JOHN now asks the important question, which is how do we know that we know God? That is living in the light and not in darkness. That we are free from Satan's dominion, the prince of darkness and god of this world. (John 14: 30; 12: 31; 16: 11; 2 Cor 4: 4; Ephesians 2: 2; 1 John 4: 4). John's answer is that we obey God's commandments, that is the trend of our whole being is to please God by obeying him in all things.

John presses this truth on us in verse 4 by saying that if we say we know God and still disregard his holy commands, we are telling a lie and the truth is not in us, that is that we have not embraced the good news that we have been saved from our sins because Jesus has born our sins in his body on the cross.

Verse 5 opens the meaning of John here with great clarity. He tells us the proof that we know God, is that God's love is complete in us because we obey his commands.

Here is the crunch of true Christianity. It is that the amazing love of God in Christ, seen in his giving his only begotten Son to be punished for our sins in our place, so that we may be forgiven and possess eternal life, fills our hearts and minds to such a degree, that we just want to please him because of how much he has loved us. In this letter John later tells of such love by saying that we love him, because he first loved us. (1 John 4: 19).

In the next verse, verse 6, further presses this truth home by saying that if we claim to be living in the light of God it is only proved if we live as Jesus lived.

The next two verses may seem rather enigmatic. In verse 7 John says that he is not writing a new commandment, but one which has been since the beginning - that is always been written and told. The command is found in the summary of the ten commanments which Jesus gave. This is found in Mark 12: 28-34. Jesus replying to the question asked by the teachers of the law as to what was the most important one. The reply Jesus gave was to say 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength', and the next important one is 'love your neighbour as yourself'. Here Jesus is expressing the heart of the commandments of God.

John then says in verse 8 that he is writing a new commandment. It is the same commandment, but it needs to be re-enforced by being given again. The commandments of God given by Jesus in his reply to the teacher of the law is not evident in the world, but it should be and needs to be evident in the true Christian. The reason is that in the true Christian a revolutionary change has taken place. In true believers in Jesus the darkness of the world under the dominion of the prince of this world, Satan, is seen to be passing. We have been delivered from Satan's dominion, having been brought out of his darkness into the light of Christ, and have been taken out of Satan's kingdom and translated into the kingdom of God by new birth and new creation and new life. So in the company of true believers the true light is shining.

As Jesus loved, we must love in the same way. So John tells us in verses 9-11 if we hate, that is if we are not showing this love of Jesus in our relationships, specially with fellow believers, but also to all people, it is not living in the light of God in Jesus, but is still living in the darkness of Satan.

So in verse 10 John goes on to say we show we are living in the light of God's holiness when we love others as Jesus has loved us. And that there is nothing in our living which causes others to stumble, that is turn away from the gospel of God's love in Jesus.

He continues in verse 11 to tell us that if this love of Jesus is not seen in our living we are still in darkness and living in darkness. This means that our life is all wrong like a blind man who does not know where he is going because blindness means he lives in darkness.

All this points to the truth that the true life of God is shown in a life of love. God's love shines forth in the Gospel which is expressed in John 3: 16 where we are told that God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, so that we should not perish, but have eternal life. The love of God expressed in this verse is the love John has been expressing in his letter where God, at infinite cost, gave his Son to suffer all the just penalty of our rebellion against him, so that he may be reconciled to us, and us to him, and become his beloved children. Perishing means the everlasting punishment of hell, which is awful agony for ever.

John is telling us that it is not possible for us, if we have experienced this love of God and been blessed by it, not to love God and show this in desiring above all things to keep his commandments, so pleasing him as thanksgiving for his great love for us. And from this wish to show the same love of God to others.

Love is seen in forgiveness. As God has forgiven us in his great love in Jesus, we will desire to show the same love to others if we have truly felt and experienced this wonderful saving of God's infinite love to us.