1 John, Part 7: Children of God

1 John 3:1-3 (BSB)

Last week, we read the second half of 1 John chapter 2, in which John explained that it is only if we remain in Jesus that we have the assurance of the promise which Jesus Himself made to us: eternal life. He warned, too, of the deception of antichrists who deny that Jesus is the Christ and said that if we want to remain in Jesus, we must hold on to what the Bible has taught us and not be deceived by them.

Today, we are looking at the first three verses of chapter 3, but before we read them, I want to remind us of what John said right before these verses in 1 John 2:28-29. He said: “And now, little children, remain in Christ, so that when He appears, we may be confident and unashamed before Him at His coming. If you know that He is righteous, you also know that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of Him.”

That was the first time John speaks of believers as being “born” of God. He is going to use this term many more times as he continues in this letter, but now, in our text for today, he’s  continuing that thought and explaining what it means to born of God.

Let’s read our text, and then we will go through it again, verse by verse.

1 John 3:1-3 says:

1 Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.

2 Beloved, we are now children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when Christ appears, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is. 

3 And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as Christ is pure.

If we have been born of God, then we are God’s children. That’s why we do not need to be insecure or ashamed when Jesus returns. We can be confident and unashamed, knowing that we are His children. That’s why John exclaims in verse 1, “Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God!”

Other translations say, see what kind of love the Father has given us. Look at it. Consider it.

Have you? Have you thought about how incredible it is? Just how much does the Father love us? How do we behold that love? How can we even begin to measure it? Well, back in John 3:16, when Nicodemus asked Jesus how someone can be born again, Jesus said, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

To begin to understand what manner of love the Father has given to us, we must first look at the Cross. It is only when we understand what Jesus did for us by dying on the Cross that we can begin to behold it.

If we have truly beheld that love—if we have truly believed that Jesus died on the Cross for our sins—then we will repent of our sins and be born again. Then we can proclaim, just as John does, “And that is what we are!” We are God’s children!

The world, John says, doesn’t understand this love, nor understand who we are as God’s children. In fact, many of them assume that they, by default, are also God’s children, even though they don’t know who God is. As John continues in verse 1, “The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.” They don’t know Him because they don’t understand the purpose of the Cross.

Jesus said that in order for the world to know Him, He would be lifted up on the Cross. Look what John 12:23-33 says:

But Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified…Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? No, it is for this purpose that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify Your name!”

Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”

The crowd standing there heard it and said that it had thundered. Others said that an angel had spoken to Him.

In response, Jesus said, “This voice was not for My benefit, but yours. Now judgment is upon this world; now the prince of this world will be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw everyone to Myself.”

He said this to indicate the kind of death He was going to die.

Jesus spoke those words after He had entered Jerusalem while a crowd of people was shouting Hosanna and waving palm branches. They wanted Jesus to save them. John 12:12-15 says:

The great crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. They took palm branches and went out to meet Him, shouting: “Hosanna!”

“Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!”

“Blessed is the King of Israel!”

Finding a young donkey, Jesus sat on it, as it is written:

 “Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion. See, your King is coming, seated on the colt of a donkey.”

The people cried, “Hosanna in the highest,” but they weren’t asking Him to save them from their sins. The people saying “hosanna” didn’t actually know who He was. They heard the voice from Heaven saying, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again,’ but they didn’t understand it, the same way they didn’t understand why someone who could raise Lazarus from the dead would be riding a donkey. They thought the prophesied Messiah would be someone who would save them from the oppressive Roman government.

Jesus had come to earth to save them, and so their plea for salvation would be answered, but not in the way they thought. Jesus would save them through His death on the Cross. But they didn’t stay with Him and follow Him to the Cross. To use John’s words—they didn’t remain with Him—because He didn’t do what they wanted. He wasn’t who they expected Him to be.

It’s only because we know what happens after Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem that we can make sense of Him choosing to ride on a lowly donkey. Because we know that in just a few short days after that, He will be arrested, beaten, and condemned to die on the Cross. And we know that He will do this willingly.

To behold the manner of love the Father has given to us, we must first look at the Cross. If we don’t start at the Cross, then nothing else will make sense. Like setting our fingers down on the wrong places on a keyboard, the letters will be off, and our sentences will be incorrect. If we don’t start at the Cross, then like the people waving palm branches, we could end up dismissing Him outright and believe He isn’t the promised Messiah and Savior of the world after all. If we don’t understand what Jesus did on the Cross, and that He rose from the dead, then we won’t know who Jesus is. To be children of God, we must understand the purpose of the Cross.

When we “behold what manner of love the Father has given to us,” we can only conclude that this love is greater than any other love. As Jesus said in John 15:12-13, “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” The Cross proves His great love.

Jesus could have arrived on earth and been a conquering hero, just as the people expected. But that is not the way of the Kingdom of God. Though the Old Testament shows us the mighty deliverance and righteous justice of God, and so we can say as Hebrews 10:30 does, that “we know Him who said, ‘Vengeance is Mine; I will repay,’ and again, ‘The Lord will judge His people,’” we see displayed in Jesus’ death on the Cross, the complete nature of God. There is no difference between the Father and Jesus. Over and over in the Old Testament, we see mercy and forgiveness being extended to people whom God simply wants to love and bless. And in Jesus, we see the depth of that manner of love. We see the complete character of God.

Philippians 2:6-8 explains this. It says, Jesus, “Who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross.”

Setting aside His rightful majesty and glory, Jesus humbled Himself by becoming a man for us. Jesus choosing to ride a donkey is further proof of that humility. Jesus does not conquer with force and violence. He is meek, which is strength under control. He is long-suffering and patient. He is selfless even unto death. The crowd wanted the opposite.

There is a crowd that still misunderstands Jesus and wants the same things. They don’t understand Christians, and I don’t blame them, for there are so many antichrists and false prophets who misrepresent Christianity. There are many people who falsely claim to speak for God. But remember the test that John tells us to use. Do they obey Jesus’ commands? Do they proclaim Jesus as the Christ? Are the people who are speaking for God loving other people? God’s children are supposed to emulate Jesus by loving others with that same kind of meek and selfless love. If there is no evidence of that in someone’s life, then we shouldn’t listen to them.

Then, verse 2 of our text says, “Beloved, we are now children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when Christ appears, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is.”

Earlier in the letter, if you remember, John spoke of Jesus’ return. He’s circling back to that again and saying that we know we are children of God, and so we won’t need to be ashamed or insecure when Jesus appears. But we also don’t know exactly what that will look like.

About this verse, theologian Alexander MacLaren says, “It is easy to [ask questions about eternity]; it is not so easy to say: ‘Thank God, we cannot answer them yet!’ If we could it would only be because the experience of earth was adequate to measure the experience of Heaven; and that would be to bring the future down to the low levels of this present. Let us be thankful then that so long as we can only speak in language derived from the experiences of earth, we have yet to learn the vocabulary of Heaven. Let us be thankful that our best help to know what we shall be is to reverse much of what we are, and that the loftiest and most positive declarations concerning the future lie in negatives like these: ’I saw no temple therein.’ ‘There shall be no night there.’ ‘There shall be no curse there.’ ‘There shall be no more sighing nor weeping, for the former things are passed away.’”

MacLaren is saying that if we could describe eternity, then it would mean that eternity is much like our experience here on earth. But we shouldn’t think it will be anything like it is now. It will be so much more incredible that we don’t even have the words to describe it. I think John would agree with that idea, because as he says, “what we will be has not yet been revealed.” We don’t really know what we will be like, other than: “We know that when Christ appears, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is.”

But why do you think John words it this way? He had already seen Jesus in the flesh, both before and after the resurrection. Wouldn’t he think that we will be much the same as we are now, just as Jesus was? Why does he say that “what we will be has not yet been revealed”?

MacLaren also points out that, “the risen Christ is not the glorified Christ, and… I suppose that the ‘glorious body’ of Jesus Christ was not assumed by Him till the cloud ‘received Him out of their sight,’ nor, indeed, could it be assumed while He moved among the material realities of this world.”

So, if MacLaren is correct, that would mean that even though John saw Jesus after Jesus had risen from the dead, he hadn’t seen Jesus in all His glory. He hadn’t seen what Jesus is like now, because otherwise we’d have some idea of it, wouldn’t we?

I had never considered this idea before, but after studying it, I agree with MacLaren. Look at the evidence with me. Matthew 17:2 says when Jesus took Peter, James and John up to the top of the mountain, that, “There He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light.”

Mark 9:3 also describes this event and says, “His clothes became radiantly white, brighter than any launderer on earth could bleach them.” And Luke 9:29 adds that, “as He was praying, the appearance of His face changed, and His clothes became radiantly white.”

This description of Jesus in His glorified body on what is called the Mount of Transfiguration, matches the description of Revelation 1:14-16, which says: “The hair of His head was white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes were like a blazing fire. His feet were like polished bronze refined in a furnace, and His voice was like the roar of many waters. He held in His right hand seven stars, and a sharp double-edged sword came from His mouth. His face was like the sun shining at its brightest.”

I can anticipate that there will be some questions about this. For example, how did Jesus walk through walls or suddenly appear and disappear after the resurrection if His body wasn’t His glorified body? I would argue that He could always do those things—He just hadn’t been so obvious about it before. For example, look at this event in Luke 4:29-30. A crowd had pursued Jesus and wanted to kill Him. It says, “They got up, drove Him out of the town, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw Him over the cliff. But Jesus passed through the crowd and went on His way.” Who’s to say He didn’t simply disappear, passing through the crowd in the same way He passed through the wall. He performed many miracles—He easily could have done that, too.

But most telling to me is the fact that after His resurrection, Jesus still had the scars and holes from the crucifixion. I’ve always wondered how that could be if He was in His glorified form. I had wondered about scars on our bodies, and worried that we would still retain those for eternity. This actually gives me peace knowing that those might not be present on our bodies any longer. I am sure there are a lot of people who would not want the reminder of scars to linger on their body for all eternity.

Why I think this discussion is not a tangent, but a key thing to consider is because when Jesus appeared to the disciples and showed them His resurrected body, it’s important that we understand that He wasn’t a spirit, merely visiting from the dead. He was fully resurrected. He was Himself, in the flesh and blood. In the same way that Lazarus, who was raised from the dead, went on to live a regular life, Jesus too was literally raised from the dead. I think if He had wanted to, Jesus could have remained on earth for a lot longer than 40 days. But His mission was accomplished, and as He said in John 16:7, “But I tell you the truth, it is for your benefit that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.”

It is crucial that we understand that Jesus truly triumphed over death, because there are multitudes of antichrists who would tell us that Jesus is not the Christ, that He did not rise from the dead. But He did rise. The disciples did place their hands in His wounds. The Bible tells us He appeared to hundreds of people. Understanding and believing this is the difference between simply thinking that Jesus was a prophet, or truly believing in Him and being born again.

This is the truth that John has told us must remain in us. The question is: Will you let that truth remain in your heart and mind? Or like the crowd shouting ‘Hosanna,’ will you abandon it?

Let us be the people who remain in Jesus. And do what John next, in verse 3, assumes we will do. He adds, “And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as Christ is pure.”

John states this as a given fact—that all of us who have this hope of Jesus’ appearing are going to purify ourselves to be more like Him.

First and foremost, we purify ourselves every time we confess our sins and ask Jesus to forgive us. Back at the beginning of this letter, in 1 John 1:9, he said, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Second, we must also strive to live holy and righteous lives, making daily efforts to purify ourselves and be more like Jesus. Just as 2 Corinthians 7:1 instructs us: “Therefore, beloved, since we have these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that defiles body and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”

After all, if we are going to meet Jesus, then shouldn’t we get ready? That’s really what John is saying here.

Let’s do the things John has been telling us true believers do. Let’s obey Jesus’ commands and walk as Jesus walked—full of meekness and sacrificial love. Let us remain in the Light and love our brothers and sisters in Christ. Let us daily overcome the evil one by letting the Word of God remain in our hearts—letting what we’ve heard from the beginning remain in us. For if we remain in Christ, purifying ourselves just as Christ is pure, then we can be unashamed when He returns. For God loved us so much He made a way for us to be His children—that is who we are!

As we go through this week, leading up to Good Friday, let me encourage you to really consider the love Jesus displayed so that we might become children of God. Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us! Really look. Reflect on what Jesus has done for us on the Cross. It is only if we start at the Cross that we can begin to understand how we are born again to become children of God. Then we can cry out, “Hosanna! Hosanna to the King of kings,” confidently and full of faith, knowing that the same Jesus who triumphed over death can answer our cries for help.  

Prayer: Heavenly Father, we thank You and praise You for Your great love for us. Thank You for making a way for us to be born again, becoming Your children. We pray that this week You would help us by Your Holy Spirit, to really mediate on what Jesus has done for us by dying on the Cross. Please show us any areas in our lives which need correcting and help us to purify ourselves as we strive to follow all Your ways. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.