THE FATHER'S LOVE BESTOWED ON US - 1 JOHN 3:1

Verse 1: See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.

 

Behold and Be Amazed

John begins chapter 3 with the simple command: see. However, this doesn’t bring out the full effect of what John is trying to emphasize. The Greek word means to look, to open the eyes of one’s mind and perceive. It is a command that we behold and pay strict attention to what John is about to disclose regarding this particular love which the Father has imparted to us.

The phrase ‘how great’ is one Greek word, an inquisitive adjective meant to encourage the reader to contemplate. There is a word in the Greek for ‘great’, but it is not what John uses here. This word questions “of what sort,”1 implying a sense of awe, amazement, admiration, astonishment, otherworldly. The word is used only 7 times in the New Testament (Matthew 8:27; Mark 13:1 (twice); Luke 1:29; 7:39; 2 Peter 3:11; 1 John 3:1). It is as if John is saying: “Wow! Behold, how amazing is this love the Father has bestowed on us?” R.M.L Waugh notes:

The more the aged John meditated on the love of God, the more he was filled with wonder at the uniqueness of it. There is something unearthly about the divine love. The New Testament writers cannot help using a distinctive word (agape) to indicate its rare quality. Human love is so often kindled by love of a friend; but divine love is utterly and absolutely unselfish.2

In his gospel, John declared the intensity of God’s amazing love:

For God so [in this manner] 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)

John goes on to explain why we should be astonished by this unearthly love: that we would be called children of God! Believers are presently in a relationship with God, Who intentionally desires fellowship with us; otherwise, He would not have provided His Son’s death in our place on the cross to satisfy His just demands for the atonement of our sins. Now we can understand why John expressed awe of the Father’s love by the phrase how great.

The fact that the Father loves us was proclaimed by Our Lord in His Upper Room Discourse:

"For the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came forth from the Father." (John 16:27)

This love is eternal, as emphasized by the word bestowed, it remains in us forever; it cannot be lost nor can it be forsaken by the believer. The Apostle Paul explained this thoroughly when he wrote:

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38–39)

Even if we were ever to be faithless, He remains faithful (2 Timothy 2:13). Our salvation, our eternal life is secured in the Father’s love for us. We can never lose our salvation. Our Lord asserted this:

“And I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” (John 10:28–29)

The authority for Our Lord to give eternal life was granted by the Father (John 17:20), Who ultimately gives eternal life (1 John 5:11) and is the promise Our Lord made to us (1 John 2:25).

The phrase and such we are appears simply in the Greek: ‘and we are,’ describing our absolute state of being—that we indeed are undeniably the Children of God because of our spiritual birth (cf. Romans 8:16). This serves to underscore the finality of this issue.

The Destitute World

What John means by the world is not with regard to God’s creation. For what God created was deemed “very good” (Genesis 1:31). What he is referring to is the present world order ruled by Satan: ‘the evil one’ (1 John 5:19), ‘the prince of the power of the air’ (Ephesians 2:2), ‘the god of this world’ (2 Corinthians 4:4). He is the deceiver of the whole world (Revelation 12:9) so that the people who reside in this world are agnostics, atheists, unbelievers—the mass of unregenerate mankind. Remember, there are only two categories of people who populate the world: those who believe in Jesus Christ, the God of the universe; those who knowingly or unwittingly follow the delusion of Satan and his minions.

Having this understanding of John’s use of the word world, we are able to perceive the significance of this last phrase of this verse.

For this refers to the preceding statement—the fact of God’s love bestowed upon us and that He calls us His children. This is specifically what the world does not know about us. The Greek word for know means “to come to know, recognize” or “to understand completely.”3 The world does not recognize nor does it understand this intimate relationship we have with the God of the universe. Lenski explains that,

We are utterly foreign to the world because even our Father is utterly foreign to the world. The world has no conception of what we are as those who are born of God and thus God’s actual children.4

The Apostle Paul tells us that the unregenerate “natural man” in their ignorance considers the “word of the cross” and the “things of the Spirit of God” as utter foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:18; 2:14). They regard us as the foolish oddities of the world. It is the reason the Apostle Peter could state that,

In all this, they are surprised that you do not run with them into the same excesses of dissipation, and they malign you (1 Peter 4:4)

By surprised Peter means “to be astonished by the strangeness of a thing.”5 In essence, we are considered to be irrational abnormalities in today’s culture. In fact, Van Ryn asserts that “the world not only does not understand the believer in Christ; it resents him if he lives to please the Lord.”6

But Peter gives us sound advice for how we are to live in this present world:

But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ will be put to shame. (1 Peter 3:15–16)

 John concludes with an explanation for the worlds’ failure in understanding us: because it did not know Him—the Father. Jesus declared that “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), so neither does the world know Jesus Christ. For this was established by John in his gospel account.

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. (John 1:10)

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[1] Robertson, A.T. (1934). A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, p.741.

[2] Waugh, R.M.L. (1953). The Preacher and His Greek Testament, London: The Epworth Press, p. 25.

[3] Vine, W. E., Unger, M. F., & White, W., Jr. (1996). In Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words. Nashville, TN: T. Nelson, 2.346.

[4] Lenski, R.C.H. (2001). Commentary on the New Testament, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 11.450.

[5] Vine, 2.203.

[6] Van Ryn, August (1948). The Epistles of John, New York, NY: Loizeaux Brothers, p. 84.

 

© 2025 David M. Rossi

 

THE PRACTICE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS - 1 JOHN 2:29

Verse 29: If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him.

John begins with a suppositional premise “if you know that He (God) is righteous” which the genuineness of the following phrase is dependent upon. It presents a logical connection,1 meaning that if the premise is true then the conclusion is also true. But the important point that John seeks to emphasize at the outset is whether the believer knows that God is righteous. And so, in order to truly understand this verse, we must analyze the key words: righteous, righteousness, practice, know.

Righteousness of God

The word ‘righteous’ denotes the character of a person who conforms to what is just and right “without any deficiency or failure.”2 This implies that what is ‘just and right’ must be based on certain norms and standards, for instance, either the law of society or divine laws.

Regarding God’s righteousness, Dr. Norman Geisler asserts that “it refers to the intrinsic characteristic of God wherein He is absolutely just or right and is the ultimate standard of justice and rightness.”3 Adding to this, Dr. L.S. Chafer explains His unique character:

God is transparently holy and righteous in all His acts. When combined with love, His righteousness results in grace. God’s righteousness is ever absolute and perfect to infinity: “In him is no darkness at all.” God’s righteousness is seen in two ways: (a) He is a righteous Person (James 1: 17; 1 John 1:5) and (b) He is righteous in all His ways (Romans 3:25-26).4

This is an attribute of the very essence of God, setting the standard of perfect upright integrity, far above any and all human criteria. Lenski adds that “He is righteous in all His ways: in His laws, His promises, His verdicts, or a single act of His.”5 His righteous character can and should be studied in the following passages of Scripture: 2 Chronicles 12:6; Ezra 9:15; Nehemiah 9:8; Psalm 19:9; 89:14; Acts 17:31; 2 Timothy 4:8; Hebrews 1:8.

Practice

The word practice does not imply learning, as one might say they are practicing a musical instrument or rehearsing their lines for acting. The doctor practicing medicine when tending to a patient is nearer to John’s meaning of practice. The connotation of the word here implies “any external act as manifested in the production of something tangible.”6 In contrast with a musician learning to play his instrument by practicing or the actor practicing their lines prior to a performance, the inference here is the ongoing production of Godly righteousness in the believer’s life. For the believer to practice righteousness means that they are consistently producing clear evidence of their relationship with Jesus Christ on the basis of His truth standards.

But this characteristic of the believer is not produced merely behind closed doors, in the darkness or out of the way from the sight of others. It is what Our Lord meant when He stated “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16). This corresponds with John’s admonition to “walk in the Light” as evidence that we “practice the truth” (1 John 1:6-7). And yes, we do produce this righteousness internally in our thought life (Philippians 4:8) and while in His presence when we pray and study His Word; but it is supposed to be observable in our external lives before all mankind. To consider otherwise would disregard John’s intent that we become a mature believer and produce righteous characteristics.    

However, Our Lord provided cautionary advice that we were not to practice our righteousness before mankind with the attitude of showing off or in an attempt to compete or outperform others (Matthew 6:1-6). And yet at the same time He declared “that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:20).

 Since the righteousness of God is an attribute of His perfect and incorruptible divine character, we can only produce His righteous character by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Those qualities of our lives that will portray God’s righteous character were specified by the Apostle Paul to be the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).

You Know

There are two Greek words in this verse translated know. The first one refers to knowing intuitively. What John means by this is that the believer having advanced in his knowledge of the Word will/should be able to apprehend without much contemplation the righteous character of God.

The second word know means “to come to know, recognize” or “to understand completely.”7 So, therefore, if we possess in our frame of reference the fact of God’s righteous character, then, by John’s reckoning, we also will be able to recognize that same righteous character of God’s in those who produce clear evidence of such. More importantly, this is intended to be a personal assessment of our own status of spiritual maturity—to determine if we are producing in our life Godly righteousness.

Born of Him

What does it mean to be born of Him? John refers this to our spiritual birth, having nothing to do with our physical birth. For in John’s gospel, he stated that we, as children of God, “were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13). Our Lord affirmed this when He proclaimed:

“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.’” (John 3:5–7)

This spiritual birth has its source from God and is procured when we believe in the finished work Christ on the cross, where He satisfied the righteous demands of the Father as the just atonement for “our sins; and not for ours only, but also those of the whole world” (1 John 2:2).

How Should We Now Live?

Since we who have experienced this spiritual birth, this “so great salvation” (Hebrews 2:3), we should be primarily concerned with the strategy of living our lives today. We cannot approach our faith in a casual nonchalant fashion: maybe I’ll study His Word, maybe not; maybe I’ll respond to the events of life in a Godly manner, maybe I will not—whatever I choose to do I will do. That is not what John is intending for us his readers. Instead, the Apostle Paul’s instruction expands upon John’s objective of how we should endeavor to live:

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus. (Titus 2:11–13)

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[1] Wallace, D. B. (1996). Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House,  p. 696.

[2] Zodhiates, S. (2000). In The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament. Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, G1342.

[3] Geisler, Norman L. (2002). Systematic Theology, Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2.323.

[4] Chafer, Lewis Sperry (1976). Systematic Theology, Dallas, TX: Dallas Seminary Press, 7.270.

[5] Lenski, R.C.H. (2001). Commentary on the New Testament, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 11.446.

[6] Zodhiates, G4160.

[7] Vine, W. E., Unger, M. F., & White, W., Jr. (1996). In Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words. Nashville, TN: T. Nelson, 2.346.

 

© 2025 David M. Rossi