John wrote this letter to respond to certain heretics of the time which proposed the idea that Jesus was an ordinary man who possessed the Spirit of God, but for only a short time. It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. This is the One who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. In other words, only the Christian overcomes the world (sin and death). How the term "believes that Jesus is the Son of God" compresses everything that goes along with that. He asks if there is anyone who can overcome these things.Īnswer: He answers his own question by saying that - only the one who believes in Jesus overcomes the world. This is what is in the world and what inevitably happens to everything in the world. In other words who overcomes what is in the world and what happens to the world - namely sin and death. In this verse John summarizes his case by asking and answer the key question, Who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? John, in his 1st epistle also uses the idea of witnesses to confirm the fact that Christians a sure hope of eternal life. "… if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the month of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed ( Matthew 18:16). Jesus used this same standard when instructing His disciples on settling disputes over offenses against one another. If you have one eyewitness you have a good case against someone, if you have two it's a lock, three witnesses is insurmountable. In a judicial sense this same idea continues to be true today. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. 7The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. 6On the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death he shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness. The concept of witnesses confirming the veracity of some event is an ancient idea. John's approach to answering any doubts about the Christian's reward is to provide 3 witnesses who testify that what Jesus said (and especially what He said about our eternal life) was indeed true. For this reason I want us to look at 1 John5 tonight and examine how John supports the belief that eternal life come through Jesus Christ as surely as the rain falls from the sky. Well there may be sincere answers but not quite enough to answer a skeptic on why you believe what you believe. Still others might say - the Bible says so and that's it for me.Others might say, I don't know why I believe it, I just do.I've always believed this, this is what I've been taught.But if I went on to ask why you believe this to be true, or to give me reason to believe that what He promised was true - some might have difficulty answering. And if I asked each one how this was going to happen, most would explain in one way or another, that Jesus would do this because of our faith in Him. I think that if I asked the people gathered here to raise their hands if they wanted to be resurrected from the dead and go to heaven, everyone would raise their hands.
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