Who Makes God a Liar?

1 John 5:6-12
P. G. Mathew | Sunday, May 26, 2002
Copyright © 2002, P. G. Mathew

This is the one who came by water and blood–Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. We accept man’s testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son.

Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

1 John 5:6-12

Introduction

First John 5:6-12 is one of the most difficult passages in the entire Bible. There is no need to get into the difficulty and discuss about those matters in this study. But let me first make some preliminary remarks about this passage.

In verse 6 we read, “This is the one who came by water and blood. . . .” “This” is a demonstrative adjective pointing to verse 5, where Jesus is called the Son of God. “This is the one who came. . . .” In the Old Testament, the Messiah was called ho erchomenos, the one who comes; here in the Greek text he is called ho elthôn, one who came.

John is speaking about the Messiah who came. In other words, he is speaking about the incarnation of the eternal Son of God, Jesus Christ. John says he came through water and blood. This is a difficult phrase, but we can look upon these references to water and blood and learn from Tertullian, one of the church fathers, who said, “Water stands for the baptism of Jesus, and blood stands for the death of Jesus-the two termini of the ministry life of Jesus Christ.” So the emphasis here is that the eternal Son took upon himself human nature. Jesus Christ did not come by water only but by water and blood, meaning he was baptized and he died.

Then John says, “And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.” In this section we find the word “testify” and “testimony” ten times. John is putting an emphasis on testimony, bearing witness, on the evidence given to us so that we may make a decision to believe in this one who is the Messiah. John writes in verse 7 of chapter 5,”For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.” I take this water and blood to refer to the incarnational life of Jesus Christ. Then John continues, “We accept man’s testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart.” Here is another important item-the internal testimony of the Spirit of God. God’s Holy Spirit testifies within us also that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the Savior. This is the experimental aspect of our Christian life.

So there is the objective testimony of God to his Son and then there is the testimony of the Spirit of God within our hearts. John writes, “Anyone who does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because he has not believed the testimony God has given about his Son.” It is a serious crime not to believe in Jesus Christ. “And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.” In other words, salvation is not found in any other religion or in any other person. That is why we are to proclaim the gospel. That is the reason for missions. We are to go into all the world, because salvation cannot be found in any other religion, in any other person, but in the person of Jesus Christ.

In verse 12 we read, “He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.” Life without Christ is a miserable life. I was reading an obituary of a woman whose notable life accomplishments included taking dozens of cruises and assembling the photographs in books before she died. But there was no mention about whether or not she ever trusted in Jesus Christ.

We want to examine the question, “Who makes God a liar?” The simple answer is, any and every person who repudiates God’s witness to truth in reference to his Son. Any person who will not believe in the gospel makes God to be a liar. But it is a serious crime to make God a liar. He who makes God a liar is, in reality, saying that God is the devil because the devil is the liar and the father of all lies. When people do not believe the gospel, they are committing a most horrendous crime against the dignity of God who gave witness concerning his Son in the gospel.

In 1 John 5:1-5 we learned that true Christians are overcomers. Instead of being the most miserable, depressed, and confused people on the face of the earth, they are bold and confident, victorious and triumphant. They are triumphant because of four things: their new birth, their new faith, their new power, and their new obedience. It is true in the world we have troubles, but Jesus says, “Take courage, because I have overcome the world.” His triumph is our triumph, and we live in triumph daily because we are in him daily. This next passage,1 John 5:6-12, deals with three things: first, the testimony to Jesus Christ; second, trust in Jesus Christ based on that testimony; and, third, the eternal life in Christ Jesus that is the result of such trust.

Heresies in the New Testament Church

There are people who naively think of the apostolic church as pure and perfect. Some churches are even called New Testament churches. But whenever I hear that term, I am skeptical. I am not interested in going back to New Testament times, because the New Testament church was not any more pure or perfect than churches today, as we have discovered even from our study of 1 John. The apostle John was in charge of the Ephesian church towards the end of the first century. Peter, Paul, and James had been murdered for their faith. Emperor worship and heresies like Gnosticism were spreading throughout Asia Minor. A number of leading members of the Ephesian church rejected the apostolic teaching and tried to corrupt the rest of the church, albeit without success, and eventually had to leave the church. These false people were weeds, false Christians, even though they had been baptized under apostolic oversight.

There is no foolproof baptism. I myself have baptized all kinds of people, and a few of them subsequently fell away. We are not commanded to go into the inside of human beings to find out whether they have saving faith or not. We simply do not have that ability. Even the Ephesian church, pastored by the apostle John himself, was not a pure church. Though false people had confessed true doctrine initially, later they rejected the central doctrines of Christianity regarding the person and work of Jesus Christ.

According to these heretics called Gnostics, Jesus was the son of Mary and Joseph just like any other son born of human parents. They believed that at his baptism in Jordan, the divine Christ temporarily descended on him, but that this divine being left him before his crucifixion. They therefore rejected the truth that Jesus was the divine person who took upon himself human nature, that Jesus Christ was God/man, one person with two natures. They rejected the truth that this divine human Jesus was born, lived, died, rose again, ascended into the heavens and is seated still as God/man on the right hand of the Father as Lord of all. He ever lives as God/man, but these people rejected that doctrine. Jesus Christ continues to be Jesus Christ, one person in two natures, forever, and the church worked for five centuries to come up with this doctrine and deal with the heresies such as the one that plagued the Ephesian church.

This heresy of Gnosticism is still prevalent today in the form of theological liberalism that affirms that Jesus was a great man, a great moral teacher, a great example to us, and a great social reformer, but rejects the truth that Jesus Christ was God, the eternal Son in human flesh.

Not only did the Gnostics reject the dignity of the person of Jesus Christ, but that rejection of the dignity of his person resulted in the rejection of the efficacy and the sufficiency of Christ’s redemptive work. According to the Gnostics, the death of Jesus had no saving merit because his death was like the death of any other man. To them, he did not die as God/man; therefore, he did not accomplish our redemption on the cross. To them his death was not a propitiatory sacrifice. According to the Gnostics, he did not die for our sins, is not the Savior of the world, and therefore, his blood has no effect. It cannot cleanse us from our sins.

The apostle John wrote this epistle to give a death blow to this destructive heresy that depreciated the dignity of Christ’s person and therefore depreciated the efficacy and sufficiency of Christ’s saving work. So we need to understand that Jesus Christ came out of the womb as God/man; he lived as God/man; he died as God/man; he rose as God/man; he ascended as God/man; he is seated on the right hand of God as God/man, and he is going to come again as God/man.

The Testimony to Jesus Christ

Let us look at, first, the nature of the testimony to Jesus Christ. The word “testify” appears ten times in this section. According to Jewish jurisprudence, a matter was accepted as truth if the testimonies of two or more witnesses agreed. So also, in regard to the person and work of Jesus Christ, we have an agreement of more than one witness.

The Testimony of God the Father

First, there is the testimony of God the Father to his Son which he gave at the beginning of Christ’s ministry, at the time when Jesus was baptized in identification with his people to fulfill all righteousness in behalf of them. Jesus came to John the Baptist to be baptized, and in Matthew 3:17 we read that when he came up out of the water, heaven opened, and “a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well-pleased.'” It was the voice of the Father, testifying to his Son so that we could hear and respond to this testimony by putting our faith in Jesus Christ. In other words, the Father was saying, “This is Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God, sent into the world by me, that he may live and die for your salvation.” God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.

We find the testimony of the Father about Jesus toward the end of Jesus’ ministry, when he was on the Mount of Transfiguration. In Luke 9:28-36 we find Elijah and Moses were discussing the exodus, or death, of Jesus. They were discussing how this wonderful truth revealed in the Old Testament was now coming to its fulfillment so that Moses and Elijah would be saved together with us. Then the Father spoke again from heaven, saying, “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him.” Jesus was the Prophet that Moses spoke of in Deuteronomy 18, that he would raise from among the people of God. “You must listen to him, you must hear him, you must believe him, you must trust him,” God was telling the disciples. In other words, “This One has the words of life. He is the Savior. Listen to him! Believe him! Trust him!”

When Jesus took some disciples to Caesarea Philippi, he asked them the question, “Who do you say that I am?” The answer came from Peter: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Again, this shows the dignity of Jesus Christ. He was one divine person, in two natures. Then Jesus Christ explained that Peter did not get this answer from any human source, but “My Father in heaven revealed this truth to you.” In other words, this also was the testimony of the Father.

In John 5:36-37, Jesus said, “I have testimony weightier than that of John.” John the Baptist had borne witness to Jesus Christ. He told his disciples, “God told me to watch for the Holy Spirit to come upon a person and remain on him. By that you will know right away he is the Messiah.” But Jesus said, “I have a witness, a testimony, a certification weightier than that of John the Baptist.” What was it? “[T]he Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me.”

In John 8:18 Jesus said, “I am one who testifies for myself,” and certainly his testimony would be true because he is God/man, without sin. But he continued, “[M]y other witness is the Father who sent me.” Then, on the eve of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, we find the testimony again of the Father. In John 12 we read that Jesus prayed, saying, “‘Father, glorify your name!’ Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.'” In other words, in all these places, the Father was testifying to Jesus Christ that he is the divine person in two natures.

The Testimony of the Holy Spirit

Not only does the Father bear testimony to Jesus, but the Holy Spirit also bears witness to him. When Jesus was being baptized, John the Baptist saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on Jesus. As we already said, this was the sign to John that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, upon whom the Holy Spirit was coming without measure and remaining on him. In John 15 Jesus said that the Spirit of truth would testify about him. In other words, the Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit, testifies through the apostles that this Jesus is the Christ.

Jesus told his disciples that the Holy Spirit would guide them into all truth. In 1 John 5:6 and 8, we read that the Spirit is the one who testifies, and he does so because he is truth. In John 14:6 Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” and here we are told, “The Spirit is truth.” The idea is not that the Spirit is truthful or makes truthful statements, but that his being is truth, just as the being of Jesus is truth, and just as the being of God the Father is truth.

The Testimony of Jesus Christ Himself

Not only that, Jesus Christ himself testifies about himself. In John 8:36 he said, “If the Son sets you free, you are free indeed.” Jesus understood he was the Son of God. He didn’t have any question about it. In John 8:58 he said, “Before Abraham was, I am.” Elsewhere he said, “I and the Father are one,” which the Pharisees and the Sadducees understood correctly to mean that he was declaring himself equal with God. And in John 14:6 he said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” So the Father, the Spirit, and the Son all testified to the person and work of Jesus Christ.

The Testimony of the Scriptures

What about the testimony of the Scriptures? In John 5:39, Jesus said to the Jews who were diligently studying the Scriptures, “These are the Scriptures that testify about me.” In other words, Jesus was saying, “The singular emphasis of the Old Testament is the Messiah, ho erchomenos, the one who is coming. You study so diligently, yet you miss me and reject me?” He came to his own but his own received him not. In the midst of such diligent study, what ignorance! They missed it all!

In Luke 24:27 and 44, Jesus Christ told his disciples that the Scriptures, the entire Old Testament, spoke of him, that Christ had to die and be raised from the dead, and that repentance and faith would be proclaimed to all people.

The Testimony of the Apostles

What about the apostles? Of course, when we are speaking about the testimony of the Scriptures, we notice that the Spirit of God is testifying in them, as we read in 2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful. . . .” Peter tells us that the writers of the Scriptures, including himself, spoke not from themselves but from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21).

But what about the testimony of the apostles God chose? In John 15:26-27 Jesus told his disciples, “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the FAther, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.” The truth is, the Holy Spirit testified through the God-appointed apostles. In Acts 1:8 Jesus told his disciples, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Later, Peter told the Sanhedrin, “We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him” (Acts 5:32).

We find the apostle John’s own testimony several places. In 1 John 1:1-2 John wrote, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands touched-this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared,” speaking about the incarnation of Christ, “we have seen it and testify to it,” meaning testifying to who Jesus Christ is and what he has done.

In 1 John 4:14 John wrote, “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world,” which was contrary to the heretics’ view that Jesus was a mere man upon whom the divine Christ descended temporarily but left before his crucifixion and all that. No, God the Father sent his Son and John says “we testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.” Inspired by the Holy Spirit of God, John and the other apostles gave witness to the person and work of Jesus Christ.

In 1 John 5:20 John wrote, “We know also 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, even in his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.” Here again is the infallible apostolic witness to the person and work of Jesus Christ.

In John 20:31 the apostle gives the reason that he wrote his gospel: “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

There we have the nature of the testimony about the person and work of Jesus Christ. It is the very testimony of God. Why did God give us this testimony? Because he so loved the world that he doesn’t want any people to perish but wants all to come to have eternal life.

Trusting the Testimony

Second, John gives us reasons why we should believe this testimony to Jesus Christ. In 1 John 5:9 John speaks about the issue of trusting in ordinary human life. He writes, “We receive human testimony.” If we did not receive human testimony, if we did not believe in human testimony, life itself will be impossible. The court system would fail if we did not receive human testimony.

But, John says, we do receive human testimony and agree with it and believe. We are persuaded by human testimony daily. Then he continues in verse 9, saying, “But God’s testimony is greater, because it if the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son.”

Why, then, should we believe the testimony we have about Jesus Christ? First, there is the fact that we do receive testimony of human beings every day. Second, the testimony we have concerning Jesus Christ is greater and weightier than human testimony-it is the testimony of God himself. So John is saying, “Do you want me to give you a reason you should believe in Jesus Christ? I am giving you the reason: that you do believe in human testimony every day. But I am giving you a weightier reason: it is the very testimony of God, who is light, in whom there is no darkness, the one who is truth and who cannot lie.” The prophet Balaam received a revelation: “God is not man, that he should lie.” Paul says in Romans 3:4, “Let God be true and all men liars.” Jesus Christ said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

So the reasons we should believe the testimony about Jesus Christ are that, first, we believe man’s testimony and, second, this is a weightier testimony, which is that of God himself. PGM The third reason is that the subject God is testifying about is his Son. Who knows more about the Son than God? No one. In John 1 we read, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. . . .” In the Greek it is pros ton Theon, meaning the Word, the eternal Son, was in fellowship with the Father from the beginning. Who, then, is most qualified to speak about his Son? God the Father.

Thus, if you are not persuaded by the weightier testimony of God, then you are contradicting him and making him to be a liar. If you refuse to believe in Jesus Christ, you are saying, “The Father is a liar, the Son is a liar, the Holy Spirit is a liar, the holy prophets are liars, the holy apostles are liars, the holy Scriptures are lies.”

I hope you will realize that God is testifying for your good and your salvation. Who is the liar? The devil. Jesus exposed him, saying, “The devil is a liar and the father of all lies.” We see him lying from the beginning. In Genesis 3 God told Adam and Eve concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “The day you eat thereof, you will die.” This was God’s infallible testimony, given to guide Adam and Eve in the way of life. But then the serpent, the devil, came to them and said, “No, there is no problem with eating from that tree. You go ahead. Let me tell you what the truth is: if you eat from it, you shall not die.”

Every time the gospel is declared to us, at the same time the devil speaks and contradicts God’s word. This has always been the case. What happened in Genesis 3 has been repeated continuously throughout the history of man. There is the word and there is the anti-word, the word of life and the word of death. Satan, in effect, was saying to Adam and Eve, “God does not want your eyes to be opened. God does not want you to be like him. God wants to keep you down. God is a liar; why should you believe him? Additionally, there is no hell. There are no absolutes. There is no judgment. There is no Judge. Be free! Do what you please! Hold on to your autonomy! Why be constrained by this God and his law? Fulfill yourself! Be happy!” Who makes God a liar? He who believes Satan.

In John 3:31-33 we read, “The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. The man who has accepted it has certified that God is truthful.” Praise God for those who have trusted in Christ and believed in the gospel! Such people have certified that God is truthful. Therefore, he who makes God a liar is one who rejects his testimony, especially his testimony concerning Jesus Christ. Either we are making God truthful by believing in his testimony, or we are calling him a liar.

Let me say one more thing: God is not going to give us anything other than the inspired word of God-the testimony of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and the testimony of the prophets and the apostles. In Luke 16 we read about a rich man who went to hell, where he became very evangelistic. From his place of torment and agony he said, “I have an idea, God. If only you raised this Lazarus from the dead and sent him to Jerusalem to let people know that there really is a hell and a heaven, then I am sure people would believe in you and your testimony.” What did God say? “No, they have Moses and the prophets.” In other words, God is not going to rend the heavens or send some special mighty phenomena to help you believe in him. He has already given us his testimony, which is now being proclaimed to you by a human being. He has already made it clear that you are a sinner, but also that God loves you and sent his Son to die on the cross for your salvation. He has already said clearly that if you repent and believe on him, you shall be saved.

Don’t be like the rich man, expecting God to work some kind of miracle to make people believe. In fact, a miracle did happen. A person did die and rise again from the dead on the third day, as he said he would. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is a historical reality. It is God’s testimony, and we must believe it!

The Purpose of God’s Testimony

What, then, are we supposed to do? In 1 John 5:10-11 we read, “Anyone who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in his heart. . . And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life.” What is the purpose of all this testimony? To believe in the Son of God that you may be saved.

We find an interesting Greek phrase in this verse: pisteuô eis ton huion tou Theou, which means “believe into the Son of God.” This expression appears forty times in the gospel of John. What it means is that John is not speaking about belief as just giving a mental assent that certain propositions are true. True belief, or trust, means to put ourselves into the hands of Jesus Christ, surrendering and submitting to him now and forevermore. It is like a marriage. If someone asks, “Are you married?” there can be only two answers-yes or no. You cannot say, “I don’t know.” Either you are married or you are not married!

That is what this trust is all about. Have you trusted him, God’s Son? He is the Lord of all, and he is coming again as the Judge of all. He is the one who is going to make a new heaven and a new earth. He is the one who will judge you and me.

God has given us a testimony that we may trust in his Son. Unbelief is not a nice little sin. Unbelief is contradicting God and calling him a liar. There is no salvation outside of Jesus Christ. Oh, we love diversity and thinking everything is equally valid, but it is not true. If all ideas are equally valid, then there would be no need for evangelism or missions. You may talk all you want about the equal validity of all opinions and religions, but the truth is, it is a lie. Eternal life is found exclusively in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It cannot be found in anyone else.

Thank God for the testimony given to us human beings, that we could hear the propositional revelation, and through that entrust ourselves to this Jesus Christ to save us! He does save us, receive us, and give us eternal life. We are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus our Lord. May God help us, therefore, to trust in his Son, based on the testimony he have given!

Consequences to Faith or Doubt: Eternal Life or Eternal Hell

aving spoken about the nature of God’s testimony concerning his Son, as we read in 1 John 5:6-8, and the reason why we must believe that testimony, as we read in 1 John 5:9-10, we now want to look at what the consequences are of our faith or our unbelief.

In 1 John 5:11 we read, “And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life.” In the Greek we find the words zôên aiônion, eternal life, which means life of the ages, life that is beyond this age, or life that is beyond the grave. It is unending life, life that overcomes the grave. If you have received eternal life, you can look at death in triumph. You can say, “O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory? Death has been swallowed up in victory.” Eternal life is life that can be defined as fullness of blessing. The opposite is curse and eternal death, which is also an eternal existence.

We just heard of the death of a famous scientist who was known for his opposition to Christianity. I think he is in hell and understands reality now. If he could, this man would tell us, “Don’t read my books. All that I said is not true. There is a hell. There is a life beyond the grave.”

Eternal life is fullness of blessing. Eternal life can be defined as relationship forevermore with the Father and the Son. What is life but relationship? Eternal life is relationship with God and his Son and the people of God. So John says, “I write these things that you may have fellowship with us and our fellowship is with the Father and the Son.”

In eternal life there is no death, no tears, no pain, no sin, no darkness, and no depression. This eternal life comes to us as gift. We do not work for it nor can we. God so loved the world he gave the gift of his Son, and eternal life is in him.

So John writes, “And so this is the testimony of God: God has given to us eternal life.” If this is not true of your life, I urge you to repent of your sins and trust in Christ for salvation. Eternal life is in the Son; thus, you will never have it without a relationship with the Son by faith.

This eternal life is a gift, but it is not something that we can receive beyond the grave. It is something we must receive now in this world, in this age. Yes, in this age we may have pain and suffering and problems and troubles, but we can also have eternal life. You can have it now, but if you do not get it now, you will not be able to get it hereafter. The rich man of Luke 16 did not think about it in this life. He probably thought he could get it later on.

Life Is in the Son

John tells us this eternal life God gives us “is in his Son.” This profound statement invalidates every other religion. This is an exclusive claim.

This testimony from the mouth of God invalidates all religions that reject the triune view of God and that reject Jesus Christ, the eternal Son, who became man. What about Judaism? Judaism is monotheistic, but it rejects the Son. Islam is monotheistic too, but it also rejects Jesus Christ, the Son, God/man.

We must repudiate modern conception of equal validity of all opinions. Some people may say, “How can you say all opinions are not equally valid? That just shows your lack of tolerance. How uncivilized!” What do you want me to do? Be tolerant and go to hell? Or be intolerant and “uncivilized” and declare to you the only way of salvation?

This is the most serious issue we face in this life. Eternal life cannot be found anywhere else and in anyone else, but in Jesus Christ. That is why John writes, “This is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this eternal life is in his Son.”

This statement is the foundation for all evangelism. You see, if we believe in the equal validity of all religions, all views, and all opinions, such belief will kill evangelism. Why should I go to anywhere, to any country and people, and preach the gospel? In fact, there are people who are against any mission work, especially in non-Western countries. You are disturbing the pristine primitivism of the people! But such people are in deep darkness. All people are hopeless wretches, whether they are in the Western world or any other world. All people need the gospel, because eternal life is found only in the Son; therefore, Jesus told his disciples to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations.

“He who has the Son has life.” We cannot receive eternal life as a gift and forget about God the Son. Eternal life is in God’s Son; it is based on relationship with the Son. Jesus Christ defined eternal life this way: “This is eternal life, that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” It is relationship.

How to Have Eternal Life

How can we possess the Son and eternal life? How can we become people who can look at death and problems and troubles and persecutions and rejoice? How can we join those who overcome the world, sin, Satan, the flesh, and the devil? How can we become people who can resist the devil?

The answer is that we must trust him. In the Greek it is pisteuô eis ton huion tou Theou. But now we must ask, will God receive us if we come to him? After all, we are foul, vile sinners. Will he receive such people? The good news is that Jesus is a friend of sinners. In fact, the only people he welcomes are sinners. He is against the self-righteous. He is the one who leaves the ninety-nine righteous and goes out in search of a sinner.

If you are wondering whether he will receive you, the answer is yes. We can come to him just as we are. When we come to him, he offers himself to us as in a marriage. Suppose there is a girl who is in debt and you are very rich. But you get married, and once you are married, her debt becomes yours, and your assets become hers.

That is the way it works. When Jesus Christ receives you, a sinner, you have negative assets. But he receives you, takes all your debt, and gives you all his assets. And he only welcomes people who have no assets, without one plea, and tells them, “Come to me.” That is why it is called the gospel. You are the bride of Christ and he is your husband.

Another analogy for this relationship is used by Jesus in John 15, where he says, “I am the vine; you are the branches.” All his riches, grace, love, joy, forgiveness flow from him to you. This is God’s plan: when you possess the Son, you possess everything of the Son. How do you possess him? By faith, by self-abandonment, and by committing yourself completely to him.

In John 11 Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life,” and in John 14 he told us, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” In John 10 Jesus said, “The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly.” How can he give us this life? He can do so because he offered himself as propitiation-a sacrifice of atonement-for all our sins. Now life from him, forgiveness from him, justification from him, righteousness from him, love from him, comes to us.

In John 3:36 we read something very important: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.” Note, John says “has eternal life,” not “shall have eternal life.”

Not only that, this linkage with Christ and the believer can never be broken. “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.” It is a gift, based not on work/righteousness, but on faith in him. But, notice, John continues, “but whoever rejects the Son will not see life for God’s wrath remains on him.”

In John 3:18 we read, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” Jesus Christ offers himself to us. We can come and receive him, possess him, and cast ourselves upon him, he will receive us.

But if you do not want to believe in him, you shall not see life. You stand condemned already, and the wrath of God remains on you. The Bible says, “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness.” God is angry against sinners, and the only place that it can be dealt with is on the cross. If you don’t want God’s offer of salvation through Christ, then you have to deal with that wrath, and that is what hell is all about. It is called eternal death. But I am here to show you the wrath can be removed the moment you trust on him who died in your place.

Do You Have Eternal Life?

God has testified about his Son, and his testimony is greater and weightier than the testimony of man. This weightier testimony is not the testimony of one man or it is not the cumulative testimony of philosophers. It is the word from heaven concerning God’s Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Either we trust this testimony, or we reject him.

What about you? If you do not have eternal life, you are condemned already. The wrath of God is abiding on you and you shall not see life. You are hurtling toward hell, toward an unending existence of agony and torment.

But if you have trusted in Jesus Christ, you should rejoice. You can laugh at the world, laugh at troubles, and laugh at death itself. Yes, you are going to die, but you can say with Paul, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” Having overcome the world in Christ, you can live a victorious Christian life in the midst of all problems. If you are not a Christian, I offer you a Savior who will receive sinners. Come to him and he will receive you.

In the first chapter of Romans, the apostle Paul tells us of sinners who know God but suppress the truth. It is their moment-by-moment activity. Oh, it is not that they don’t know. They have the book of creation, they have conscience, and have heard the gospel. But they continuously suppress the truth, just like firefighters who put out fires continuously. Not only that, Paul also says they exchange the truth for a lie. In other words, they don’t want the testimony of God. They don’t want God’s own revelation concerning his Son. They take it and say, “Please exchange this. I want a lie instead.”

If you are a person outside of Christ, and if the Holy Spirit is working in your heart right now, you can come to Christ and he will receive you. Yes, we are sinners, yet God the Father sent his Son to save us. It is he who offers salvation to you as a gift. Do you believe his testimony? Do you believe that if you believe in his Son, he will give you eternal life? Do you believe that Jesus is a friend of sinners? Do you believe that if you come to him, he will receive you, forgive you, justify you, and give himself to you? If so, I pray that you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ this day and be saved. Amen.