1 John 5:9-15-- The Testimony of God

Scripture: 1 John 5:9-15

I once received an anonymous email asking about the Christian value and view of faith. The nonreligious sender, who had clearly been influenced by nonreligious sources, was under the impression that religious people valued thoughtless, "blind" faith--that we celebrated the "unreasonableness" or irrationality of our worldview. It wasn't that he thought that we avoided  science or philosophy out of a fear of being wrong, but that we would be happy for science to contradict our beliefs, since it would mean our faith was somehow stronger.


This was strange to me, as most Christians I know intellectually "wrestle" very deeply with their beliefs and find them to be the best explanation of a very difficult-to-explain world and complex human experience. However, the email did raise some interesting and important questions about the nature of faith. With what level of confidence do we hold our beliefs? Does faith mean intentionally contradicting evidence or, rather, connecting certain dots that fall outside the scope of scientific inquiry? 

Do I know God to be true, do I find it reasonable that God is true, or do I simply wish Him to be true? If evidence seems to contradict what I believe, do I claim that science is flawed, do I abandon major areas of my faith altogether, do I examine my beliefs for a misunderstanding, or do I blithely keep believing the same things anyway?

I can't answer all these questions. I don't even know how to do full justice to any such question. However, my observation is that most of us in the modern evangelicalism tend to take a pretty middle road to these questions of what faith means (though you could certainly find pockets of either extreme pretty easily).

That being said, John's famous argument in 1 John 5 is that when it comes to our personal salvation ("God gave us eternal life"), we can know on some level that it is true. Because I've rambled for so long already, I'll merely sketch his reasoning in a way that might be easier to understand or remember:

• We typically accept testimony, as in a courtroom, as fact
• God has testified to us (through His word and Jesus' miracles); this is even more credible than the testimonies we usually believe. because it's from God, not people
• God's testimony: He has given us eternal life in Jesus

Thus, to John, it's a matter of certain fact that eternal life is found in Jesus. One's own destiny comes down to a rather simple question of whether or not the person "has the Son." 

[Note: this doesn't create an ad infinitum problem arising from, "Well, how do I know whether I have the Son?", as John has already shared, "And this is how we know that He lives in us: We know it by the Spirit He gave us." The presence of the Spirit in one's life should provide ample experiential evidence, and if not, well then I suppose this is the part at which knowledge and faith commingle.]

"I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life."