The Story of a Garden, a Vineyard, and a Body

Long ago, a Gardener spoke a sprawling garden into existence, filling it with abundant life and calling it very good. But life in the garden disagreed with the Gardener’s terms and rejected His perfect conditions. To its own destruction, the garden went its own way. 

The Gardener was not finished with His work; giving life was in His nature, and it was His delight. He had his eye on a scraggly grapevine wilting under the Egyptian sun, and His heart was stirred by its pathetic state.  Instead of cutting it down or letting it die, He uprooted it by hand and carried it with Him until He brought it to a land flowing with milk and honey. There, he transplanted the vine and tended it faithfully until it flourished. “In days to come,” He resolved, “the whole world will be filled with its fruit.” 

But upon growing strong, it turned against the Gardener, resisting His clipping, His watering, and His care. It declared that it was better off free from the Gardener’s routines, and although multiple attempts were made to restore it, it refused to be brought back. It shriveled to nothing.

“What more can I do that I have not already done?” the Gardener thought. In an act of merciful intervention, the Gardener sent His Son.  “I am the true vine.” The Son explained, “Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he is the one who bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing.” 

The Son put Himself in the place of the cursed garden and lifeless vine. To the branches who had fallen and withered in their rejection of His Father, He offered the life in his veins as the source for the whole world to tap into and flourish. 

Those who embrace Him are infused with His DNA and deemed children of His Father.  All who abide in Him, deeply rooted, develop fruit in their lives that looks a lot like the Son’s life: His love transforms their love, and His perfection perfects them. 

But the enemy has been working since the beginning to shame the dependent and embarrass the needy. “You got this far - can’t you take it from here? Only the weak need Him that badly!” he taunts. What he's covering up with his lies is that drawing life from Jesus actually grows confidence. When Jesus' likeness has been developing in his dependent, then there will be no reason to shrivel like a raisin in the sun when He appears face to face. In expectation of that day, cultivate your attachment to Him. Abide.

Outlasting the Last Days, 1 John 2:15-27

I’ve been to a few graduation parties this summer, and I always smile at the snapshots that do their best to capture 18 years of a student’s life up to that point. From chubby baby to present day, so much has happened, and so much has changed! If I know the graduate well enough, this is the moment my eyes well up quite enough. 

At one party, we were given a slip of paper and asked to put a piece of advice for the graduate into a jar. Hmm. I immediately try to summarize just one single, memorable lesson from my life that might be helpful in theirs. What’s the message from me to them as they go out into the world? Because the world certainly has a message for them. If the world strutted into their grad party, it would throw into the jar all the advice it has ever given to billions of graduates across time:

Put yourself first. 

Take whatever looks good. 

Find security in success.  

It’s a message that defines everything about the world, and, upon examination, it’s a message all about what to love. Paul explained the kind of love people would have in the last days, and it sounds strikingly similar to John’s description of the world:

Love of self

Love of pleasure

Love of money

Why is love spoken of with such caution - to the young, to the old, to graduates? Because, what we love takes us along with it for a shared future. If the world can direct our love, it will direct our steps into its own destiny. Illustrating individually what John warned corporately, Paul grieved that Demas “loved this present world”, and it resulted in his desertion of the faith. He didn’t last, because he chased what couldn’t last. To love the world is to reject the Father’s love, most clearly understood in Christ. No one can have the Father’s love without the Son, the only way to the Father.  John says that taking an anti-Christ position reveals a lack of belief in the heart from the beginning and also that the world’s expiration date is near. 

Since the world isn’t forever, don’t love what doesn’t last. 

But the Spirit lasts forever, present in a life from the very beginning of someone embracing Christ, and He is the ultimate teacher regarding who Jesus truly is. His original and genuine gospel message joins believers forever to the Son and to the Father; anyone who teaches something additional or alternate is a counterfeit. In Christ, God’s promise of eternal life becomes personal everlasting life, because He takes us along with Him for a shared future.

And so, graduate, as you go out into the world, love what lasts.

Remember who you are, 1 John 2:12-14

As a teen, whether I was headed to youth group, to my shift as a waitress, or out to ski for the day, my parents’ most-repeated phrase before I closed the door behind me was, Remember who you are. They may have just finished piling on heaps of last minute advice (Be kind. Do your best. Go the speed limit!) or pointing out potential dangers (Watch out for that crowd. Be careful on the slopes today!), but their parting words reassured me that they hadn’t said what they did as if they viewed me as wholly unkind and reckless. Rather, their statement, Remember who you are, rooted me in an identity they supported and reminded me to live according to it. 

Leading up to verse 12, John has just drawn a hard line between darkness and light, piling up evidence for one lifestyle and pointing out deficiencies in another. It could have sounded accusatory, as if the Spirit was implying that the readers’ lives were defined by darkness and that it was time to confront them in writing. But that’s not the case. Instead, verses 12-14 are like a gentle reprieve, rooting them in their identity. Remember who you are.

They are: 

Little children whose sins are forgiven for the sake of Jesus’ name

Fathers who know Him who is from the beginning

Young men who have overcome the evil one

Children who know the Father

Fathers who know Him who is from the beginning

Young men who are strong, have God’s Word abiding in them, and have overcome the evil one 

The repetition of similar wording is confusing, so let’s see what we can discern with a closer look.

Little children is a term of endearment that teachers used to address their students, and, in this book, John frequently refers to his entire audience as little children. Jesus addressed his disciples like this, and Paul called the Galatians by this term (John 13:33; Galatians 4:19). Here, the Apostle John specifies that the little children who follow his teaching are not forgiven of their sin on account of their own names or because of their esteemed teacher’s name.  Likewise, our forgiveness is not because of us, or who we follow, or whose Bible studies we complete, or who our pastor is. There is only One whose name clears our sin record, and it’s His name we claim as His little children (1 John 2:2).

The second reference to children is a different Greek word. As explained in Vine’s Expository Dictionary, it describes a person who is young in age or in development. No matter how old someone is when they trust Christ, or how recent someone’s re-birth may be, their conversion results in a relationship with the Father. There is no advanced stage, phase, or level to reach in order to know Him. Our Father isn’t holding us at arm’s length until we grow up and get it together or act like someone else who’s further along. Children are not excluded; counter-culturally, they’re welcomed (Matthew 18:3; 19:13,14). 

Fathers could be taken literally or figuratively, according to Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, and since it’s repeated twice, it may imply both.  Whether some were physical parents or metaphorical “founding fathers” in the faith, they themselves are not the originators of life or of eternal life. Even the mature and advanced have someone ahead of them to look to and lean on: the Alpha who began it all and who existed before it all began. (Hebrews 12:2; Revelation 21:6). 

Strong’s Concordance explains that young men means, “a youth, under 40” (and all the 30-year-olds nod in approval). My teenage sons would be thrilled to be described as “strong” or “overcomers” against anyone and anything. The battle for the young is real. It’s against the “malignant one”, as Vine’s Expository Dictionary translates evil one, and the battle is threatening, because it attacks like a disease. But instead of being a scare tactic, convincing youth to run for cover, this message is one of victory. Their abiding strength is God’s Word in them, like a concealed weapon. 1 John will later expand on the concept of overcoming, pointing to the Spirit inside who is greater than the spirit of the antichrist. Power to overcome is because of faith in Jesus, mightier than all the evil in the world (1 John 4:4; 5:4).

With whatever category you most identify today, this is written to you. Remember who you are. Put it on repeat. 

Some Good News, 1 John 1:5-2:11

And Now, Some Good News: The Light

We spent ten years in the tropics, where sunny days were like a perfect strand of Christmas lights: one after the other, white and bright, all in a row, uninterrupted. Ah, sunshine. One of our friends from the southern hemisphere told us he was confused by northerners’ frequent references to how wonderful it was to take walks in the sunlight. That is, until he moved to a region with long winters, where any day above 60 degrees prompts picnics. Finally - Vitamin D and good moods!

In contrast to the darkness, the light of eternal life is good news: 

Walking in the light results in fellowship through Jesus’ cleansing from sin (1:7)

Confessing sin results in forgiveness of sin & cleansing from all unrighteousness (1:9)

Keeping God’s commands proves we know Him (2:3)

Keeping God’s Word proves the love of God in us (2:5a)

Walking like Jesus proves we are in Him (2:5b-6)

Loving a brother proves we’re abiding in the light (2:10)

These scenarios begin and end with living in the light. By considering all that’s described between these phrases, we see that a lifestyle of living in the light results in purity on the inside and proof on the outside. The light’s good news is purity and proof.

Let’s break it down. Verses 7 and 9 highlight the cleansing result of God’s light, purifying us to bring us close to Him. Rather than seeing sin in our lives as something to deny or as a reason to doubt salvation, admitting sin and rejecting it actually indicates the light of God’s presence within us. When the light exposes the dust of disobedience or crumbs of unloving actions, there is a remedy, based on the cleansing blood of Jesus. He picks up the broom for us. 

Jesus’ righteous payment for our unrighteousness was faithfully and justly applied to us when we trusted Him, and it continues to be applied when we step out of fellowship in sin and then confess it. His cleansing was enough then and still is now. How good is that news? Instead of denying reality - like the darkness would - confess it, and walk like Jesus, even if you feel like a toddler wobbling beside her older brother. 

God’s commands contained in His Word are the basis for walking forward with Him, as we see in chapter 2, verses 3 and 5. Walking in the lamplight of His Word is not just accumulating words, lectures, and knowledge that Gnostics might promote; true light is seen when we live out what we read, hear, and know. Words and actions together walk the path, hand in hand. Obedience to His Word proves we’re walking in light.

Jesus lived obediently, most clearly seen in His love, which is the greatest command given. He demonstrates what it looks like to walk in the light on the trajectory of obedience to what God says and in imitation of how He loves. When we follow His ways, it’s proof of His light in us.

Just as we bask in sunlight after a dark winter, we welcome God’s light to purify and prove who we are. When we walk in His light, one step after the next, our lives shine like a glorious strand of tropical days.  

“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.” Ephesians 5:8

Bad News First, 1 John 1:5-2:11

Bad News First: The Darkness

If enlightenment was essential to the Gnostics, 1 John blows away their abstract definition of it. Here, we compare and contrast what it looks like to walk in darkness as opposed to walking in light. This section is written in a repeated if/then pattern, describing almost a dozen possible scenarios, going back and forth between negative and positive conclusions. We’ll take the negative scenarios first. Notice the downward spiral of darkness:

Claiming fellowship, but walking in darkness is to lie (1:6)

Claiming we have no sin is to deceive ourselves (1:8)

Claiming we have not sinned is to call God a liar (1:10)

Claiming “I know Him,” yet not keeping his commands, is to be a liar (2:4)

Claiming to be in the light, but hating a brother, is to still be in darkness (2:9)

The visible indicator of walking in darkness is a disconnect between what someone says about themselves and what’s actually true about them. Darkness is seen in hypocrisy. Living one way, but covering it with empty claims, spirals from bad to worse: from lying, to self-deception, to accusing God of being a liar, to being a liar, to still being in darkness, unable to see at all. Walking in darkness is a refusal to recognize sin for what it is, and, instead of pursuing God’s path of resolution, to continue in the opposite direction as if all is well.

Experiencing doubts about eternal life might result from denial of reality in our everyday life. Are we making false claims about ourselves by turning a blind eye to the truth? When our words are empty, we’ll begin to believe God’s Word is empty. Responding to sin in either downplay and denial, or conviction and confession, is indicative of someone’s spiritual state, and John's original readers could learn discernment about themselves or their leaders from these verses. 1 Timothy 5:24 reminds us that some sins won’t become known until long after they've been committed. But God has been fully aware, and He will not be mocked.

If you realize you’ve been walking in the darkness while claiming that there is no problem between God and you, don’t wait any longer to let the light in.  Jesus is described in multiple ways in these verses, proving that belief in who He really is, is the foundation of eternal life. He is the Son of God, the eternal Word who took on physical matter as a human. He is our advocate whose death satisfied God’s wrath against our sin, and whose resurrection proved who He is, once and for all. He is sin’s remedy; denial and cover-up only increases sin. His righteous payment for our unrighteousness is graciously and fully applied to us when we turn to Him in repentance of our sin. Your darkness is not too deep for His light. Have you trusted Him? 

If you have, notice how someone who’s walking in the light lives a certain way and responds to their exposed sin in these verses, and we’ll discuss those scenarios - the good news - next time. Sometimes exposure graciously comes through the truth of the Word internally convicting of sin, but because of the self-deceptive nature of sin, it often requires an outside source to bring it to light. Have you invited anyone to have that kind of access to your life? 

“To Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy - to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore. Amen.”  Jude 24,25