These Things Have I Written

"These things have I written unto you
that believe on the name of the Son of God;
that ye may know that ye have eternal life."
— 1 John 5:13

John did not write his letter to make anyone wonder. He said so, plainly, before he closed it: "these things have I written... that ye may know." Not hope. Not guess. Know. If you have ever lain awake, running back through your own life, looking for the one moment that proves you belong to God, you are running an errand John has already finished for you. He wrote an entire letter so you could stop.

And yet.

Read the rest of that same letter, slower, and you'll find it doesn't only comfort.

"He that saith, I know him,
and keepeth not his commandments,
is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

But whoso keepeth his word,
in him verily is the love of God perfected:
hereby know we that we are in him.

He that saith he abideth in him
ought himself also so to walk,
even as he walked."
— 1 John 2:4–6

"We know that we have passed from death unto life,
because we love the brethren.
He that loveth not his brother abideth in death"
— 1 John 3:14

Those aren't gentler versions of the promise in John chapter five. They're the same pen, a few pages earlier, giving both sides of assurance at once. John describes a life in which His word is kept, the love of God is being perfected in the believer, and the one who says he abides in Christ walks as Christ walked. He also aims directly at anyone who might have picked up the wrong kind of confidence along with the right one—an idea of "believe" that doesn't obey His commands, or an idea of "life" without love for the brethren.

This is not John contradicting himself. It's John doing something Scripture does more than most readers notice: the very sentence built to settle a genuine heart is the same sentence that unsettles a false one, and it does both on purpose, in the same breath, without apologizing for either. A verse that only ever comforted everyone who read it wouldn't be assurance.
It would be flattery.

John wrote something sturdier than that.

You've probably sung the hymn this book borrows its name from without ever noticing it makes the same claim. "Heir of salvation, purchase of God; born of His Spirit, washed in His blood. This is my story, this is my song..." Everyone in the room sings that line the same way, in the same key, on the same Sunday. But the man three pews over who hasn't obeyed a hard word from God in a decade, and the woman behind him who's been quietly dying to herself all year long, are not singing the same sentence, even though it is the same sentence. One of them is describing something real. The other is borrowing words that were never written for him. The song can't tell the difference. That isn't the song's job.

It's the difference this book is written to help you find, one way or the other, in yourself.

Struggles Are Not Defeat

One more thing worth saying before we go any further, because I don't want the wrong reader carrying the wrong weight into what's ahead. If you are in a hard season right now, tired, dry, wondering where God went, that is not what this book is diagnosing.

Elijah, a man God had just used to call down fire from heaven, sat under a juniper tree just one day later and asked God to let him die (1 Kings 19:4). God didn't rebuke him for it. He let him sleep, then woke him gently to eat.

Real faith has nights like that in it.

A hard season isn't the kind of "coasting" this book is written against, and if you read what's ahead and start applying every hard word to your own honest exhaustion, you're aiming it at the wrong target. Doubt that's still wrestling is not the same thing as a heart that quietly stopped wrestling years ago and started calling the silence peace. This book is for both of you, but it isn't aimed at both of you the same way, and I'd rather tell you that now than let you find out the hard way three chapters from now.

A real failure is not the same thing as a settled refusal to return. John does not tell the believer who has sinned to rename it, hide it, or surrender to despair. He tells him to confess it (1 John 1:9). Sin is not made harmless by excusing it, and it is not healed by despairing over it. Living faith brings it into the light and returns to Christ for mercy.

So: "these things have I written," John said, "that ye may know." Not so a trembling heart would have to guess. Not so a coasting heart could borrow comfort. So you could know, the way a man knows his own house, by having actually lived there. That's still the only reason worth writing any of what follows.

Up Next:

The Difference Between Assurance and Security (Chapter 2)