12月16日 永生确据
12月16日，周二
永生确据
“我把这些事写给你们信神的儿子之名的人，是要你们知道自己有永生。”（约翰壹书5:13）
“知道自己有永生”这件事，对信徒来说真的是可能的。这是我们必须强调的重点。有些人认为永生是必须等到我们离世、进入另一个世界时才能“达到”的境界。他们暗示，任何声称自己“已经拥有永生”的说法都是不恰当的。这些人不喜欢“得救确据”的教义。他们会说：“我们不知道，我们也不应该寻求知道。信心的意义就在于你要一直努力抓住它，但你在今生永远不能真正拥有它。”
然而，那是一种对于信心的哲学式的概念，与我们在此处圣经中所读到的教导完全不符。使徒约翰的核心意思就是：“我现在写信给你们的全部目的，就是要让你们知道——而且是确切地知道——你们拥有永生。我要你们知道自己已经拥有了它。”
你会发现，其他使徒也传达了同样的教导。还有什么比使徒保罗所展现的确据更有代表性的呢？在罗马书8章中，他说： “因为我深信：无论是死、是生，是天使、是掌权的，是现在的事，是将来的事，是有能力的，是高天的、是深渊的，或是任何别的被造之物，都不能叫我们与 神的爱隔绝，这爱是在我们的主耶稣基督里的”（罗8:38-39）。 他又在写给提摩太的信中宣告： “因为我知道我所信的是谁”（提后1:12）。保罗说：“我知道！”——这句话里毫无不确定或含糊不清的语气。
所以，在我看来，如果将信心解释为一种“持续的不确定状态”，那就是否定了神的话语明确教导了我们是祂儿女这一事实。
默想主题：
“知道自己有永生”这件事，对信徒来说真的是可能的。
麦琴（麦克谦）读经计划进度
家庭敬拜：代下18章，启7章
个人灵修：亚3章，约6章
December 16, Tuesday
THE CERTAINTY OF EVERLASTING LIFE
These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. (1 JOHN 5:13)
The knowledge that we have eternal life is something that is possible to us. That is something that needs to be emphasized. There are those who would tell us that eternal life is something to which we attain only when we come to die and leave this world and go into the next. They suggest that it is wrong for anyone to claim that he has eternal life. Such people dislike the doctrine of assurance. “We do not know,” they say, “and we must not seek to know. Faith means that you are always grasping at it, but it is something you cannot actually have while you are in this world.”
But that is a philosophical concept of faith that is not in accordance with what we have here. John says in essence, “My whole object in writing to you now is that you may know that you have eternal life and know it certainly. I want you to know that you possess it.”
You find the other apostles saying the same thing. What was more characteristic of the apostle Paul than this assurance? In Romans 8 he says, “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (verses 38-39). “I know whom I have believed,” he writes to Timothy (2 Timothy 1:12). “I know,” he says. There is no uncertainty about it.
So it seems to me that to interpret faith as a kind of constant uncertainty is to deny the teaching of the Word of God that we are His children.
A Thought to Ponder: The knowledge that we have eternal life is something that is possible to us.