Like Father, Like Son
Introduction: I recently read that insanity is hereditary: parents get it from their children. Well, there’s perhaps a measure of truth to that—I’ve been on the brink a few times myself lately—but it’s also true that our children inherit a lot from us. Sometimes that’s very positive. I think of the Steimel family, for example. You can tell a Steimel child a mile away—thoughtful, intelligent, respectful, gentle, and able to sit through church without a peep. Why? Because Norm and Libby are thoughtful, intelligent, respectful, gentle. We could look at the other extreme too, but I don’t want to serve as an example and I’m sure most of you don’t. We all know, however, that there is a large measure of truth in the old proverb, “Like father, like son.” Or better, “Like parent, like child.”
Our Scripture text for today talks about how much our behavior is influenced by our spiritual heritage. It speaks principally about our status as children of God and the implications of that for our daily living, but it also makes clear that not everyone is a child of God. The liberal church has tried for 50 years to convince us of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, by which they mean that the human race is all one spiritual family. If there’s anything more contrary to biblical teaching than that, I don’t know what it is. Here in our text today we are told clearly that there are two kinds of children—children of God and children of the Devil—and both take after their fathers. The Apostle John wants us to take a long, hard look at which father we resemble and therefore, which family we belong to.
If I were to reduce the Apostle’s message to a sentence it would be this: ungodly living is unthinkable for the Christian who grasps the wonder of his status as a child of God. In the process he addresses three issues: what we are, what we shall be, and what we should do.
What we are is “children of God.” (1-2)
Chapter 3 opens with a powerful expression of wonder at our status as Children of God. “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” John is speaking to the believers in the church, those who have put their faith in Jesus Christ, who have accepted His Lordship over their lives, and who have therefore been accepted into the family of God. They are now His children.
I’m convinced that many of us have lost the wonder of being called a child of God. We speak of our relationship with God glibly; we take it for granted; we presume upon it; we even look down on those who haven’t yet “arrived.” Instead, we ought to just marvel that any human being should everbe called a son of God, and beyond that, actually be one. The earth is just one of billions upon billions of heavenly bodies that we know of in the universe, and the human race is just one of thousands of species on this earth. None of the other species are called the children of God. They are creatures of God and they demonstrate His marvelous creativity, but they are not His children.
Furthermore, there are over 5 billion human beings on this earth and only a few are called the children of God. When I say “few” I speak relatively, for their number is surely in the multiplied millions, but as a percentage of the human race the Bible indicates they are “few.” And when we examine those of whom we can be most sure that they are in that number, we do not find that they are all perfectly proportioned, or unusually intelligent, or especially sophisticated. They are frankly, more often than not, quite ordinary. Which shouldn’t surprise us if we’re familiar with I Cor. 1:26ff:
“Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things–and the things that are not–to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus.”
Now if all that is true, what should be our reaction when we contemplate the privilege of being called a child of God? Shouldn’t it be wonder and astonishment at the incredible love of God? In the hymn, “The Wonder of It All,” George Beverly Shea wrote,
“There’s the wonder of sunset at evening,
The wonder as sunrise I see;
But the wonder of wonders that thrills my soul
Is the wonder that God loves me.”[i]
I have often been stirred by the great privilege that was mine to be born into my family of origin rather than one of the millions of broken and abusive homes, and I have often been moved by the great love my parents have for me. But they really didn’t have too much choice. They didn’t order a kid like me; they just tried to do the best with what they got. But God knew me thoroughly—all my weaknesses, all my inadequacies, all my sins—and He still agreed to adopt me into His family. He had a choice, and He chose me! Amazing!
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” Friends, let’s not lose the wonder and majesty of what we are: children of God. But at the same time, let us not lose sight of the fact that we are not all that we shall be. In verse 2 John goes on to tell us
What we shall be: “like Him” (2)
“Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” Every Christian contemplates at times about what life will be like after death. As a pastor I am frequently asked questions like, “Do you think we’ll recognize one another in heaven? Will I be old and wrinkled there too? Will I feel regret and sorrow over my failures on earth? Will we be able to travel freely in the universe? Will we eat in heaven and do you think there will be brussels sprouts there too?” Lots of heavy theological issues concern us about the life hereafter. And the best answer to most of those question is the answer John gives here. We don’t know, but what we do know is that when Jesus comes again we will be like Him. We don’t need to know much more.
That is very similar to the answer Jesus gave in John 14 when His disciples were grieving His impending death: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that where I am there you may be also.”
Notice that Jesus doesn’t offer much of a description of heaven, which is probably what they would have liked. Nor does He focus on the characteristics of their resurrection bodies. Instead, He simply says, “Where I am you will be.” And the same author adds in our text today, “we will be like Him.”
Now the prospect of being like Jesus is exciting and eminently satisfying. But it has to be balanced by the truth we saw at the end of our last chapter, verse 28: “And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears, we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.” All believers will become like Him, but first there will be a purging that for some will be painful. The Protestant church has long rejected the Catholic doctrine of purgatory, but I would suggest to you that there is an element of truth as well as error in that doctrine. The principal error is the notion that purgatory is a place and a time after death when final determination is made of one’s eternal destiny.
On the contrary the Bible clearly teaches that one’s final destiny is determined by one’s choices in this life, not by some period of examination and rehabilitation after death. But a purging of believers will take place at the Judgment Seat of Christ; some will receive great commendation and reward for their faithfulness, but others will be ashamed and suffer loss, apparently loss of reward and responsibility. (Please remember that we’re not speaking here of the judgment of unbelievers. That is the Great White Throne Judgment and no purging is done there: the guilty are simply cast into the lake of fire).
Now this possibility of a believer being ashamed at the Judgment Seat is, I believe, implied also in verse 3, where the Apostle turns to the third major issue: “what we should do” in light of who we are and what we will be.
What we should do: “purify ourselves.” (3-10)
“Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.” The great truths of prophecy should never be taken as an excuse for living carelessly but rather as a strong motivation for living as Jesus lived. After all, if we aren’t concerned about righteous living now, why would we want to spend eternity in a place where righteousness is all there is?
The Apostle proceeds to develop this thought of the need for purity in verses 4-10 by examining the problem of sin, the solution to sin, and the incongruity of sin in the believer’s life. First, …
The problem of sin (4, 8). Let’s read verses 4 and 8 back to back: “Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning.” In these few words a lot of information is given to us about sin. First, we have a concise definition of sin: “Sin is lawlessness.” It is not just a negative failure but rather an active rebellion against God’s will and His law as revealed in the written Word, the Bible, and the Living Word, Jesus Christ.
Second, we are told that the origin of sin is found in Satan; he is the father of it. The first sin, by the way, was not Eve’s decision to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That was only the first human sin. The first sin was committed when Lucifer, the highest of God’s angelic creatures, rebelled against God and in pride tried to seize God’s throne, as revealed in Ezekiel 28 and possibly Isaiah 14.
And third, not only do we have here a definition of sin and insight into the origin of sin, but we also learn of the heritage of sin. “He who does what is sinful is of the devil.” Now that’s pretty strong language, but can we really argue with it? After all, if the origin of sin is found in Satan and if he has been sinning from the beginning, one whose life is characterized by sin must be related to him. So much for the problem of sin.
The solution to sin (5,8). Now I want us to read verses 5 and 8 back-to-back: “But you know that He appeared so that He might take away our sins. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.” Here we are given two reasons why the Son of God came into this world: to take away our sin and to destroy the works of the devil, or to set the captives free and to defeat the captor. He did both through His death on Calvary. Jesus, having no sin of his own, was able to give His life as a perfect sacrifice for our sin. And God accepted that sacrifice and agreed to bury our sin in the deepest sea and to remember it no more. That dealt with the penalty of sin for the child of God.
But in addition, by His resurrection from the dead Jesus destroyed the devil’s work. The Greek word “destroy” used here doesn’t mean “to annihilate,” and we all know that Satan is still alive and well on planet earth. Rather it means “to break the power of.” Satan no longer has the power over God’s children that he had before they trusted Christ. Satan’s doom is sure, as Martin Luther’s great hymn puts it. He has been judged and sentenced. He may still win a few battles here and there, but he has already lost the war! There is no reason for us to kowtow to him.
Now we come to the key point of application:
The incongruity of sin in the believer’s life (6-10). Let’s read again beginning at the end of verse 5: “And in Him is no sin. No one who lives in Him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him. Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.” Now go down to verse 9: “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.”
I don’t know what your reaction is to these verses, but I am overwhelmed by them. These verses say that sin is incompatible with sonship. They say that a true believer not only doesn’t continue to sin but that he cannot go on sinning. Then I look at my life, particularly those areas where I have struggled for a long time and where I frequently fail and all I can say, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Frankly, I think that’s exactly the response John is looking for. But he’s also looking for some action. Go back to verse 3: “Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.” In other words, recognizing the incompatibility of sin with our position as children of God should drive us to seek purity; it should drive us to repentance.
I’m convinced we don’t pay enough attention to repentance in the church today. We talk a lot about faith, and grace, and confession, and forgiveness, and God’s love, but we don’t talk much about repentance, which means turning away from sin, renouncing it, and heading in the opposite direction. Repentance is the only appropriate response to sin in the believer’s life.
Now let me address a very important matter in the verses I just read before we look at two specific truths taught in them. These verses are not teaching that a Christian must be sinless. That would be the natural way to interpret them, especially as they are translated in the KJV, were it not for what John has already said in chapter 1. Turn back a page and let’s review what we studied several weeks ago: Verse 8: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” Verse 10: “If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and His word has no place in our lives.”
Unless John is hopelessly confused and self-contradictory, we must interpret chapter 3 consistently with chapter 1. And I believe that’s possible if we consider two very important clues. First, the tense of the verbs in chapter 3 is no accident. Over and over again John uses the present tense in such a way that it is virtually certain he is speaking of habitual action rather than occasional relapse. The NIV has rendered these present tense verbs very well when it translates “keeps on sinning,” “continues to sin,” and “go on sinning.” The NASB translates some of them well by rendering the text, “no one practices sin.” In other words, John is not denying that a believer can sin occasionally. Every one of us who is honest knows we can and none of us knows anyone who hasn’t. But what he seems to be fighting is the notion that a believer can habitually practice sinful behavior.
But we’re still not out of the woods, are we? For I suspect that everyone of us here this morning has some area of sin with which we have struggled for a long time. It may be foul language, gossip, pornography, or anger; it may be a failure to love our spouse as we should or to hide God’s word in our hearts. It may be a sin of omission or commission. Whatever it is, we call it a besetting sin, a sin that rears its ugly head again and again, a sin that discourages us and causes us to ask, “Why can’t I get control of this thing?” Is there anyone here this morning besides me who knows what I’m talking about? I thought so. In fact, as I read the Bible I find that most of the great saints of old also had what might be called besetting sins.
Well, what do we do with I John 3 in light of our struggle with sin habits? It seems to me we have 3 choices: (1) take the passage literally and conclude that none of us who raised our hands is a child of God; (2) conclude that John is wrong in his theology; or (3) seek an understanding of our text that can be reconciled with the rest of the Scripture and with our own experience. I personally choose the latter, and I think this can be done without doing violence to the text if we consider carefully our second clue, which is John’s audience.
The first clue, regarding the tenses of the verbs, keeps us from interpreting John as contradicting what he said in chapter 1. This clue keeps us from interpreting John as contradicting the rest of Scripture and experience. We must pay careful attention to John’s audience and what occasioned his letter. John is writing to a church which had been badly infected with Gnostic heresy. These false teachers held that matter was evil and spirit was good. Therefore, the believer should concern himself only with spiritual things. Furthermore, what we do with our bodies doesn’t necessarily affect who we are in our spirits, so we don’t really need to sweat sin.
John screams out loud, “That’s a lie!” Anyone who is unconcerned about sin is so far off base that he cannot even be called a child of God. Instead, he is a child of the devil! So I am suggesting that John’s principal focus here is upon the attitude of indifference toward sin. He is not denouncing the believer who has an area of weakness in his life over which he feels great guilt and remorse and genuinely struggles to do right. He’s denouncing the person who sins habitually and doesn’t care, who says to himself, “I believe in God, but I’ll do it my way.” He’s denouncing even modern so-called evangelicals who preach an unbalanced system of grace that says one can “be” righteous without bothering to “practice” righteousness.
However, this passage is not without relevance for those of us who are sincere believers but who struggle with sin habits. And I have sought to express that relevance through the two subpoints at the end of our outline: A new birth demands a new lifestyle, and one’s behavior reveals his true parentage.
1. A new birth demands a new lifestyle. “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.” The key is the term “seed.” That may refer to God’s Word, by which we are regenerated. Or, even more likely, it may refer to the Spirit of God, who indwells the believer’s life and by whom the believer is given power over sin. It seems to me that John is in effect asking, “What sense does it make for a Christian to say, ‘The Spirit of God lives inside of me but I cannot quit this sin.'” That’s absurd. It may be hard to quit; it may take great self-discipline along with divine discipline, but to say “I can’t” is incompatible with the fact that God’s seed is in us and we are His children. I believe that when we grasp this fact, we have a much better basis for getting victory over the besetting sins that plague us.
2. One’s behavior reveals his true parentage. He says in verse 10, “This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.” In other words, the child exhibits the parent’s character because he shares the parent’s nature. If our character is in common with Satan’s how can we claim that our nature is of God?
Now be careful here. John is telling us that righteousness is the evidence of the new birth, not the cause of it. He’s not telling us that we become a child of God by doing what is right and by loving our brother. The Scriptures make it perfectly clear that no one can earn his salvation but rather a person becomes a child of God by trusting in the sacrifice of Christ. But at the same time a mere profession of faith won’t cut it. As Martin Luther said, “we are saved by grace through faith alone, but not through a faith that is alone”; that is, we are saved by a faith that is accompanied by a life of righteousness. If we don’t have that and if we’re not moving toward that, then we have no right to claim to be a child of God, and no right to call ourselves Christians. Remember our sermon in a sentence? Ungodly living is unthinkable for the Christian who grasps the wonder of his status as a child of God.
Conclusion: Some people resemble their fathers more than others, but everyone has certain distinguishing characteristics which tie them to their parents. It may be appearance, it may be mannerisms, it may be ways of looking at the world. The question we should be asking is this: would an objective observer be able to identify our spiritual father as God? Even more important, does God identify us as His children? If not, then we have some serious self-examination to do. In fact, let’s take the time to do that right now.
Extra material: In chapter 3 John returns to the first of three tests of true Christianity, namely the moral test (are we obedient?). The other two, you will recall, are the social test (do we love one another?), and the doctrinal test (do we believe the truth?). But this time the perspective is different. In chapter one his point was that the Christian in fellowship with God will live in obedience to God’s commandments. Now the focus is on sonship, rather than fellowship. Because a Christian is born of God, he will practice righteousness and turn from sinful behavior.
Recently I counseled a woman who had an affair with a well-respected evangelical leader. This relationship had been going on for some time when after one particular rendezvous he said to her, “I’m not proud of what I’m doing, but at least I know I’m going to heaven when I die.” Now mind you, this was after six months of living in sin with this woman and, by his own admission, this was not his first affair. Something is wrong here, friends. John would say to that man, “you have no right to claim to be a child of God. Your behavior is incompatible with your profession. Could that be said of any of us here today?
I’m glad I’m not the Judge as to who is a child of God and who isn’t. But there are times when I must make preliminary judgments. As a pastor I sit in on membership interviews where we try to ensure that those who join the church are first part of the family of God. I am also involved in helping to choose church leaders and recruit church workers, and it is our mandate to choose spiritual men and women for these tasks. In counseling I have to decide whether a failing marriage is due to disobedience to the Word or perhaps to the fact that one or both of the spouses don’t even have a personal relationship with God. All of these situations demand that I make some judgments about whether the people I’m dealing with are children of God. Gratefully, John offers some guidelines that are very helpful, guidelines which I must also apply to my own life.
DATE: October 29, 1989
Tags:
Sin
New birth
Judgment
[i] George Beverly Shea, copyright 1956 by Chancel Music, Inc.