Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.
This verse ties a huge promise to a short confession. Own Jesus as the Son of God, and God makes His home in you, and you in Him. Two questions follow. What does John mean by confessing, and how far does the promise reach?
Some assume that dwelling in God like this belongs only to a few great believers. The first word of the verse rules that out.
But some might say, God dwelling in us and we in God belongs only to a very few. Not so. Such is the grace of God that "whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God." This gracious word "whoever" has eased the troubled souls of thousands. It has emboldened multitudes to come to God. It has encouraged countless lost sinners to claim gospel mercies for themselves. It embraces every believer. It lifts him up into those privileges of nearness to God that the greatest of the apostles enjoyed.
John does not write "whoever believes." He writes "whoever confesses." That step marks a person who has stopped wavering, and it carries the highest blessing there is.
Nothing can be wider than the word "whoever." He does not only believe; he confesses. He has overcome all difficulties, doubts or fears. He has weighed the truth, felt the grace, judged himself, and no longer hesitates. And now the blessing of the Lord comes on his head in full measure. The striking fact here is that whoever confesses Jesus to be the Son of God has not only life, forgiveness of sins and the Holy Spirit, but the highest spiritual privileges that can be imagined.
Words on their own are not the confession John means.
A saving confession must start with a believing heart (Romans 10:10). Wherever the one comes first, the other is sure to follow (2 Corinthians 4:13). So if there is no true faith, there can be no true confession. But a heart that believes as it should will always show itself by a confessing tongue.
The title is not a courtesy. It cannot be watered down into the sonship that believers receive by adoption.
This cannot be separated from the verses before it, as if someone could deny the Trinity and still speak lightly of Christ being the Son of God. Such talk reduces His Sonship to that of a mere creature. It places Him on a level with others who have become "sons" by adoption (Galatians 4:5). He Himself is the Son in His very nature, "whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days" (Micah 5:2; older translations read "from everlasting"). To confess Him as Son of God must include this eternal dignity and glory of His Person. Otherwise it is no confession at all.
Notice what the verse asks you to confess: who He is, not what He did. One writer ties lasting doubt to a thin grasp of His Person.
Note, it is the confession of His Person, not of His work. Many know something of the work of Christ. They tell you they are clinging to the cross, yet they are still full of doubts and fears. Why? I believe the reason is that they have no deep or adequate idea of the fulness of His Person.
This dwelling is not a figure of speech. God dwells by His Spirit, and that Spirit shapes how a believer lives.
Where a person is truly a Christian, God dwells in him. He does not simply have life. He is sealed with the Holy Spirit, and that Spirit is the power for all moral conduct. If we only believed that the Spirit of God dwells in us, what obedience there would be! What kind of people we would be, not grieving that Spirit!
The other half of the promise is the believer in God. That is where the heart comes to rest, even when human friendship fails.
The heart has an abiding rest in God. I am certain of God; I can be certain of no one else. You may have the most faithful, blameless, devoted friend. Ah, you are not always certain of your friend. There may come a moment when your friend disappoints you. God never will.
Confessing this out loud costs something. The world in view rejected Him.
Great energy is needed to keep saying, before the world that crucified Jesus, that this rejected Man was the Son of God. And only the energy of the love of God can keep that testimony going.
- Whoever — the promise leaves no one out. The simplest believer comes as near to God as the apostles did.
- Confess — the word marks a settled soul, not a formula. The heart believes first, then the tongue confesses.
- Son — the confession owns His Person in its eternal dignity, not a sonship shared with creatures. A thin view of Him leaves the soul in doubt.
- Abides — God takes up residence by His Spirit, which is power for daily conduct and a reason not to grieve Him.
- In God — the believer's side is a rest no friendship can match, held in a world that crucified Him.
And *we* have known and have believed the love which God has to us. God is love, and he that abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
John's letter has already said that God is love; here he says it again and ties it to where a believer lives. The verse joins three things: a love we know and believe, a God whose very nature is that love, and a person who stays in it.
The certainty in this verse is not a mood. Writing on the phrase "we have come to know and to believe," one commentator says the love is a fact standing outside us. That is what makes it solid:
There are no vague uncertainties here, but a living knowledge of the love of God. This is true Christianity: "We have known and believed." Notice too that this does not treat love as a mere feeling inside us. That has become a trap for too many. To know and enjoy love properly, it must rest on something outside ourselves. Feelings are no basis for reasoning at all. It is not a question of feeling that I am loved, but of knowing and believing it because the fact is true.
Readers often expect the reverse order — believing first, then knowing. Commentators differ on why John writes it this way. One writer explains that the Spirit must first give the heart a sense of the love. Only then can it take in the testimony of the cross:
Naturally we would have said, "believed and known." We would have put believing first. But that is not how it comes to us here. The Spirit pours that love into our hearts, and we must know it before we can accept the testimony to it in the death of Jesus... And dwelling in that love the heart dwells in God, because if God is love, and I dwell in love, I dwell in God, and God in me. What an atmosphere of heavenly and divine affections!
Another writer puts the two the other way round: we learn the love first by faith, and afterwards know it consciously by the Spirit in fellowship with God — and the two together are the believer's portion, so that we both "have the faith and the conscious knowledge of His love."
"God is love" is not a description of how God acts from time to time. It is a statement about what He is, and everything else follows from it:
He begins here: love comes from God. It is His nature; He is its source. So the one who loves is born of God, and he shares His nature. He also knows God, for he knows what love is, and God is love in its fullness. So everything here depends on our sharing in God's own nature.
Talk of dwelling in love could easily float free of anything real. What anchors it are the solid facts recorded just before this verse:
But this would be mysticism, if there were not the testimony of verses 9 and 10 to the actual, substantial facts. For all mystics the love of God is only a quality. But God, who is love, has loved us. That also sets the law aside; for it is not, We ought to love God, but, God has loved us.
To "abide" in love is not an occasional experience. It is the settled place a Christian lives in, and God abides there in return:
His love flows from His own goodness. It gave Christ to die, so that righteousness might be granted in full. That love forgives my sins, makes me His child though I have earned nothing, and leads Him to abide in me. The love in Him (and no wonder) produces love in me; and abiding in love I abide in God, and God in me. It is not merely a visit now and a visit again, but there the Christian abides; it is his habit and his home to dwell in love.
The same writer sets two things side by side: what every Christian can say, and what a believer enjoys in closer fellowship with God:
The least Christian should be able to say that God dwells in him and he in God. The most spiritual believer cannot rise higher than this: as he dwells in God, God dwells in him. This is the privilege of communion, as that is of faith.
Love received does not stay still. A heart that has welcomed God's love moves toward God and toward others. One writer calls this the fruit of a new nature, not an achievement:
God's infinite love fills and warms the heart. Out of that heart flows love to God and Christ, love to fellow believers, and love to all people. This is impossible for a person who has not turned to God. To all who are born of the Holy Spirit it is the most natural thing imaginable.
- Nature. Love is not one of God's moods but His being — He is its source, and everything here depends on sharing that nature.
- Proof. Solid facts keep this love from turning into vague mysticism. It is not that we ought to love God, but that God has loved us.
- Faith. The love stands outside me. It is true apart from my feelings, so I know and believe it rather than just feel it.
- Home. Abiding in love is not an occasional visit — it is where the Christian lives, and God abides there too.
- Overflow. A heart warmed by that love loves back, toward God and toward others, as naturally as a new nature must express itself.