Simple Truths

Scripture Reading: Psalm 141; Ezekiel 46-47; 1 John 5

Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

- 1 John 5:12

I will admit that I find 1 John difficult. In part, it is because of the way my mind is wired and has been trained to think since childhood. I was taught to organize writing in a certain way using Roman numerals and an outline. Everything is supposed to fall in a logical order and arrangement.

That way of doing things carried over into my Baptist preacher life. In Bible College and seminary I was taught to put together a sermon outline with the same kind of structure. There were points and sub-points to be created. Three was ideal. Two was too short. You might get away with four or more at times, but don’t make a habit of it.

John, in writing 1 John, throws all of those rules out the window. It is circular. He makes a point. Moves on, and as it has become popular among government spokesman to say, he circles back around to it again later. My mind doesn’t process that way of writing well. I find it complicated.

But to John’s credit and our benefit, he does simply some things for us. This verse is one of those where he strips the truth down and doesn’t need a lengthy explanation or added qualifications. It just is what it is.

You have Jesus – You have eternal life.

You don’t have Jesus – You don’t have eternal life.

Simple enough. No qualifiers, no exceptions, no fluff. Just unvarnished truth.

I’m glad for it because throughout this little epistle John has been giving us evidences of spiritual life. How do you know if you are born again? There is a lot to unpack throughout the book about that. But he doesn’t want to make it so complicated that you can’t ever really know for sure. His goal isn’t doubt, but surety.

And here is what you can know for sure. If you have Jesus, you have eternal life. If you don’t, you don’t.

Do you?

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash