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Subject 14 : The First Epistle of JOHN
[Chapter 2-1] Jesus Christ Is The True God (1 John 2:1-5)
“My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world. Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, ‘I know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.”
The Main Theme of 1 John
In 1 John 2:1, the Apostle John says, “My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin.” He explains that the purpose behind his writing of 1 John is so that the saints would not commit the sins of not believing in Jesus, the true God. In the phrase from this passage, “so that you may not sin,” ‘sin’ here indicates ‘the sin leading to death’ (1 John 5:16). John wants all the saints to stand firm on the gospel of the water and the Spirit. He also wants them to believe that Jesus Christ is God Himself, the Son of God, and also the Savior who took away our sins.
Reminding everyone, both the saints and unbelievers alike, that Jesus Christ is the true God and Savior, the Apostle John admonishes us not to commit the sin of disbelieving in the divinity of Jesus Christ. While it is possible for us to sin before God in our flesh and hearts, there is one sin that we must never commit. It is the sin of not believing in the baptism that Jesus the Son of God received to accept our sins, and the precious blood that this Son of God shed for us. It is this sin that the Apostle John wants to prevent us from committing, for it will surely lead us to eternal death.
We believe that Jesus Christ is God, and that He is the Lord of creation who made the entire universe and us. The Bible is telling us that the divine Jesus Christ actually exists, for He is not elusive, but is in fact God Himself and the Savior of mankind. Apart from Jesus Christ, who could truthfully claim himself as the true God and Savior? Jesus Christ is the Omnipotent God who has the power to create the universe. No one but Jesus Christ has the power to make this world.
Jesus is fundamentally the Son of God, and for us, He is God Himself. It is by Jesus Christ that this world was created (John 1:10). Jesus Christ is the God of all of us. Who is the Lord of all things in this world? Who is the God that has saved us from the sins of this world? Who paid the wages of all our sins? It is Jesus Christ our God, for He has, being God Himself and the Savior, cleansed us from all the sins of the world with the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit, and has saved us by being condemned in our place. Jesus Christ is the true God and the Savior for all those who are to believe.
Therefore, if we do not believe in Him, we are sinning against God. You must recognize that not believing in Him is to commit a mortal sin against God. While we can be forgiven for virtually all the sins that we commit before God, there is one sin that cannot be remitted away; that is, the sin of not believing in Jesus Christ our God can never be forgiven. Jesus Christ, the Savior of mankind, could wash away our sins through the baptism that He received and the blood that He shed on the Cross. However, this sin of not believing in Jesus as the true God constitutes a sin that fundamentally cannot be washed away.
As such, we can come to possess true faith when we first begin with the belief that Jesus is our true God. The Apostle John tells us that he wants us not to commit the sin of not believing that Jesus is our God. Jesus Christ, the true God, came to this earth to accomplish the gospel of the water and the Spirit. He was baptized, shed His blood on the Cross, and rose from the dead again, and thereby became the true Savior of those who believe. The Apostle John earnestly wants everyone to believe in this gospel of Truth (1 John 5:3-6).
This Was the Faith of the Apostle John
The Apostle John admonishes us to believe that the divine Jesus is the Creator God who made the universe and all things in it, and that He is the only begotten Son for God the Father, and the true Savior for us. While people generally acknowledge that Jesus is the Savior, they do not recognize that this divine Jesus Christ not only took away our sins with His baptism and bloodshed, but is also the true God.
Even among today’s Christians who profess to believe in Jesus as their Savior, few actually know and believe that Jesus is the Creator God. Many people think that Jesus is somehow insufficient to be God, since He has God the Father, and for the Father Jesus is only His Son. However, the name “Jesus” is a title indicating that He came to this world as the Savior, and the name “Christ” means the Messiah, the One who was anointed. In the Old Testament, there are three kinds of persons to be anointed― kings, prophets, and priests. Therefore, Jesus Christ is the Savior who has become the King, the Prophet, and the High Priest. He is fundamentally the true God, but He came to this earth with these three offices, He was baptized by John the Baptist and shed His blood on the Cross to save us from all the sins of the world, and has indeed perfectly delivered and saved all those who believe in Him from all their sins.
When Jesus our Savior died on the Cross as the Savior of mankind, his persecutors put up a sign that read, “The King of the Jews.” They did so to ridicule Him. However, Jesus is truly God for us, and He is clearly the Creator God for the universe and all things in it. He is not just the King of the Jews, but the King of the entire universe. For us and everyone else alike, this divine Jesus forever exists as God.
Therefore, believing that Jesus is God, and that He has saved us from our sins with the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit, we must live in thankfulness. This Truth must not be altered, for Jesus is God for both the believers and unbelievers alike. Imagine here for a moment that someone, covering his eyes with his palms, is shouting under the sun, “There is no sun!” He sees no sun because he has blocked it from his eyes, but this does not mean that there is no sun. Everyone else sees the sun, and if he would only removed his hands from his eyes, he, too, would see it. This is exactly how the unbelievers are acting when they do not admit the Truth that Jesus Christ is the true God and that He came to this earth to accomplish the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Jesus Christ is the absolute God for all the people who believe in Him, He is forever the King of kings as well, and He will remain as God for eternity. For those who do not believe in Jesus Christ as their God, He may not be the King, but for those who believe in Him, Jesus Christ is the everlasting King, the eternal Judge, and the everlasting High Priest. To all the believers, Jesus Christ is the absolute and perfect God.
Therefore, those of us who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit must also have this faith that believes in the divine Jesus as our Savior God. Just as the Apostle John confessed in 1 John 5:20, “This is the true God and eternal life,” for us also, Jesus is the true God, the true Savior, and the everlasting King. We must believe in Jesus Christ who has saved us from all our sins and given us new life, and who is the everlasting God and the Son of God the Father, as our own Savior.
We must realize that Jesus our God made us from the time of the creation of the heavens and the earth. We must believe that the Triune God made us in His image, that the One who created the universe is actually Jesus Christ, and that this divine Jesus Christ is the God who created the whole world, both seen and unseen by our eyes.
As Genesis 1:27 says, “God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him,” the divine Jesus Christ is the absolute God who created the universe and all things in it. Jesus Christ our God is the Lord of life for all creation. As the Bible says, “In Him was life” (John 1:4), and also says, “As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name” (John 1:12). All these speak of the power of Jesus Christ.
The Divine Jesus Is the Absolute God for Us
Do you truly believe in Jesus as God with all your hearts? The Apostle John wants all the readers of his Epistles to have faith in this Truth. And he does not want them to commit the sin of not having this faith. If the Apostle John believed in the divine Jesus as his God, then our faith in this Truth is right.
The other Apostles, although they did bear witness of Jesus’ divinity, generally emphasized more than John that He has become our Savior as the Son of God. In contrast, the Apostle John testified Jesus more as God Himself. This is why of the four Gospels, the Gospel of John is called as the Gospel of Eagle. The Apostle John had soared spiritually that much higher, to the highest level, and looked toward the divine Jesus, the Highest of all.
Although he was the youngest of the twelve disciples of Jesus, he was the disciple that knew Jesus most profoundly. This is why he could testify in John 1:10, “The world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.” What a disciple of God with such spiritual discernment is John? The Apostle John said that “the world was made through Him,” because he had met Jesus Christ, the true God. He also said, “This is the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20). John believed, in other words, that this God was none other than Jesus Christ, and that He is the One who gives us eternal life.
Do you know Jesus as God Himself, or do you know Him only as the Son of God? Do you know and believe that the divine Jesus is the true God to you? Your faith must not be damaged fatally by mistakenly thinking that the divine Jesus Christ is not the Creator of the universe and all things, when He is, in fact, this very Lord and God.
You must not commit the sins of blaspheming the Holy Spirit. That the divine Jesus is your Savior is a self-evident fact. He is fundamentally God. It is because Jesus is God who created the universe that He, to save His people from their sins, came to this earth incarnated in the flesh of man, was baptized, shed His blood on the Cross, and has thereby saved His believers from their sins and condemnation, thus giving them the remission of their sins and eternal life all at once. Jesus is the God who had abandoned His glory to save us from our sins through 33 years of His life. But in His essence, He is God Himself.
Do You Believe That Jesus Is God, and That He Is Our Helper?
Do you believe that the Father of Jesus is our Father God, and that He is the same God for us? Jesus Christ is the Son of God, but He is also the true God for us. Jesus the true God came to this world in the flesh of men to save all of us through His baptism and bloodshed This is why the Apostle John said, “This is He who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one. And There are three that bear witness on earth: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and these three agree as one” (1 John 5:6-8). The baptism that Jesus Christ received from John and His bloodshed, therefore, are the Truth of our salvation.
Here the Bible tells us that Jesus is God Himself. And it tells us that this divine Jesus Christ is the Savior God who came to this earth incarnated in the flesh of man, took upon our sins by being baptized, bore all the condemnation of our sins by being crucified, and has thereby delivered us from our sins. Because Jesus Christ is fundamentally the true God, He is more than able to become the true Savior for all of us who believe in the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. As such, for those who believe in everything that He did when He came to this earth, they can not only receive the remission of their sins, but they can also be clothed in the great power that turns them into God’s own children.
The Power of the Gospel of the Water and the Spirit Is Great
This evening, two more converts sent their testimony of salvation through email, for which I thanked the Lord. The testimony was that they have now been delivered from their sins since they believe that Jesus the true God has saved us from all our sins by coming to this earth incarnated in the flesh of man, being baptized and crucified to death, and rising from the dead again. These believers testified, “Before I came to know the gospel of the water and the Spirit, I always carried my sins with me, and it seems as if my life of faith was stuck in the same gear all the time. But the moment I realized the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit, I now came to know the clear Truth of salvation.”
We, too, now believe that Jesus is God Himself. We believe this with all our hearts, for He is the Savior who lacks nothing to deliver and save us from the sins of the world with the gospel of the water and the Spirit, as He is fundamentally God Himself.
Countless Christians throughout the world have no problem believing that Jesus is the Son of God, but many of them neither know nor believe that He is fundamentally the true God, and that He has become the Savior of all of us by coming to this earth incarnated in the flesh of man, taking upon all our sins by being baptized by John, and shedding His blood on the Cross. They are committing a mortal sin against God by not believing in the divinity of Jesus.
The place of birth for Martin Luther, the pioneer of the Reformation, is Germany. As well as launching the Reformation, he also translated the Bible into the German vernacular. However, even in Luther’s homeland, the subject of whether Jesus is God or a mere creature despite being the Son of God became a point of contention among theologians, and as a result, many people, not recognizing Jesus as God, ended up proposing groundless sophistry, thus only leading to the development of today’s theological system called as Historical Criticism or Higher Criticism. Their understanding of Jesus, in other words, reached the following erroneous conclusion: “Although He is the Son of God, He is only one of God’s creations. So while it is true that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, fundamentally speaking, He is not divine.” However, Jesus Christ is in fact God Himself in His essence. And He has God the Father.
A while ago, a controversial movie, entitled “The Last Temptation of Christ,” was on show. It depicted Jesus as a man who was falling in love with Mary Magdalene, and then resuming to fulfill his duties. Like this, most people do not realize and do not believe that Jesus is fundamentally the true God. So we see that even as Christianity has been propagated for over 2,000 years until now, there still aren’t that many people in the whole world who have the firm belief that the divine Jesus Christ is God Himself.
The reality is that a biblically sound theological system has not yet been established in today’s Christianity. How can a biblically sound theology be constructed without the cornerstone of the sound faith that believes in Jesus as the true God? As a result, they remain completely ignorant of the Truth that Jesus is fundamentally the true God. They studied Jesus as a theological scholarship, but they failed to reach the full understanding. Though people have studied Jesus, they still live as sinners even as they profess to believe in Him, for they do not know the gospel of the water and the Spirit that can wash away their hearts’ sins.
As such, everyone must now realize and believe that Jesus is fundamentally God Himself, that He therefore created whole universe, and that He is the Savior who, when man, whom He created, fell into sin, came to this earth and saved sinners from all their sins through the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
So placing our faith in Jesus Christ our God, we have preached the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Therefore, many people will come to know and believe in Jesus Christ as the true God and Savior of mankind. I hope and pray that you all would also believe in the Truth that Jesus is the true God and Savior.
John’s Confession of Faith―“Jesus Is the True God and Eternal Life” (1 John 5:20)
We must have the same faith as the one that the Apostle John had. All of us, in other words, must know and have the same faith that believes in Jesus as our true God and the Lord who has given us the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Put differently, we must know and believe properly that Jesus is our God, and that He is the One gives us eternal life. Jesus Christ is the very God who has blotted out our sins with the gospel of the water and the Spirit. We must make such true confession of faith.
The Apostle John, too, believed in Jesus Christ as the true God, and He also testified that by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit given by Him, he had washed away all his sins, as well as being saved from all the condemnation of his sins.
For us, Jesus Christ is truthfully God Himself, the true Savior, and our true Advocate. Therefore, we must not turn into those who, not realizing that Jesus is God, do not believe but doubt His work; instead, we must have the kind of faith that knows and believes that Jesus Christ is fundamentally divine, and because He is God, He has saved us from all the sins of the world through the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
In today’s Scripture passage, the Apostle John says, “And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1). If anyone says of Jesus the true God, “Jesus is not God. I don’t know Him as God. Nor do I know the Truth that has saved people through the water and the Spirit,” he must learn about Jesus Christ all over again properly and believe again. Jesus Christ is the true Savior who advocates to God the Father on our behalf that He has washed away all our sins with the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and has saved us from the sins of the world. Jesus Christ is our God and our true Advocate.
Jesus Christ Became the Propitiation between God and Us
In the Bible, the common element in peace offerings, sin offerings, and burnt offerings is that sin was passed onto the sacrificial offering with the laying of hands on its head. In the Old Testament, the Israelites passed their sins onto their sacrificial animal by laying their hands on its head, killed it, drew its blood, put this blood on the four horns of the altar of burnt offering, and offered its flesh and fat to God by burning them with fire.
Just like this, Jesus Christ Himself became our perfect propitiation by being baptized by John the Baptist and shedding His blood. For God to restore peace between Him and us, who had turned into His enemies because of our sins, God Himself had to come to save us, and when He came, He had to take upon our sins by being baptized and die on the Cross by shedding His precious blood. By doing these things, He had to remove all our sins that had caused us to become enemies to God, restore peace, and make us one with Him once again.
Who can do this work? It is none other than Jesus Christ our God. For all of us, Jesus is God Himself, and this God is our own Advocate. Only this divine Christ could do the works that save us from our sins.
In Revelation 5, there comes the Lamb of God who is worthy to open the seven seals of the scroll. Who is the Lamb here? Jesus Christ our God is this very Lamb who had been slain before on this earth, but who has now been raised again before God the Father. God the Father tells us that this divine Jesus Christ is the only One who can open the seals of His seven plans designed for mankind and will fulfill everything. Who is this divine Jesus Christ? He is the God of the entire universe, and the Advocate of all those who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Jesus Christ Has Become Your True Advocate
1 John 2:1-2 state, “And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.” Who is our Helper? It is Jesus Christ our true God. It is Jesus Christ who has helped us to be saved from all our sins.
This Jesus Christ, God Himself, is also the Advocate of all sinners. He advocates on our behalf, guarantees us to be born again for our behalf, and by being baptized, crucified, and resurrected in our place, He has saved all His believers from their death. He who did these things for us is God Himself, and this God is none other than Jesus Christ. He who testified on our behalf that we have become sinless and God’s own people through the gospel of the water and the Spirit is also this very Jesus Christ.
The divine Jesus Christ is our true Advocate. Jesus Christ is the One who has saved us, the One who suffered in our place, the One who sacrificed Himself on our behalf, and the One who has given us the right and glory to become God’s own children. It is this divine Jesus Christ who is the true God and our Advocate who always helps us.
We Shouldn’t Restrict Jesus Only as the Small Baby Jesus
Whenever we pray to God, it is in the name of Jesus Christ that we pray. Yet we see that some people pray in the name of the Virgin Mary, instead of praying in the name of Jesus Christ. If you visit Catholic churches, you can easily find many icons of Mary holding the baby Jesus in her arms. They pray not in the name of Jesus but in the name of Mary, asking her to supplicate to God on their behalf. But this is a fallacious belief that humiliates Jesus Christ our God. By raising such doctrinal issues here, I am not just trying to denounce the Catholic Church. I just want to let you know that if we have such a fundamentally restricted image of Jesus as only a baby, this is committing the sin of debasing Jesus Christ our God.
What I am trying to tell you is that all of us must realize that the divine Jesus is the God of each and every one of us, and that this God had only borrowed and used Mary’s body, to be the Lamb of God, for a short while. You must not be mistaken to think that Mary is somehow God the Father’s wife. Far from it, our Father had used Mary only as an instrument of His work of salvation—that is, the work that Jesus Christ our God fulfilled to save us from our sins once for all by coming to this earth incarnated in the flesh of man, taking upon the sins of the world by being baptized by John the Baptist, dying on the Cross, and rising from the death, all in order to deliver sinners from all the sins of this world. Therefore, to exalt Mary higher than Jesus Christ our God is to commit an utterly blasphemous sin. Mary, a mere human being, is not someone who is greater than God, but only His creation.
Just as Mary had received grace from God in the Bible, for you and I also, it is by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit that we have received the grace of salvation from Jesus Christ our true God. And just as Mary was used as God’s instrument for a short while, we, too, have been saved by God and are used as God’s instruments for the salvation of other souls. This Mary who was used as God’s instrument did not somehow become the spiritual mother of Jesus. It is because people do not know Jesus in their hearts and do not understand the gospel of the water and the Spirit, the real Truth of salvation, that they entertain such fallacious thoughts, trying to fit Jesus into their own thoughts of the flesh according to their own carnal logic.
Far from Mary, it is this divine Jesus who is our Advocate. In other words, Jesus our Advocate is our Helper. When we had fallen into sin, Jesus Christ our God helped us, saving us from our sins and becoming our own Savior. Because this Jesus Christ is God for us, He had truly become our Savior.
The reason why I am preaching 1 John to you is because I must feed you, the spiritual children who have been born again by believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, with the true bread of life. It is because you will face spiritual death if you are not fed with the bread of the gospel of the water and the Spirit that our God Jesus Christ has given you. Throughout the entire world now, many Christians who profess to believe in Jesus still remain ignorant of the gospel of the water and the Spirit. This is all the more reason why we have to continue to provide the world with the true spiritual food to nourish its souls.
For everyone, if he comes to know and believe that Jesus is God Himself, it is only a matter of course that he would come to also believe that Jesus has perfectly delivered us from all our sins with the gospel of the water and the Spirit. When someone comes to believe in Jesus as the true God, then he can easily believe in Him as his Savior who was baptized and crucified to blot out all his sins without any exception.
All of us must believe this, for the divine Jesus is the very God who has given us the true remission of our sins. There are countless people in this world now, and they commit all kinds of sin. Our Lord is the Advocate who has saved us from all these sins. Jesus has atoned all our sins and become our true Savior. No matter what kind of sin we might commit, if only we do not commit the sin of not believing that Jesus is God, and that He has saved us by coming to this earth, being baptized, shedding His blood on the Cross, and rising from the dead again—and if we believe in this Truth—then we will all receive eternal life. Even as you commit all kinds of sin, Jesus has become your Advocate who already took away all your sins. This true God Jesus Christ is the Advocate of all those who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
Someone May Think, “Jesus Has Blotted out All Sins Except This One of Mine.”
In their own subjective thoughts, such people are liable to think mistakenly that some sins cannot be remitted away. But this is a flawed notion. We need to know Jesus properly as our true God. And we need to know that to save us from our sins, He came to this earth incarnated in the flesh of man, took upon all our sins by being baptized by John the Baptist, was condemned for all these sins of ours by shouldering the sins of the world and bleeding to death on the Cross, and has become our true God by rising from the dead again.
Therefore, if we do not commit the sin of not believing that the divine Jesus has become our true Savior, then all of us can be saved from all our sins, no matter what kind. If you believe that Jesus is God, then you must realize that the Lord has remitted away all and any sins that you might have committed. This is why He is our Advocate and the God who has saved from all the sins of the world.
The Apostle John clearly stated, “He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world” (1 John 2:2). Jesus our God, in other words, has blotted out all the sins that everyone in this world is committing even as we speak now, and by doing so, our Lord has saved us all. It is because Jesus is God in His essence that He has saved us by accepting all the sins of the world once for all through His baptism received from John the Baptist, shouldering them on His own body, shedding His blood on the Cross and dying, and rising from the dead again. It is by believing in this divine Jesus Christ that I myself could be delivered from all my sins.
The Apostle John is also addressing this issue. Like John, I, too, am bearing witness of Jesus Christ our God, testifying the fundamental faith, about the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Many Christians, trapped in fallacious doctrines, now remain far removed from the only Truth. But I am content in my heart, thanks to my faith in the divine Jesus Christ and the gospel of the water and the Spirit that He has given me. My hearts is at peace because I believe in the works of salvation fulfilled by the Lord.
What about you then? Have your sins disappeared from your hearts, and are your hearts also at peace, thanks to the faith that you now have? If this is not the case, then your hearts should also be at peace now by believing in Jesus Christ our God and the gospel of the water and the Spirit that He has given you. By being baptized, shedding His blood, and rising from the dead again, Jesus Christ, God Himself, has saved all of us from all our sins.
Hasn’t this divine Jesus truly saved us? Jesus Christ our true God has truly saved us from our sins. Who is this Savior? It is Jesus Christ. Who is Jesus Christ for all of us? He is God Himself. Who, then, is this true God Jesus Christ? He is the Creator and the Redeemer of mankind. We must all believe that Jesus Christ is our own Savior and our God.
Through the gospel of the water, the blood, and the Spirit, this true God Jesus Christ has saved us from all our sins once for all. The divine Jesus Christ has given us the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit, so that we may believe in Him as our Savior. He has guaranteed us this Truth with His divinity, so that we may believe. He has helped us through the gospel of the water and the Spirit, so that we may be delivered form our sins. He actually fulfilled all the works of salvation. Jesus Christ our God is indeed the true God who has brought salvation to us.
If Anyone Believes in the Love of God, It Is Only Natural For Him to Believe in the Gospel of the Water and the Spirit That the Lord Has Given Us
You must come to believe in this Truth, that Jesus Christ, God Himself, came to this earth, was baptized by John, shed His blood, and has thereby blotted out all the sins of the world. I, for one, believe in everything that the divine Jesus Christ did for us. I can believe in this Truth—that Jesus is God; that to save us from the sins of the world, He was born unto this earth through the body of the Virgin Mary and took upon the sins of the world by being baptized; that to fulfill the Word that declares, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), He was vicariously condemned in our place for our sins by being crucified; that He rose from the dead again; that He now lives forever; and that He has, by doing all these things for us, become our own Savior.
Can you also believe in this Truth with your hearts? Can you also believe that Jesus Christ is the Advocate for us, and that He has become our very own Helper?
The divine Jesus Christ is the One who helps us. Whenever we succumb to our weaknesses and fall into sin, Jesus Christ our God alone comes to our rescue and helps us. He is the One who alone has saved us entirely, the One who bore all our sins on His own body and was vicariously condemned in our place. This is why I am always thankful to Jesus Christ our God. And this is why I am always testifying Him.
I Am So Relieved and Thankful That Jesus Christ Has Become Our Own Advocate
For those who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, Jesus Christ, God Himself, has become their Advocate who is always helping them, and He took care of all their sins for all times to come. By also taking care of all the condemnation of all our sins, this divine Jesus Christ has saved us from them.
Those who know the gospel Truth of the water and the Spirit must know as well that Jesus is God. We must all realize that as far as we are concerned, Jesus Christ the true God has become our own Advocate who always helps us. And, whenever we fall short, we must believe in this Truth, that Jesus Christ our God has blotted out all our sins by being baptized and shedding His blood.
Jesus Christ our God has truly become the Advocate for all of us. “Yes, though you are weak like this, I bore even those sins as well, didn’t I?” Isn’t this what Jesus Christ our God is saying to us? He is indeed telling us that He already took away all our sins, and He is teaching us, comforting us, and encouraging us, all through the gospel of the water and the Spirit. Isn’t this the case?
People throughout the whole world who now believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit must look toward Jesus Christ our God and believe in Him. It is this Jesus Christ who is always advocating on behalf of all such believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, encouraging them, patting them on their shoulders, and giving them new strength to go on.
Nonetheless, the believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, who are spread throughout the world, are now saying, “I can’t find God’s Church in my area. What should I do?”
I would like to make this clear to all of you: “You, the brothers and sisters who have been saved from all your sins by believing in Jesus Christ our God and the gospel of the water and the Spirit, must establish God’s Church and lead the souls there.” I am not saying here that you should first begin by building a church building. Far from it, I believe that you should take your own homes as the place of worship, testify Jesus Christ our God, preach the gospel of the water and the Spirit that He has given us by faith, share with others the gospel books that we have sent you, and thereby turn around many souls back to the arms of Jesus Christ.
To do so, you should continue to receive and read our books that contain spiritual truths, talk over your spiritual problems with us through the Internet, and just follow our steps one by one. You have nothing to fear about what will happen to you. Jesus Christ, God Himself, is advocating on your behalf, defending you from your weaknesses and helping you in every step. It is my hope and prayer for you that through Jesus Christ, you would be able to establish God’s Church there, that the countless souls would receive the remission of sin through your Church, and that you would join us in this precious mission of preaching the gospel of the water and the Spirit all over the world.
Jesus Is Truly Our Help
It is when I have fallen into the world deeply, when the spiritual strength in me is weakened, that I have a profound appreciation of the fact that the Lord has become my Advocate. In such times, when I come to God’s Church and hear His Word, when I praise Him, when I pray to Him, and when I surround myself in this spiritual atmosphere of the gathering of the believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, I come to have the first-hand experience that Jesus Chris comforts my heart once again, encourages me, and gives me new strength. I can appreciate in times like these that Jesus our God is advocating on our behalf for all things. Whenever we gather together in the Truth, the Holy Spirit works among us forcefully, and fills our hearts in full. This is why the gathering of God’s Church is so important, as it is written in the Bible, “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching” (Hebrews 10:25).
Jesus Christ is the God who gives new strength to those who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, washes their soiled hearts, makes their hearts clean once again, gives faith, holds them and helps them. This divine Jesus Christ is none other than God Himself for all of us. You receive such help when you come into God’s Church. And the Holy Spirit Himself comforts your hearts, consoles you, re-establishes your faith on firm ground once again, gives you understanding, and renews you.
If you are believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, you definitely would have experienced this. God’s Church is run by the Holy Spirit, though unseen by our eyes. So as we come to God’s Church and worship Him together, the Holy Spirit makes us feel uncomfortable when there is something wrong in our hearts, and when there is something wrong in our knowledge, He enables us to correct it. God helps us in many aspects and ways. This is, when our gathering is over, how we come to receive new strength to resume our work even more vigorously. We come to be helped by God like this: Through our worship and fellowship, we are experiencing the fullness of the Holy Spirit, and the real existence of the love of Jesus Christ, who is the true God.
It Is the Believers in the Gospel of the Water and the Spirit Who Are the Living Christians
Jesus Christ our God exists as the One who helps us like this. Because He is God for us, in this age and time, through God’s Church and through you, He can wash away everyone’s sins with the gospel of the water and the Spirit. This is what the Apostle John is telling us, and even now, at this very moment, this is how God is working in us, His Church.
So if anyone who has received the remission of his sins does not abide in God’s Church and does not hear the Word of God, he is bound to fall into the world and drift away afar, as a child who ran away from his home. If Jesus Christ our God does not keep our hearts diligently, then we will end up drifting away so far that we would not be able to return to God’s Church even if we want to.
However, even if your faith in Jesus Christ is not so great, when you just keep coming to God’s Church, hearing His Word, worshipping Him, and praising in union with your church members, then you will experience that the divine Jesus Christ indeed heals your hearts from all your mistakes and wounds, and makes your hearts perfect once again. So it is by giving thanks to Jesus Christ our God and being helped by Him that we carry on with our lives of faith. No one may say anything particular comforting to us, but we are still comforted and helped greatly. We do actually receive such comfort and help. Those who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit can actually feel the divine Jesus Christ with their hearts through their churches. It is my hope and prayer that all of you, our partners and saints throughout the world who are working with us, would now gather together there as God’s Church where you can keep your spiritual lives and strengthen your faith by the help of our Lord Jesus, the true God.
On the other hand, those who do not believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit can never do God’s work with us. None of them, no matter how well educated and smart, can stand here and preach to the righteous. Not just anyone can sit where we sit and preach the Word or be helped by Christ in His Church. It is only because we believe in the divine Jesus Christ and the gospel of the water and the Spirit that we can become His own children and the members of His Church.
Now, the Apostle John is saying to all those who have received the remission of their sins from Jesus Christ our God to love one another, and that only then they can keep God’s commandments. As it is written in 1 John 2:5, “But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.”
Here, the phrase “whoever keeps His word” does not mean keeping His Word as if one were keeping the Law, but it means to believe in His Word. Just as Moses had smashed the two stone tablets of the Law before the people of Israel when he came down from the mountain, we are such that we just cannot keep the Law of God but disobey it and break it. So, the Bible declares, “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them’” (Galatians 3:10).
We cannot keep any single clause of His commandments. However, there is one thing that Jesus Christ our God enables us to keep, and this is none other than the gospel Word of the water and the Spirit. Our faith in the gospel of the water and the Spirit is the foundation of all our faith in God’s Word. In other words, if we do not have faith in this true gospel, all our faith in His Word must then be fraudulent. Therefore, the Apostle Paul said, “For in it [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith’” (Romans 1:17).
For us who believe in His Word, God washes away our sins with the gospel of the water and the Spirit, saves us from our condemnation of sin, helps us, makes us His children, heals us always, clothes us in His grace, leads us, and glorifies us. This passage tells us that God is found in those who believe in Jesus as He is. They are the ones who “keep His word.” It is because we the born-again are the ones who believe in the divine Jesus as their Savior that God protects our faith. If we believe in Jesus as the true God with our hearts, God will keep us, but if do not believe in Jesus Christ with such faith, then God cannot keep us.
Yet many people do not understand what the Apostle John is trying to say in this passage. I believe that God is in the hearts of all those who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and that He makes our faith in His Word even stronger day by day. For those who actually believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, God allows the remission of sin and the dwelling of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. And Jesus the true God forever advocates on their behalf, comforts them, encourages them, blesses them, and protects them at all times. In all those who believe in this divine Jesus Christ as the Savior, God the Father dwells. In the hearts of those who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and in their Church, God is always with them. This is what the Apostle John is now telling us here.
This passage that the Apostle John spoke has been fulfilled to us today. Though we had found it difficult to speak of such faith before we were born again, now we are able to spread it to others. We have become the main protagonists of today’s Scripture passage. All the promises of the Bible are for no one else but you and me.
I thank God for the fact that this Word that He spoke in 1 John 2:1-5 has been fulfilled to all of us who believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. I am very thankful to the Lord Jesus that He has become the Savior and Pastor of all the believers in the gospel of the water and the Spirit, and that He forever helps them as their true Advocate.
When God helps them, He does so through His Church. Therefore, I admonish you, the co-workers of our mission, to visit our web site frequently and continue to receive new spiritual bread from us, and to keep in touch with us so that we may lead you to the right path.
Please, pray God for us that we could continue to carry on with our ministry, translating our gospel books into many more languages and making them available to all who seek the Truth. Amen.
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