which believe on his name. Do you believe on his name? Now
what his name is, it's not just saying Jesus Christ or praise
the Lord. Remember he said in Matthew 7,
many shall come unto me and say, Lord, Lord. And he said, depart
from me, I never knew you. It's not just words or labels.
To believe in his name is to believe in who he is, what he's
done, why he did it, and where he is now. It's the doctrine
of Christ. Because this is a name that identifies
and separates him from all counterfeits. And it's by the doctrine of Christ.
That's why John said in 2 John 9, he that transgresses and abides
not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God. So it's even to
them that believe on his name. Now look at verse 13. Don't let
this get by you. Which were born, not of blood. In other words, this had nothing
to do with your physical birth. There are people who call themselves
Christian who believe that when they have a new baby, that that
baby becomes part of the covenant. And that's why they baptize babies.
My friend, that's heresy. It's not of blood. All right,
secondly, nor of the will of the flesh. That's the works of
the flesh. In other words, if you're born
again and you believe in Christ and you have the right to call
yourself a child of God, you weren't born by physical birth,
you weren't born into that by physical birth, and you weren't
born into that by the works of the flesh. By works. Look at the next one. Nor of
the will of man. You weren't born into it because
you made a choice. We don't believe in what they
call decisional regeneration. You make the choice and then
you're born again? No. If you're not born again, you
won't make the right choice. You'll make a wrong choice. The
natural man receiveth not. Okay? You weren't born not of
blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. Born from above. Now when that happens, back here
in 1 John 1, It all becomes new. Turn to 2 Corinthians 5. I'm telling you, it's all new.
Every believer here can say amen to that. What I used to think about salvation
and about God and about myself, I don't think that anymore. I used to think salvation was
conditioned on me. And that if I do the right thing,
God would save me. People say, well, that's only
if you believe. But then I found out from the
Bible that I didn't have the faith to believe. That all I had was self-righteousness
and self-will, conditional salvation, But when God opened my eyes to
the truth of the book, the truth of Christ, who God is, and who
I am, it's all new. It all became new to me. Paul said it this way, he said,
that which I thought recommended me unto God, I found out to be
loss. He called it even dung. But look
at 2 Corinthians. Chapter 5, verse 17. Therefore, if any man be in Christ,
he's a new creature, a new creation. Old things are passed away. My
old way of thinking, my old way of approaching God, which I found
out the God I was approaching was an idol, because he wasn't
the God of the Bible. Old things are passed away, behold,
all things are become new. It's new to me. And all things
are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ,
and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. You see that?
Go back to 1 John 2. Now he comes down, he says in
verse eight, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing
is true in him and in you, because the darkness is past, the true
light now shineth, your new creation. He that saith he's in the light
and hateth his brother is in darkness even until now. Now
he comes to love of the brethren. In other words, when God brings
us into his family, now listen to me, when God brings us to
his family, we're part of his family. And I mentioned this last week,
I said we may not get along, we may disagree on things, certain
things, not on the gospel now. But we're together in this faith,
we're together in Christ. And if you can't accept that,
then you got a real problem. Because he that hateth his brother. Now, that hatred is expressed
in different ways. Christ said this about people.
He said, if you're not for me, you're what? You're against me. And I've had people tell me,
say, well, what you believe doesn't make me mad, but I don't believe
it. Well, you're in hatred against the God of the Bible. That's
what God called it. That's what Christ called it.
And then there are those who wanna kill you. That's certainly
hatred. So this is a fellowship of faith
that brings us together in worshiping and believing and following the
same God through the same way of salvation by his grace through
the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you're in that fellowship,
it cannot be broken. He says in verse 10, he that
loveth his brother abideth in the light. What's the light? That's the truth, that's the
gospel, that's Christ. We abide in it, we don't leave
it. We don't apostatize from it. And remember I talked about
that. And I'll talk about it some more. Apostasy is turning
away from it, denying it to the point of calling Christ accursed.
And I told you last week, I think it was, I know one person in
my lifetime who's done that, who claimed to believe what we
believe, and now he claims to be an atheist. And you know what's sad about
that? The word of God, in the book of Hebrews, said there's
no possibility of his recovery. Think about that. He says, he that saith he's in
the light and hateth his brother is in darkness even unto now.
Verse 10, he that loveth his brother abideth in the light
and there's none occasion of stumbling in him. A person who
claims to be in the family of God with his brothers and sisters
who hates a brother or sister is a cause for stumbling. That's an occasion for stumbling.
Now, At occasion it says here that it's a scandal kind of thing.
Scandalous, like a trap. Let's read verse 11. But he that
hated his brother is in darkness. Now that's pretty clear, isn't
it? And he walketh in darkness and
knoweth not whither he goeth because that darkness hath blinded
his eyes. Going to a dark room, especially
one you're unfamiliar with, you don't know where you're going.
And that's what he's saying here. To hate any of your brothers
and sisters, those whom you call brothers and sisters in Christ,
what does that reveal about you? You're in darkness. That's the
bottom line. And there's no way to sugarcoat
that. You're not just in a dim room, in a dim light, you're
in darkness. And you say, well, some of my
brothers and sisters aren't easy to love. I agree with you. But I'll tell you what, and I
mean this from the bottom of my heart, if any of us are ever
challenged in the gospel, by the grace and power of God, I
will be with you. I will. And it's not because
I'm so good or so powerful or so faithful, it's because God
won't let me go. But if you're ever challenged
on this, whether it's in worship or in witness or whatever, I'll
be with you and you'll be with me. We'll be together on that. And that's the essence of Christian
love. Now there are other things. John deals with those in chapter
three about, you know, a hungry brother needs food, give him
food. Needs water, give him water. Things like that, it goes all
the way down to that. But that's Christian love, isn't
it? And that's the new commandment
he's talking about. Believe in Christ, persevere in him, and
love the brethren. Think about it, okay.