The Christian’s Manifestation

The Christian's Manifestation

(No. 3004)

A SERMON PUBLISHED ON THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1906.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S-DAY EVENING,
AUGUST 5, 1866.

"Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what
we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like
Him; for we shall see Him as He is." 1 John 3:2.

THE text mentions, "now," and then passes on to the future and speaks
of, "yet." It does, however, speak of, "now" and, after all, despite
our trials, there is much to make us happy in our present condition.
"Beloved, now are we the sons of God." Our manifold temptations and
infirmities cannot make us lose the blessings that come to us through
our adoption into the family of God! "Happy are you, O Israel: who is
like unto you, O people saved by the Lord?" Today, even today, we are
the blessed of the Lord and we find in godliness the blessing of "the
life that now is."

Yet, Beloved, for all that, we are still forced to cry–

"Alas for us if you were all, And nothing beyond, O earth!" If this
were all our life, it would have been better for us not to have lived.
Woe unto us if we had to live here always! Young says–

"Were there no death, even fools might wish to die"–

and, certainly, wise men would do so, for, Brothers and Sisters, this
is a life of distractions, cares, anxieties, disappointments and, what
is worse, it is a life of sins, sorrows and bitter repentances for
wrong-doing! This life is to us a traveler's life with all the
inconveniences that we meet with in travelling. We are here today and
we are gone tomorrow! Sometimes the heat consumes us and at other times
the cold bites us. We are like men at sea–we have not yet cast our
anchor, nor furled our sails, nor reached the port where we are
bound–and the sea in which we are sailing is rough, tempest-tossed and
beset with rocks, shoals and quicksands. Our soul is often half a wreck
and longs for the desired haven where, "the wicked cease from
troubling" and, "the weary are at rest." Ours is a soldier's life–we
have to be constantly fighting, or else continually upon our guard.
Think not, you who have just buckled on your harness, that you have won
the victory, for the good soldiers of Jesus Christ must fight from morn
till evening, from youth's happy morning till the eve of gray old age!

I would not paint life in sadder colors than it needs, but I dare not
shut my eyes to the fact that this is a sad world and that our path is
one of sorrow, for it is "through much tribulation" that we "enter into
the Kingdom of God."–

"The path of sorrow and that path alone, Leads to the land where sorrow
is unknown."

It is to that other and better land that I would, for a little while,
bear away your thoughts. We shall borrow the wings of our text and,
like the eagle, soar towards Heaven!

I. We will begin with this sentence–IT DOES NOT YET APPEAR WHAT WE
SHALL BE.

What we are to be, we can scarcely guess. Indeed, we cannot guess at
all by the use of our senses. "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither
have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared
for them that love Him. But God has revealed them unto us by His
Spirit." But only to our spirits! Flesh and blood, as they are, cannot
inherit the Kingdom of God and cannot even guess what that Kingdom is
like. This is not the place where the Christian is to be seen. This is
the place of his veiling–Heaven is the place of his manifestation.
This is the place of his night. Yonder is the place of his day. Our
portion is on the other side of the river–our days of feasting are not
yet!

Some of the reasons why "it does not yet appear what we shall be" may
be as follows. First, our Master was, to a great extent, concealed and
hidden, and we must expect to be as He was. Is it not written, in this
very Epistle, "as He is, as are we in this world?" Jesus said to His
followers when He was here upon earth, "The disciple is not above his
master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple
that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord." My Brothers and
Sisters, see that Man wearing a coat "without seam, woven from the top
throughout"–the carpenter's son, the heir of poverty, the Companion of
the humblest classes of mankind? Can you see in Him God over all,
blessed forever? If you can, you are not looking with the eyes of your
flesh, I am sure, for in that manner, you cannot detect the Glory of
the Lord Jesus Christ beneath so humble a garb. The veil which the
Savior cast about Himself was not so thick but that some rays of His
Glory burst through when He trod the waves, rebuked the winds and
raised the dead, but still, it was sufficiently dense, for He cried,
"The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son
of Man has not where to lay His head." You will see that Christ was
concealed as you remember that.

But, as Dr. Watts says–

"All riches are His native right"–

yet, when He had to pay the Temple tax, He had to work a miracle that
Peter might be able to catch the fish which had the exact amount
required in its mouth. He was so poor that He had to live upon the
charity of His followers. Would you have believed that He was the Lord
of all creation if you had seen Him up on yonder lonely mountain's side
without a bed to rest upon, or sitting wearily upon Jacob's well at
Sychar and asking a sinful woman to give Him a little water to drink?
The Savior was, indeed, masked and hidden so that the vulgar eye could
not detect His Glory. Only such eagle-eyed men as John were able to
say, "We beheld His Glory, the Glory as of the Only-Begotten of the
Father, full of Grace and truth." Our Lord's wisdom, Grace, power and
all His other illustrious attributes were concealed beneath the veil of
our inferior clay. Dr. Watts was right, as I reminded you just now,
when he wrote–

"Worthy is He that once was slain

The Prince of Peace that groaned and died–

Worthy to rise, and live, and reign

At His almighty Father's side!

Power and dominion are His due

Who stood condemned at Pilate's bar.

Wisdom belongs to Jesus, too,

Though He was charged with madness here.

All riches are His native right,

Yet He sustained amazing loss!

To Him ascribe eternal might

Who left His weakness on the Cross." So fully did He veil His Glory
that some even ventured to call Him Beelzebub and to say that He was a
gluttonous man and a winebibber!

Now, Christian, as you think of all this, do you wonder if worldlings
do not know you and only speak of you to slander you? Do you wonder if
your integrity is questioned and your most manifest virtue is
misrepresented? And if the Grace which really is within you is laughed
at and despised? How could the world know you when the Savior, Himself,
was not discovered? As the bright gleams of His Divine Glory were
almost wholly concealed, surely the weaker gleams of your earthly and
human glory must be altogether hidden! That, perhaps, is the first
reason why "it does not yet appear what we shall be."

I think I may also remark, Brothers and Sisters, that we are not yet
fit to let it appear what we shall be. "The son in the house," says
one, "is treated as if he were a servant–and even worse than if he
were a servant. A servant is not chastised–he may do many wrong things
and yet escape without a stripe–yet it is not as with the son. Why
does not his father give him the honor and dignity which belong to his
sonship?" Simply because he is at present only a child and he must be
treated as a child for a time, in order that he may be fitted to adorn
his sonship. It would spoil him to receive at once all that is to be
his when he enters upon his inheritance. He is the heir to all his
father's estates, yet he has to be thankful to his father for even a
penny–and he receives his pittance week by week, as though he were a
poor pensioner upon his father's bounty or a beggar at his door. Why
does not the father give this heir to large estates a thousand

pounds? Why does he not entrust him with a great store of wealth?
Because he is in his nonage and if he were trusted with a large sum of
money at so early an age, he might grow profligate and so be unfit to
use his wealth rightly if he should reach riper years.

Brothers and Sisters, you and I, if we are Believers in the Lord Jesus
Christ, are kings–not only sons of God, but kings who are to reign
with Him forever! Then why are we not treated like kings? You know that
in some earthly royal families, it is thought best for the prince, the
heir-apparent to the throne, that he should be a soldier or a sailor
and serve his country in that capacity, so that, when he comes to the
throne, he may understand how to wield his scepter for the good of all
classes of his subjects. So, Christian, is it with you. You are so
childish at present–you have just lately begun to learn the nature of
Divine things. You are uninstructed–you know but in part and you know
that part so badly that it would not be fitting that your greatness
should be revealed to you at present! You must be held back for a while
till you have been better trained in the Holy Spirit's school–and
thenit shall appear what you shall be!

A third reason why it does not yet appear what we shall be is, I think,
because this is not the world in which the Christian is to appear in
his glory, for, if he did, his glory would be lost in this world. The
multitude climbed to the tops of the trees, or the roofs of the houses,
from where they might see Caesar or Pompey returning with the spoils of
war. And the multitudes still clap their hands when a warrior has
overcome his country's enemies and so become a great man. But the world
cares little or nothing about self-denial, about Christian love, about
consecration and devotion to Christ and His cause–yet these things are
the glory of a Christian! That morel excellence, that spiritual worth
which flashes from the eyes of the holy angels and the saints in Glory
is almost unappreciated here. Your Master has had this Glory, though it
was usually veiled while He was here below, yet the people cried out,
"away with Him, away with Him! Crucify Him!" And if you had here, to
its full extent, the glory which will be revealed in you in Heaven,
people would say the same concerning you! This is not the world in
which you are to display your full honors. When a king is journeying
through a foreign country, he does not wear his crown, nor the rest of
his regal clothes–he often travels incognito and even when he reaches
his own country, he does not put on his royal robe for fools to admire
at every village wake and fair! He is not a puppet-king, strutting upon
the stage to show himself to the common people–he reserves his
grandeur for great public occasions and grand court ceremonies. In this
poor sinful world, you Christians would be out of place if you could be
what you shall yet be! You, also, must go incognito through this world
to a large extent. But, by-and-by, you shall take off the travel-worn
garments that you have worn during your earthly pilgrimage and put on
your beautiful array and be manifested to the whole universe as a son
or a daughter of "the King Eternal, Immortal, Invisible!"

And to close this part of the subject, "It does not yet appear what we
shall be," because this is not the time for the display of the
Christian's glory. If I may use such an expression, time is not the
time for the manifestation of a Christian's glory. Eternity is to be
the period for the Christian's full development and for the sinless
display of his God-given glory. Here he must expect to be unknown–it
is in the hereafter that he is to be discovered as a son of the great
King. At present it is with us as it is with the world during winter.
If you had not seen the miracle worked again and again, you would not
guess, when you look upon those black beds in the garden, or when you
walk over that snowy and frosty covering, crisp and hard beneath your
feet, that the earth will yet be sown with all the colors of the
rainbow and that it will be gemmed with flowers of unspeakable beauty!
No, the winter is not the time when the beauty of the earth is to be
best seen. And, Christian, you, also, must pass through your winter
season. Yes, but let that wintry weather once be over, let the bleak
December winds howl into your ears, let the cold and cheerless January
come and go, let February also pass and, behold, the springtime comes!
I might also say that gray hairs come upon your head like the
snowflakes appear upon the earth–as the forerunner of spring and of
summer–and your soul shall yet blossom "with unspeakable joy and full
of glory," and all the graces and excellence of the Christian shall be
revealed in you! It is winter with you now, but the summer comes!

If you stand, as many of you have often done, at the seaside, you have
noticed that at certain hours of the day there is a long expanse of
mud, or of dry sand, and it may not seem to one who sees it for the
first time as though the sea had ever rolled over it, or that it ever
would. Ah, but "it does not yet appear" what it will be! It is ebb-tide
now, but wait till the flood comes and then you will see the whole of
that black mire or that yellow sand glistening in the sunshine! So, the
flood of glory is rising, Christian! Can you not see the breakers in
the distance, the white crests of the incoming waves?

God's great sea of eternity draws nearer and nearer! Can you not hear
the booming of that mighty flood? Soon shall your ransomed spirit float
and bathe in that sea of Glory where not a single wave shall cause you
a moment's grief or pain! This is not the time, Christian, in which you
are to be fully revealed. You are, today, like that ugly shriveled
seed–there is no beauty in it that you should desire it. Yes, but wait
a little while and the sweetly-perfumed flower shall shed its fragrance
in the air and make the gazer pause to admire the matchless colors with
which God has been pleased to paint it! Then shall its full glory be
known and seen! At present you are in your seed stage and your sowing
time is coming. Tremble not that it is so. There will be a time for
your poor flesh to sleep in the silent grave, but, at the voice of the
archangel and the blast of the trumpet of the Resurrection, you shall
arise! Just as the flower rises in spring, the dead body, which was put
into the tomb, shall rise incorruptible in the image of the Savior!

So, you see, "it does not yet appear what we shall be," because the
Lord Jesus Christ was not fully revealed here, because we are not fit
to appear in Glory, because we are not here in the midst of the men and
women who should see us in our gloryand because it is not yet the right
time for us thus to appear. "To everything there is a season, and a
time to every purpose under the heavens," but this is not the time for
the full manifestation of Christians and, therefore, "it does not yet
appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear, we
shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."

II. Having spent so much time over the previous clause, we will merely
hint at the teaching of the next words of the text–"BUT WE KNOW THAT
WHEN HE SHALL APPEAR."

So, then, it is quite certain that Christ will appear. John does not
stop to prove it. He speaks of it as though it were perfectly
understood that Christ would again appear and he mentions what is to be
the nature of that appearing.

Christ will appear in Person. This is what the two angels declared to
the disciples after His Ascension, "This same Jesus, which is taken up
from you into Heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen Him
go into Heaven." That is, as the Incarnate God He will come back from
Heaven.

When He comes, He will appear full of happiness. There will be no more
sorrow to winkle His brow, no more furrows to be plowed on His back, no
fresh wounds to be made in His hands or his feet, no more offering of a
Sacrifice for sin–He will come to forever rejoice with His people!

Further, when He comes, He will appear in His Glory–not as the Man of
Nazareth to be despised and spit upon– but as "The Mighty God, The
Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." If any of you are tempted to
ask, "When will He come?" I give you His own assurance, "Surely I come
quickly." So go your way and pray, as John did, "Even so, come, Lord
Jesus," yet do not forget Paul's Inspired sentence, "But of the times
and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I write unto you. For
yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief
in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety, then sudden
destruction comes upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and
they shall not escape." Christ is coming, Beloved, literally
coming–not figuratively and by His Spirit, but literally, actually,
really–

"Lo! He comes with clouds descending Once for favored sinners slain."

He is coming in Glory to dwell in the midst of His saints forever. This
is our blessed hope, "the glorious appearing of the great God and our
Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us
from all iniquity and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of
good works."

III. Now, passing on, "We know that when He shall appear, WE SHALL BE
LIKE HIM; FOR WE SHALL SEE

HIM AS HE IS.

There are other passages in His Word where we are distinctly told that
His manifestation will be coincident with our manifestation. Here we
are told that "when He shall appear, we shall be like Him." And the
reason given for this is, "for we shall see Him as He is."

Let us, while pondering the text, then, meditate upon this great Truth
of God–"We shall be like Him." This afternoon, meditating upon this
glorious assurance that I shall be like Christ–and I fully believe
that I shall be like Him–it did seem to me as if it were almost too
good to be true!

Yet it is true that we are to be like Christ, first, as to our body.
Here we are like the first Adam of the earth, earthy. But we shall, one
day, have a body like that of the second Adam, a heavenly body! Like
the first Adam, we are now

mortal. Like the second Adam, we shall, by-and-by, be immortal!
Christ's body is not now subject to any pains, or to any decay or
disease–neither shall our body be. It is quite true that "flesh and
blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God," yet it will be this very body
of ours that willinherit the Kingdom of God, only that which is
corruptible in it, that which is mere flesh and blood, will then have
been removed! As the Apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians in that
wonderful chapter about the Resurrection, "It is sown a natural body;
it is raised a spiritual body." It is "a spiritual body" which the Lord
Jesus Christ has today. I cannot imagine how glorious the Savior is in
Heaven, but I always think of Him, even when He was upon this earth, as
being far fairer than any artist ever depicted Him. I have gazed a long
while upon many paintings of Christ, both in England and abroad, but I
have never yet seen one which appeared to me to be equal even to my
ideal of the Savior! I have looked and I have said, "Oh, no! He was far
fairer than that! There must have been more beauty in His face than
even that great master has portrayed." Well, Brothers and Sisters, if
that is true concerning Him as He was when among the sons of men, how
true it must be concerning Him as He is now! He is fairer than all the
fair spirits that surround the heavenly Throne! He is "the Rose of
Sharon and the Lily of the Valleys." Among the shining seraphim and
cherubim, none can be compared with Him and, Christian, you are to be
like Him! Whatever are the Characteristics of the Savior's glorified
body, they are to be the characteristics of your body, also! You are to
have an immortal body, a spiritual body, a body incapable of pain,
suffering, decay–a body which shall be suited to your emancipated
spirit, a body having a wider range than this limited earthly sphere,
having greater powers at locomotion, perhaps flying, swiftly as light,
from world to world, or possibly having the power even to outrun the
lightning's flash! I do not know how wondrous Christ's glorified body
is, but I do know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him (even
in body); for we shall see Him as He is."

But, far more important than that, we shall also be like Christ in
soul. Have the eyes of your spiritual understanding or sanctified
imagination ever looked upon Christ's spotless, perfectly-developed
soul–that equably-adjusted spirit, in which no one power or passion
was too prominent or predominant–but in which His whole Being was
beautifully molded and rounded according to the perfect pattern of
moral excellence and beauty? Now, Beloved, you are to be just like
that–not quick in temper, as perhaps you now are, but meek and lowly
as He was–not haughty and prone to pride, but humble and gentle as He
was–not selfish and self-seeking, but as disinterested and as tender
to others as He was–in fact, perfection's own self! It was said of
Harry the Eighth that if all the histories of all the tyrants who ever
lived had been lost, you might have composed them all with the material
from the life of that execrable monster! And I will venture to say that
if all the biographies of all the good men and holy angels that have
ever existed could be blotted out of existence or memory, they might
all be written again with the material from the life of our Lord Jesus
Christ, for in Him dwells all excellence and all goodness! What a joy
it is to us to know that we shall be like Him! Brothers and Sisters in
Christ, this blessed Truth of God is enough to make you stand up or
even leap in the exuberance of your joy! I have heard of our
enthusiastic Welsh friends dancing during some of their preachers'
sermons–and if it is this or a similar Truth which makes them dance,
who can wonder at it? "We shall be like Him"–like Him in soul, with no
more infirmities of temper, or sloth, or undue haste. Our human nature
shall be rid of all its rags and we shall be perfect, even as our
Father in Heaven is perfect! Oh, that the blessed day had already come
and that we were like our Lord! But "we shall be like Him; for we shall
see Him as He is."–

"Nor does it yet appear-How great we must be made! But when we see our
Savior here, We shall be like our Head."

Time fails me to say what I should have liked to have said, yet I ought
to add that we shall be like Christnot only in body and in soul, but
also in condition. We shall be with Him where He is and we shall be as
happy as He is, as far as our capacity for happiness goes. We shall be
crowned even as He is crowned and we will sit upon thrones even as He
sits upon His Father's Throne. He shall lead us to living fountains of
water and be our constant Companion, never going away from us again. He
shall call us His brethren and we shall share in His honor and Glory.
The joy of which we shall partake shall be His joy, and it will be in
us that our joy may be full. O Christian, think lofty thoughts
concerning the Lord in Glory and remember that you shall be like Him! I
cannot help repeating that quaint little ditty which Rowland Hill was
so fond of humming in his old age–

"And when I'm to die, 'Receive me,' I'll cry, For Jesus has loved, I
cannot tell why! But thus I do find, we too are so joined He'll not
live in Glory and leave me behind."

IV. So, "we shall be like Him." And the reason why we shall be like Him
is thus given by John, "FOR WE SHALL SEE HIM AS HE IS."

How is it that we shall be like Him because of that? Partly, by
reflection. Perhaps you are aware that in the olden time,
looking-glasses (if I may use an Irishism), were not looking-glasses at
all, for they were made of polished brass. If a person looked into such
a mirror when the sun was shining upon that mirror, not only would the
mirror itself be bright, but it would also throw a reflection on the
face of the person who was looking into it. This is only according to
the laws of light. When a man looks into a bright mirror, it makes him,
also, bright, for it throws its own light upon his face and, in a much
more wonderful fashion, when we look at Christ, who is all brightness,
He throws some of His brightness upon us! When Moses went up into the
mountain to commune with God, his face shone because he had received a
reflection of God's Glory upon his face. He had looked into the blazing
light of Deity, as far as a created eye could look there and,
therefore, that light was so brilliantly reflected in his own face that
Aaron and the people were afraid to draw near him–and he had to cover
his face with a veil while he spoke to them.

Further, Beloved, we get to be like Christ by seeing Him in type and
symbol, as through a glass darkly. The Lord's Supper is one of the
glasses. Believer's Baptism is another. The preaching of the Word is
another. The Bible, itself, is another of these glasses. It is only a
partial reflection of Christ that we get from all these glasses yet, as
we look at it, as Paul writes to the Corinthians, "We all, with open
face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into
the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord,"
or, "by the Lord, the Spirit."

But, Brothers and Sisters, if there is such a sanctifying influence
about the very reflection of Jesus Christ, what a wondrous power it
must have upon us when we see Him as He is When we shall gaze upon Him
with unveiled vision and see Him as He is, do you wonder that John says
that then, "we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is"? Oh,
that amazing sight, that unique sight of Jesus as He is! It would be
worthwhile to die a thousand painful deaths in order to get one brief
glimpse of Him as He is! I do not think that Rutherford exaggerated
when he talked of swimming through seven Hells to get at Christ if he
could not get at Him any other way. A distant view of Him, as we have
seen Him "leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills," has so
ravished our souls that we have scarcely known whether we have been in
the body or out of our body. When we have heard His voice, we have
longed to be with Him. The very thought of Him has made us like the
dove separated for a while from her mate, long to cleave the air with
rapid wing and fly home to our dovecote and to our blessed Noah. What
must it be to be there? What must it be to see our Savior as He is?

In some of the houses not far from here, I noticed some finches in
cages in which there were tufts of grass, or small branches of trees as
perches for the poor prisoners–yet they were singing away right
merrily. I suppose that grass and those fragments of trees were meant
to remind them, in this great, dirty, smoky Babylon, that there are
green fields and wide forests somewhere. I thought, as I looked upon
them, "Ah, you poor birds are like what I myself am! My Master has put
me in a little cage and bid me bide here for a while–and He has given
me my little tuft of grass as an earnest of my inheritance in the–

"Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood."

He graciously sends me a few comforts on the way. Ah, but that poor
little tuft of grass, what is it in comparison with the fields and the
hedges which are the proper home of the singing birds which have their
liberty? And, Christian, you do not know what it will be for you to
have your cage door opened that you may fly away to that blessed land
where the true birds of Paradise forever warble, from their joyful
throats, the loudest praises to the great King who has set them free
forever! Let us begin the music here! Let us try, even now, to
anticipate that happy day as we sing of–

"Jerusalem the golden,

With milk and honey blest–

where–

"The daylight is serene."–

And where–

"The pastures of the blessed

Are decked in glorious sheen."

I leave my text with you who love the Lord. As for you who do not love
Him, I dare not give it to you. Oh, that you did love Him and that you
did trust Him! He waits to be gracious. Seek His face and He will be
found of you. Fly to Him and He will not reject you. Trust in Him and
He will wash you from all your sins and bring you to His Presence in
eternal Glory, to go no more out forever! May He give you this
unspeakable blessing, for His love's sake! Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: 1 JOHN 2; 3:1, 2.

1 John 2:1. My little children, these things I write unto you, that you
sin not This is one of the great objectives of all that is written by
Inspiration–that we may be kept from sin. O child of God, as you would
fear to drink poison, as you would flee from a serpent, dread sin!

1. And if any man sins. Is it a hopeless case then? Far from it! "If
any man sins."

1-3. We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous,
and He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but
also for the sins of the whole world. And hereby we do know that we
know Him, if we keep His commandments. Holiness of life is the best
proof that we know God. It matters not how readily we can speak about
God, nor how much we suppose that we love Him–the great test is, do we
keep His commandments? What a heart-searching test this is! How it
should humble us before the Mercy Seat!

4-6. He that says, I know Him, and keeps not His commandments, is a
liar and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, in him
verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in Him.
He that says he abides in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He
walked. When we try to be, in every respect, what God's Word tells us
we ought to be, then may we know that we are in God. But if we walk
carelessly, if we take no account of our actions, but do, after a
random fashion, whatever comes into our foolish hearts, then have we no
evidence at all that we are in God!

7. Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old
commandment which we had from the beginning. The old commandment is the
word which you have heard from the beginning. "From the time when
Christ first began to preach, or when the Gospel was first preached in
your ears."

8. Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in
Him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now
shines. That which is new in the Gospel, in one sense, is not new in
another, for, though John was about to write what he called a new
commandment, yet, at the same time, he was writing something which was
not novel, something which was not grafted upon the Gospel, but which
grows naturally out of it, namely, the Law of Love.

9. He that says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in
darkness, even until now. God is Love and God is Light. Therefore, love
is light, and the Light of God is Love. Where enmity and hatred are
still in the heart, it is proof positive that the Grace of God is not
there.

10-15. He that loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no
occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hates his brother is in
darkness, and walks in darkness, and knows not where he goes, because
that darkness has blinded his eyes. I write unto you, little children,
because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake. I write unto
you, fathers, because you have known Him that is from the beginning. I
write unto you, young men, because you have overcome the Wicked One. I
write unto you, little children, because you have known the Father I
have written unto you, fathers, because you have known Him that is from
the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because you are
strong, and the Word ofGodabides in you, andyou have overcome the
Wicked One. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the
world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in
him. For this sinful world is directly opposed to the Father. You
cannot send your heart at the same time in two opposite ways–towards
evil and towards good. You must make a choice between the two.

16, 17. 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 passes away, and the lust thereof: but he
that does the will of God abides forever. It ought not, then, to be
difficult to make a choice between these fleeting shadows and the
everlasting substance.

18. Little children, it is the last time. You may read the passage, "It
is the last hour," as if John wanted to show how late it was and how
soon Christ would come. "It is the last hour."

18. And as you have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are
there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. How
much more emphatically John might write this verse if he were writing
today!

19. They went out from us. For, alas, many of the antichrists came out
of the Church. They sprang up from among the followers of Christ. "They
went out from us."

19, 20. But they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would
no doubt have continued with us but they went out, that they might be
made manifest that they were not all of us. But you have an unction
from the Holy One, and you know all things. "You who know God–and even
the little children, the babes in Christ, know the Father–know all
things. And you will not be led astray and deceived by these
antichrists who have gone out into the world."

21. I have not written unto you because you know not the truth, but
because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth. The truth is all
of a piece, and a lie cannot be a part of the truth. Christ does not
teach us a Jesuitical system in which error and falsehood are mixed up
with truth–the Gospel is all truth–and to those who believe it we may
say, "You know the truth, and you also know that no lie is of the
truth."

22, 23. Who is a liar but he that denies that Jesus is the Christ?He is
antichrist that denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son,
the same has not the Father. They who deny the Deity of Christ
practically deny the Divine Fatherhood of God. It is not possible for
us to understand the rest of the Truth of God if we do not believe in
Christ, who is the Truth. As the poet says–

"You cannot be right in the rest Unless you think rightly of Him."

23-28. [But]he that acknowledges the Son has the Father also. Let that
therefore abide in you, which you have heard from the beginning. If
that which you have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, you
also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father. And that is the
promise that He has promised us, even eternal life. These things have I
written unto you concerning them that seduce you. But the anointing
which you have received of Him abides in you, and you need not that any
man teach you: but as the same anointing teaches you of all things, and
in truth, and is no lie, and even as it has taught you, we shall abide
in Him. And now, little children, abide in Him. That which is the
subject of promise is also the subject of precept. And the precepts of
the Gospel are given to Christians because, in this way, God keeps His
own promise and so leads me to obey His precepts.

28, 29. That, when He shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be
ashamed before Him at His coming. If you know that He is righteous, you
know that everyone that does righteousness is born of Him.

1 John 3:1, 2. Behold, what manner oflove the Father has bestowed upon
us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knows
us not, because it knew Him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God
and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when He
shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.