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Sermones

Subject 14 : The First Epistle of JOHN

[Chapter 3-1] Our God Who Has Come to Us with Agape Love (1 John 3:1-8)

Our God Who Has Come to Us with Agape Love(1 John 3:1-8)
“Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin. Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him. Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.”
 
 
Do You Know the Essence of God’s Love?
 
First of all, I thank God for His love, that Jesus Christ, who is God Himself for all of us, came to this earth, was baptized, shed His blood, and has thereby delivered us, who had been sinners, from all our sins once for all. 
There were two reasons for which God the Father planned to bestow His merciful love on those of us who believe in the true God Jesus Christ. The first reason was to demonstrate His true love with God’s righteousness and mercy, for the wicked angels had lusted after His authority, and the second reason was to show that the throne of God couldn’t be conquered by the power of any creation. 
This shows us that it is impossible to find the way for any of us to take part in the glory of becoming God’s children by some physical force. It reveals to us that the way for us to become God’s children is only possible by believing in Jesus Christ and the Truth of salvation planned only in God’s love. We can learn, in other words, that it is only through faith in the divine Jesus and the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit given by Him that we can become God’s children and be clothed in God’s love. 
We are therefore now aware that the throne of God cannot by taken over by anything or any means in this world. The Truth of salvation constituted by the gospel of the water and the Spirit is the only legitimate law of true salvation, applicable to everyone, to both Christians and unbelievers alike. This is because to deliver all these sinners from their sins and iniquities, Jesus Christ our God had applied the same plan of salvation equally with the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Jesus Christ our God has clothed all of us who believe in God’s love that is shown in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, with the glory of becoming God’s own children. This Truth of salvation had been planned in Jesus Christ even before the foundation of the world, and it was also determined that only those who know and believe in the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit would be clothed in the glory of God. Even though God planned our salvation all on His own with His boundless mercy, we have to realize that we can make God’s love ours only if we first believe in the gospel truth of the water and the Spirit, the Truth of this salvation. Since God the Father planned and determined to cloth us in the salvation of the remission of sin only on the condition that we believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior, all of us must believe so. 
We must realize that if we do not believe in the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit, God’s plan of salvation, then God is not to be blamed for all the curses that consequently are accrued to us. Because God the Father decided to make us His children in Jesus Christ, we cannot find any fault in His plan. As such, we should thank Him all the more for the fact that we can all receive, by faith, the love of God that has been bestowed on us through Jesus Christ, the true God.
Unless we all come to know and believe in the most profound love of God by believing in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit that God has given us through Jesus Christ, we will forever remain unable to resolve the problem of our sins. Unless we absolutely resolve this problem of sin by believing in the baptism of Jesus Christ and His bloodshed, we will not be able to please God. As a consequence, our hearts will only tremble and be gripped by even greater fear and dread. 
Therefore, we must believe in the truth that our true salvation is made possible only by our faith in God’s love. Without doing so, we cannot discover the way for us to be truly and wholly saved from our sins. We must all remember that if we were to try to be saved from our sins without having this faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, which is the love of Jesus Christ, such an attempt would only turn our hearts against God. Christian sinners are committing such sins unwittingly. Therefore, we must realize and believe that it is only by our faith in the gospel truth of the water and the Spirit set by God that it is possible for us to receive God’s love of infinite mercy. 
You must realize how to receive God’s love of unbound mercy by your faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. If you do not believe with your hearts in the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit that Jesus Christ our God has given to you, you cannot say that you truly believe in God’s merciful love and are thankful for it. Therefore, if you think that you can somehow receive God’s love through your own efforts, you are greatly mistaken. All of us must realize profoundly that if we do not believe in Jesus Christ our God along with the gospel of the water and the Spirit, we will only end up as evildoers who stand against the authority of God.
As it is written in the Bible, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), the entire mankind has all sinned against God, they are consequently and inherently all bound to be destroyed. But because God fundamentally knew all about us, He had led us to the way of the remission of our sins with the gospel truth of the water and the Spirit. God the Father, in other words, had decided in Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world to save us from the sins of the world. This is why God sent Jesus Christ, His Son and our Savior, to this earth, had Him be baptized by John the baptism and thereby take upon the sins of mankind, shed His blood, and rise from the dead again, thereby giving us the salvation that washes away all our sins once for all. 
And God the Father determined that true salvation would be permitted to only those who know the gospel truth of the water and the spirit and accept it. As such, only those who believe in this truth of the birth of Jesus, His baptism, His death, and His resurrection can truly be washed from their sins, and live their lives in thankfulness to Him by faith as well. God the Father passed all our sins to the body of Jesus and atoned them once for all by letting Him bleed on the Cross, but for our part, we must have faith in this Truth to be saved from all our sins by believing in this baptism of Jesus and His bloodshed. This is the essence of God’s agape love for us. 
 
 

By Clothing Us in His Agape Love, God Has Made It Possible for Us to Be Delivered from All Our Sins

 
How has God made us His children? By cleansing away all the sins of each and every one of us who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, God has enabled us to become His children only by faith. 
Jesus Christ is fundamentally the Son of God and God Himself. This Jesus came to this world to deliver us from all our sins, took upon the sins of the world once for all through the baptism that He received from John, was crucified and died on the Cross, rose from the dead again, and has thereby saved us from all our sins all at once and made us God’s children. Although our Lord had come to this earth incarnated in the flesh of man, in His actual substance, He was and is fundamentally the Creator of the universe and the Messiah who has saved mankind from sin. 
Therefore, for anyone to be saved from his sins, he must know the baptism and bloodshed of Jesus Christ as the true love of salvation, and believe in it as such. Yet despite this, many people still remain in their sinful status, refusing to acknowledge, in their hearts, God’s love that has came as the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and they thereby continue to reject this love of God in their lives. As such, we must show our true compassion for these people by preaching the gospel of the water and the Spirit to them. It is because there are so many such people throughout the world that the Apostle John and we are suffering heartaches. 
My dear fellow Christians, Jesus Christ our God, by giving you the love of salvation that can save you from all your sins through the gospel love of the water and the Spirit, has given the gift of salvation to you so that whoever believes in this Truth would be born again as His own child. It is only by our faith in the divine Jesus Christ as our Savior that we can become God’s children through His love. Do you know the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and do you take it and believe it to be the Truth of salvation? All of us need to have the kind of faith that knows and believes properly just what kind of love God the Father has given us through Jesus Christ. 
That we can become the sinless children of God depends, in other words, entirely on our faith in Jesus Christ our God. Our remission of sin depends on God’s all-encompassing love of salvation that is found in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, which has been accomplished by Jesus Christ. 
 
 

Agape Love Is the Truest One of All Kinds of Love

 
How many kinds of love are there between spiritual beings?
There are four kinds: agape, storge, philia, and eros.

All love in this world can be classified into four kinds. They are: agape love, storge love, philia love, and eros love. The Greek word ‘storge’ means the love between family members such as the parents’ love toward their children, and ‘philia’ refers to companionship between friends, while ‘eros’ refers to the love between a man and a woman. Agape, on the other hand, refers to the unconditional love of God toward us. 
Of these four kinds of love, it is in agape love that the merciful and compassionate love of God that is far greater than any carnal love in this world is found. In this love is God’s unilateral love that has unconditionally brought the gift of salvation to us. We call this unconditional love as “agape love.” In contrast, the other three kinds of love are basically conditional. In other words, eros, philia, and storge are the kinds of love that last until their conditions are being satisfied. 
Agape love always exists between God and us. God’s love shown to us through the divine Jesus Christ is “the love of the Truth” (2 Thessalonians 2:10). Because Jesus Christ our God loved us unconditionally, He gave us the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and because of this, He enabled those who believe in this true gospel to become God’s children by washing away all their sins once for all. As such, when it comes to believing in Jesus Christ as our Savior and following Him, it is only by faith that we can follow; we cannot follow Him by any other means or reason. We cannot thanks God enough for His boundless love through Jesus Christ, who is our true Savior. 
The agape love of God is manifested fully in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that Jesus Christ our God has given us. Therefore, in all this love of salvation, there is the Truth of the water and the Spirit that came out from God. It is because of Jesus Christ our God that we could have been saved from all our sins once for all and become God’s own children by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. As such, we must realize and believe with our hearts that it is by the unilateral love of God that we have become righteous, and that this love is God’s agape love for us. All of us must believe that it is through Jesus Christ our God, and by the manifestation of His love, the gospel of the water and the Spirit, that we could have become God’s children. 
If, however, you do not have faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit through Jesus Christ our God, then your souls would be as empty and despondent as a desert. If your souls have not yet realized God’s infinite love for us through Jesus Christ, and the depth of this love of God through the gospel of the water and the Spirit, then you must realize here that you surely have sin in your hearts, and still are not in Christ (Romans 8:1). If so, the most urgent thing you have to do is turn around and believe in this gospel of the water and the Spirit.
 
 
We Need to Know When He Is Revealed, We Shall Be Like Him
 
What will happen to those who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit?
They shall be like Jesus, and will enjoy all the splendor of Heaven with Jesus Christ.

What did God say to us in 1 John 3? It is written, “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2). 
The Apostle John is telling us here about the future of today’s saints. He is telling us that when Jesus Christ our God comes to us and the Lord’s Kingdom is established with the end of the world, we, too, will be like Him. This is because we will also see Him as He is. In other words, this passage speaks to us about the blessing that awaits us, that we will be transformed into glorious bodies like that of Jesus Christ and enjoy all His splendor and glory.
Jesus Christ has saved you and me from our sins and has made us all preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit, the real Truth of salvation, to this world. And Jesus Christ our God promised us that He will come back to this world again, and that He will reward the wheat and punish the chaff (Matthew 13:30). At that time, when the second coming of Jesus Christ arrives, He will enable us, who have been delivered from all our sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, to enjoy splendor and glory together with Him. God will lead us to Heaven and allow us to live with Him forever.
1 John 3:3 says, “Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” If we really have been born again by believing in Jesus Christ as our Savior, then for us to become closer to Him, we need to right our wrongdoings by placing our faith in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. This does not mean that we become sinners again if we do not correct our wrong deeds. However, we still have to keep our hearts always cleansed by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that has delivered us from the sins of the world. 
The reason for this is because we are of those who have the hope to live forever with Jesus Christ our God. Placing our faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, you and I must now believe in this true God Jesus Christ who has cleansed us from the sins of the world, keep our souls always cleansed, and also serve this God-given gospel by faith. All of us not only know but also believe with our hearts that our Lord, God Himself, came to this earth to blot out our sins, shouldered the sins of the world by being baptized and died on the Cross, rose from the dead again, and has thereby saved us, who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, from all our sins. 
As such, we must realize that by our faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, we can always cleanse our hearts.
 
 
God’s Love Is Different from the Love between a Man and a Woman
 
Is the love of this world, such as that between a man and a woman, fundamentally different from the love of God?
Yes, whereas God’s love is forever unchanging, human love is always changing.

Eros refers to the love between a man and a woman. This love between the opposite sexes is a product of the lustful love of the flesh. All men and women desire carnal love from each other to fill the lust of their flesh, and therefore it is basically selfish love. 
We have to realize that in our human love, there is neither unconditional sacrifice, unconditional understanding, patience, nor purity. As well, this love between the opposite sexes can never last forever. This kind of love may seem as if it would last forever while we still have our passion towards our lovers. But this is no more than a mirage of those who want to cling to such a belief. In human love, there can never be agape love, the love of God. Eros love is a far inferior love that cannot be even compared to God’s agape love. 
Even the storge love between parents and children does not come close to God’s love. The philia love and companionship between friends are also contingent on the care and understanding of one another; it is a love that ends as soon as this understanding turns even slightly incompatible. 
Like this, the love between one human being and another is a futile love that ends the moment one turns his back. In contrast, in the agape love that God has shown us through Jesus Christ, there can be no condition whatsoever. But the love between a human being and another, such as that between friends, between family members, and between a man and a woman, cannot be anything but limited and conditional.
However, God’s love of mercy revealed through the divine Jesus Christ is not conditional. 
We cannot measure God’s love, for it is infinite. This love of God, which is manifested through the true God Jesus Christ, is the unilateral, unconditional, and boundless love of salvation whose size and depth cannot be measured (Ephesians 3:18-19). We cannot expect to receive such boundless love from God. But God had already prepared such agape love in Jesus Christ through the gospel of the water and the Spirit even before the foundation of the world. God’s infinite love was made ready even when we did not know Jesus Christ, the true God, and it was already perfected through Him. This love is not the kind of love that is professed only with words, but it is the perfect love of God that has been shown to us directly, that our souls have been enabled to feel, and that has made us God’s own children by perfectly saving us from our sins.
 
 
Who Are the People That Commit Lawlessness before God?
 
Who are the people that commit lawlessness before God?
It is those who, even as they profess to believe in Jesus as the Savior, do not believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit but stand against it.

1 John 3:4 says, “Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.” So who are such people that commit lawlessness before God? Christian sinners are those who do not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and our God, and that He has saved us from all our sins with the gospel of the water and the Spirit. As a result, they have sin intact in their hearts. Such are the sinners who commit lawlessness before God.
Here, the Apostle John is not now talking about the iniquities that we commit with our flesh. Rather, he is talking about the sin of unbelief of those who do not believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior. By lawlessness, John is identifying the sin of those who do not believe that Jesus is the God who, by coming of the water, the blood, and the Spirit, has blotted out all our sins, remitted them all away, saved us from all the sins of the world, made us righteous, and given us eternal life. Those who do not believe in the love of God that has been revealed through Jesus Christ the true God and come through the gospel of the water and the Spirit are the ones who commit this lawlessness before God. 
In Matthew 7:22, when liars say, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?” what did Jesus say that He would tell them? He said that He would declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!” 
In other words, Jesus Christ our God would say to them, “Did I not save you through the water, the blood, and the Spirit, just as I had decided to save you from your sins? And didn’t I, your God and Savior, take upon your sins of the world by being baptized by John the Baptist, die on the Cross, rise from the dead again? Did I not thereby save you, give you eternal live, and bring the remission of sin to you? Yet you did not believe in My love, but now only boast yourselves by saying that you had prophesied in My name. So depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!”
There is one thing that we must all realize here before moving on. It is that if we know that Jesus Christ our God has delivered us from our sins by coming by the water, the blood, and the Spirit (1 John 5:6-8), and yet despite this do not believe in this Truth and continue to live as sinners, then we ourselves are asking for God’s punishment. By knowing and believing in Jesus Christ as our Savior and God, we have received the remission of our sins into our hearts. 
It is definitely imperative for everyone to believe in this Truth. In other words, if there is anyone who doesn’t believe that Jesus is the Creator who made the universe, and that He is fundamentally God Himself, he must first turn around his way and have faith in Him. Is Jesus really God Himself for you, and is He the God who created the universe? 
Jesus Christ indeed created this world with the Word that He spoke. When we take a look at Genesis 1:1-5, we see that the Father, the Word, which is Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit all make appearance when God created this universe and the light. And when they created man, they also got together and consulted each other. Genesis 1:26 says, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 
When Jesus Christ created the universe and everything in it, He created them with His Word. When He said, “Let there be light,” then there was light, and when He said, “Let there be trees,” then trees came into existence. When He thus created all things with His Word, the Holy Spirit was there also. Therefore, God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, these three are the same one God the Creator for us. 
This is why only when we begin our lives of faith by first believing that Jesus is the Son of God and God Himself can we reach the washing of our sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. By believing so, we can have strong faith in the true gospel of the water and the Spirit, because this is the gospel that the true God Jesus has fulfilled and that is written in the Bible in detail. 
We can believe in Him because the Bible declares, “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). When the Apostle Paul wrote this passage, ‘the Scriptures’ here meant the Old Testament. Therefore, this means that Jesus Christ has atoned all our sins through His baptism and bloodshed, just like the sin offering of the Day of Atonement had to receive the laying on of hands and be killed to draw its blood. This is why Jesus the true God had to receive the baptism from John the Baptist, the representative of all mankind by saying, “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). 
It is from this belief that Jesus is the Son of God, our God, and our Savior, that true faith begins, and by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, our salvation is all perfected. 
 
 
He Who Is God Came to Blot out Our Sins
 
Did Jesus have any sin in either His body or heart?
He had absolutely no sin. He is fundamentally God Himself and our perfect Savior who has never sinned.
 
Let us turn to 1 John 3:5: “And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.” Jesus Christ is fundamentally sinless. He only took our sins onto ‘His body’ for a while by being baptized by John to carry them to the Cross. Some may ask whether Jesus became a sinner if He took the sins of the world through John the Baptist. But it is His body that bore the sins of the world, not His soul. So the Bible says, “For He [God the Father] made Him [Jesus] who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Jesus Christ is fundamentally God, and therefore, to Him, “there is no variation or shadow of turning” (James 1:17). It is by this faith, by believing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that all of us can be saved from all our sins. On this basic faith, we can edify and build our strong faith in His righteous act of salvation. 
This faith entails the belief that when all of us fell into sin, God Himself, who had made us, was born unto this earth incarnated in the flesh of man through the body of the Virgin Mary, all in order to take away the sins of His people. Just as God had promised to Moses with the sacrificial system, Jesus Christ took our sins upon His own body by being baptized by John the Baptist, died on the Cross, rose from the dead again, and has thereby saved us from all our sins. All those who have faith in this Truth are saved. God planned all these things, and the Ones who fulfilled this plan for us are God the Father and His only begotten Son Jesus Christ.
And the Holy Spirit guarantees to us that what our Lord has done for us—that is, He loved us so much that to blot out our sins, He came to this earth incarnated in the flesh of man, received baptism to bear all the sins of the world, died on the Cross, rose from the dead, and has thereby saved us—is right. The Holy Spirit bears witness that for us to believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior and God Himself is essentially the same as to believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
For the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth (John 14:17), He testifies to us the gospel Truth in detail. The Truth is that Jesus came to save us from the sins of the world, and when He turned 30, He accepted all the sins of mankind by being baptized by John the Baptist. To believe in this Truth is to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, the God of creation who made us, and our Savior. 
Our Lord could become our own unblemished sacrificial offering because He is God who has “no variation or shadow of turning” (James 1:17). And only this unblemished offering could be baptized and thereby accept our sins.
On our side, since we believe that Jesus is God, and that all our sins were passed onto Jesus Christ when God Himself came to this earth and was baptized, the salvation that God has prepared for us is applied to us only by faith. That Jesus carried the sins of the world to the Cross, was crucified, shed His blood, and died on it is also applied to only the believers. It is because this Jesus, our God and Savior, has saved us from our sins through His baptism and blood. It is through our faith in the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit that we can pass our sins to Jesus Christ, and we can also be resurrected together with Jesus Christ and live forever.
For us to believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, it is imperative to have the belief that Jesus, as God Himself and the Son of God, has washed away our sins. While Jesus Christ is the Son of God, He is actually God Himself, and He is also the Savior who has delivered us from all our sins. 
If God has planned and accomplished something, is it perfect or not? It must be perfect, for it is written, “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?” (Numbers 23:19) This is why the gospel of the water and the Spirit is the real Truth for us, and no less than our faith in this gospel is the way for us to become God’s true children, and for the believers to receive the true remission of sin. 
Then, how can we commit the sin leading us to death? (1 John 5:16) Ultimately, we must have the faith that does not commit lawlessness before God. 
 
 
What Does 1 John 3:6 Mean?
 
What does it mean when it says that whoever abides in Him does not sin?
It means that whoever abides in Him does not commit the sin of not believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. 

1 John 3:6 says, “Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him.”
Because this passage mentions “does not sin,” some people have misunderstood its meaning, and wonder, “Didn’t the Apostle John and the true saints of his time sin?” We may very well be led to think in this way, if we read this passage with our eyes of the flesh. But anyone who believes in the gospel of the water and the Spirit will not think like this. 
Because everyone has flesh, there is no one who does not commit carnal wrongdoings before God. As it is written in Ecclesiastes 7:20, “For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin.” 
Therefore, the passage in 1 John 3:6, which says, “Whoever abides in Him does not sin,” does not refer to committing carnal sins. Then what kind of sin does whoever abides in Jesus not commit? This sin is the sin of not believing in the Truth that Jesus is the Son of God, and that He has saved us from all our sins through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. 
The sin committed by those who do not believe in this Truth that Jesus Christ was born unto this earth, took upon all the sins of mankind by being baptized by John the Baptist, carried the sins of the world to the Cross, shed His blood and died on it, rose from the dead again, and has become the perfect Savior for all of us, is the sin that is committed by the enemies of God.
It is thanks to our faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that you and I have also been able to abide in Jesus Christ. So when people say, “Jesus is not the Son of God, nor God Himself,” or “He has failed to save us from all our sins by coming of the water, the blood, and the Spirit,” all their words are meaningless lies. For those of us who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, that Jesus has washed away all our sins by being baptized and shedding His blood on the Cross is the undeniable Truth. 
All of us who believe in this Truth may commit other sins in our flesh, but we do not commit this sin of denying the Truth. We may commit even such sins as fighting among ourselves, but we cannot commit the sin of not believing in the Truth that Jesus is the true God of creation, and that He has delivered us from all our sins by coming by the water, the blood, and the Spirit. 
We, the born-again, all believe that Jesus Christ our God took upon all our sins with His baptism, was condemned in our place on the Cross, rose from the dead again, and has thereby saved us once for all from all our sins. All of us believe that Jesus Christ is God Himself. And we also believe that the gospel of the water and the Spirit is the Truth that has saved sinners. 
How, then, can we deny that Jesus Christ is God? We are of those who cannot utter such words of unbelief as, “Jesus Christ is not my Savior. He is not the Son of God. He is not the Creator. It is not just by coming to this earth, being baptized, dying on the Cross, and rising from the dead that Jesus has saved me from the sins of the world.”
 
 
The Believers in the Gospel of the Water and the Spirit Must Be Wary of All Liars
 
What must the believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit be wary of?
They must beware of the false faith of the Christians who do not believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit and instead try to follow the Lord with their own efforts and devotion. 

Let us turn to 1 John 3:7-8. “Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.” 
Now as back in the Apostolic Age, there are many false believers who try to deceive those who believe in true salvation. In the Galatians’ Church, there was once a great disturbance in its congregation’s faith, and Paul indicated that this was because of false brethren secretly brought in the Church. They came in by stealth to spy out the liberty that the saints had in Christ Jesus, and to bring them into bondage (Galatians 2:4). Even when and where the Apostle John was ministering, there also were people like these. 
So we must realize that even now, even in God’s Church, there are people who are trying to deceive those whose faith is still young. Do you think that there is no one in God’s Church who does not believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit? Such people who do not believe in the true gospel tend to be rather generous with their words of carnal comfort, telling our saints how they sympathize with them for serving the Lord. They may say to deceive the saints, “It must be very hard for you, isn’t it? There is no need to live like this. Take it easy and relax a bit. Why are you pushing yourself so hard when you have already been delivered from all your sins?” With words like these, they deceive, little by little, the hearts of those who have the true faith. 
Do you think it wrong for a born-again saint to live a life of righteousness? Is it such a misguided life for the righteous to abide in the Lord and serve this gospel with all their devotion? Never! Far from it, it is only right for you to live for the righteousness of God. For the believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, to lead this life, where they cast aside their worldly desires for the Lord, and where they unite with this Truth, is what makes them happy. Those who truly believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit find it joyful and worthy to live for the gospel of the water and the Spirit, even though they may be weary and tired in their flesh. This true gospel that Jesus Christ our God has given us brings renewed and wonderful strengths to us each and every moment.
Such evildoers who do not believe in Jesus Christ as the true God and Savior, and just make us serve their flesh, are clearly committing the sin of deception that clouds the spiritual eyes of the believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, through their carnal fellowship with the true saints. We need to realize that to spread this true gospel throughout the whole world even more vigorously is the only way for us to reject such carnal fellowship.
There is another case that dilutes our faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and this deception is more dangerous. Some false believers deceive the righteous by saying, “All sins can be blotted out just by believing in the Jesus’ blood on the Cross alone.” In fact, the absolute majority of Christians believe so, but this is a downright lie.
The only Truth of salvation is that to blot out our sins once for all, Jesus Christ our God was baptized by John the Baptist, shouldered the sins of this world all at once with this baptism, shed His blood and died on the Cross, rose from the dead again, and has thereby turned us, who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, into God’s own children once for all. 
Yet the deceivers say to the righteous that they can be washed from all their sins just by believing only in Christ’ blood on the Cross. But this simply is not true. The correct faith is to believe in the baptism that Jesus received from John, and the blood that He shed on the Cross, as our own salvation. 
Has anyone in this world really seen his sins disappear just by believing in the blood of the Cross alone? Never! Jesus Christ our God tells us in 1 John 5:4-7 that He has blotted out all our sins once for all by coming to this earth by the water, the blood, and the Spirit. The gospel of the water and the Spirit is not constituted by just the blood of the Cross alone, but it is the gospel that was fulfilled through Jesus Christ our God with the baptism that He received from John and the blood that He shed on the Cross. 
All of us believe that the gospel of the water and the Spirit fulfilled through the true God Jesus Christ is the only true gospel. However, such false believers are wicked sinners who believe in half the Truth, that the true God Jesus Christ came to this earth and took upon the sins of mankind by being baptized by John, went to the Cross and bore all the condemnation of sin by shedding His blood. Their faith is placed in man-made, groundless and fallacious doctrines of their own denomination. And as a result, they can’t wash away their sins from their hearts and consciences no matter how hard they try to cleanse them through their prayers of repentance. Therefore, they cannot help but deceive their own consciences at all times. 
Yet they still continue to deceive everyone, saying, “There is no need to insist only on the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Look at the passage of Romans 10:13. It is written, ‘Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ Take it easy, man. Just believe in the Lord’s blood. That’s enough!” Such words are all meant to deceive the righteous. These words are deceptive words that can temporarily cloud the absolute faith of those who believe in the divine Jesus as their Savior, as well as in the gospel truth of the water and the Spirit. We must realize that Paul’s proclamation in the above passage from Romans 10:13 could be effective for the believers when it was professed upon their faith in the true gospel. In other words, it was upon the true faith in the true gospel of the water and the Spirit that Paul preached, “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Because we all believe in Jesus Chris our God and in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that He has given us, we follow our Lord everyday day in faith. This kind of faith gives us strength and hope, and enables us to follow the Truth of salvation. Our flesh is simply incapable of never committing any sin. But because we want to follow Jesus Christ our Savior by faith, we must deny and abandon our carnal thoughts and follow Him by our faith in the gospel truth of the water and the Spirit. Our weaknesses of the flesh may detract us, but everyday we must deny our own thoughts and live by believing in this true gospel. 
Now, we have to live as new creations by believing that all of us had died with Christ and were resurrected with Christ within this true Gospel. Because our old selves were baptized with Christ, and because when He shed His blood we had also died with Him by faith, now the wonderful passage from Galatians 2:20 is fulfilled in us: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” All these blessings could be possible only when we have faith in Jesus’ baptism and bloodshed, because if we had not been baptized into Christ, then we couldn’t have put on Christ (Galatians 3:27).
Despite this, there are many people who cannot understand the gospel truth of the water and the Spirit in their carnal thoughts, and therefore cannot believe in it, and such people are trying to deceive the righteous. This is why the Lord said to the righteous, “Let no one deceive you” (1 John 3:7). And our Lord God continued, “He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning” (1 John 3:7-8).
We are the people who have been saved from all our sins by believing that Jesus Christ is God and the Son of God, and that He has delivered us from the sins of the world by coming to us by the water, the blood, and the Spirit. This faith is the right faith (1 John 5:3-9). We have become, in other word, of those who serve the gospel of the water and the Spirit, preach this gospel, and willingly live our lives for this gospel as its servants.
When Jesus was baptized by John, He said, “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matthew 3:15). This is why we believe that Jesus Christ, through His baptism that He received from John the Baptist, bloodshed and death on the Cross, and His resurrection, has at once fulfilled all the righteousness of God for us. It was the only proper way to fulfill the righteousness of God that Jesus had to be baptized by John the Baptist. This is why Jesus our Savior was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River (Matthew 3:15). Of course, a series of His righteous act (Romans 5:18) was completed by His death on the Cross and His resurrection. However, we must realize that His baptism is the very indispensable element of His salvation along with His bloodshed. 
Now, because we believe in this Jesus Christ who came by the gospel of the water and the Spirit, we are living blessed lives before God. And it is natural for us to have a mind to serve the gospel devotedly. Even as the people of this world do not recognize our sacrifice but only ignore us, we must remember today’s Scripture passage that says, “He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous” (1 John 3:7). It is because we have received the remission of our sins once for all by believing in the baptism and bloodshed of Jesus Christ our God that we could have become sinless, and by doing righteous works before God, we could also have become the instruments of God’s righteousness. 
Jesus Christ our God now walks with all those who believe in this true gospel of the water and the Spirit, and blesses and protects them wherever they are. Now, we must press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:14). We must not let Satan deceive us, and to do so, we must believe in the true gospel that has enabled us to reject and overcome this deception and serve it with our whole hearts. 
My dear fellow saints, just how often are we actually deceived by the liars? Because we have our flesh, we can easily be deceived, and there are in fact many times when we want to comfort our flesh. Is this not the case for you? It is a fact that we sometimes want to be comforted in the flesh, and we also want to live in peace and prosperity. 
While this is all true, could we really set aside the works of God’s righteousness and live for the comfort of our flesh? Just as God said, “The just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17), it is by practicing righteousness that all the righteous can have peace of mind and live according to the will of God. As our Lord said, “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers” (3 John 1:2), it is when we live spiritually that we can actually prosper more. Now, we hope for the prize that is prepared in Heaven and the Millennial Kingdom, and therefore, and are temperate in all things (1 Corinthians 9:25). 
Of course, we need to take care of our flesh at the least. But after momentarily comforting ourselves just a bit, we are still running for the spreading of the gospel of God. We shall always run this race until the day the Lord allows. We cannot stop this race. God’s curse will come to those who stop this race. Just as marathon runners, when they get thirsty while running, take water bottles that are available along the route, drink from them, pour the water over their heads, and throw the bottles away, all the while they are still running, all of us must run this race of faith like this. This is because if we put off our race of faith aimed to preach the gospel to the entire world, the Lord’s Day will be put off far more than expected.
In fact, if anyone truly believes in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, he cannot live such an easy life to satisfy his flesh. On the contrary, he is bound to live a diligent life. The people of God cannot live in relaxation, for if they do not serve the righteousness of God, they will immediately end up serving only their flesh, that is, sin. 
My dear fellow believers, do you feel good about yourselves when you commit a carnal sin? No, you actually feel worse. Because God has saved us from all the sins of the world through the righteous of Jesus Christ, and because we believe in this Truth, we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in our hearts. Given this, our souls also feel bad whenever we do not practice the righteousness of God. Our Master is our holy God, and it is because our Lord is not pleased when we follow our flesh that we also feel bad about ourselves. Because the true God Jesus Christ is our Master, we feel good when we spread faithfully the true gospel as His servants, but when we fail to do so, we feel bad. As the righteous carry on with their lives on this earth, it is when they do the righteous works that they are truly joyous. 
So there is nothing wrong for me to admonish you to live for the gospel of the water and the Spirit now that you have received the remission of your sins. If you have not been saved from all your sins through the righteousness of God, then you may very well continue to sin, but if you have truly been remitted from your sins by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, then it is only right for you to live for the Lord’s gospel. 
Just as little kids can find delight in almost anything, those who live for the spreading of God’s gospel can also smile at almost anything. This is because the hearts of the righteous are joyful, for they are living for the righteousness of God. Therefore, if your leaders are constantly driving you to serve the Lord, you should realize that they are doing a fine job at guiding you! It is to bring you true happiness. You must realize and believe that he who makes you do more works of righteousness is the one who brings more happiness to you. 
The righteous who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit know very well that true happiness is never attained by carnal comforts. If the righteous can attain true happiness in this way, by treating them nicely in the flesh, then we should have done so. But for the righteous, prospering only in the flesh is not the way to attain happiness. All comforts of the flesh are only ephemeral, and it is when you plan and do God’s righteous work, and rise to meet its challenge, that true comfort comes to your spirits from Heaven above. 
 
 
What Kind of Sin Do Those Who Do Not Believe in Jesus Christ As God Commit against Him?
 
Do those, who do not believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, not belong to God?
No, they do not. Believers only in the blood of the Cross do not actually believe in the true God Jesus Christ as their Savior, for they don’t believe in the true gospel.

1 John 3:8 says, “He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning.” Who sins against God? It is he who belongs to the Devil. Those who do not believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, in other words, belong to the Devil. 
What is this sin committed against God? It is the sin of not believing in God’s gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. This is sinning against God. He is the perfect God who was neither made nor ruled by anyone else. He is perfect, absolutely good, and never does evil.
But the Bible tells us that the Devil has sinned from the beginning. In Genesis 2 and 3, we see that Satan deceived Adam and Eve, who were created in the likeness of God’s image. Whereas God had told them, “In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:17), Satan deceived them by saying, “You will not surely die” (Genesis 3:4). Thus clouding their minds, Satan consequently made them distrust God, only to suffer death in the end. Like this, the Devil has sinned from the beginning.
In this age and time also, people try to deceive us by saying, “It’s okay to just believe in the blood of the Cross alone.” The whole world has fallen into the deception of the Devil, and as a result Christians, even as they profess to believe in Jesus, are actually sinning against God by not believing in the baptism of Jesus but only in the blood of the Cross. 
How many church towers and crosses dot the landscape of this earth, whether urban or rural? Although we see so many crosses all around us, those who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit before God are extremely small in number. Would the people of the world be happy if there were more righteous people in it? Think about it. They do not like the believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. This is because the Devil is their master. How could the Devil like anyone who has the kind of faith that is pleasing to God? Nor do those who belong to the Devil ever like what the righteous, the children of God, do. 
Regardless of where they are from, they are hostile to the righteous who serve the gospel of the water and the Spirit. It is very common to see them devote themselves to legalistic pietism, as Paul had done so when He was Saul. But whenever they come across anyone who believes in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, they unite together and reject the righteous and the true gospel that the righteous believe in. We see that even those who profess to believe in Jesus as their Savior are noticeably and immediately displeased when we tell them about the gospel of the water and the Spirit. This is because they do not know the true salvation of the water and the Spirit.
 
 
Why Was Jesus Christ Our God Manifested?
 
For what reason did the Son of God come to this earth?
It was to destroy all the works of the Devil that Jesus came.

1 John 3:8 says, “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.” That Jesus Christ came to this earth, was baptized by John, and shed His blood on the Cross, was to destroy the works of the Devil. When the Devil had led mankind into sin and destruction, Jesus came to eradicate what the Devil had done to mankind. Jesus Christ came to completely wipe out all the works of Satan from the face of this earth, and to enable us to enter the glorious Kingdom of God by saving us from all the sins of the world. Indeed, by being baptized and shedding His blood, Jesus Christ completed this work. 
Who is the Son of God in the Bible? It is Jesus Christ our God. Do you believe that this Jesus Christ is your true Savior? Do you believe that He is God, and that He was baptized by John and shed His blood to blot out all your sins? How has He made eradicated our sins? He has made them all disappear with the gospel of the water and the Spirit. What is the gospel that the Apostle John had preached from the beginning? It is none other than this gospel of the water, the blood, and the Spirit.
Some people think, “Driving out demons was what Jesus did, and it was to deliver the demon-possessed from demons and to destroy them that Jesus came.” But this is not true. Simply casting out demons, by itself, does not mean much; it is, in fact, futile. Everyone cannot but be under evil spirits unless he has received the remission of all his sins (Ephesians 2:1-2). Therefore, if someone really wants to be freed from the evil spirits, he must first receive the Holy Spirit by being born again. 
It is when the gospel of the water and the Spirit is preached to them, and they come to believe that Jesus Christ is God and that He has saved them by being baptized, shedding His blood and dying on the Cross, and rising from the dead again—that the Holy Spirit dwells in their hearts immediately, and their demons are permanently cast out to never return to their souls again.
In contrast, when Christians cast out demons in the name of Jesus Christ, this does not mean that one is freed from all these demons permanently. It is often only a show, where the demons go out only to come back with even more demons (Luke 11:24-26). Then, the last state of that man is worse than the first. Not realizing this, people do all kinds of things to drive out demons, laying their hands on the demon-possessed and praying fervently. But all the while, the possessed only continue to be tormented. 
Do you think that the demon-possessed are always acting crazy? They are in fact quite normal most of the times. But they are still snared in Satan’s trap, for there is sin in their hearts, and as a result, they have become Satan’s servants. This is all because they do not believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. 
But even so, when they encounter people like us who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and they come to realize that their suffering is because of their sins, and that all these sins were passed onto the body of Jesus Christ with His baptism, the demons that had tormented them are immediately cast out the moment they receive the remission of their sins. This is how these demons are completely and permanently driven out. 
Therefore, we must realize that the Son of God came to destroy the works of Satan with the true Word of the water and the Spirit. We must pray for these people who do not believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and we must teach this gospel to them. Anyone who has become righteous by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit can pray for sinners and preach this true gospel to them.
The Apostle John reveals to us that even during the Early Church period, there were many unbelievers who had been in God’s Church that he ministered, and that they eventually left it. As it is written in 1 John 2:19, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.” Those who went out did so because their faith was different from that of the righteous. 
Where else but to God’s Church can we, who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, turn in order to live our lives of faith? Could the righteous lead their lives of faith outside God’s Church? No, they cannot! John tells us here that even in the age of the Early Church, there were many enemies of Jesus Christ inside the Church, and that these people also formed their own crowds and eventually left the Church.
We need to think about this again, be on high alert, and pray for the salvation of their souls. And if our faith is indeed the proper faith that believes in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, then we must also run the race of faith by doing the righteous works. If we had been deceived by any chance, we must now renew our hearts by ruminating on the gospel of the water and the Spirit once more, be on guard from now on, and reestablish our faith firmly in union with God’s Church. This is the only way for us to keep our spiritual lives sane and healthy. No other path but that of serving the gospel of the water and the Spirit is the blessed way.
No matter how we might have received the remission of our sins and been born again, and no matter how we might have read the Word of God and reached its understanding, if we have no fellowship with the saints and servants of God, we cannot bear good fruits. 
Jesus Christ, as our King, has saved us, reigns over us as the King, and has taken the responsibility for our happiness as the King. He is the absolute King of all of us who believe in Him. He is the everlasting King. It is when our King is happy that we are also happy, and it is when He is sad that we are also sad. 
He is telling us to live by placing our faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. He is telling you to have faith in this wonderful gospel, to make your ending beautiful, and to bear beautiful fruits while you are living in this world. 
I thank our Triune God for the Truth that Jesus came to us, has delivered us from all our sins, and has become our true Shepherd. Halleluiah!
 
This sermon is also available in ebook format. Click on the book cover below.
Paul C. Jong’s Spiritual Growth Series 4 - The First Epistle of John (II)