In this message we will continue to consider aspects of Christ as our life and victory and then go on to see Christ as the source of mercy, grace, and peace.
First John 5:20-21 says, “We know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding that we might know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Little children, guard yourselves from idols.” Christ has come and has given us an understanding that we may know the true God and be in the true God, that is, in Him who is the true God and eternal life. The Son is the Father (Isa. 9:6), and the Son of God is God (Heb. 1:8). Therefore, the expressions Him who is true and the true God in 1 John 5:20 refer to the Divine Trinity. The Triune God is both the true God and eternal life, and now we may enjoy Him as the true God and eternal life.
The word come in verse 20 indicates that the Son of God has come through incarnation to bring God to us as grace and reality (John 1:14) that we may have the divine life, as revealed in John’s Gospel, to partake of God as love and light, as unveiled in this Epistle.
In 1 John 5:20, John says that the Son of God has given us an understanding so that we may know Him who is true, the true One. This understanding is the faculty of our mind enlightened and empowered by the Spirit of reality (John 16:12-15) to apprehend the divine reality in our regenerated spirit. In 1 John 5:20 to “know” is the ability of the divine life to know the true God (John 17:3) in our regenerated spirit (Eph. 1:17) through our renewed mind, enlightened by the Spirit of reality.
The understanding mentioned in 1 John 5:20 involves our mind, our spirit, and the Spirit of reality. According to our natural being, our spirit is deadened, and our mind is darkened. Hence, in our natural being we do not have the ability to know God. It is impossible for a person with a deadened spirit and a darkened mind to know the invisible God.
The Lord Jesus, the Son of God, has come and has given us an understanding that we might know the genuine and real God. He has come to us by the steps of incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection. He accomplished redemption for us, and when we repented and believed in Him, we received Him. Now that we have believed in and received Him, our sins have been forgiven, our darkened mind has been enlightened, and our deadened spirit has been enlivened. Furthermore, the Spirit of reality, who is the Spirit of revelation, has come into our being. This means that the Spirit of reality has been added to our enlivened spirit and has shined into our mind to enlighten it. Now we have an enlightened mind and an enlivened spirit with the Spirit of reality, who reveals spiritual reality to us. As a result, we surely have an understanding and are able to know the true One. Before we were saved, we did not have this understanding, but the Son of God has come to us and has given us this understanding so that we may know God. This understanding includes our enlightened mind, our enlivened spirit, and the revealing Spirit of reality.
In John 17:2 and 3 we see that eternal life has the ability to know God: “Even as You have given Him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom You have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Him whom You have sent, Jesus Christ.” Eternal life is the divine life with a special function—to know God. In order to know God, the divine person, we need the divine life.
Because we as believers have been born of the divine life, we are able to know God. In order to know a certain living thing, a person needs to have the life of that thing. For example, a dog cannot know human beings, because a dog does not have a human life. It takes human life to know human beings. The principle is the same with knowing God. The life of God is certainly able to know God. Therefore, the life of God, which has been given to us, has the ability to know God and the things of God.
In 1 John 5:20 John speaks of knowing the true One. Here the word know actually means “experience, enjoy, and possess.” Therefore, to know the true One is to experience, enjoy, and possess the true One. In this universe only God Himself is the true One. We need God’s life in order to experience, enjoy, and possess Him.
John in verse 20 speaks twice of “Him who is true.” Another translation would be “the true One.” To speak of God simply as God may be to speak in a rather objective way. However, the term the true One is subjective; it refers to God becoming subjective to us. In this verse the God who is objective becomes the true One in our life and experience.
What is the meaning of the expression the true One? In particular, what does the word true mean? Here the Greek word translated “true” is alethinos, meaning “genuine, real” (an adjective akin to aletheia, “truth, verity, reality”—John 1:14; 14:6, 17), the opposite of false and counterfeit. Actually, the true One is the reality. The Son of God has given us an understanding so that we may know—that is, experience, enjoy, and possess—this divine reality. Therefore, to know the true One means to know the reality by experiencing, enjoying, and possessing this reality.
First John 5:20 indicates that God has become our reality in our experience. The Son of God has come through incarnation, death, and resurrection and has given us an understanding so that we may experience, enjoy, and possess the reality, which is God Himself. Now the God who was once objective to us has become our subjective reality.