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This is very solemn. John says that some who had made a profession of being Christians in that day had all the outward trappings of being Christians. They bore the Christian name, and they identified themselves with some local assembly, some church. They were baptized, immersed, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They took the bread and the cup at the communion service. But John says that the way you can tell whether or not one is really a child of God is that eventually a man will show his true colors and will leave the assembly of God if he is not a child of God. He will withdraw from the Christians, the body of believers, and he will go right back into the world.

We see in 2 Peter what I call “the parable of the prodigal pig.” Peter speaks in that epistle of “… the sow that was washed …” (2 Pet. 2:22). Not only did a son get down in the pigpen, but also a little pig got washed. A little girl pig went up to the Father’s house, became very religious, got all cleaned up with a pink bow around her neck and her teeth washed with Pepsodent, but she found she didn’t like the Father’s house because she was a pig. So one day she said, “I’m going to arise and go to my father, my old man.” Her old man was down in a big loblolly of mud. The little pig went home, and when she saw her old man, she squealed, made a leap, and landed in the mud right by the side of him. Why? Because she was a pig. “They went out from us, but they were not of us.” That’s a harsh, cruel statement, but it happens to be a true statement. There are many who make professions of being Christians, but they are not really Christians.

Remember that the Lord said of Judas, “But, behold, the hand of him that betrayeth me is with me on the table” (Luke 22:21). Right there, at the first communion service, there was a traitor, Judas Iscariot, and he was one who was identified with the group of faithful disciples. We read in John 6:70, “Jesus answered them, Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a demon?” Judas was never anything else although he looked like an apostle, he acted like an apostle, and he had power, I believe, to perform miracles. He went out with the others, and they were not able to identify him as being a phony, but he was.

John makes a very solemn and serious statement here, and he makes this statement to us today. The Lord Jesus said to a very religious man, Nicodemus, that he must be born again. He said to him that night, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). John says here, “They went out from us, but they were not of us.” They looked as if they were true children of God, but they actually were not, and the real test, of course, was the Word of God. This ought to cause every Christian, including this poor preacher who writes this, to ask himself the question: Have I really faced up to my sins in the light of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ? Have I come to God in repentance, owning my guilt and acknowledging my iniquity? Have I cast myself upon Him and Him only for my salvation? Have I evidence in my life of being a regenerate soul of God? Do I love the Word of God? Do I want the Word of God? Is it bread to me? Is it meat to me? Is it drink to me? Do I love the brethren? And do I love the Lord Jesus Christ? These are the things which we need to consider, my friends, and the Word of God enjoins us in this particular connection.

After presenting justification by faith in no uncertain terms, Paul goes on to make it clear in Galatians 6:15, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.” You cannot even boast of the grace of God and say, “Oh, I don’t trust in church membership. I don’t trust in baptism.” Well, whether or not you believe they are necessary for your salvation, the essential question is: Have you really been born again? Or, perhaps you are one who is trusting in these things. Again the important question is: Are you a new creation in Christ Jesus?

Paul spoke to the Corinthians, some of whom had reason to believe they might not be children of God: “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” (2 Cor. 13:5). My friend, it is very important that you really know that you are a child of God. Paul also wrote earlier to the believers in Corinth, “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong” (1 Cor. 16:13). Friend, how are you doing with the Christian life? Are you really a child of God today? Is there evidence in your life that you are a child of God? I’m not talking about whether you have committed a sin or not, but what did you do after you committed the sin? Did you continue on in sin? The prodigal son got into a pigpen, but he did not continue there—that was not his permanent address. If you had mailed him a letter after he had been there a few weeks or months, unless the pigs had forwarded it, he wouldn’t have gotten your letter. That was no longer his address; he had gone home. The child of God, after he has sinned, is going to go to God with hot tears coursing down his cheeks and crying out to Him in confession. If he doesn’t do that, he’s not God’s child.

God’s child must hate sin. This light view of sin which we have today is simply something that is not quite scriptural. I am afraid that there are many church members who are just taking it for granted that they are children of God because they are as active as termites in the church—and they have just about the same effect as termites.

Let me pass this little story on to you. I have heard it told several different ways, and I don’t know which way is accurate. Years ago in London, living down in the slums, there was a woman of the underworld, a prostitute. She had a little son, and she became terribly sick. She was frightened because she knew she was dying, and she sent her little son to get a minister, as she put it, “to get me in.” She told the little fellow, “You go get a minister to get me in.”

The little fellow went out looking for a church. He had to go a long way before he found a very imposing looking church. He went around to the rectory, and the minister came to the door when he rang the bell. The minister looked at this little urchin and said, “What do you want?” The little boy replied, “My old lady is dying. She wants you to come and get her in.” At first the minister thought the boy meant that his mother was out drunk somewhere, so he said, “Get a policeman. It’s raining tonight, and I don’t want to go out. Get a policeman to get her home.” The little fellow said, “She’s already home. She’s not drunk. She is home in bed, and she is dying. She wants somebody to get her in, and she wants me to get a minister. Would you come?” That liberal minister was stunned for a moment. He knew that he should go, that he couldn’t turn down a request like that, so he got his coat and umbrella, and he went with the little fellow. They walked and walked and came finally to a very poor section of London and found the creaky stairs which led to an upstairs bedroom.

All the way over, the minister had thought, What will I say to her? I can’t say to her what I have always preached to my people. He had always told his congregation that they were people of culture and refinement, that they were to keep that up and continue to be very cultured and refined. He thought, What in the world can I say to her? I can’t even tell her to reform. She ought to be reformed, but it is too late now. What can I tell her? Then he remembered that as a boy his mother had always quoted John 3:16, and in desperation he turned to that verse when he sat down beside this woman. It actually wasn’t too familiar to him, but he read it to her: “… God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The dear woman wanted to go over the verse with him. She said, “Do you mean that in spite of the type of person I am, all I have to do is just trust in Jesus?” He said, “Well, that is what it says here. It says that God gave His Son to die on a cross. It says, ‘As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up’ (see John 3:14). That is, what I read here, and so that is what you are to do.” This dear woman, before she died, right there accepted Christ as her Savior. The preacher himself told the story afterwards, and he said, “That night I not only got her in, but I got myself in.” My friend, are you sure that you are in? Are you sure that you have trusted Him and that He is your Savior?

Some people will write me and say, “You have no right to ask questions like that because we have been members of the church for thirty years.” Well, I think you ought to examine yourselves and see whether you are in the faith or not. It is wonderful to make an inventory and find out where you are. There was a time in the Thru the Bible radio ministry when we didn’t know where we were financially because our accountant became too ill to help us. When we got an accountant, we found that, although we had thought we were sailing along on nice, blue seas, we really weren’t. Thank the Lord, we found it out in time—but it was only because we examined our condition. A great many church members need to examine themselves. Are you really in the faith? Do you really trust Christ? Someone will say, “You are robbing me of my assurance of salvation.” My friend, I believe in the security of believers, but I also believe in the insecurity of make-believers. We need to examine ourselves to see what kind of believer we really are.

At the beginning of this chapter, John made it very clear that we can know that we are God’s children and that we can have fellowship with Him. In spite of the fact that we are His feeble, frail, faltering, falling little children, we can still have fellowship with Him because the blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, just keeps on cleansing us from all sin. We have an Advocate up there with the Father, and He’s for us—He is on our side.

Then beginning at verse 3 we saw that God is love. This is the very heart of this epistle. Love is mentioned about thirty-three times. John said that the dear children may have fellowship with each other by walking in love. In other words, the little children must recognize that they are called to live a different kind of life. They now have been given a new nature. They now can live for God. Obedience is the test of life. We can know whether we really have life or not if we keep His commandments—and not only His commandments but His Word. Obeying His Word means we are willing to go even farther than anything he had commanded.

The difference between law and grace is brought out by what John has said. The law said: If a man do, he shall live. But grace says the opposite: If a man live, he will do. That is, a man must have a life from God before he can live for God. He cannot by the old nature live for God. This is the radical difference between law and grace. The law says, “Do,” but grace says, “Believe.” It is a different approach to the same goal. The only problem is that law never did work for man because it is impossible for the old nature to please God. We all have come short of the glory of God. John showed that the real test is: Do I delight in the will of God? Do I love His commandments? If you are a child of God, you have a new nature, and now you want to please Him. It has been expressed like this in a little jingle:

Proverbs 28:13 says, “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.” Though we know that the blood of Christ does indeed cover us from all sin, we cannot walk and live in sin and at the same time have fellowship with God and with other believers. If you and I have a life which commends the gospel, it is another assurance that is given to us. I personally do not think you can have real assurance down deep in your heart unless you are obedient unto God. I believe that you can know beyond the peradventure of a doubt that you are a child of God. Such assurance is not presumptuous, it is not audacious, it is not being arrogant, it is not effrontery, it is not a gratuitous assumption, it is not overconfidence, it is not self-deception, it is not wild boasting, it is not self-assertion. In fact, it is true humility. Knowing that you are saved and the eternal security of the believer are not the same; they are not synonymous, although they are related. The Lord Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand” (John 10:27–28). If you are His sheep, you will hear His voice. You are not boasting when you say that you know you are saved. You are saying that you have a wonderful Shepherd. You are not saying that you are wonderful but that your Shepherd is wonderful. What a tremendous truth this is!

McGee, J. Vernon: Thru the Bible Commentary. electronic ed. Nashville : Thomas Nelson, 1997, c1981, S. 5:777-779