1Jo 2:13-17 | KingComments | STEP | . In the previous verses you saw that there is a radical separation between light and darkness, between love and hate, between you as a child of God and the world. John will now write about some other things to his “little children”. He makes clear that not all children of God are spiritually at the same level. Just like in natural life, also in spiritual life there are different growing stages: 1. The spiritual growing process begins with the stage of ‘child’. 2. Then the stage of a ‘young man’ follows. 3. Finally, spiritual maturity is be reached when a person becomes a ‘father’. Before John elaborates on the different growing stages, he first says what those different groups have in common. That is that their “sins have been forgiven … for His name’s sake”. This great blessing is the part of every child of God. This is where the assurance of the forgiveness of sin is shining. In case you would be doubting (a little bit) about whether God has indeed forgiven your sins, then you need to carefully consider this verse. The assurance of the forgiveness of sins is not in yourself, but in God and in Christ and His work. Your sins are forgiven “for His name’s sake” (cf. ; ). It does not say that your sins have been ‘removed’, but “forgiven”. ‘Being forgiven’ shows the heart of God. In the forgiveness God opens His arms and wraps them around you. God does not forgive reluctantly, but He likes to forgive ( ). He receives the prodigal son and gives him all the glory of His house. He especially gives him His arms and His heart ( ). I once heard a nice story of a man who was doubting about whether his sins were really forgiven. This man was told that when he has asked God for forgiveness, he could surely trust that God has cast all his sins ‘behind His back’ ( ). However, he could hardly believe that. That may be true, he said, but when God turns around, He will surely see them again. Then they told him that God has cast them ‘into the depths of the sea’ ( ). Yes, the man replied, but when God drains the sea they will become visible again. Then they told him that God will ‘remember his sins no more’ ( ; ), that is, that He will never refer to them again. Forgiveness is in the magnificence of God’s Being, in His Name. That convinced the man. He was now assured that also his sins were forgiven. . After the determination that the assurance of forgiveness of sins is the part that all children of God share, John addresses the three groups separately. He starts with the “fathers”. It is God’s purpose for all His children (both brothers and sisters!) to grow up to be ‘fathers’ in the faith. A ‘father’ has gone through the phases of a child and a young man. A father knows Him “who is from the beginning”, that is Christ, the Son of God. You may say that this also applies to the child and the young man. That is true, but by presenting it like that, John makes clear that Christ is sufficient for a father. Fathers are those who live closely to Christ and closely to the Scripture. The characteristic of a father is that he has been disconnected from the world to be fully in the other world where He is in Whom everything is to be found for the heart of the Father. The only important thing for him is to have fellowship with the Father and the Son. . The “young men” are in the middle of the development of their spiritual life. The young man is involved in a warfare against the wicked one. Nevertheless he may know that he has overcome the evil one because he has the new life. That doesn’t mean that the evil one leaves him alone. The evil one seeks to tempt him to love the world. This is elaborated on later in . When you are a young man you stand in the victory. From your position as a conqueror in Christ ( ) you are able to live a life of victory. . The “children” in the faith, the babies, are not characterized by struggles in the first place. They have peace in their heart because they know “the Father”. They rest in His faithfulness, love and care. Inwardly they have rest and they feel “like a weaned child [rests] against his mother” ( ). They do not need to grow in the knowledge of the Father. They know Him and have a personal relationship with Him. Before we continue I would like to make a general remark. You have seen that John indicates what is typical for each group. That, however, does not mean that each characteristic is specifically only for the group that is being regarded. Also a father in Christ has his struggles at times and he also knows what it is to rest at the heart of the Father. In the same way the young man also has the moments of rest and of being fully satisfied by the Lord Jesus. The same applies to the children. They certainly have their struggles at times, while they also experience at times that the only important thing is Christ. . To encourage the different groups in their growth, John addresses them once more. That gives them an extra assurance against the persistent attempts of the false teachers to deceive them and to draw them away from the assurance and perfection of the new life they have. Regarding the “fathers” John has nothing more to say than he has already said. Christ is sufficient for them. There is nothing more that could complement that. . With the “young men” it is different. He first points out to them what they are and what they have done. They are “strong”; they have strength. They do not have that strength in themselves, but they derive it from “the word of God” that “abides” in them. The truth lives in them because the new life is in them. Therefore they also have overcome the evil one. A beautiful example of that is to be seen with the Lord Jesus when He is tempted in the wilderness. There He defeats satan by making use of the Word of God ( ). For that reason it is of great importance for you to read the Word of God with the greatest attention and to absorb it. Then it will have an impact in your life and it will cause you to overcome in situations of conflict. If you do not do that you will surely suffer defeat. . As far as the young man is concerned, most of the conflict material is provided in his confrontation with “the world”. There is a close relationship between the world and the evil one. The evil one uses the world to catch you. Now you must not think that the world only consists of clearly sinful things as pornography, violence and lies. Such things are being rejected by every sincere child of God with abhorrence. The world, however, consists of much more subtle forms of sin. You may as well reject pornography, but you may then find a magazine in the waiting room of the physician or the dentist in which it appears. You read it with the ‘pious’ excuse that it is a good thing to know what the world has to offer. But you would have never taken such a magazine in your hand if a brother or sister were with you. Remember well that the world is controlled by satan. He is the ruler and god of this world ( ; ). The world as a sphere of influence of the evil one may come to you in a very friendly appearance. It may help you for instance to express yourself in such a way to find favor with another person or to make you have what you loved to have. The way you talk and also the way you dress yourself, the way of spending your time and the goals you pursue, may all show how much you love the world. It is all about your perspective on life. The evil one wants to tempt you to look at it in his way. That’s how he operated with Eve when he drew her attention to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She looked at it and saw that this was exactly the way satan had presented it to her. As soon as you allow anything of love for the world, you shut yourself off from the love of the Father. . The world is characterized by everything that’s in it. John summarizes everything that is in the world in three things: the flesh – that is not the sinful flesh, but your body with all its needs –, the eyes and life. In themselves they are not sinful, but due to the fall of man they became instruments of sin. These are the three aspects of your being as a human, aspects that determine your personality. The ranking in which John puts these aspects is the same as with Eve ( ), but contrary to the ranking God uses ( ). Eve sees that the tree 1. is good for food ; 2. is a delight to the eyes ; 3. is desirable to make one wise . Since the fall of man, the body became an idol. The lust of the flesh started to be predominant. Linked to that is the lust of the eyes. Advertising for instance is focused on the eye. The product, whatever it may be, stirs up the lust for it, which is dormant present in you. What comes through the eye to you, penetrates much deeper in you than what you hear. As soon as the eyes are captivated by the product, something you of course seem to need to be happy, you become obsessed with it. In the meantime you have been totally swallowed by the world and totally separated from God. Pride has made you a prisoner. Pride appears from your willfulness and probably even your irrepressible efforts to get what is presented to you. . The pursuit of the world is temporary, it cannot stand. Opposite to that is doing “the will of God”. If you put your mind to that, you are doing something that does not pass away, but something that “lives forever”. By pursuing this you prove that you are born of God. John therefore says that “the one who does the will of God lives forever”. Is it hard to choose? Now read 1 John 2:12-17 again. Reflection: Where are the dangers for you in closing yourself off to the Father’s love?