Doubt

How does a Christian deal with doubt? Although there are many causes for it, there is only one answer. It is by knowledge. The Christian must simply take himself in hand and confront himself with what he knows to be true concerning God and God’s work in his life. In other words, faith (which is the opposite of doubt), being based on knowledge, must be fed by it. This is the point that John develops at the close of this third chapter.

Yesterday, we looked at the most common meaning of peithein, which is “to convince” or “to persuade.” Today we begin by looking at another meaning.

There is a second truth which we may also use to reassure our hearts. The first by its very nature was related to ourselves specifically; it had to do with God’s specific work in our own individual life. The second is more general in that it refers in equal measure to all who are God’s children. It is simply that whatever our hearts may say, God knows us better than even we ourselves do and nevertheless has acquitted us. Therefore, we should reassure ourselves by His judgment, which alone is trustworthy, and refuse to trust our own.

The first advantage of an uncondemning heart is what John calls “confidence before God.” This must be understood, not in the sense of confidence of things in general, but in the sense of confidence of one’s standing before God and therefore of access to Him. The Greek phrase literally says, “confidence toward God,” meaning that confidence by which we turn toward Him trustingly. It is one fruit of justification in the Christian life (Rom. 5:2).

In the last verse of chapter three, John introduces two new ideas into the letter, neither of which has even been suggested up to this time. He mentions the idea of a mutual abiding, of Christ in the Christian and of the Christian in Christ; and he mentions the Holy Spirit, through whom the abiding is effected. Because of the development to come in chapter five, the idea of the witness of the Holy Spirit is the more important of the two new concepts.