3 “See how great is the love the Father has given us, that we would be called children of God; and so we are! For this reason the world does not know us: because it did not know Him. ² Beloved, for the present we are children of God, and it has not as yet been revealed what we shall be. We know that when He appears, we will resemble Him, for we will see Him just as He is. ³ And everyone who has this hope set on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure” (1Jn3:1-3).

This is surely one of the more staggering excerpts of Scripture, but I suspect many Christians will have difficulty relating to aspects of it. For example, the inference that a believer could in a substantive sense resemble the Lord Jesus Christ (v2). For He is the only Begotten of God by Whom “all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or rulers, or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him” (Col1:16). How could you or I resemble Him (v2)? Yet according to John that will be the case, for example if we live to see His return to earth.

For sure, we can resemble our Lord in appearance, for He is fully a Man, and that was the case even after His resurrection, ascension  and glorification, when He briefly returned to earth to meet with His closest disciples. Yet He is also thoroughly divine and perfect in moral character, and that is not currently the case for any other person born of woman, however faithful  a disciple they may be. That is because even if saved, “we ourselves, who have received the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons and daughters, being the redemption of our body(Rom8:23). For as I have been explaining, whilst the soul requires healing and restoration, the body and brain ultimately need to be replaced, and so they shall be : “He will transform the body of our lowly estate into conformity with His glorious body, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself” (Phil3:21).

Resembling Christ’s nature

But regarding the soul, being that current part of us which continues into eternity, does John mean we can actually resemble Jesus in nature whilst still in mortal flesh? His comments suggest that is the case, for alluding back to the opening of his gospel, he writes that people of the world do not know us (v1) just as they did not know Jesus (Jn1:10).  That is, to “know” in the sense of comprehending or recognizing – Greek: γινώσκω. So if non-believers with whom we are well acquainted do “γινώσκω”  you or me, i.e. they fully grasp or see through what actually makes us tick – why we live, act and speak as we do, then regardless of our beliefs and religious practice, all may not be well with us. If we are truly God’s elect there should be something about us that is inexplicable to the unbeliever; an example being a genuine willingness to love and forgive our enemies, just as Christ did.

For Jesus had (and the true believer has) spiritual resources that others simply do not and cannot access. That is a spiritual empowerment that enables us to live and act as the “children of God” – Paul’s aforementioned “first fruits of the Spirit”. And whilst others’ hopes and aspirations are restricted to the current world, Christians  possess an  expectation of a future glorious existence that transcends physical death. Whilst some non-believers do keep an open mind about the possibility of an afterlife, the child of God knows in his heart that he or she can never really die.

But far more than that, the children of God are such by adoption (Rom8:15&23). They attain a familial association with the Godhead, the precise nature of which John could not describe. For,  writes he, “it has not as yet been revealed precisely what we shall be” (v2). But given the resemblance and maritally defined association with the Lord of the universe (Rev19:7), those He is also not ashamed to call sisters and brothers (Heb2:11) must surely  be destined for something very special indeed. And according to John, this is the test of where you or I currently stand: “Everyone who has this hope set on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure” (v3).

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