1 John 4:15 --- Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.
One of my brothers in Christ has a whole lot going on today, so things started off with a ton of prayer. What I know is God see's my brother and knows exactly where he is and where things will go today, even if he doesn't understand it or know himself. My prayer is for the storm to pass and be over, but if it persists that he turn to Jesus in the storm, cling to Him and follows Him through it one step at a time.
As we moved into studying His Word verse 15 jumped out so we stopped to look deeper. One of things John does a lot is repeat and reemphasize things. It's for a great reason as the subject matter is of the highest importance. However, for us modern, sophisticated humans, youtube, facebook, instagram, and tik tok, have so enlightened us to be brief, short, quick, because we have other things to do than actually sit and read more than a handful of sentences. Especially if those sentences seem to be repeats of something you breezed over before.
FYI - I'm not poking fun at any specific generation because this is something all ages deal with now. Our younger generations were just born into it and have grown in it, whereas us 40 somethings and up had it grafted into our lives.
Okay, so focusing back on today's verse. Let me ask you a question and don't go look it up or anything before you answer this to yourself. When you see the word, "CONFESS", what do you think of? What does it mean as you read it?
For me, until I started studying deeper into things, "CONFESS" instantly made me think of someone going to a priest for confession or a criminal giving a confession for the crime he committed. Basically, I did something, now I'm telling someone what I did.
Now, I know I studied into this back in April when we started in 1 John 4:2-3, but just like John was led to repeat and re-emphasize the Lord really put it on me to dig into this again.
Now Merriam-Webster defines confess as: to tell or make known (something wrong or damaging to oneself); to acknowledge sin to God or a priest; to declare faith in or adherence to; to disclose one's faults, admit or own (confess to a crime).
So, this goes along with what my brain thought. I'm telling someone something I did. I stole the cookie… I ate the last slice of pizza… I believe in Jesus… etc…
Now, the Greek word used here is homologeō and means "to say the same thing as another, to agree with, to concede, to profess, to declare openly, speak out freely."
So even though our English definition is on the doorstep, the Greek comes all the way in. It's not just me saying I did something, in the Greek this is outwardly coming into agreement with God's truth and once again, same as in v2-3 of this chapter, it's all about Jesus.
So, it's not just a statement of fact, or me saying I follow Jesus. This is speaking out to come into agreement with who the Bible says Jesus is. It's fully agreeing with God and lining up with the Word.
The title on my blog back on April 23 was, 'Pop Quiz! What do they say about Jesus?", as we're told that is the test we're to use for false spirits, false teachers/prophets. It's the same thing here, John has hammered over and over on love, love, love but he doesn't shy away from truth in the midst of it. Love can take us to the moon and beyond, but if it's not rooted in the truth we can easily get lost in a galaxy of emotions and feelings.
Guzzik's commentary was something that I thought summed things up well here.
"It isn’t enough to know the facts about who Jesus is; we must confess the truth. The idea behind the word confess is “to be in agreement with.” We must agree with God about who Jesus is, and we find out what God says about Jesus through the Word of God. You may know something without being in agreement with it; God demands our true agreement."
"Though John has been writing much about love, he does not ignore the issue of truth. John does not think it is “enough” if a person has some kind of love in his life if he does not confess that Jesus is the Son of God. It isn’t a matter of deciding between love or truth; we must have both."
So, I leave all this with you, my brothers, and sisters to ponder over for the day. Be the Berean and get into the Word and see what He has to say! You'll need it so you know what to confess and you can discern what is being taught around you.
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