The Apostle John in the third chapter of his Gospel describes a scene between Jesus and Nicodemus. In their conversation, Jesus makes some statements that are difficult for Nicodemus to understand. The most challenging to him is probably the way that Jesus says we must enter the kingdom of God. Whoever wants to enter the kingdom of God must be born again. This throws Nicodemus into confusion: how can a man be born again when he is old? It seems like an absurd statement. But Jesus patiently explains that he is speaking not of a fleshly rebirth but of a spiritual rebirth. It is the spiritual rebirth that grants eternal life, and it stems from a love God has for the world.

In the reading from the Apostle John’s First Epistle he again teaches about being born- being born of God. Throughout First John he gives evidence and examples of the one who truly knows God and is born of God. These verses from Chapter 5 give two: The Triune God testifies that you are born of God- 1. Since you overcome the world by faith. And 2. Since you have the Son.

This first letter of John was directed at some kind of false teaching that was being spread very early on. Church history identifies John’s opponent as a man named Cerinthus. He was what was called a Gnostic- from the Greek word for knowledge. And for Cerinthus and his followers knowledge of God was most important, but a secret knowledge revealed only to him and a select few. In John’s letter knowledge of God comes up again and again. He sharply contrasts true knowledge of God from the false Gnostic “knowledge”. Cerinthus’ Gnostic god was not the triune God. He said that Jesus was just a very spiritual man, and at his Baptism the real spiritual Christ came down, but left before his crucifixion. It would not be fitting for God to suffer and die as true flesh for Cerinthus’ knowledge of God.

John refutes this idea – Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. In other words, Jesus and Christ are not two different persons, but one person. To be born again is to have faith in the Man Jesus who is indeed God.

Cerinthus and his followers would likely have been very loud about their love for God. What was lacking was love for his children. Here John uses a clear logical connection- if you love God, then you surely love the Son, and also his Sons, your fellow believers! Consider how many people have had childhood friends simply because your parents are friends. Even in human relationships the affection and love transfers down to the offspring. How much more so for those born of God!

Cerinthus had a knowledge divorced from love. Cerinthus may be dead and gone, but his temptation remains to this day. Is love for God, love for Jesus which means that you have been born of God, being evidenced among us? That’s a question worth asking ourselves all the time. The Holy Spirit works out in our lives through the love we have for each other. As I was considering this question I can pretty confidently say that this is being done among us. I do see a love for God’s children all the time. And other people notice that. I noticed that someone who came to the funeral for John Post last week left a Google review and said She was impressed with the way they took care of one our own- referring to Sharon. When we examine our lives of Christian love the goal is of course not to be anxious over whether we have done enough. Its simply a fact that you do love God and his children because you have been born of God- The new man which Christ raised to life in you has nothing but love for Christ and desires nothing other than God’s will.

The love of God and the love of God’s children is not a love that is divorced from knowledge either. “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commands, and his commands are not heavy.” Having love without knowledge of God might seem like the opposite of Cerinthus’ error at first. But it is really is just the same. Take for example some of the cultural expressions of “love” so common today- June is now pride month every year. It celebrates what people claim to be love. “Love is Love” – meaning that love can be expressed in any way that a person chooses and it is equally valid and even a good thing. Even Christians are promoting this- evidenced by the rainbow flags flying on so many churches. But the god of pride month, which affirms such acts, is not the Triune God revealed in Scripture. It’s a god dreamed up by man, no less than Cerinthus’ gnostic god. And the reality of course is that such acts are not love simply because you say that they are. Love is defined quite clearly as keeping God’s commands. Love is promoting destructive sin done with our own bodies or with others.

We too must guard ourselves against a dreamed up God. How easy it is for us to imagine ways to circumvent God’s commands by saying, well doesn’t God want me to be happy? Does God really expect me to go through hardships for the sake of faith in Jesus? Or other such imagined Christs we can come up with from our sinful flesh.

You know very well that Jesus calls us to pick up our own crosses and follow him. Sometimes that means standing against the world. John says much the same thing- Everyone born of God overcomes the world, conquers the world. The world as John uses the word is everything and everyone outside of God’s Kingdom, everyone opposed to it in fact. The world is our enemy. As the place we live becomes more and more worldly, it means that you are going to start looking more and more strange to it. One example I recently came across studying for Bible study was a technology being developed which gave options for parents using IVF to select for the embryo with the traits they want for their child. Of course, the other embryo’s, really simply undeveloped children, are discarded. Is it too wild and out there to imagine a world where everyone is doing that? Where the next generation is taken into human hands? Where Christians are looked at the same way you might look at the Amish today who don’t use cars, because you won’t use Genetic engineering for your children?

John says we overcome the world by faith. Faith is another one of those words used all the time in the world. There are “faith-based” charities, and non-profits, and various “faith communities”. Sometimes faith itself is seen as the important thing. But John explains very clearly that the object of faith is the important thing. The faith that conquers is a belief that Jesus is the Son of God. It’s a belief in the God that reveals himself in Scripture in the person of Jesus Christ. The faith of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and so on is not a faith that conquers. And it’s a valid question- do we see other faiths conquering the real problems? Or is it a faith that accommodates to the world?

So the Triune God testifies that you are born of God in that you have overcome the world by faith. But the most sure and certain Testimony is not in what you do but in what God has done in Christ. Where do you go when doubt is creeping in? Not to yourself but to the external Testimony of the Triune God- since you have the Son!

This is the one coming through water and blood Jesus Christ. John identifies exactly who he’s talking about, not a dreamed up Jesus, not a Christ who is merely spiritual who came down at Jesus’ baptism but then left, but Jesus the God-man who came through water and blood. John refers to several things all at once here. Jesus was Baptized himself. Jesus now comes to us through the water of our own baptisms. Jesus came also in blood. Blood often refers to Jesus’ suffering and death. (This was the issue Cerinthus had, how can God suffer and die?). And Jesus comes to us now through blood at the Supper.

These three testify that you are born of God- The Spirit, the Water and the Blood, and these three are one. The Spirit of course comes through the Word of God to us. But these things, The preaching of the Word, Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper are never to be set against each other. They are one. They all testify. Testimony in this context is nothing other than proclaiming what God wants us to know. In these things which only the Triune God has instituted, he proclaims everything we need for salvation. In the Word, He gives us the Law which reveals our sins, and the Gospel which gives us Jesus who died for us. In Baptism he washes those sins and makes us his Children. And in the Supper he feeds and sustains us with his own body and blood .

John says we receive the testimony of man but the Testimony of God is greater. He is using courtroom language here. Eyewitness testimony is used to make judgments in that place. You can consider the works done in faith as the testimony of man. There’s some value in that, no question. But the certainty comes from the Triune God. And always the key for us is in verse 12: The one having the Son has life. On Trinity Sunday we confess our faith in A God we can’t fully grasp. It is the mystery of the trinity, after all. The God who is above and beyond us totally has not come to us bare, as Luther was fond of describing it. He comes to us clothed in flesh. You have the Son, because he has been given to you. God’s Testimony is true and without doubt -You Have the Son and you have life! Amen.