Celebrating Victory

The Christian Experience of Salvation
(1 John 5:16-21)

In the late first century, rather like today's New Age or self-help spiritualities, salvation was often construed as a form of intellectual or spiritual enlightenment. By contrast, the Christian message views salvation as God's initiative in Jesus Christ to save us from sin and deliver us from death. It is not enlightenment, to help us understand our plight; but deliverance, to actually rescue us from it. Rob Yule, Senior Minister of Greyfriars, gave this final message in his series on 1 John at Greyfriars Classical Service on 17 December 2006.

Before Jesus was born, Joseph was given his name in a dream. An angel appeared in a dream and told him: 'Joseph, the baby that Mary will have is from the Holy Spirit. Go ahead and marry her. Then after her baby is born, name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.' (Matthew 1:20, CEV).

Jesus' name sums up what he came to do: to 'save us from our sins'. The name 'Jesus' – Yeshua or Yehoshua in Hebrew – means 'Yahweh saves', 'the Lord saves'; in colloquial language, 'God to the rescue'. Jesus is God's rescuer who rescues human beings from the evil that is destroying the world and the sin that ruins our lives.

Throughout this letter, John the elderly apostle explains that because Jesus is the Son of God, he is able to 'take away our sins' (1 John 3:5) and 'give us eternal life' (1 John 5:11). Salvation is God's intervention in our world and our humanity to save us from our sins and give us eternal life. In response, you and I are challenged to trust Jesus for salvation, turn from our sin, and be transformed by the power of this new life.

Salvation or enlightenment?

When John wrote this letter the Christian message of salvation was being subtly undermined by a cultic type of teaching that began to spread late in the first century. Known as Gnosticism, it had similarities with today's New Age movement. Like New Age, it was more a mood than a movement. It was a rag-bag of esoteric ideas and spiritualities, more concerned with gnosis – 'knowledge' or 'enlightenment' – than with repentance and salvation.

There were many varieties of Gnosticism, but at its heart was a radical dualism between the spiritual and the material. The material realm was regarded as evil. From the unknowable 'Supreme Being' proceeded a series of emanations or 'aeons' – exalted spiritual beings whose affinity with the Supreme Being diminished the further removed from it they were. One of these lower aeons with no direct contact with the Supreme Being was the 'Demiurge' responsible for creation. The created world, if not actually evil, was clumsy, botched, and ignorant – a realm from which human beings should escape.

The way of escape was 'gnosis' – secret knowledge of the Supreme Being. Salvation was not thought of as moral transformation or conversion, but as the overcoming of ignorance through self-knowledge or enlightenment. In the Gnostic religions – as in New Age thought today –'the Christ' was viewed as merely an emissary of the Supreme Being who brings us this enlightenment. He didn't fully assume a human body, or die. He only temporally inhabited the human body of Jesus from the time of his baptism till just before his death on the cross.

We know about Gnosticism from ancient papyrus manuscripts, written in the Coptic language, found at Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt in 1945. Beginning with the apostle John, early Christian writers such as Irenaeus, Tertullian and Hippolytus critiqued Gnosticsm. They insisted on the identity of the Creator and the Supreme God, on the goodness of the material creation, and on the reality of the earthly life of Jesus, especially his crucifixion and resurrection. They insisted that human beings need salvation rather than enlightenment – personal redemption from evil, not just some higher knowledge to help them understand their predicament.

In this concluding part of his letter John lists a series of tests to distinguish the Christian message from its Gnostic counterfeits, tests by which we can know true spirituality from false:

• 'We know that he hears us' (verse 15a).
• 'We know that we have what we asked of him' (verse 15b).
• 'We know that those who are born of God do not continue to sin' (verse 18).
• 'We know that we are children of God' (verse 19).
• 'We know that the Son of God has come' (verse 20a).
• 'We know him who is true' (verse 20b).

John affirms these truths. Prayer is not just a higher form of knowledge or enlightenment. It is a genuine communication between us and the living God (1 John 5:15). Jesus Christ 'is the true God and eternal life' (1 John 5:20), through whom you and I can receive God's life, be born anew as God's children, and overcome sin (1 John 5:18-19). We can be confident that Jesus Christ has truly come, that we can know him, and truly live a transformed life (1 John 5:20).

Salvation as transformation

John writes this so that we might 'keep ourselves from idols' – from illusory ideas that have no power to change our lives (1 John 5:21). Like Paul, he believes the Gospel is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes (Romans 1:16). A person who has met Jesus Christ or experienced conversion knows and can personally celebrate this wonderful victory over sin. They can testify that a new motivation replaces listlessness, self-control replaces anger and violence, blessing takes the place of cursing, suspicion is overcome by trust, hatred overcome by love.

Forgiveness of sins is a life-changing experience. It really is something to celebrate. Jesus said, 'There is more happiness in heaven because of one sinner who turns to God than over ninety-nine good people who don't need to.' (Luke 15:7 CEV).

John says we all have a role in helping one another to live a Christian life and overcome sin. 'Suppose you see one of our people commit a sin that isn't a deadly sin. You can pray, and that person will be given eternal life.' (1 John 5:16a CEV). We are our brother's keeper. We each have a pastoral responsibility to help one another progress in our Christian life. It's a really good idea to have someone you can meet with and talk to on a regular basis, who can hold you accountable and say, 'What sins have you committed this week?'

Today many Christians are apathetic about their salvation, not walking in the victory over sin which Jesus has achieved for us. John reminds us that 'those who are born of God do not continue to sin' (1 John 5:18, cf. 3:6). God's children do not keep on habitually sinning. When we are born anew of the Holy Spirit, born from above into God's life, there's a power of grace and holiness at work in us which enables us to resist temptation and overcome sin.

Some Christians are defeatist. They give in to sin too easily. In his 18th century classic, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (Ch. 2), William Law challenged this attitude: 'If you will here stop, and ask yourselves, why you are not as pious as the primitive Christians were, your own heart will tell you, that it is neither through ignorance, nor inability, but purely because you never thoroughly intended it.' Live the transformed life that Jesus has won for you.

Salvation through perseverance

John not only encourages us to walk in victory over sin. He warns us that it's possible to fall from grace, and even lose our salvation. He warns about 'a sin that leads to death' or 'a sin that is deadly' (1 John 5:16b, NIV and CEV respectively).

What is this 'deadly sin'? Ministers are sometimes visited by people seeking counsel whether they have committed the unforgivable sin. My reply to them is that if they are morally sensitive enough to be concerned about this possibility – they haven't committed it!

John is talking about the possibility of apostasy – turning away from the faith you once so joyfully embraced. It's like the warnings in the book of Hebrews: 'What about those who turn away after they have received the good message of God and the powers of the future world? There is no way to bring them back. What they are doing is the same as nailing the Son of God to a cross and insulting him in public!' (Hebrews 6:5-6 CEV, cf. 10: 26-27). Sadly, it is possible to fall away from our salvation. You and I perhaps know people who have done so.

Some New Testament passages speak about 'the perseverance of the saints.' The Lord is able to guard what we have entrusted to him (2 Timothy 1:12), keep us from falling (Jude 24), and complete the work he has begun in us (Philippians 1:6). Jesus said that no one can snatch us out of God's hand (John 10:28-29). Paul said that nothing can separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39).

But other New Testament passages encourage what David Pawson calls 'perseverance by the saints'. They warn us that maintaining our salvation is not automatic or inevitable. The Gospels contain parables of failure to exercise faith: the unreliable steward, the unprepared virgins, and the unprofitable servant (Matthew 24:45-25:30). Some of the crop fails to reach maturity and harvest (Mark 4:16-19). Jesus warned that branches that do not produce fruit will be 'cut off' (John 15:6), and that only 'those who stand firm to the end will be saved' (Mark 13:13, Luke 21:19). Paul says, 'If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall' (1 Corinthians 10:12). He warns that Christians are in as much danger of being 'cut off' as the Jews were, if they don't 'continue' in God's kindness (Romans 11:22). The entire book of Hebrews is a call to 'persevere', and contains serious warnings about falling away. We are challenged to 'run with perseverance the race marked out for us' (Hebrews 12:1), 'keep ourselves in God's love' (Jude 21), and make sure we 'finish well'.

As John finishes his letter, it is with a double warning: not to continue to sin, and to keep ourselves from idols – from our own illusory and insubstantial goals. Instead, we are to continue to believe in Jesus Christ – the only one who truly reveals God and the only source of eternal life.

Rob Yule, 17 December 2006
© 2006, Greyfriars Presbyterian Church