We know that every one begotten of God does not sin, but he that has been begotten of God keeps himself, and the wicked [one] does not touch him.
John ends his letter with three statements that begin "we know." This verse is the first of them, and it allows no exceptions. So how do such absolute words fit a Christian who knows his own failures?
The verse belongs to a set of three, and the writers read them together as the letter's summing up.
The three statements of "we know" in verses 18-20 make a grand and fitting close to the letter... Day of the worst evil as it was, what can match the calm confidence of victory over sin and Satan, of belonging to God and His nature above a lost world?
Why does John allow no exception? Dennett points to what John has in view, and to what he leaves out.
To understand John's letters, remember this. In statements like this one, he keeps to the positive character of the new nature, and leaves everything else out of sight. "Whoever is born of God does not sin." He never forgets for a moment that the believer has two natures (1 John 1:8), or that he may fall into sin. But he states it in an abstract, and therefore absolute, way, because he is thinking only of what is born of God.
What, then, about actual failure? Kelly traces it to a lapse in prayer, and refuses to soften the truth because of it.
If Christ lives in him, sin cannot come out of such a life. And if a person so blessed does sin (as in 1 John 2:1), it comes from a lack of watchfulness in prayer, which let that inconsistency in. But as a rule John does not deal with the qualifications that this mixed condition brings in. He holds to the truth in its absolute form, as grace entitles faith to do. To doubt is not only weak but a grievous error, and a wrong to Christ's work.
The verse uses two Greek words for being born of God, and they do not say quite the same thing.
Note the tenses in 1 John 5:18 and 1 John 3:9. Gegennemenos (begotten) is the state. Gennetheis (has been begotten) is the birth, and its consequence is that he keeps himself.
The two words belong to the same Christian. Kelly says what each one adds, and how the verse lands on the heart.
There is a slight difference between the word "begotten" in the first clause and in the second, though both belong to the same person, the Christian. The first is the continuing effect of having been begotten. The second is the bare fact of it, without asking whether it continues... It was both a comfort and a warning to be told that being begotten of God he does not sin, and the wicked one does not touch him.
A word about wording. The ESV reads "does not keep on sinning" and "he who was born of God protects him." Most of these writers use an older rendering: "does not sin" and "keeps himself." Kelly weighed both readings of that second clause and judged "keeps himself" the true sense (Bible Treasury).
How does a person keep himself? Dennett points first to the Lord under temptation.
Satan tried every possible temptation on Him. But He "kept" Himself by complete dependence and perfect obedience, so Satan could not touch Him... God has graciously given us the power, in the gift of the Holy Spirit, to put to death "the deeds of the body"... But to overcome his temptations needs constant watchfulness and dependence. Our Lord's words to His disciples show it: "Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation."
Darby puts the practice in one line: "'Keeps himself' means you must be living in the power of the new life objectively. You must have Christ for your object" (J. N. Darby).
Why can the evil one get no grip? Darby answers from what the new nature is taken up with.
As born of God, we do not commit sin at all, we keep ourselves, and "the wicked one does not touch us." He has nothing with which to entice the new man. The enemy has nothing to attract the divine nature in us. By the action of the Holy Spirit, that nature is taken up with divine and heavenly things, or with the will of God.
Darby states the other side elsewhere: "If it is the flesh that is acting, then the wicked one can touch us. But he cannot touch the new man, he cannot entice it" (J. N. Darby).
- Born — John states the new birth in absolute terms. The nature we receive from God does not sin, and John speaks of that alone.
- Both — the believer still has the old nature and may fail (1 John 1:8; 2:1). So this is not a claim to sinless living. It describes what is born of God.
- Keeps — the fact of the new birth produces the practice. He keeps himself by dependence, obedience and watchful prayer, as the Lord did under temptation.
- Untouched — Satan finds no bait for the new nature. He gains ground only when we let the flesh act.
- Certain — this is the first of three "we know" statements. They close the letter with calm confidence over sin, Satan and a lost world.
We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the wicked [one].
John ends his letter with three confident statements, and this one draws a line straight through the human race. Older translations read the last phrase "lies in wickedness," but commentators point to a person: the world lies in the power of the wicked one.
The verse opens with a claim to know. Writers say the word means settled inward certainty, not a hopeful opinion.
Three times the apostle says, "We know," and in each case the word used means inward conscious knowledge. This is not only knowledge of a fact revealed and testified to in Scripture. This knowledge is also made good in the soul in the power of the Holy Spirit. So we have the inward conviction and certainty of its truth. And as we live in the enjoyment of it, it shapes and governs us.
This certainty does more than reassure. It settles how we see the world.
Having this certainty, as every believer should, we can never be deceived about the character of the world. Knowing that we are of God, we also know that the whole world lies in the wicked one, is in his power, and morally exists in him. For everyone with this inward consciousness, a barrier stands between them and the world that cannot be crossed...
The phrase describes where our life came from. That is what sets the Christian position apart.
We know that we are of God. And we know it not in a vague way, but in contrast with all that is not us. This is a principle of immense importance. It makes the Christian position exclusive by its very nature. It is not merely good, or bad, or better; but it is of God. And nothing that is not of God — nothing that does not have its origin in Him — could have this character and this place.
Much hangs on the verb "lies." It describes the world's posture under Satan.
The verb "lies" shows a position of total helplessness — lying stretched out in the embrace of Satan. So the "wicked one" completely dominates the world-system. Three times in John's Gospel the Lord calls him the "prince (ruler) of this world."
One further difference: we know our side of the contrast, and the world does not know its own.
There is nothing vague here. Nothing softens the absolute contrast, which is drawn firmly and without hesitation. On one side we stand as the family of God. On the other stands the whole world, in its awful subjection to the wicked one... God is the source of all on the one side; subjection to Satan is just as complete on the other... We are of God, and we know it in ourselves. The whole world lies under the wicked one's bondage without knowing it, as we know all too well.
The word "whole" leaves out no part of the world. It also answers a common excuse for drifting: the size of the crowd.
The cunning deceptions of the wicked one have taken the whole world captive. It lies idle in his hands, given up to this with no energy to change it... Has God lost control? Never! But for now He has allowed Satan this dominating power, so that faith may shine all the brighter against it. If the multitude does evil, faith refuses this as an excuse to follow the evil. Weakness and unbelief argue that the great majority cannot be wrong, and so drift with the crowd.
John does not leave believers with a warning only. The next verse gives them somewhere to stand.
"The whole world lies in wickedness," and "we are of God." We sometimes shut our eyes to things that are so plain, to save a little bit of the world. But "we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ." God is revealed in Christ, and we are in Christ. So we have our place in a scene outside the world altogether.
- Know, not hope — the word means inward certainty, made good in the soul by the Holy Spirit until it shapes how we live.
- Know your source — "of God" is about origin. The Christian position is not better than the world's; it is from somewhere else entirely.
- Know the grip — "lies" pictures total helplessness — the world stretched out in Satan's embrace, under the ruler of this world.
- Know the reach — "the whole world" leaves no exception. The size of the crowd is never a reason to follow it. Faith shines brighter against that dark background.
- Know the refuge — the same "we know" carries on to the Son of God who has come. In Him we stand in a scene outside the world altogether.
And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us an understanding that we should know him that [is] true; and we are in him that [is] true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
John ends his letter by drawing everything he has taught into one sentence. It answers the two questions the whole letter has been driving at: how can anyone know God, and who is "the true God"?
John leaves his readers on solid ground.
He would leave the children of God in a position of absolute certainty. But verse 20 is a magnificent statement, in a few words, of the whole basis of Christianity: the revelation of God in the Person of Christ, and the vital eternal blessing in Him that this means to every believer. "We know that the Son of God has come." John puts this in the present tense, to stress the precious, lasting character of this revelation: it is for our present joy and blessing.
The knowledge of God does not begin with human effort. Something has to be done to us before the light of God means anything at all.
God gave us sight, perfectly suited to take in the light of the sun. In the same way, the power of God has done a work in us. It enables us to receive and appreciate the revelation of the Father in the Son, so that "we know that the Son of God has come." The sun is not a light to the eyes of a blind man. He must be given sight before he can take in the light.
Notice who receives it. John writes "us," and that word is not narrowed to a select group of advanced believers.
It is the shared inheritance of God's people in this present age. It belongs to the family — knowledge that every member of the family shares. Even the newest believers in Christ know Him who is true.
This understanding has an aim, and it is not the collecting of facts.
Here we are told the object of such an understanding: not to gather great stores of knowledge beyond others, but to know Him. Just piling up knowledge tends to make a person proud; the knowledge of God does the opposite.
The word "true" means more than honest. It describes God as He is, set against everything false.
We know it by knowing "Him who is true." He is true in the revelation of Himself. He is true in contrast to the deceit, meanness, treachery, and wickedness of the world, the flesh, and the devil. He is true in righteousness, holiness, power, love, and goodness. And He is true in such a way that the weakest heart may trust Him completely, without question.
John does not stop at knowing God. He says we are in Him, and then shows what that means.
Look at the divine links of our position! We are in Him who is true; this is the nature of Him in whom we are. As to the nature, it is God Himself; as to the Person, and as to the manner of being in Him, it is His Son Jesus Christ. It is in the Son, in the Son as man, that we are in fact as to His Person; but He is the true God, the real God.
Without that second half of the verse, revelation would leave us at a distance.
"Him who is true" has been revealed, and we have been made able to know Him. But there is more: we are in Him, by being in the One who has revealed Him. Apart from this we might have been merely wondering onlookers, without vital connection with God. But, thank God, that connection exists.
The last words of the verse come right after the name "Jesus Christ."
John has brought us to "His Son Jesus Christ." Then he says, very pointedly, "He is the true God and eternal life." We could not have a stronger statement of His Deity. He is also the eternal life and, as we have seen, the Source of it for us.
Because eternal life is a Person, it is never something we possess apart from Him.
Then we get the absolute grace, "This is life eternal" — Christ Himself. 1 John 5:20 brings this out. We are not eternal life, but we have it in having Him.
John's next sentence warns his readers against idols. That warning is about more than statues.
It is not a question of an idol down here at all, but of having a thought of God that has no perfect counterpart in Christ. Where is the true God seen? In the Man Christ Jesus. Christ is the image of the invisible God, and whatever represents God falsely has no counterpart in Christ, and is therefore an idol.
- Come. The verse opens with a fact, not a hope: the Son of God has come, and the whole basis of Christian faith rests on that arrival.
- Given. Knowing God starts with a gift: sight for the blind. God gives it to the whole family, the newest believer included.
- True. The God now revealed is the real One — true in righteousness, love and power, against every false claim.
- In. We are not spectators of this revelation but placed inside it, and the way in is His Son Jesus Christ.
- Life. He is the true God, and He is eternal life — the Source of that life for us. Any idea of God that Christ does not show us is the idol John warns against.
Children, keep yourselves from idols.
John ends his letter with one short command, and he gives it to people who already know the true God and have eternal life. So why do they need the warning, and what counts as an idol for a Christian?
One writer stops at how strange these closing words sound at the end of this letter.
The close of John's first letter has struck me deeply. It is the letter of the Sanctuary — I might almost say the letter of the Lord's bosom. The whole letter is given to setting Christ and God, who is light and love, before us. And its last words are, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." Tell a man with his head on the Lord's bosom, "keep yourself from idols"? Tell a man who knows the Father and the Son to keep himself from idols? Tell a Christian to keep himself from idols? Is there any need to guard us from idols? Surely if the Spirit of God has warned us of it, there is a danger of it.
The word does not stop at carved statues. The definition is wide.
"Little children, keep yourselves from idols," that is, from anything that might come in between you and God.
The name John uses — some translations render it simply "Children" — covers everyone in God's family. And the cure for idols lies in the verse just before this one.
How fitting, then, are the closing words: "Children [the word covers the whole family of God], keep yourselves from idols." An idol is anything that takes the highest place in our hearts, the place that belongs to God alone. If we live in the reality and power of verse 20, we will surely say, as Ephraim did, "What have I to do any more with idols?" (Hosea 14:8).
What makes an idol is not the thing itself but the place it holds. So ordinary and even necessary things can become one.
We have such a blessed Person as the object of our souls, and such heavenly joys to engage the heart. Why should we ever let anything displace the Son of God from His true place in our hearts? An idol is anything that challenges Christ's right to fill the heart. It may be something right in itself. It may be something our affections are right to love, or something we need for daily life. But if it holds a place it should not hold, and pushes Christ out, it becomes an idol.
One writer traces the order: the world takes the heart first, and the idol follows.
Worldliness and idolatry follow one after the other. However far our hearts go after the world, that far they turn away from God. And from there to forsaking the Lord and following idols is only one step. We see the same thing in the lives of Christians. The Spirit of God has good reason to warn us so seriously: "Little children, keep yourselves from idols" (1 John 5:21). If we keep company with the world, the things it prizes take hold of our hearts and rob Christ of His place.
Read only as a ban, the verse sounds negative. One writer hears a positive claim behind it.
The last word of John's first letter is, "Children, keep yourselves from idols" (1 John 5:21). That is not a negative statement. It is a very positive one. It means, "I want the affections of My people for Myself. I do not want any interference from any other source."
One writer points to the one thing that keeps idols out: a full heart.
May every chamber of our hearts be filled with Christ, and then we shall have no room for idols. This is our only safeguard. Slip away from our precious Saviour and Shepherd by the breadth of a hair, and we are capable of plunging into the darkest forms of error and moral evil. Light, knowledge, spiritual privileges, a place in the church, the benefits of religious ceremonies — none of these keep the soul safe. They are very good in their right place, and when rightly used. But in themselves they only increase our moral danger.
The pull of an idol dies when something greater takes the heart.
Let the Son of God, and all that He has done and brought, fill our hearts, and the idols that once charmed us will charm us no more.
- Place, not object. An idol is set by the place it takes in the heart, not by what it is. Anything that comes between you and God, or takes the place that belongs to God alone, is one.
- Everyone. The warning is for the whole family of God. No amount of maturity, knowledge or privilege lets a believer skip it.
- Even good things. Something right in itself, even a daily necessity, becomes an idol the moment it displaces Christ.
- The drift. Love of the world comes first; from there it is one step to an idol that robs Christ of His place.
- The cure. The command is positive at heart — God wants His people's affections. Fill every chamber of the heart with Christ, and the old idols lose their charm.