Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3161
“We know…And we know…And we know.” 1 John 5:18-20.
IT is remarkable how throughout the whole of John’s Epistle he continually uses the word, “know.” It has quite refreshed me to carefully read through the Epistle and to observe how, as the clock strikes the same note again and again, John seems to have kept to this monotone—“We know, we know, we know.” In this age, when it is fashionable not to know anything, when the professedly learned would hold us in a state of perpetual doubt and our great poet tells us that there is more faith in honest doubt than in half the creeds—and everybody seems to be bewitched with what is called “modern thought”—it is quite cheering to one’s ears and delicious to one’s heart to hear the bell strike out again and again, “We know, we know, we know”! After all, there is something certain somewhere, some grip for our anchor, some foundation to build our eternal hopes upon—something that can be trusted, something besides cloud and will-o’-the wisps! “We know, we know, we know.” Take your pencils and read through this first Epistle of John and underline the word, “know,” and you will feel the force of our remark. Look at the second Chapter—“Hereby we do know that we know Him.” “He that says I know Him.” “Hereby know we that we are in Him.” In the 13th verse we read, “Because you have known Him.” “I write unto you, little children, because you have known the Father. I have written unto you, fathers, because you have known Him that is from the beginning.” “We have an unction from the Holy One and you know all things.” “I have not written unto you because you know not the Truth, but because you, knowi t, and that no lie is of the Truth.” And so in the third Chapter, verse after verse. “The world knows us not, because it knew Him not.” “We know that when He shall appear, we shall be like He, for we shall see Him as He is.” The fifth verse “You know that He was manifested to take away our sin.” And so it is—on, on, on, all through the Chapter—“we know,” “you know,” and “they know.”
And why is this? It seems to me, first, that John had the echo of his Master’s words ringing in his ears. He laid his head upon his Master’s bosom and caught his Master’s spirit. Yes, more—his Master’s thoughts! Yes, more—his Master’s very words! Continually as you read John’s first Epistle you are reminded of passages in his Gospel. The Epistle seems to be the essential extract of this Gospel. John, the Beloved of Jesus, reproduces his Master more fully than any other Apostle. Listen to the Master’s words in the 14th Chapter of John, fourth verse—“I go to prepare a place for you. And where I go you know, and the way you know. Thomas said unto Him, Lord, we know not where you go, and how can we know the way?” (Seventh verse)—“If you had known Me, you should have known My Father also; and from henceforth you know Him and have seen Him.” Hear how the know rings out! Again, attend to our Lord’s prayer in the 17th Chapter of John—“Now they have known that all things whatever You have given Me are of You.” “They have known s urely that I came out from You.” “O righteous Father the world has not known You: but I have known You, and these have known that You have sent Me.” The words of Jesus had so fastened upon John’s mind and had so deeply impressed his heart, that when his soul needed words, it caught at those which had rooted themselves so firmly among the most happy memories of his life! I attribute the preponderance of the word, “know,” which constitutes itself an idiom in the Epistle, to the fact that the expressions of the Master had been treasured up by the servant.
Furthermore, John is one in whom we see very little of mental conflict. Thomas had brain in excess of heart and hence he had his doubts, and exclaimed, “Except I put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe.” By-and-by he became a grand believer and, indeed, a very leader in true Doctrine, for he was the
first that ever inferred the Deity of Christ from His wounds when, looking at the scars, he said, “My Lord and my God.” John was too intimate with Christ to doubt. And he had too much heart to be a questioner, too much of earnest, intense, loving life to be subject to those diseases which spring from preponderance of intellect over affection. His soul was, like his Lord’s, on fire with Divine Love, and it burnt up the chaff of doubt too rapidly for it even to have seemed to be there! It had only to be scattered over the flame to vanish at once. It is very beautiful to notice how positive John is in his writing. I like the commencement of his Epistle—it is so different from the wavering talk which we hear now-a-days! He begins thus, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon (that is, intensely gazed upon) and our hands have handled of the Word of Life; that which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that you also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.” Is not this true “positivism”? Where will you find it if you do not find it here? Speak of dogmatism! Here is dogmatic teaching, indeed! He does not hesitate, or fear, or doubt for one moment! His evidence is too sure and his conviction too firm! And hence it is that he rings out that bell so, clearly, “We know, we know, we know.”