1 John 5.13–21
13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. There is one requisite for the miracle of God to transform the not-yet believer into the believer, and it is this belief in the name of the Son of God. It is acknowledging what the name really means, for it is the name of the Son of God who stepped down from heaven, and not to lord it over the world or hold the world to account for its contempt of the Authority of God, but in perfect example to submit fully to God the Father, and live by the Holy Spirit, that the Son’s life in the flesh is one man may be baptized into for eternal life. In the name we know the Truth, and belong to the Truth, and acknowledge the necessary sufficiency and completeness of the Truth in the name of the Son of God by whom we know the Father, receive the Spirit, and are regenerated into the image of God.
14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. There is no power of man or spirit which can endure in opposition to the overwhelming will of God. His will will be done. Yet it is the special purpose and Grace of God that he made man into his own workmanship, that the life he gives the believer in the light should also be lived in fellowship, sharing in common the will and the glory and the kingdom of God our master. The joyous confidence of the Body of believers, servants of the God Most High, is if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. By desiring his will, he allows man to participate in his will being delivered. What God is already sufficient to deliver alone, he allows man to be involved in by asking according to God’s will. No servant can be greater than his master, but his highest calling to purpose is to be able to express fully the will of the master in his absence and upon anticipation of his return.
15 And if we know that he hears us — whatever we ask — we know that we have what we asked of him. Belonging to the Truth of God, and knowing the love which he provided by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, how can man doubt that we have what we asked of him? If we ask to participate in his will, he is good and faithful to give us his good works prepared beforehand so that we may walk in them. Similarly, when we pray by our life in Jesus Christ, praying in the name of Jesus Christ, we pray with a heart and mind that is under the Authority of Jesus Christ the head of the Body, and likewise we are confident that his will will be done.
16 If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that you should pray about that. When the believer has his life hidden in Christ, he has a firm and solid foundation that can not be shaken. Even if the remainder of his life amounts to nothing more than this foundation, he can have confidence that this foundation of life in Christ is as guaranteed as the miracles of God are faithful promises which can not be subverted or opposed. Yet, this must be the foundation. From the Truth of the Word of God, this Word of life, there only comes Truth and there only comes life. And thus lies come from un-truth, from a rejection of God’s Truth and making God out to be a liar, and death comes from death, from a rejection of the life which is provided in the atoning blood sacrificed by Christ Jesus for the sins of each sinner and the world. From this rejection of life, there can only come a rejection of the hope of forgiveness in the Son of God. Our prayers for the fellow believers should be to bring man back to this foundation, this firm confidence in the life given by the Son of God to each believer. But for the man who does not have such a foundation, there is no salvation or life, until there is belief in the life in the flesh of Jesus Christ of Nazareth the Son of God and the everlasting life he offers in himself by and in fulfillment of the Word of God.
17 All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death. Man may err in following the commands of Jesus Christ, and take multiple rebukes and encouragements by the Spirit to accept and acknowledge the Word. God is patient with man, to the great blessing of those whom God calls to know him. May it be that our sin and rebellion against God is punctuated by his cross, his miracle upending our history and replacing our flesh which dies with a spirit that lives.
18 We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the One who was born of God keeps them safe, and the evil one cannot harm them. When the believer is in the fellowship of the Father and the Son by the Spirit, he belongs to the Truth of God, and is alive by God’s Word of life. How can man be in darkness when he is walking in the light? No, man is now walking in the light, and knows that his deeds are done before God and with the full knowledge of the Son. The anointing of the Holy Spirit guides him in understanding how these things done appear in the light of God, and by this righteousness of God, man is instructed and grown to be more righteous, not that he may earn the salvation already worked by the miracle of God, but that he might participate in the miracle and might be more than subservient through willing and lively obedience in freedom. For the believer who obeys God’s will within his freedom, even his errors are already brought to the light such that God may by his miracle use them for his own Glory and Grace.
19 We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. What man will do with the freedom from sin in Jesus Christ depends on the Truth of the Word of God. In his freedom, to live by the Word of God is to not love the world, but living in it, love God such that the world sees in its midst those who love what is not seen and which they do not know. By this, believers are peacemakers with God and with man, their lives being the light in the world that reflects the Glory of God, is filled with the love of God, and is lived with the will of God conveyed even to those who are alien and opposed to God or knowledge of his Word. The whole world is so opposed, as all believers once were, until the flesh is cast aside for the life in the Spirit by God’s miracle to make the sinner a saint.
20 We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Thus, while God has made the sinner saint, he is still for a time immersed in the world for the good and the Glorious purposes of God. As the Son of God came into history and bore flesh, we as servants have nothing greater in calling, in purpose, or in execution of our lives than to live as he did, by his command, in anticipation of his return. His coming provided us understanding, that we know him and his truth. By the gift of his understanding, we too may live a life in him, which imparts understanding to others, that they too may see the truth in God’s miracle. By being the constituent parts of the Body of Christ, under him as the head, we have form and life in the movements of history and flesh, which are also movements of God’s Word and his miracle to Create life in those who are baptized into the death of the Son and raised with him to eternal life in the true living God.
21 Dear children, keep yourselves from idols. And so, alive in the true God by his Word of life, let us persevere in the anointing provided by God’s Spirit, live by blood and the body provided in Jesus Christ, and hope by the love revealed by the testimony of the Father. Let no other foundation encroach upon what God has made the miracle, by breathing life into the dying man that he may indeed die to sin but live to the Glory of God. May a man so free and alive not subject himself further by slavery to the flesh, to the lies of the world, to the spiritual forces apart from God, or the pride of man insisting to take for himself the part of God. Keep to what is good in God, and stay from that which is the death in the flesh and will be consumed with the fire on the Day of Judgement. Remain in the life which is the Son of God, the love of God that is the fruit of being known by God, belonging to God’s Truth, and God living in the man he has forgiven by the blood of his Son which now runs over and within them.
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one — I in them and you in me — so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.” — John 16.20–26
