1 John, verse-by-verse

Session 17 | 1 John 5:16-21

1 John 5:14-18 | Manifestations of Belief

• Verse 16 -

  • As with so many other verses, making this compatible with the Pauline dispensation is so impossible that commentaries and sermons on this verse are all over the theological map. The Catholic church, for example, developed a doctrine of mortal and venial (deadly and non-deadly) sins based in large part on“the text is referring to total apostasy, the rejection of Jesus Christ as the Son of God and denial of the faith." (Akin, Daniel L. 1, 2, 3, John. New American Commentary Series, Volume 38. 2001.)

    We must ask a few questions:

    • In the age of grace, under what scenario can one person ask for life for another and it be granted?

    • If the sin...unto death “total apostasy" (as per Akin), should Christians have a doctrine of not praying for apostates?

    I think that the standard evangelical answers are so baseless and chaotic that they should be rejected. But these answers necessarily grow out of the assumption that I John is about the Gospel of grace and the Christian life as we know it in the Body of Christ. However, if we question that assumption, and rather assume that the epistle is a Jewish message that is Kingdom related, then sin...unto death fits within Torah regulations perfectly. See, for example, Numbers 15:30, 1 Samuel 2:25, and note how Jeremiah 15:1-2 fits perfectly with the words of the author in verse 16, I do not say that he shall pray for it.
    

• Verse 17 --

  • “all sins are equal." Such a fable arose from a lack of right division, trying to mix the manner in which sin has been dealt with in the age of grace from that manner in which it is dealt with under law. In the Law, all unrighteousness is sin. However, there were sins which could be atoned through the Law, thus were not unto death. There were others in which there was no remedy by the Law.

  • Once again, these principles fit so perfectly in a law-based economy and so impossibly into a grace-based economy that it is really beyond explanation why Christians almost fully reject the premise that 1 John is written to Israel concerning Kingdom issues.

    
    

• Verse 18 --

  • This is, yet again a phenomenal manifestation of belief, but not for our dispensation.

  • Those born of God sinneth not. This was also stated in 1 John 3:9. But who are those born of God? We can take this, once again, in an eisegetical“Christians," but then we must explain why this is never true. In an exegetical context, the phrase born of God and passages that teach the concept are exclusively Jewish in nature. The phrase itself is only seen in 1 John (3:9, 4:7, 5:1, 18). Being born of God was defined in 1 John 5:1 as whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ. This, as noted in the commentary on that verse, would not be acceptable evangelism today. John 1:12 also speaks of the power to become the sons of God which is given to them that believe on his name, which is a completely Jewish phrase.

  In the end, when we analyze this under Jewish light, those who believe that Jesus is the Messiah and believe on His name are born of God. This person keepeth himself through the Tribulation (as in Rev. 2:26) and that wicked one toucheth him not.