Confident and Unashamed

 

DEVOTION

THE 1^ST LETTER OF JOHN

CONFIDENT AND UNASHAMED

 1 John 2:28-29

28 And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming. 29 If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him.

NIV

This is John’s concluding statement in his letter. Although we know he wrote additional letters, at this point neither John nor the readers of his first letter had any thoughts about his writing further letters. So in his closing thoughts, he once again makes the point about remaining in Christ by telling them and us to continue in him. If we continue to remain in Christ, that is not get distracted by false teaching, but remain to the fact that we are saved by grace when Jesus appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming. John recalls what Jesus said to Nicodemus about being born again, or as John puts it, born of him. Except John also indicates that because we know Jesus is righteous, that is he is our righteousness, we know that everyone who does what is right is born of him. What exactly does John mean about doing what is right? All too often we take the English words written as a meaning, even some of our scholars of old are guilty of that mistake in making their commentary on the word. In the Greek Interlinear, we find a more accurate meaning to what John is saying. It reads if we know he is righteous, or holy then whoever is justified is born of him. That is we are saved by grace, not because we do the right thing because we cannot do the right thing. The danger is in putting emphasis on our obedience, consecration, and our dedication to make us right with God. It is never that. We are made right with God because before all that, Christ died. John is reminding them there are those false doctrines promoted by false teachers, whether it was the stoics, the epicureans, or the Judaizers, they all had some ritual or rules to live by rather than salvation by faith. We are justified through faith in Jesus, which is what makes us right with God, or what is doing right which means we are born of him. Doing the right thing is believing in Jesus. That is truly the only thing we can do right in the fullest sense. Yes, there is an effect in our lives because we believe, but it is not this effect that makes us right before God. Even repentance does not make us right before God, only the sacrifice of Jesus does that. So then what we know is that we must remain in our faith in Jesus for our lives. If we get distracted by other doctrines, or on our acts of righteousness, our devotion, our obedience, or adherence to what we think are acts of good Christian living, we might just be ashamed of ourselves at his appearing. It is only in our believing in Jesus, in his act of righteousness on our behalf that we are saved and our being confident and unashamed at his appearing.