by Lloyd T. Anderson Pastor, Bethany Baptist Church West Covina, California upon the earth, and the ministry of the truth through them, by the Holy Spirit’s power, restrains the full manifestation of human wickedness and opposition to God. But when the Church is gone, “that wicked one (the word is really ‘lawless one’) shall be revealed — II Thessalonians 2:8 — whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.” Praise God, Christians already now are in a large measure delivered from this attitude of de fiance and disobedience to God and His Word, for the Lord Jesus gave Himself for us that “He might re deem us from all iniquity (again the word is ‘lawlessness’), and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zeal ous of good works”—Titus 2:14. But, as verse 5 now tells us, in Christ our Lord is no sin, no lawless ness. Only of Him has this always been true. Praise God, some day it shall also be true of us! As we have already considered, we shall be ab solutely like Him at the time when He comes for us to receive us to Himself. But with Him it was ever so. There was no lawlessness, no in subjection to God, in Him. He came to do the Father’s will. Only over Him could the Father open the heav ens and say: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The Lord could say, “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.” John in his Gospel frequently speaks of that, of the devotedness of the Lord Jesus in every step He trod. Adam became disobedient unto death; Christ was obedient unto death. His obedience went right on to the bitter end, to the death of the cross. He was mani fested, as our verse says, to take
StudisA in I JOHN
T he A uthor ized V ersion gives quite a wrong conception of the exact truth revealed in verse 4. It is not that sin is the transgression of the law. No, that is merely one of the manifestations of sin. Because sin resides in man, therefore he breaks the law of God; he trans gresses. As has often been said, man sins because he is a sinner; he is not a sinner because he sins. Verse 4 gives the divine definition of what sin is — what it really is. It sums up that mighty and evil force very clear ly and concisely by stating that sin is lawlessness. Sin is not what a man does, but what he is. Whosoever do- eth, or practiseth, sin practiseth law- lesness, for sin is lawlessness. Man breaks God’s law, because he is a lawless being. He does not want any one to rule over him, but prefers to do that which is right in his own eyes. There is that in every natural man that resents authority. It is be cause of this that God put man under law, in order to bring out this evil tendency and thus to convict man of his sinful condition. Adam was put under but one law, and he broke that; Israel was put under ten com mandments, and that nation, as well as all men ever since, have broken those commandments. Instead of be ing subject to God’s will, and His will is good, acceptable, and perfect, man wants to, and does, exercise his own will. Lawlessness increases as the days go by. In these latter days it is becoming increasingly manifest by the bold defiance of all God’s right eous claims upon man. This apostate attitude is called in II Thessalonians 2:7, “the mystery of lawlessness” (the word “iniquity” in the A.V. is the Greek word for lawlessness). At present, the presence of Christians 30
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker