THE BASIS OF CONFIDENCE ON THE JUDGMENT DAY What John is saying here is that there is a standard of righteousness (2:29a) which cannot be obtained by man's righteousness and so God in mercy gifts us (3:1) with this righteousness (2:29b) – through which we will have confidence on the last day (2:28).
We will have confidence on the Day of Judgment because Christ is our righteousness. Christ is the antecedent of the pronoun “he” in 2:29; he is the “everlasting Father” (Isaiah 9:6; 8:18 cf. Hebrews 2:13) He is referred to as “see[ing] his seed” by the “travail of his soul” (Isaiah 53:10-11), we are the fruit of his death (John 12:24) John implies here that Christ's righteousness is the Standard (2:29a). The knowledge of this righteousness is absolute and objective discovered only by divine illumination (“If ye know [eidhte] that he…) over against the knowledge of our righteousness that is realized by observation (“ye know [ginosko] that everyone that doeth…”). John then states that the believer's righteousness is only by new birth (2:29b). John further exclaims here that the new birth is a divine gift “what manner of love…” The Love spoken of in 3:1 is spontaneous love, there is nothing in us that is attractive (Ezekiel 16:5-6), it is sacrificial love (Romans 8:32), it is everlasting and unchanging love (Malachi 3:6; Jeremiah 31:3) and it is a sovereign love. The love of 3:1 is not speaking of God's benevolence for all mankind, but of his sovereign electing love; we are “Sons of God”.
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Aaron Dunlop, who is originally from Northern Ireland, graduated from the Geneva Reformed Seminary, SC. He pastored for ten years in Victoria, British Columbia and is currently preparing to move to Kenya with his family to work with the FAME Reformed Theological College.
