1 John 2:13-27

Let us look for a few moments at the question of growth as
the apostle puts it before us here. The spiritual growth of a babe into a man
is produced in two ways. First, God in His discipline sets trials and
circumstances before the soul. These trials serve to awaken the heart and mind
of the believer, leading him out of various forms of selfishness and
worldliness and into a greater sense of God’s grace and goodness. Second, God
shows us His perfect example of what he would have us grow up to and the soul
is stimulated and encouraged to imitate this example. God puts Christ before us
that we may grow up into Christ (Eph. 4:15).

            The admonition, therefore, of the apostle to the
babes and young men-to the fathers he has none-is to let nothing take away
their eyes from Christ. He warns the babes as to antichrist, not that he may
perfect them in prophetical knowledge, but because in their little acquaintance
as yet with the truth of what Christ is, they might be led away into some
deceit of the enemy. Satan’s first snare for souls is some distorting error
that deforms to us the face of Christ in which alone all the glory of God
shines, or which substitutes for His face some counterfeit for the natural eye.
Through the subtlety of Satan, the heart becomes entangled unawares with this
substitute, supposing it to be the true and divine object. This is antichrist,
though not yet the full denial of the Father and the Son. “Even now there are
many antichrists” (1 John 2:18). Oh, that Christians would realize more the
immense value of truth! And the terrible and disastrous effect of error!

            The apostle therefore warns the babes as to
false Christs. The young men are not in the same danger as to this. They are strong,
the word of God abides in them, and they have overcome the wicked one. Their
danger now lies in the allurements of a world into which their very energy is
carrying them. The word to these is, “Love not the world, neither the things
that are in the world” (2:15). It is one thing to have seen by the Word that
the world is under judgment, and another thing to have viewed it in detail,
counting it all loss for Christ (Phil. 3:7,8)).

            This, however, the fathers have done; therefore
he says to them-and it is all he needs to say-“You have known Him who is from
the beginning” (2:13,14). There is nothing we gain by examining the world
except to be able to say of it, “How unlike Christ it is!” This the fathers
have learned. And what do we do when we have reached this? Has the “father”
nothing more to learn? Oh, yes, he is but at the beginning. He has only now his
lesson book before him for undistracted learning. But he does not need to be
cautioned in the same way against mixing anything with Christ. How much toil to
reach, and how slow we are in reaching, so simple a conclusion! But then the
joy of eternity begins. Oh, to have Him ever before us, unfolding His glories,
as He does to one whose eyes and whose heart are all for Him! The knowledge of
the new man is, “Christ is all!”