PASSING FROM DEATH UNTO LIFE

Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. 1John 3:13

St. John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, is often called the Apostle of Love. As such, one of his great concerns was the bond of love which unites that community of Christians, the Body of Christ, the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

Now, we are all here in church and most of us go to church regularly, so we probably all feel that we are Christians. But feeling we are Christians is not enough, we have to know that that is our condition, our very state of being. We have to know that we have passed from death into life. It is this issue that I want to address today.

Let me begin by stating emphatically that we can know with certainty that we are Christian. This is not presumptuous on our part, although it can be if not treated as the profoundly serious matter St. John makes of it. However, the reality is that if we cannot say, I know that I am a Christian we display a lack of faith. Without faith, we cannot pass from death into life, and we are not then a Christian.

Faith comes by the Grace of God and one of the ways He gives faith to us is through Holy Scripture. Later in his first epistle, chapter 5 v.13, St. John writes, These things have I written unto you….that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.

St. John was referring there to his wonderful Gospel as well as to his epistle. In chapter 20, v.31 of his Gospel he says, These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name.

St. John, in writing his Gospel account, was laying out before the world the deity of Jesus Christ. This is not dead prose, except to those determined to dwell in death, but the most exciting of writings. The teaching, the parables, the signs and miracles pulsate with the life of Jesus Christ. The omnipotence of God bursts from this Gospel account, right from the very first verses.

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life and the life was the light of men and the light shineth in darkness and the darkness overcame it not.

There is John’s succinct but utterly convincing exposition of the awesome power of Jesus Christ. There is his short, but stunning history of Almighty God, uniquely encompassing God’s eternal past, His eternal present and His eternal future.

Those verses demand that we stop and think, because they set the tone for everything which follows. In Him was life and the life was the light of men.. That is the life which burst from the tomb because no tomb could contain it. That is the light which enters our hearts and allows us to believe in Him and to know that we are Christians.

That is the light which shines from our obedience to His words, after He has helped our obedience, A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciple, if ye have love one to another. That commandment is found in John 13:34.

We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death.

You see, just as in our pale, human imagery the heart is regarded as the locus of love, so also is the heart the locus of death for those who reject Jesus Christ. A heart devoid of the love of Jesus is not truly alive and all too often the cold hand of death remains clamped around a beating heart, until that heart and soul are cast into the fires of eternal death.

The good news is that it does not need to be that way. The light shineth in darkness and the darkness overcame it not. The darkness will never overcome the light for those who answer God’s call and accept His willing hand to be led into light.

In his Gospel, John recounts the story of a man blind from birth. Encountering the man, imprisoned in his darkness, our merciful Lord gives him sight. Interrogated by the Pharisees, the man is asked whether or not Jesus was a sinner and he replies, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see!

Oh yes! We know when we have found the light of Christ. The blessing are beyond misinterpretation.

Consider for a moment Lazarus, wrapped in burial clothes and four days lying in his tomb. When the stone was removed from the opening Jesus simply stood outside and cried, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth. Jn.11:43-44.

In Jesus is life, the life which vanquished death and which overcomes death for each one of us.

When Lazarus walked out of his tomb he was bound hand and foot with graveclothes and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him and let him go. Jn.11:44

Is that not the battle cry which Holy Scripture gives us against our adversary the devil, Loose me and let me go! Take the napkin from my head that my eyes may see. And not me alone – but that others may see in my eyes the light of Christ.

The light of Jesus Christ can only shine from our eyes if the Love of Jesus Christ abound in our hearts; when we hear and obey His words in complete faith that He is our living God, our Almighty King, our loving, life giving Saviour.

And if St. John wrote his Gospel to prove the Divinity of Jesus Christ, he wrote his epistles so that we might know that we have passed from death unto life. That knowledge is borne on the wings of divinely inspired love.

Hereby we know love, St. John says, because Jesus laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Those last words do not mean that we have to physically die for the community of Christians, although we should be prepared to make that ultimate sacrifice.

St. John means rather that, for the good of the Body of Christ, we are to die to sin. The Church cannot be strong and pure if its members are living willfully sinful lives. And we are always to be ready to serve our brethren in Christ because in doing so we serve the Lord and strengthen His kingdom here on earth. St. John gives us the key to how we strengthen the kingdom, But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his heart against him; how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.

St. John then tells us that God Himself will let us know that we are living the way He wants us to.

Hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before Him. For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence towards God. 1Jn. 3:19-21.

Supremely important in this is that we love our Christian brothers and sisters. Yes, we are also to love those outside the Body of Christ, even those who are our enemies and that is for our own good as well as to set an example. But it is not the same as loving the brethren, in which even the absence of hate is not sufficient. We may think that that is so, but in the context of much of our Lord’s teaching it would appear not to be the way Jesus would regard it.

For example, in Matthew 12:30 we read, He that is not with me is against me and he that gathereth not with me scattereth. And on adultery He teaches, Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

The standards of Jesus Christ are far too high for us to assume that because we cannot identify hate towards another, we are doing alright, especially if that other is a Christian. It is not enough to be neutral. We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren.

And this is His commandment, That we should believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another as He gave us commandment.

That is the condition, the very state of being which allows us to know for certain that we are a Christian. May God grant us the Grace of such deeply comforting knowledge.

Peter Jardine+

Trinity 2, 2007