[AI translation] Yesterday, as I was reading this Word in the quiet of the morning, I said to the Spirit who was leaning over the Bible with me: this is a statement of immense magnitude, one is almost dizzy to take seriously what is written here, that "all that is born of God overcomes the world; and the victory that overcomes the world is our faith." 1 John 5:4.There is an air of freedom, of transcending all the filth, cares and sorrows of the world, so pure and so exalted in this statement that we almost sigh: How good it would be to ascend here, to breathe in this pure, heavenly air, to fill our tired, weary, worried, sad souls with it! How good it would be to live with such triumphant faith in this wretched world! Is not what we are saying here an exaggeration? Is there such victory over the world? For that is what every human soul longs for, consciously or unconsciously! This is what a patient somewhere in a hospital bed longs for when he sighs to himself on sleepless nights: 'Oh, that I could be healthy again, and not have to see the fever chart and the doctor's worried look before me again and again! This is what the woman who suffers from an insoluble marital tragedy longs for, and ponders: 'Why can't I be happy like so many other people? This is what the soul is looking for, suffering from itself, - but not knowing it, - plagued by problems, crumbling under the weight of its sins, wanting to be free, but not knowing how. Or the one who struggles with the great questions of our time and sees no way out, only more and more entanglement! A thousand and one forms, but always the same desire: if only there was a solution, a way out, a way out, a way of liberation, a way of victory!
And behold, God declares in our Word: "whatever is born of God overcomes the world, and the victory that overcomes the world is our faith". So let us understand it well: faith triumphs over the world! Faith, then, has a great deal to do with the world and all its problems! So faith is not something that lives in a spiritual sphere far removed from earthly life and its needs. It is not, therefore, a Sunday faith or a church faith, which has nothing to do with what occupies man from day to day, from hour to hour. Of course, there are such beliefs detached from earthly life, and the trouble is that most people separate the life of faith from the life of the worldly. He thinks that faith is only necessary for the affairs of the hereafter, but as soon as it comes to earthly matters, to the problems of everyday life, he believes that it is not faith that is needed, but reflection, intelligence, skill, cunning or money! If there is such a faith, as unfortunately there is, the apostle does not say that it will overcome the world. The apostle's faith is a faith that really has to do with the world, that is, with all that oppresses and torments men in the depths of life. The apostle's faith does not leave this world, it does not say that I am happy on high, it is only interested in the eternity to come, and has nothing to do with the world and its miseries down there in the depths! This faith of which the apostle speaks sees his battlefield in the world, and knows that it is here that he must fight his battles and win his victory. Not cut out of the world, but living in the world is true faith!
Then the Apostle John further defines the true faith that overcomes the world. He knows very well the misery in which this world and we ourselves are caught up in it. He is well aware of how the poison of sin and death has entered into the body of the world and has permeated every fibre and particle of its fabric. That is why he does not say that any faith is victory, but that it is our faith! And he immediately explains what he means by it. "Who is he that overcometh the world?" he asks, and immediately answers, "he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God." So that's the important thing. Once again, it is not just any respectable faith that will triumph over the miseries of the world, but only the faith that can say that Jesus is the Son of God, that is, the Saviour, that Jesus is the Redeemer! This is our faith, the condensed content of the Christian faith.
Faith, however strong, in God, who creates the world, who governs the world, who hears prayers and cares for the world, is no different from the pagan faith of primitive peoples. Your faith becomes specifically Christian when you recognise in Jesus the Son of God, the Saviour! Precisely for your faith, how you think about Jesus, what, or rather who, you consider Him to be, and what your relationship with Him is, is not irrelevant, but very crucial. Not with God in general, but with the Lord God who revealed Himself in the person of Jesus.
For a great many churchgoers, the relationship with Jesus is an unresolved issue. In fact, I have heard complaints more than once as to why priests today talk so much about Jesus! They always put Him before the faithful, neglecting the Lord God! Our fathers did not preach like that in the old days! Well, it doesn't matter if one considers Jesus of Nazareth to be the Son of God or not, one can still be a very good Christian. Deciding who Jesus was, what difference does it make to a person's life, their real, everyday life? The main thing is to believe in God! Well, that is not the faith the apostle is talking about. Such faith really has little to do with real life. It is victory over the world only if it is faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour and Son of God!
Son of God! Let us not think of this relationship as that between father and son on earth! We are not talking about two deities, but one! Jesus is the Son of God, that is, the image, the appearance, the personification of God, the Holy Spirit is the visible manifestation of God speaking in human language! God's intervention from the superspace and supertemporal reality of eternity into the space and time of the earth. The Son of God, the One of whom the Bible says: "In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" Col 2,9. And this means that God is not the unknown Someone enthroned on a distant height that we often think of, much less some idea or philosophical concept that can be anticipated and set aside, but a living, acting, here-and-now power! The person of Jesus is God's reaching into the world, God's working love and grace here on earth, Jesus of Nazareth is the Helper of the Heavenly Father on earth, through whom He seeks and keeps what is lost.
Perhaps this is how we can understand the immense significance of the fact that this Jesus shared with us all the forms of our earthly destiny: from birth to suffering to death. It is in this way that he has filled every conceivable turn, stage, condition of human destiny, from birth to death, with the presence of God! There is therefore no tribulation in which God has not been present! There is no sin that He cannot and will not forgive, no suffering that He Himself has not experienced! There is no temptation He has not known, no death He has not conquered! For Jesus not only took upon Himself all our afflictions, bore all our sicknesses, suffered for all our sins, but He remained victorious in all things, and filled them all with His divine victory! So, in Jesus, His Son, God has made all the problems of our lives, all our human affairs, His own. This is the victory the apostle is talking about when he says that our faith is in Jesus, His Son! This is the victory that has convinced the world!
Faith in the victorious Jesus is itself a victory over the world, because this faith is the assurance that God is alive and I am His child! He has adopted me, accepted me: in life and in death, I am His! Let us now think again of the hospital patient, the woman in agony, the one struggling with her sins, the one seeking a way out, the burdened and weary! If Jesus is indeed the Son of God, then one thing is certain: all these people are not alone, forgotten and abandoned in their bitterness, because the hand of God, in the person of Jesus Christ, reached out to them long ago. In Jesus, the mighty God has become their brother, and the eyes of this divine brother, the divine companion, are upon us. He has seen them and accepted them as they are, in their own misery. The need, the sickness, the problem, the death they are struggling with is not indifferent to God. Even in the most desperate situation, they can say with confidence: I am accepted in God's eternal plan and mind, He, my Lord and Father, wants good for me, I can entrust my destiny to Him! This faith is full of blessed, precious victories, because suffering and misery itself, my whole destiny, is saturated with God's love and mercy! Yes, "the victory that has overcome the world is our faith". It is the faith that: Jesus is the Son of God; Jesus Christ overcame the world; in Him, in His life, death and resurrection, it was made manifest, it was made certain, that God's plan and omnipotence could not be disturbed by sin, could not be thwarted by Satan. In the person of Jesus, the miracle of God's making this world harmless to death. substance and I read somewhere about a little girl who, when she was playing in the garden, was surrounded by a large hornet. The frightened child was picked up and held in the arms of her mother. The wasp continued to buzz around them, but her mother encouraged her: 'Don't be afraid, my little girl, it won't hurt you, it won't hurt you. The wasp finally stung the mother instead of the little girl, injecting its venom into her. It really didn't hurt the little girl, she really didn't have to be afraid of it anymore. This world also injected its own deadly poison into the Lord Jesus on the cross. He who flees into the arms of the Lord Jesus is no longer hurt, he has nothing to fear. A wonderful consolation! How true is the Scripture, "Death, where is your sting?" (1 Corinthians 15:55). For Someone has suffered the death-bite for us! Someone in whose body the poison was deadly! And in doing so, he broke the power of sin. No more poison fangs. Even if this world surrounds and frightens us with its problems, its torments, its temptations, its terrors, it can no longer harm those who flee into the open arms of Jesus! No, because the power of poison was caught by His body on the cross. Jesus has triumphed by taking upon Himself and suffering the judgment of this world. And that means that anyone who believes in the Son of God can live in peace in a world defeated, detoxified, made harmless and safe by Jesus!
Do you see why it is so important to believe in Jesus Christ? Faith is precisely to look to Jesus, taking our eyes off ourselves and our own misery, weakness and problems! This is how our faith becomes a victory that has already convinced the world! Now let the word of Jesus reach your heart: you, soul! I am your Saviour, believe me! Trust, I have convinced the world! No one can snatch my sheep out of my hand! Nor you! Fear not the world, look not to the perils, but to me, the Crucified and Risen One! In me you will find rest! Look to him, your Savior, for you know him from the Scriptures, dare to say now: since you came to be the Comforter and Salvation of all the poor and miserable, you are my Comforter and Salvation! Since you call to yourself all who are weary and burdened, behold, I come to you! Here I am, I am yours! I know that you accept me. Thank you for accepting me as I am!
Amen.
Date: 26 September 1948.
Lesson
1Jn 5,1-5