At this point John began his final remarks for his readers to consider. He ends his letter as he had begun, with the phrase “These things I have written onto you…” (1John 5:13), which corresponds to “These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete” (1John 1:5). In other words, this epistle was written in order that “our” joy (i.e. the joy of the Apostle and of the reader who believes on the name of the Son of God) would be fulfilled, namely in the believer’s knowing with certainty that he has eternal life.
One of the oddest doctrines I’ve heard taught today is that which undermines the believer’s confidence that he has eternal life. Why would anyone want to do such a thing? Yet, the church of Christ has not escaped the work of religious leaders who are only too willing to undermine the believer’s confidence in Christ. For example, someone may claim that anyone who believes he has the promise of eternal life, but has no place for holiness in his life, doesn’t really have saving faith. The point they try to make is that these folks are deluded and their religion is a sham, because they lack the impulse to “purify themselves as he is pure” (1John 3:3). What can we say of these things?
It is a sad thing to admit, today, that the church of Christ isn’t lacking in believers who have no confidence in their salvation. Some wonder if they have been or even could be forgiven for what they have done. For them, their sin looms much larger than Christ, who seems too holy to admit their fellowship with him. Has man created in his sinful life “a rock” too heavy for God to lift? In other words, is it possible for man to be so wicked that God is powerless to forgive him (cp. Luke 23:34)? This was the doctrine of the antichrists in the first century, and it remains so in the present. That is, either Christ cannot forgive sins, or it is Christ and something else that is needed to forgive man’s sins. Ultimately, according to both the ancient and the modern antichrists, Christ really is not Savior of the world (1John 4:14; cp. John 3:16-17). They may claim he is, but their works deny what they claim.
Jesus’ problems came almost entirely from the religious leaders of his day, not from the common people, and this is also true today. The believer’s problems almost entirely come from the teaching of religious leaders, rather than how their brethren interpret or practice their faith in Christ. It is religious leaders, not the common people, who are responsible for all the denominations of Christianity. Is Christ divided (1Corinthians 1:11-13)? No, but it is religious leaders who are responsible for how Christ is perceived by the world. So, how confident should the believer be that he has eternal life, and would this eternal life be absent or curtailed among those professing Christ in Christian groups not called by the name of “my” group?
Consider the labels. Some Christians are evangelical, while others are not. I was once told by one who was not: “evangelicals are trying to ‘save’ the world, but isn’t Christ Savior of the world?” Then there are liberal Christians and conservative Christians. My daughter was once told it would be difficult to see her as a Christian, if she held a particular political point of view. Once more, we need to ask ourselves is Christ Savior of the world, or should we look for someone or something else (cp. Luke 7:19)? Perhaps we don’t wish to go quite so far or be so blunt. Maybe we would say something like: “You say you are Christian, but you hold a liberal (or perhaps non-evangelical) point of view. How, therefore, can you be Christian? In other words you may say you’re a believer, but true believers aren’t liberal or true believers spread the Gospel. The whole effort is to cast doubt upon one’s place in Christ, or one’s having eternal life. This is the Gospel of fear, but fear is hardly “good news” (the meaning of Gospel).
I believe what John was saying is this. What right or authority does any man have to judge the servant of someone else, which in the context of John’s letter is the one who believes Jesus is the Christ, Savior of the world (1John 2:25-26; cp. Romans 14:4). If Christ is who he claims to be, he has the power to cause all his disciples to stand and keep each one of them from falling (cp. Romans 14:4; 1Peter 1:5; Jude 1:24). Either it is Christ within him who is the believer’s hope of glory (Colossians 1:27), or it is the preacher (read antichrist here) who stands outside the believer, but whom the believer is able to see, hear, touch (etc.), who is the one having authority to choose who has and who doesn’t have eternal life.
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