Word given by Brother Pedro Dong, transmitted by the Life for All Institute, directly from the Pérola auditorium at Estância Árvore da Vida, on 05/09/2024. Text not reviewed by the author.
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- It is very important to know the context of the time and John’s concern, that the brothers would not be contaminated and influenced by the heresies and Gnosticism that was emerging in the first century so as not to be led to live in the logic and rationality of human wisdom and depart from the tree of life. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil leads us to death. Especially the good side can confuse God’s children into thinking that it’s part of the tree of life. Only the tree of life leads us to life!
- Out of concern for heresies, in several verses John insists on this issue. But I believe that his main task is to make us understand that we are born of God and that what we need is not to worry so much about the rules of conduct, but rather that our attention is turned to the Word of life, to eternal life, especially to this Word that is announced through his apostle John, which is coming from God and produces the fellowship of life. He who is living in the fellowship of life is free from being governed by the laws of right and wrong which belong to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
- Gnosticism tried to lead the people of that time to seek to be elite people who can reach self-knowledge, spiritual knowledge that very few achieve, to be people who can live at the level of a spiritual man. In fact, all this is deception. The only thing that makes us live in the standard that God requires is to choose life. Let us choose life! Life is simple. Death is complicated. It’s a tricky one-line choice. Let’s choose the simplest line, which is to believe the Word. God has given to man all that is simple. He did not only want elite men to achieve the required maturity and spirituality, but that it should be available and possible to all of God’s children. Let’s be simple just like our teenagers. By their simplicity God has given us an example of blessing. Let’s choose life too, we who are more adults. Let’s not rely on the biblical knowledge we’ve acquired, nor on the spirituality we think we already have, but let’s keep it simple.
- We are born of God, we have this divine being that the Lord has placed within us, and we are going to cultivate, feed and strengthen this life that is within me and within you. Through the fellowship of life, the circulation of life, we strengthen this inner man, and thus our conduct will be the result of this life. Just as the life and nature of a duck gives it the ability to swim and the life and nature of the orange tree gives it the ability to produce oranges, we who are born of God have the ability to love! Whoever is born of God loves! It is not a human effort or someone teaching us to love that we will be able to love. We can love those who are born of God through He who is within us! Let us live for Him and strengthen Him. Through the fellowship of life we will truly be children of God, disciples of Jesus.
1 John 5:1-2; Jn 1:12-13
- Of all the abilities required in the first epistle of John, only those who are born of God have them. Therefore, how can we be born of God? Thank God, there is such a simple way! To be born of God, one does not need to seek spiritual self-knowledge or go to the Himalayan mountains, or even climb a ladder on one’s knees. All that God has for man is so simple because Christ did the hard part. For us, it is enough for us to believe in the name of Jesus and we are born of God! He has given us power to become His children. It is not by the will of man, nor of the flesh, but of God. When we believe, God’s life has entered us, and along with it, we have received God’s nature and His essence, which is love.
1 Jn 5:1-2
- God is love! This is His essence and constitution. As a reaction to this life, we love God. Whoever is born of God loves Him because it was He who begot him. Don’t you love the one who begot you? If God begot us, we love Him. But this life not only makes us love the one who begot us, but also gives him the ability to love the other children of God. This is more difficult. Loving God seems logical: you are born of God, you love God. But he who loves God loves what is generated of Him. This is what proves that we are born of God. How do we love the children of God, the brothers and sisters who are full of defects, failures, those with whom we live, who sometimes rub each other the wrong way and who have conflicts when serving together? When we love God and practice His commandments, we then know that we love the brethren. God, first, generates our love for Him because He begot us. Since we love God, we receive and practice His Word, His commandments, and His voice of command gives us power to love our brothers and sisters. Although we see each other’s faults, thank God we are not in the line of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil with our eyes wide open, but in the line of the tree of life. This life makes us love one another!
Eph 5:18-19
- In this sense, the popular saying: “love is blind” is correct. If you truly love God, you close your eyes to the faults of the brethren. When you are strengthened by God’s Word and practice it, God does not make you look at the faults of the brothers. God makes you look at how lovely the brothers are, because He fills us with love! This is proven by our practice. Our love for God makes us love His Word; as we immerse ourselves in the Word, we inculcate it in our hearts by repeated repetitions1, as the apostle Paul teaches. The secret of loving our brothers and sisters is to fill ourselves with the Spirit! Do not stay with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because you will have your eyes open to see the defects of the brothers, see problems in them, feel that you have been hurt or offended by them, and be full of resentments which are kept in your heart. But let’s be filled with the Spirit! How can we be filled with the Spirit? Speaking among ourselves with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, which is how we speak among ourselves the Word of the Lord today!
Col 3:16
- How can I make the Word of Christ dwell in me? Throughout my school life and all the time I worked with the Word of the Lord, taking notes, listening to the Word again, taking notes, I learned that teaching is the best way to learn. When I was still a student, when I taught some colleagues who did not understand some subjects and asked me to teach them, I realized that while I taught I learned more. The same happened when a year after I graduated from engineering school and I was invited by one of my professors to teach at an engineering college, where I taught for about fourteen years. When we are talking to each other, doing refined, deep immersion and we are telling each other what the Lord has spoken to us, it brings us more light and we learn even more! Therefore, brothers, let us make the Word of Christ dwell in us richly. Richly means not letting it pass lightly. We will gain all the content that is in the Word of Christ by teaching and admonishing one another. Thus, by making the Word of life circulate among us, we gain all its nutrients, having spiritual health. We certainly gain the essence of love and we are able, spontaneously, to love each other. This is what God wants from us!
1 John 5:3-5
- John is trying to show us that it is not by our effort, by human capacity, that we can be spiritual and mature Christians, but by the life of God! The Jews, to this day, have great difficulty in keeping the commandments of God. To them, His commandments are burdensome, because man cannot keep the whole Law. But why is John telling us that God’s commandments are not burdensome? Because we are not guided by human logic, wisdom and effort, but by faith! That’s the difference. It is not according to our strength, but according to the power of life, which is in the Word! To activate this power, it is necessary to use faith.
Eph 1:19; 1 Jn 5:4-5
- God has a tremendous, superpower, which is so great that He raised Jesus from the dead, seated Him at the right hand of God, and placed Him above all other authorities, principality, power, dominion, power, and every name that can be named. That power is at your disposal! If you can’t love your brethren, what can you do? This power can help you. It is in the Word of God and is activated through faith! Every time we believe in the Word of God, that Word enters you with His power of life and makes you love the brethren. The power of this Word is what gives you the power to love your brothers and sisters, but it needs to be activated by faith.
Galatians 2:16; 1:6-9
- No one is justified by the law, but by faith in Christ. So too, keeping the commandments of the Lord for us is not burdensome because it is not by the works of the law, but by faith in Christ Jesus. Paul, with great love, transmitted the Word to the Galatians, took them out of the world to serve God, begetting them by the life of God and then suddenly, someone came and told them that to be justified they would need to keep the law of Moses and practice circumcision. That’s the other gospel. The apostle Paul did not preach this gospel to them. Paul was indignant that they had been so easily deceived. The Galatians returned, by human effort, to try to keep the law. This is not the way. This is the way to a lifeless kingdom. We have been ushered into a kingdom governed by the life of God, which is the church. In the church we have the Word of life, the fellowship of life, the circulation of life, and that Word is giving us power, life, strength, and love to live this wonderful church life. Are you going to drop all this and use your human effort to try to keep the Word of God? This is foolishness. Let’s not fall for it, brothers. It is not merely a rule of conduct, because otherwise we would be returning to the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Let’s choose life, not death.
1 John 5:4; Jn 3:36
- Everyone who is born of God overcomes the world by faith. The systematized world teaches us to use our capacity. Everything is on our merit in today’s world. But in the spiritual life it is not so. In our capacity, we cannot love God and our brothers and sisters. Thus, our faith overcomes the world, because whoever believes in the Son of God has eternal life. The Lord has given us this way: whoever believes has eternal life and nourished by the Word of eternal life, there is strength to love his brothers and sisters. This life makes us overcome this systematized world.
1 John 5:6-9; Heb 9:11-12
- In 1 John 5:7, there is a square bracket by which we know that the passage following it is not written in the original manuscript. But let us turn our attention to the three that bear witness on earth, which are the Spirit, the water, and the blood. 1 John is difficult to explain. But thank God, He has opened up so much revelation and ways for us to practice this Word. All the teachers of the Bible had a very difficult time interpreting this. What are these three: The Spirit, the water, and the blood. Especially water. How to explain? The general view of interpretations of water is that water refers to the water of the baptism of Jesus Christ, who began his ministry on earth. And Christ came as high priest, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, entered into the Holy of Holies once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. In relation to the Spirit, there is not so much difficulty in interpreting. The blood we know is the blood shed by Jesus to accomplish eternal redemption for us. As for water, there is difficulty in interpretation. I believe that these three items that bear witness on earth need to be interrelated. They need to happen in the same action to give witness. What would they be?
Jo 19:34-36; 7:37-39
- I take a risk and dare a little in the interpretation so that you can see how enjoyable this is! I think the action in which there are these three items that bear witness on earth refers to when the soldier opened the Lord’s side with a spear. Blood and water came out of His side. I believe it refers to this water because immediately afterwards John says with great conviction and effort that what he saw is true. He saw blood and water coming out. John was the only one who recorded what the Lord said in John 7. John saw the importance of water. Jesus said in verse thirty-seven that whoever was thirsty, should come to Him and drink, and whoever believed in Him would flow rivers of living water from within him. This He said concerning the Spirit which they that believed in Him were to receive. In this way, in this event, we were able to gather blood, water and Spirit!
Jn 14:16-17
- The Spirit is represented by the compound anointing oil. But when the soldier struck Jesus’ side, blood and water came out. Blood is for redemption and water is the Spirit of truth that came back to us after Jesus died, rose again on the third day and was glorified by God. Jesus promised his disciples in John 14 that he would not leave them orphans but that he would return. He also stated that the disciples knew the Spirit of truth, the other Comforter, who would come after His glorification. This is because He was the Lord Jesus Himself, who dwelt with them and would be in them. The best witness God gives us is the Spirit we receive through blood and water. We have received the blood for redemption and the water has been given to us as the Spirit that is within us and flows rivers of living water!
John 4:14; 1 John 5:9-10
- When Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman, he also spoke about water. This water, which is The Spirit, will fill us and lead us to eternal life. We have received the Spirit because of the work of the blood that has redeemed us. Isn’t it wonderful? Hence John testifies in such a solemn manner that his testimony was true. In 1 John 5:10, it says that he who believes has the testimony in himself. This may confirm that it does not really refer to the water of baptism, but to the Spirit in us. The Spirit, the blood, and the water are God’s testimony about His Son, and we gain the benefit of that three in us!
1 John 5:9-11; 1 John 1:1
- The greatest triumph that God has given us is eternal life! It was what He always wanted to give us, and He achieved it after His crucifixion and resurrection. By receiving eternal life, man received the possibility of living by that life and being able to live according to God’s will. By believing in the Son of God, we receive eternal life through the Word of life and are introduced into the fellowship of life, and thus the Christian life continues. We can live through this life. What a wonderful thing!
1 John 5:12; 1 Cor 15:45; Eph 1:13
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Only after Christ had gone through the whole process of incarnation, human living, death, and resurrection, did He become the other Comforter, the Spirit of truth. Today, we have received a Spirit who does not stop giving life to us, and this life infuses us with the essence of God, which is love and makes us love those who have been begotten of God, that is, our brothers and sisters. Thank God for this ability that we have. Today we just have to hear the Word of truth, the gospel of our salvation and we will be saved and receive the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the Spirit that gives life.
- This was the importance of hearing the Word of life that John announced, in order to have eternal life and to be introduced into fellowship with God and with the members of the Body. If you had lived in John’s time and had been contaminated with those who preach heresies or speak differently, you would have problems with John’s speech, not accepting him. When you do not receive the speech of John, you do not receive the Word of life, and without it you are not brought into the fellowship of life. Thank God, you are all here because you have received the Word of life. Whoever receives the Word of life is introduced into the fellowship of life, which infuses us with the essence and nature of God, which is love. This love makes us love God’s children. It makes us love each other.
1 Jn 5:13-14
- If you believe, you have eternal life. If you have eternal life, you open yourself to the Word of life to live in the fellowship of life. Those who live in the fellowship of life have confidence! Certainly, if we live in this fellowship of life, growing in life, strengthening this divine being that is within us, we are building the Church, producing brotherly love, and we are more and more connected with our brothers and sisters, and with God – this gives us confidence! I’m going to give you a quick testimony of mine. In the midst of all the attacks that the enemy has directed at us, sometimes I get a little sad and think: “Am I taking all these shots alone? Lord, You know, I am not fighting for myself, I am not doing my own work, nothing for fame, for my work, to have more followers. I’m not worried about that. I’m just concerned with being faithful to the Lord.” But on the other hand, brothers, you can be sure that I have great confidence. Some think: “Why don’t we see these brothers who are in front of us hesitate, hesitate, and waver?” On the one hand, sometimes the enemy tries to discourage us, to make us sad, but on the other hand, I am very calm and confident because this work is not mine, it is God’s! If it were mine, it would be good for the Lord to put an end to it. I don’t want to keep a work that is mine. So, if this work is from God, I don’t need to worry, because the one who will defend it is God! Some have admired my resilience, but I am reassured because I am confident that this work is of God! Even if tomorrow the Lord takes me from here, this work will continue. I have this full confidence. It is not for me that this work happens. It is by God! I’m confident. That confidence, I believe, is being transmitted to you so that He is making each of you confident. We are calm, no one will be able to tear down or interrupt this work. This work is of God! We will win all the battles until the end. With or without me, but I hope it’s with me!
1 John 5:14
- John repeats that if we ask the Father for something, He hears us. That is to say, he who continually lives in the fellowship of life, abiding in God and God in him, and the Word of God abiding in him, becomes so one with God, organically speaking, that what he asks for is what God wants. He will ask according to God’s will. Why do I have confidence? Because I am in the fellowship of life, doing God’s will, not my own work, a thing for my own interest. If you are in this fellowship of life you can ask because you will ask according to the will of God. He will not ask, “Lord, make me win the lottery!” It’s not in your best interest. It’s for God’s will, because God is using you to activate His strength and His power to accomplish His will. You are part of this living organism so that God can act.
- Those who remain in the fellowship of life are governed by the Head, who is Christ, will always be doing the will of God, have confidence in God and do not live insecure, because they know that the work he does is of God. Therefore, brethren, I do not feel insecure. When I am in the midst of this fellowship of life, I feel very safe because I know that this is God’s will! However, every organism has its alert system when something is not right. We don’t like pain, but it’s a protection for you. There is a disease in which a person does not feel pain at all. Imagine if we didn’t feel pain? We would break everything and die, without having any warning. So, brothers, thank God for the pain! Pain warns us that something is not well there. A toothache can happen because you don’t take care of it, and it becomes infected. So pain is a warning.
- This afternoon, sixty brothers and sisters went out for two hours to do the “Come and see”. Most of them were captains, teenagers and elders. They worked in the fields, by neighborhoods: some worked in the poorest areas, others in the lower middle class areas, others in the upper middle class areas, because we want to give a chance to every social class. Thirty houses were opened, one hundred and seventeen people came to participate in the meeting, ninety-two contacts for the care network, and more than twenty contacts were confirmed for a feast we will have tomorrow. Tomorrow the brothers will do the family mission with all of them, calling, saying that there is a church in the city of Sumaré. Brothers from various regions of Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and the United States participated. A young man of twenty-two years old also came to be a missionary! O Lord Jesus! Isn’t that wonderful, brethren? Things are happening in an extraordinary, supernatural way! The Spirit is at work, we are only cooperating with Him. Thank the Lord for the moment we are living. This is all promoted by the fellowship of life, by the Word of life. We follow His leading, and supernatural things happen.
- But even we who live in the fellowship of life, who live the normal life of the church, in the fellowship of life, and who are going out to preach the gospel, doing the “Come and see”, still need to observe the warnings. In John’s first epistle he wants to tell us that when we live in this wonderful normalcy, we still have to pay attention to the warnings. This is because each of us can get so used to this normality that we end up settling for it and not realizing when there is something abnormal happening in our lives. If I don’t have this alert on, I can make mistakes, then I scar my conscience and, without realizing it, I’m becoming proud, thinking I’m superior: “I know how to do the “Come and see”, I know how to preach the gospel”, then pride enters my heart and I’m ruined.
1 John 1:9; 1 Jn 2
- Therefore, brethren, we need two warnings from first John. The first warning is: God is Light to show us any sign of sin, of unrighteousness. We have to treat it, otherwise we will be proud. This is the alert system of the body. It’s like pain. When I have any problem, if any dissatisfaction with the leadership, with the brothers I serve with, is arising in me, it is a warning. God is Light. In fellowship there is light and in light we will treat it quickly! If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The second warning is: there is the danger of the world. The world is a weapon of the evil one against God. The world still influences us with the dispute for supremacy in the church. We are not yet free because the sinful nature is still in us. We must always watch! Even if I’m preaching the gospel, doing the “Come and see,” a lot of people being saved through me, if I neglect it, I can get the feeling that maybe “I deserve to be in a higher position, the brethren should see that I’m being very useful to the Lord”—all of this is the world coming in. So we need warnings.
- This influence of the world comes with the dispute for supremacy in the church, generating hatred, envy, division, slander, and the love of money. To combat this, the Lord has given us the anointing that comes from the Holy One, which alerts us through our conscience. When the heart accuses us, it is good to go before God to be enlightened and to deal thoroughly with our heart. After being treated, we will return to the fellowship of life, we will have confidence again, and whatever we ask for, we will receive. Do you accept this warning? When everything is fine, no one wants to talk about the negative side, but I am burdened to speak. Let’s be careful with sin and the world. We will continue in normality. O Lord Jesus!
1 John 5:16-17; 1 Corinthians 6:17; Jas 5:13-16
- What is “sin unto death” and what is “sin not unto death”? In 1 John 5 it says that if any brother is sinning, not unto death, and for the brother’s sake you ask the Lord for him, God will give him life. But in Greek, “ask” is in the same subject that gives life. So, saints, what does that mean? It does not mean that I have life to give, but it does mean that, because if I remain in the fellowship of life, I am one with the Lord who gives life and the Lord, through me, will give life to this brother whom I love, whom I pray. This construction is wonderful! Apparently you can’t understand it that way, but the original sentence is like that. You ask, and God uses you to give life, because you are one with the Lord! In the fellowship of life you are united with the Lord, you are one with the Lord! It is one spirit with Him! If you live in the fellowship of life, you will be one with the Lord and He will use you to give life to the brother you are praying for.
1 John 5:16
- But there is sin unto death. “Sin unto death” indicates the nature of sin. There is some kind of sin that will lead those who sin to death. When death is said here, it is mainly physical death. But physical death will not necessarily happen. In the construction here “towards” indicates “directed to”. If you sin this kind of sin, this nature of sin, you go towards physical death. Some die, others don’t. So, what kind of sin unto death does it refer to? When any member of the Body commits some unrighteousness, it interferes with the fellowship of the Body, so in order to maintain the health of the Body, it is important to pray for one another, so that no one is deprived of a supply of life. This is the “not unto death” kind of prayer. We must ask this brother to recover the fellowship of life soon and also not to interrupt this fellowship of life when it passes by him. But the problem is that there is sin unto death. John says that for this you should not pray. What is sin unto death? It must be a sin that frontally wounds the principle of God’s authority, as rebellion against God and against the authority established by Him.
Num 12:1-11
- In the case of Miriam and Aaron who questioned Moses’ authority, Moses did not defend himself. God is the one who went out to speak to those who were rebelling. God said to them, “How then are you not afraid to speak against my servant against Moses?” And then Miriam became leprous. Miriam suffered the consequence of going towards death. She did not die, but went towards death, because she became leprous. That is why Aaron became desperate and asked Moses to pray, because he did not want her to die. Then Aaron suffered nothing more.
Nm 16:26-33; 1 Co 10:5-12; Rm 16:17-19; 2 Ts 3:14;
- In the case of the rebellion of Korah, Dathan and Abiram, who accused Moses of exalting himself over the congregation, Moses fell on his face, because he realized the seriousness of this act. He knew that God would act very strongly. Dathan and Abiram accused Moses of wanting to be a ruler over them, and they disobeyed Moses, saying that they would not go up. Moses asked the people to depart from their tents, for God would make the earth open its mouth and swallow them up with all that is theirs, and alive they would go down into the abyss, for they despised the LORD. Which in fact happened. To me, that’s the kind of sin unto death. Therefore, while we are living in normality, we need to be careful! For you to fall, you just need to be standing. If you are standing, be careful not to fall. Therefore, brothers, we need this warning. We need to disassociate ourselves from those who speak negative words, let’s stay away.
1 Jn 5:18-19
- “He that is born of God is keeps himself, and the evil one does not touch him.” Who is this “born of God”? This one born of God does not live in sin. I am born of God, but “born of God” mainly refers to the divine Being who was born of God within me. This Being makes me love my brothers and sisters, makes me not live in the practice of sin, and the evil one does not touch me. Therefore, brothers, do not be afraid of the devil. Even in the midst of such a fierce fight. Sometimes it seems that the spiritual atmosphere is so dense, as difficult as I have felt sometimes, but I am not afraid, because the evil one does not touch us. Especially, it does not touch the part that is born of God! I am confident that we will win all the battles, we will bring the Lord back!
1 John 5:20-21
- That is why John emphasizes that those who are born of God have the life of God and those who live intensely in the fellowship of life, do not live in sin, because the life of God guards them, and the Evil One does not touch them. The evil one does not touch what is born of God in us, in our regenerated spirit. We are the church, the Body of Christ; we are God’s. God has the church as an instrument to accomplish His will. Satan, the Evil One, has the world as his instrument to do his work of opposition, fighting against God. The church is made up of those born of God, possess His life, and are the Body of Christ, governed in life, by Christ, the Head. But the world is systematized by the devil, organized and controlled by Satan, and lies lifeless in the Evil One, and is totally manipulated by him.
- Let’s win this battle, let’s bring the Lord back, keep ourselves in the fellowship of life and at the same time, receive signs and warnings. We will never let Satan take us out of the fight because of one sin or another. Sometimes we see people who are so useful, but when they fall into a sin, especially a sin that sins against the body, a mortal sin, it can destroy their future of serving the Lord. Let’s take care of it. On the other hand, we may be overcome by the world, pride may enter our hearts, we may think we are superior to our brethren, and we shall also be finished in service for the Lord. That’s why we need to take heed. Let us always remain humble, simple, clean and pure by serving the Lord as a living member of the Body of Christ, in the fellowship of life!