Bourland Family Blog

Top Level Notes for 1 John 4:18-21

Verse 18: Dread does not exist in love, but fully mature love shoo’s fear out the door and expels every trace of terror.

• This is the love we learn from God.
• Bold confidence, based on love, cannot coexist with fear.
• Fear, by anticipating punishment (through consciousness and deserving of it), has it even now, that is, a taste of the punishment to come.
• Godly fear of offending God is quite different/distinct from slavish fear of consciously deserved punishment.
  • The latter fear is natural to us all until love casts it out.

Verse 19: We on our part love God, our brethren, and fellow man because it was He who first loved us.

• When we understand the deep love God has for us (by internalizing the great act of sending His Son to die was), then we will know that with His love for us we do not have to fear…while we were yet sinners, God sent His Son to die for us.

Verse 20: The eyes are our leaders in love.

• Nature is prior to grace; we by nature love things seen.
  • Seeing is an incentive to love.
• If we do not love our brothers and sisters in Christ – the visible representatives of God -> how can we love God, the invisible One, the One whose children they are?
  • The true ideal lost in Adam is realized in Christ in Whom God is revealed as He is, and man as he ought to be.
  • Thus, by faith in Christ, we learn to love both the One True God, and the true man, and so to love our brothers and sisters bearing His image.

Verse 21: This was commanded by Jesus Himself.

• He who loves, will do what the object of his love wishes.

Top Level Notes for 1 John 4:13-17

Verse 13: When we love one another, God lives (takes up residence) in us. His love is then brought to maturity in us.

• Because of this (God living in us) we come to know that He not only lives in us, but we live IN Him. We know that He is in us by perceiving the Holy Spirit in us who He has given.

Verse 14: John has the added extra for his church because a lot of them were able to witness Jesus and see (through His life) that He indeed had been sent by the Father to save the world.

• We have not seen Jesus in the flesh but our call, by John, to rest assured is no less important.

Verse 15: John now embarks on reiterating what he has already taught us in this part of the letter.

• Anyone who confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, has the Father living in them. In the same way we live in the Father.
  • We have the wisdom and discernment of the Holy Spirit and us living in Him means that we reflect His goodness and mercy.

Verse 16: As we live more and more in Him and see Himself in us we begin to understand the crazy love He has for us.

• Since God is love, the more we continue in Him and He in us, the more our understanding of His love grows and becomes real in us.

Verse 17: In this place where God is in us and we are in Him -> the love is brought to completion so that we are only emulating love as well. It is then that we can walk fearless into the Day of Judgement, because we are His image in this world as He once was.

Top Level Notes for 1 John 4:6-12

Verse 6: We ARE children of GOD!

• John is telling his church that they should have confidence in what they believe.
  • Being that they drink up the truth of God’s word and bask in the knowledge of Him 2 things happen.
    1. People truly searching will listen to them and their teaching
    2. Those who are not of God (not called by Him) will not listen or pay attention

When you, yourself, are confident in your relationship and rest in the Truth of the Almighty God, you will have the ability to discern who is of God and searching Him and those who are of this world and of the spirit of error.

Verse 7: You cannot truly be begotten of God and Love Him and not love your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. When you love your fellowmen your relationship with the Almighty will grow.

Verse 8: God IS Love -> love comes from Him. You can not KNOW God if you do not love.

Verse 9: The fact that God IS love was displayed through the sending of His Son to this earth to die on a tree and be the propitiation for our sins. The sending of Jesus as an act of love was also through His teaching we would have the knowledge by living in and through Him (His ways).

Verse 10: God didn’t send His Son because we loved Him (as a response to our love), no, He did it entirely out of His love for us.

Verse 11: If God has loved us so much and all of His actions stem from His love toward us then we must love others so that God can be seen through how we treat others.

Verse 12: We have not seen God Himself with our eyes but if we allow love to guide our actions (Love toward others) when we can know that God abides in us because His love is what we draw from; His love is made perfect in us.

Top Level Notes for 1 John 4:1-5

Verse 1: There is but one Spirit of Truth and one spirit of the antichrist.

• All men’s teaching must be tested by the word of God.
• There are many false teachers/prophets: They went out from us but they were not OF us.

Verse 2: This is how you know if some is of the Spirit of Truth:

• Every Spirit which confesses and acknowledges the fact that Jesus Christ [actually] has become man and come in the flesh, is of God, and has God as His source.
  • In a man’s teaching he must openly confess in public what is true.
  • Rome, by the doctrine of the immaculate conception of the virgin Mary, denies Christ’s proper humanity.

Verse 3: In contrast, every spirit which does not openly and publicly acknowledge that Jesus has come in the flesh is not of God.

• This non-confession is the spirit of the antichrist.
• We know him to be coming and is in fact already in the world.

Verse 4: I AM of God, I BELONG to Him

• Through the death of Jesus the antichrist (and his agents) have already been defeated.
• God, Who lives in me, is mightier and greater than he who is in the world.

Verse 5: They (the false prophets) proceed from the world and ore of the world (not of God) ->

• Because of this, it is out of this world that they speak…not out of God
• This world listens and pays attention to them
• Satan loves the false teacher/prophet who can lead astray the lost; better yet confuse, the righteous.

Top Level Notes for 1 John 3:20-24

Verse 20: Following from verse 19 -> When our heart is in tormenting self-accusation make us feel guilty and condemn us, we can have the knowledge that WE ARE OF THE TRUTH; we can then instruct our hearts and reassure ourselves in His presence.

• We are IN GOD’s HANDS -> He is greater than our consciences (our hearts)
• He knows everything and has our best interests (which is His will for us) at heart.

Verse 21: So, when I do not allow my heart to accuse me, then I can approach the throne of God with confidence.

Verse 22: I can then receive from Home whatever I ask, because I obey Him and His answers are my action in faith and obedience to Him. This is what is pleasing to Him.

Verse 23: And this is His commandment:

1. THAT I BELIEVE IN THE NAME OF HIS SON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST
2. THAT WE SHOULD LOVE ONE ANOTHER
   • This is what He commanded us from the beginning

Verse 24: Everyone who believes in His name and loves his brother and sister -> Abides in HIM and He in them.

• How do we know (have proof) that He really lives and makes His home in us? -> by the Holy Spirit Whom He has given to us.

Top Level Notes for 1 John 3:16-19

Verse 16: We have come to recognize, understand, and perceive love by the example of Jesus laying down his own life for us. So, if we are followers of Him then we will be known by our love and, in love, we should lay down our own loves for our brothers and sisters who are in Him.

Verse 17: HOWEVER! If anyone has the resources for sustaining life and sees his brother in need, yet refuses to allow their hearts the compassion to fill their brother’s need, then how can the love of God, by which love is measured, live and dwell in him?

Verse 18: Brothers and sisters in Christ, don’t just merely love in speech or thought but do it both deed and truth…or practice and sincerity.

Verse 19: When we NATURALLY operate this way, that will mean that we know that we are of the Truth and can remind/convince our hearts in His presence.

Top Level Notes for 1 John 3:11-15

Verse 11: The message from the beginning -> LOVE ONE ANOTHER

• When we love one another there is no room for sinning against each other.
• This is speaking about loving our brethren in Christ, the children of the same family of God; of whom we have been born again.

Verse 12: Once again John contrasts belonging to the evil one or the One True God. 1 John 3:8 and 1 John 3:10

• Envy and hatred produce murder. This is why John says ‘and one who hates his is a murderer’.
• Cain’s deeds, activities and works were evil -> God overlooked Cain’s offering because of his heart.
  • That same evil heart beget jealousy over God’s acceptance of Abel’s offering.
  • Cain’s eyes were blinded to God’s reason for honoring Abel’s sacrifice over his own.

Verse 13: The counter statement would be – Be totally surprised if the world loved you.

• Just as Cain, the world feels tacitly reproved by our good works.

Verse 14: When we love our brothers and sisters in Christ, we know that we have passed from this earthly spiritual death into life.

• He who does not love their brother or sister remains and lives in death.
• Love on our part is the evidence of our justification and regeneration; not the cause of them.
  • Don’t mind that your glory is still hidden when you search your heart and find love, that is your confidence.
  • Not unlike the plant during winter time, whose roots are full of vitality and vigor yet its leaves and branches will not spring forth until the summertime.

Verse 15: Hate == love not. There is no medium between the two. Love and hatred are like light and darkness.

• Life and Death necessarily replace each other as well as exclude.
• Indulging in hatred will lead to its natural consequences which is murder.
  • Whomever one hates, one wishes to be dead.
  • Such a one “abideth” in death, not the future state, but its present.
  • The person who hates (loves not) his brother cannot in this present state have eternal life abiding in him.

Top Level Notes for 1 John 3:7-10

Verse 7: John is making a big deal about not being led astray in this book.

• He wants his church to keep their noses in the word and to lean on the Truths they learned at the beginning.
• What I do does not make me righteous, but my being righteous (justified by the righteousness of God in Christ, Ro 10:3-10) makes me to do righteousness: the opposite in familiar language, logical in reality, though not in form, as in Lu 7:47; Joh 8:47.
• Works do not justify, but the justified man works. I infer from someone doing righteousness that they are already righteous (that is, has the true and only principle of doing righteousness, namely, faith), and is therefore born of God (1Jo 3:9); just as we might say, The tree that bears good fruit is a good tree, and has a living root; not that the fruit makes the tree and its root to be good, but it shows that they are so. 1 John 3:7 [Jamieson, Faucett, and Brown]

Verse 8: Likewise, the person who is of the devil is sinful – takes his character from the evil one.

• The reason Jesus came was to undo what devil has done.

Verse 9: Once we have given our lives over to Jesus and been born of God by receiving His free gift, will lose the desire to sin.

• We will be indwelt with the seed of the Divine Nature and we will hate sin.
• We are fallible and will miss the mark but through God’s grace alone can we be forgiven of that momentary lapse in judgement or control.
• What is true is that our aim forever more becomes the bullseye of God’s will and purpose in our life.

Verse 10: John is telling us that we can have a litmus test to see whether someone is a child of God or not.

• A person who is justified, does righteousness.
• A person who does not correct a wrong or easily goes against what is right is not of God.
• If a person hates their brother or sister is not child of God.