“Marvelous Marks of the New Birth”
1John 5:1-21
REVIEW
There are reoccurring themes throughout John’s letter. Purity, sonship, faith, belief, love, obedience, truth, righteousness. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
I. THE GOD OF LIGHT AND HIS CHILDREN OF LIGHT 1-2
II. THE GOD OF LOVE & HIS CHILDREN OF LOVE 3-4
III. MARVELOUS MARKS OF THE NEW BIRTH 5
This last chapter revisits most of John’s previous themes with an emphasis on the marvelous marks of the new birth. John has referenced the wonder of being a child of God all through his letter.
A. What is the new birth?
John introduced the concept of being a child of God early in his gospel.
But as many as received Him (Jesus), to them He (God) gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. John 1:12-13
He expanded on this thought in John 3 where we find a conversation between Jesus and the Pharisee called Nicodemus.
Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, "Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him." Jesus answered and said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he?" Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit." John 3:1-8
Jesus clearly taught the necessity of a spiritual transformation. Only a transformation as dramatic as physical birth could qualify one to see and enter the kingdom of God. There is a physical birth ushering one into a physical world. There is also a spiritual birth ushering one into a spiritual world. The Bible uses various words to describe this spiritual phenomenon.
Regeneration, new life, transformation, conversion, quickening
Regeneration may be defined as the communication of divine life to the soul...as the impartation of a new nature...or heart...and the production of a new creation.38
New birth is necessary because those born in Adam are born spiritually dead.
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. Ephesians 2:1-3
In such a state, we were not only children of wrath, but did not even possess the capacity to function on a spiritual plane any more than fish could last very long outside of their natural habitat.
The Bible says we were DEAD! New birth makes us ALIVE!
This supernatural work of God enables to function in the world of the physical as well as the spiritual. He brings us out of darkness into light. He makes us alive when we were dead.
B. How are we reborn?
It is clear that our birth into God’s family is ultimately based on the will and work of God.
No one ever caused their own birth. No dead person every brought themselves back to life.
It requires external intervention. It is something God does to us, in us and for us.
who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. John 1:12-13
In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures. James 1:18
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead… 1 Peter 1:3
But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, Titus 3:4-5
No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. John 6:44
You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. John 15:16
But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), Ephesians 2:4-5
When the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. Acts 13:48
Out of His great love and mercy and good will, God births us into His family and makes us His beloved children complete with His life and nature.
He uses the word.
for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. 1 Pet1:23
For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. 1 Corinthians 4:15
It is because of Christ’s work on our behalf.
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, he has become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. Ephesians 2:10
and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him— Colossians 3:10
It also involves our faith or belief.
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, John 1:12
For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:26
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16
The relationship between His will and our faith is unclear. It is a mystery not fully explained.
Some feel that even our ability to believe by God’s initiation.
C. What are the marks of this miraculous new birth?
Just as every child born of earthly parents is born with certain characteristic and capacities of humanity and some specific characteristics of their parents, so every child of God is born with the same. Capacity to love, and be loved, serve, obey.
Certain desires, longings, leanings, gifting, capabilities, connections, affiliations and relationships. The Bible lists multiple benefits related to our birth and adoption as children of God. Perhaps as John sought to enable us to discern between truth and error; those speaking by the Holy Spirit and those speaking by the anti-Christ, he also wanted us to be able to distinguish between true children and false children; children of God and children of the devil.
John actually scattered an abundance of conspicuous clues all through the letter.
True children walk in the light as He is in the light. 1:6-7
True children admit and confess their sin. 1:9
True children treasure His commandments 2:3-4; 3:22-24
True children walk as Jesus walked 2:5-6
True children love their siblings 2:7-11; 3:10-21; 4:7-14, 20-21
True children are growing in their walk 2:12-14
True children don’t love the world or its things. 2:15-17
True children have an anointing from God that enables them to discern truth. 2:20
True children confess the Father and the Son. 2:22-23; 4:1-6, 15-19
True children let the Word of truth abide in them and listen to it. 2:24; 4:6
True children practice righteousness. 2:28-29; 3:4-10
True children continually purify themselves 3:3
Chapter 5 focuses on the marks of a true child of God. Some of these will be repeats of what John has already clearly stated earlier. As we have noted before, John is very black and white.
I suppose the older one gets and the wiser one becomes and the fewer the gray areas. He uses language that is either all inclusive or all exclusive; words like all, everyone, no one, all those.
1. Lifestyle of trust in God
Everyone believing that Jesus is the Christ is born (Perf tense) of God
At first glance, this passage seems to teach that believing is the cause of new birth. That is the clear teaching of other passages. However, a closer examination of this passage and a proper understanding of the verb tenses used teach that believing is a consequence of new birth rather than a cause of it. John used an unexpected present tense form of the word for believing. You can spot a true child of God by a lifestyle of continuing trust in God. Everyone who demonstrates a habit of believing God has been born of God at a point in time and they still are His children (perfect tense verb).
Belief seems to flank both sides of the new birth. Faith appears to be both a cause and consequence of new birth. Just as it takes a charge from the battery to start the engine, a running engine also serves to run the alternator which in turn charges the battery. The old-fashioned wells needed water to prime the pump in order to generate more water.
Genuine children of God become children through faith and continue to live by faith after birth.
2. Love for God
and everyone loving the Father loves the child born of Him.
God is love and so the children of God will love. All those born of God will have this connection to the Father. We learned earlier that we love because he first loved us. Love for God is the core mark of what it means to be a Christian.
"You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Deuteronomy 6:5
3. Love for God’s kids
and everyone loving the Father loves the child born of Him.
Again, John is black and white. If you claim to love God, you will love His kids. John actually sets up a tight argument. If you love God, you will love His kids. If you love God’s kids, you will love God.
John was adamant about this truth earlier.
If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also. 1 John 4:20-21
In fact, John mentions loving one another eight times in this short letter. The mark of a true child of God is continual faith, love for God and love for his kids.
4. Love for and obedience to God’s commandments
A fourth mark of the new birth is love for and obedience to God commandments.
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments.
For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.
Our love for God must go beyond mere sentimentality or feeling. Our love for God must be demonstrated by action; namely obedience. John actually uses two different Greek words here related to the commandments of God. The first is “observe” His commandments. Of course you would expect a present tense verb here indicating continual action. It is simply the word “to do”. The intensity of our love for God is demonstrated by our continual obedience.
It’s pretty hard to convince somebody that you love them when you refuse or neglect to do the things that are important to them. We can be certain of the presence of God’s love permeating our life by our response to Him and His commandments.
John describes what it means to love God by the addition of a second phrase using a slightly different word. He uses the word “keep” which is the idea to watch or guard or treasure.
In these two words he gives us both the action and attitude toward God’s commands. Not only are we to do them, but we are to have a heart attitude that treasures them as something we value and consider important.
I have come to think that our level of spiritual maturity could be measured by our attitude toward God’s commands and God’s will.
We first come to a knowledge of his will.
Then our mind and hearts become permeated with the knowledge of His will.
Then we develop a passionate desire to do God’s will.
And we consistently do it.
Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work. John 4:34
For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. John 6:38
That is the consistent internal work of God in our heart.
So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Philippians 2:12-13
What is God’s work in us? To know, want to do and actually do his good pleasure. Just in case there was a sense of frustration with God’s commands, John reminds them that His commands are not burdensome. The word “burdensome” means grievous, heavy or weighty, distasteful.
"Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light." Matthew 11:28-30
Now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require from you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the LORD'S commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good? Deuteronomy 10:12-13
True children of God want to do the Father’s will because they know His heart and they know it is intended for their good.
for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. Ephesians 5:8-10
Listen to Paul’s prayer for the believers at Colossae.
we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light. Colossians 1:9-12
What’s your attitude toward God’s commandments? Do you perceive His commandments as restrictions to your freedom or protection and a means of pleasing Him?
I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is within my heart." Psalm 40:8
That is both a prophecy of the heart desire of Jesus and an expression of David’s heart.
O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day. Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever mine. I have more insight than all my teachers, for Your testimonies are my meditation. Psalm 119:97-99
Those who love Your law have great peace, and nothing causes them to stumble. I hope for Your salvation, O LORD, and do Your commandments. My soul keeps Your testimonies, And I love them exceedingly. Psalm 119:165-167
All 176 verses of Psalm 119 express a passion for God’s commandments. Even though Paul struggled to consistently do God’s will, there was no question concerning His ultimate desire.
For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Romans 7:19-23
Obedience for the reborn is not a burden but a celebration of new and full life in Christ.
5. Victory over the world through continuing faith
For all that has been born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.
Who is the one who overcomes the world, but the one believing that Jesus is the Son of God?
Every child of God is victorious over the world.
These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world. John 16:33
Our daily trust in the person and work of Christ enables us to rise above the circumstances and philosophy of the world. The confidence that we serve Jesus the eternal Son of God enables us to overcome anything we may face in this world. Where is your trust? What or who do you depend upon to get you through the day? Where do you turn when life in this fallen world threatens to crush your very soul? There is victory. We can overcome. There is victory in Jesus!
Who is Jesus? How do I know that he was truly the son of God? Was He really God’s son?
John takes the next 12 verses to discuss three undisputed witnesses to the person and work of Christ. The power of faith is in its object. It is not faith in faith is just a concept it is faith in an object. New Age teachers advocate faith in faith. Faith is not just believing in something or anything. What we believe in, is of the greatest importance. The object of our faith determines the outcome of our faith. It is not the act of trusting but who I trust that makes the difference.
I can have fervent faith in a doorknob that will prove disastrous. Or I can have feeble faith in the Son of the living God and come out absolutely victorious.
6. Eternal life
And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. 1 John 5:12-13
Every child of God has the very life of Jesus Christ within them. Eternal life is Jesus. It is not just our life extended into eternity; that’s everlasting life. God gives us the very life of Jesus when we put our trust in him. We have the Son who is life and who is eternal. Jesus meant it when he said I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the father but by me. If you have the Son, you have the life. If you don’t have the Son, you simply don’t have the life.
Eternal life cannot be found from any other source; no other religion, no other person, only Jesus. All those who have been born again have Jesus who is life eternal.
7. Answered prayer
This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him. 1 John 5:14-15
As God’s children we enjoy an inside track. We have access to the throne of God to the blood of Christ. We have standing because of the righteousness of Jesus Christ of his resurrection.
We have kinship because we have been born again into the family of God. We are the King’s kids. As such, we have His ear. We have an advantage in prayer. As His kids, we are instructed to use that advantage in a ministry of intercession for others.
8. Ministry of intercession
True children of God have a passion to intercede for their brothers and sisters in Christ.
God calls us to use our access to him to intercede for our brothers and sisters in their struggle against sin.
If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will for him give life to those who commit sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death; I do not say that he should make request for this. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not leading to death. 1 John 5:16-17
9. Godly living
We know that no one who is born of God sins… 1 John 5:18
This is that a reoccurring theme in John. The children of God how the new passions to live godly.
10. Protection from the evil one
but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him. 1 John 5:18
Jesus is committed to keeping all those God has given to him. It doesn’t mean that Satan doesn’t afflict Christians but they cannot destroy them. We know that Peter was sifted but returned with a new humility to strengthen his brothers. The word means to fasten to or to set on fire. The true child of God is basically fireproof. Something fireproof may still go through the fire it just isn’t burned.
"I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are. John 17:11
11. Understanding to know God
And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; 1 John 5:20a
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God 1 Corinthians 2:12
12. Community with the Trinity
and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. 1 John 5:20b
John speaks here of a vital union with God and with Christ. Of course the implication is that such union is the result of the Holy Spirit’s work.
13. Avoidance of idols
Little children, guard yourselves from idols. 1 John 5:21
John urges his readers to guard their heart from being drawn away from Christ as the object of their devotion. Many things can distract us. Anything or anyone that takes priority over Jesus has the potential to become an idol.
CONCLUSION
There are three purposes for a list like this.
First, they make a good checklist to identify bona fide children of God.
Second, as a child of God we should be greatly encouraged by what God has provided for us in Christ.
Third, the instructions given to all children of God should be a challenge for us.
Love God, love one another, obey, claim victory, intercede for others and avoid idols.
