Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Prayer Meeting Lesson Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/pm/pm20120208.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
1 John: True, Fulfilling Fellowship With God
Part XIX: Identifying True Fellowship With God By Its Separation From The World And Its Idols
(1 John 5:18-21)
  1. Introduction
    1. One way true fellowship is identified is by its total separation not only from sin in the spiritual realm, but also from its resulting separation from the realm of sin in the world system around the believer.
    2. 1 John 5:18-21 dwells on this truth, and calls the believer to action resulting it (as follows):
  2. Identifying True Fellowship With God By Its Separation From The World And Its Idols.
    1. 1 John 5:18-21 lays out positional truths about the believer and his separation from the evil around him:
      1. Positionally, "we know" the believer's new nature in Christ is totally separate from sin, 1 Jn. 5:18:
        1. We know the believer's new nature is immune to sin, 1 John 5:18a: (1) Though some hold that the phrase "whosoever is born of God sinneth not" (KJV) and "he that is begotten of God keepeth himself" (KJV) refer to Christ, "John nowhere else referred to Christ in this way," Bible Know. Com., N. T., p. 903. (2) John "was still writing about regenerate people" (Ibid.), so he here restated the truth of 1 John 3:9 that the believer's new nature "is fundamentally impervious to sin," Ibid.
        2. We thus also know that the believer's new nature is untouchable by Satan, 1 John 5:18b: (1) if the believer's new nature is impervious to sin, is it also impervious to "the evil [one]" (1 John 5:18b NIV), to Satan. (2) This has a blessed application, that the believer can not be indwelt by Satan or his demons so that they might control the new nature: though the believer can be tempted to sin and so be influenced externally by the Evil One, he can not be indwelt and controlled by Satan!
      2. Positionally, "we know" that the believer's new nature is of God, but in great spiritual contrast, that the whole world system around us is under the control of Satan, 1 John 5:19a,b: (1) the word for "lieth" (KJV) is from the Greek word, "keimai," meaning "recline," is followed by the prepositional phrase, "in the evil [one]," U. B. S. Greek N. T. , 1966, p. 825; Theol. Dict. of the N. T., vol. III, p. 654. (2) This means the whole world system is in a relaxed mode, reclining in the arms or power of Satan, a catastrophically dangerous state for the world from which the believer has been positionally removed! (3) It also implies that Satan's current effort is so to placate the world that it becomes appealing even to the believer, that the believer might befriend it and so be influenced by Satan to live in sin and spiritual defeat. (4) Indeed, Moulton & Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek N. T., 1972, p. 339, claims the vernacular use of the Koine Greek in the Early Church era used keimai in 1 John 5:19 to mean "living" or "depends on" to reflect Satan as the source of the world system's livelihood.
      3. Positionally, "we know" the Son of God is come, and has given us an understanding that we may know The True God, and we are in that True God in His Son, Jesus Christ, and thus have eternal life, 1 John 5:20. In the context of 1 John 5:18-19, 1 John 5:20 means that, opposite the deception and danger posed to the world by Satan, we believers in Christ have positionally been given an understanding to know the True God verses false gods, including Satan, the false god of this world, 2 Corinthians 4:3-4.
    2. Accordingly, IF "we know" that (1) we positionally have a new nature that is totally immune to sin, and which is also untouchable to Satan, and (2) our new nature is of God, but the whole world system is under the control of Satan, and (3) the Son of God, Jesus Christ has come that we might know the True God and so have eternal life, THEN (4) we are experientially called of God to keep ourselves from the false gods of this world system so controlled by Satan and so infected with sin, 1 John 5:21!
Lesson: If we believers in Christ are positionally immune in our new nature to sin and untouchable by Satan though the whole world system is dependent for its livelihood upon Satan, and if Christ has come and given us an understanding that we might know the True God versus the false gods of this world and Satan, the god of this world, we experientially should keep ourselves from depending on the false idols of the world system around us, including the false god Satan, that we might enjoy God's blessing!

Application: May we keep ourselves from false gods and rely only on and worship only the true God, meaning in particular, may we keep ourselves from anything that replaces God for our fulfillment.