He that says, I know him, and does not keep his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him;
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but whoever keeps his word, in him verily the love of God is perfected. Hereby we know that we are in him.
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He that says he abides in him ought, even as *he* walked, himself also [so] to walk.
John is dealing here with the highest claim a person can make — that he lives in Christ. The proof John asks for is not a feeling or a form of words, but a way of walking.
John tests more than one claim in these verses.
Three times in this passage we find the words, "Whoever says." In verse 4, "Whoever says, I know Him." In verse 6, "Whoever says he abides in Him." In verse 9, "Whoever says he is in the light." Each time John gives a proof of what real Christianity is.
John handles this claim differently from the one just before it.
"Whoever says he abides in Him." Here is a further thing which might be only a boast, and an empty boast. John meets it in a way quite different from how he dealt with the careless despiser of God's authority. He called that man a liar, with the truth not in him, and marked him as having nothing of God at all. But when someone claims to abide in Him, how quiet and yet how conclusive the inference is! Do you say that you abide in Him? Then you ought to walk as He walked... Not the law but Christ is the standard.
The word "abide" points to more than being in Him. It is living in the awareness of what is already true.
Being in Him, we are to "abide in Him." As we understand it, that means abiding in the consciousness and power of being in Him. It is easy for any of us to say, "I abide in Him." But if we say it, we must produce what proves the claim to be real.
Another writer spells out what abiding involves in practice.
To abide in Him means more than giving up our own will in practice and distrusting ourselves. It also means clinging to Him in love, leaning on Him in our weakness, and communion with Him in His thoughts, as He has made them known in His word.
The verse sets no ceiling, and one writer warns against lowering it.
How often people say: "I know we are to be holy, but you cannot expect us to be perfectly holy."... We are not only to be like Paul. We are left here to be like Christ Himself. Look at this verse and you will see there is no limit short of that. The measure for our walk is what Christ was here. God abhors different measures. He does not measure His blessed Son's walk by one standard and His people's walk by another.
Yet notice exactly what the verse asks for.
It does not say we ought to be what He was. It says we ought "to walk in the same way in which He walked." We could not be what Jesus was. But He has left us an example, and we follow in His steps.
If His life is in us, it will show in what we do.
Suppose we are in His life, and also in the power and enjoyment of it. Then that life must express itself in our ways and activities, just as it did in Him. The grace and power of our walk, compared with His, will be poor and feeble; yet it will be walk of the same order. The difference will not be in kind but only in degree.
The pattern is not abstract. The gospels show it.
In the gospels we look at the footsteps of our beloved Lord. There we see a pathway of unbroken communion with the Father. We see the tenderest compassion to the sick and needy. We see victory over Satan's power, and complete separation from every evil principle of the world. The light and love of God lit up that pathway from beginning to end.
This standard is not a way of earning God's favour. It follows from a place already given.
Being a Christian, I am responsible to walk as one. Not that I may become one, bless the Lord! but because I am one... But through His precious blood we stand in the place of perfect favour — perfect peace, joy, and acceptance. So we ought to walk in keeping with the position grace has set us in.
- Claim — "Whoever says" appears three times in this passage. Saying you abide in Him is easy, so John asks for proof.
- Abide — to abide is to live in the consciousness and power of being in Him. It means a surrendered will, distrust of self, dependence, and communion with His thoughts in His word.
- Standard — Christ, not the law, is the measure. God does not keep one measure for His Son and a lower one for us.
- Walk — the verse does not ask you to be what He was, but to walk as He walked; the difference will be in degree, never in kind.
- Ground — we walk this way not to gain the place of favour but because grace has already set us in it.