Spiritual Adolescence; PSED; Strong vs. Weak; 1 John 2:14

1 John 2:14 ^NASB “I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.”

1 John 2:13 ^NASB “I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning….” An emphasis on the eternality of Jesus Christ. This is occupation with Christ. In spiritual adulthood we have four spiritual skills that we master: personal; love for God the Father, impersonal love for all mankind, occupation with Christ (three dimensions called the love triplex), and the result which is sharing the perfect happiness of Christ. The second stage, then, is covered in the next clause: “I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one.” The verb there is the perfect active indicative, second person plural of nikao [nikaw]. The noun is nike [nikh], meaning victory, to win, to overcome, to conquer. It means that the spiritual adolescents, the young men, have reached a certain stage of advance in terms of spiritual warfare and spiritual growth. It specifically relates this stage of growth to the angelic conflict. Then John addresses the children: “I have written to you, children, because you know the Father.”

Then in verse 14 he comes back and says the same thing, nothing more, to the fathers. They don’t have a problem. The problem that John is addressing to the congregation in Ephesus does not affect the adult mature believer. They understand the doctrine, they are applying the doctrine they don’t have a problem. The problem is with the spiritual adolescents and the spiritual infants. Spiritual adolescents have a tendency to hit that level of growth and fade out. They get distracted. But John writes to these adolescence and says they have overcome the distractions that are thrown to us in the angelic conflict to get our priorities off of doctrine onto job, family, friends, social life, all the details of life, rather than making the Word of God our priority. In verse 14 he adds two more elements to what he said in verse 13: “because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you,” and also the one he has already mentioned, “you have overcome the evil one.” So he is using that phrase, “overcoming the wicked one” in v. 13, as the key element to describe everything that he says in the second half of verse 14 and verse 15. He doesn’t stop talking to the adolescent believer until he mentions the next category, which is children. Then in verse 15 there is a warning, a negative: “Do not love the world nor the things in the world.”

We must ask, in what sense do we have this victory over “the evil one” (one of the titles for Satan)? Is this is an absolute sense? That is, does this indicate that we are never going to have a problem with Satan or demons or the angelic conflict again? No, that is not true, we are still living in the devil’s world and we are still going to have problems in the angelic conflict. A second question we might ask is, is this in a personal combative sense? Not one time in the Scriptures is a believer ever authorised to act as if he is engaged in personal combat with the devil. So all this teaching about rebuking the devil that people are told to do, casting out demons, is not found anywhere in the Scripture. The epistles were written to believers in the church age to teach us how to live in the church age. The Scripture says, 2 Peter 1:3, that God has given everything pertaining to life and godliness—eusebeia [e)usebeia], meaning spiritual life. So of the Scriptures, the epistles, were written to church age believers and they tell us everything there is to know that is important for us to know about the spiritual life, and there is no mention whatsoever of demon possession for Christians, no mention whatsoever about how to cast demons out of unbelievers, then the issue is not a problem and it is not a procedure for the church age. Anybody who says that and is engaged in that is denying the sufficiency of Scripture and they are in heresy and apostasy. They are just involved in showmanship and entertainment and don’t have anything to do with the Word of God. The Word of God says that even if we do run into somebody who is demon possessed what that means is that the demon is controlling their body but their soul hasn’t been obliterated. That personal identity is still in that individual with a volition. If they are given the gospel and they respond positively that demon is going to be ejected immediately.

So in the second part of v. 14 John says: “I have written to you, young men.” There we have a spiritual skill called a personal sense of eternal destiny. The reason we say that is a child doesn’t think much beyond today or tomorrow, but as they mature to adolescence they begin to think or plan more in terms of long-range. They begin to think in terms of how decisions today might impact their future. The more mature they are, the more that is a factor. This is true for the believer. We have roughly three score and ten years on the earth to grow and advance to spiritual maturity. The capacity we have in our soul for grace, for relationship with God and our comprehension of doctrine at the point of physical death is what we take with us into heaven. So we are becoming today what we will be in eternity. The more we grasp that the more the details of life begin to diminish in significance. The more we begin to realise that our priority needs to be the Word of God and doctrine, and it doesn’t really matter about hobbies or other affairs in life, other events in life, not that those things are wrong, but anything that becomes a distraction to doctrine, sooner or later as we advance we realise how irrelevant it is. We may enjoy it, we may take great pleasure from it, it may be a fine and wonderful activity, but if it diminishes our relationship with the Lord and it has an impact on our future role then we need to get it out of our lives. So spiritual adolescence is that mid point that we go through in terms of spiritual advance, and that is considered a victory over Satan because it is in that time of spiritual childhood that the angelic conflict, the cosmic system, is throwing everything it can at us to distract us and keep us from ever growing and advancing. Remember, the ultimate goal in the spiritual life is, as Jesus states in John 15, to produce much fruit.

That is that maximum glorification of God, and that is when we demonstrate in the angelic conflict fully before Satan, before angels, fallen and elect, the grace of God and the magnificence of His provision, the sufficiency of His grace and His Word, and the importance of doctrine. Satan wants to stop that and prevent us from ever glorifying God. That is one of his tactics in the church age. So when we move past spiritual infancy we have gained a level of victory over the cosmic system. We know John is talking about that because vv. 15-17 focus on the cosmic system. That is the element of victory that he is focusing on.

“because you are strong.” The Greek word here is ischuros [i)sxuroj], and that means to be strong. This means first to advance to a certain level of spiritual maturity, a level that is able to handle the tests of life. Strong is the opposite of being weak, asthenes [a)sqenhj]. There are two causes of weakness. The first cause of spiritual weakness is immaturity. Some believers are spiritually weak because they never learn any doctrine. It doesn’t have anything to do with carnality, it has to do with absence of doctrine; they just don’t know any better. This is the idea of the weaker brother mentioned in Romans 14:1-12 and 1 Corinthians 8:7 which states: “However not all men have this knowledge [the issue is doctrine]; but some, being accustomed to the idol until now, eat {food} as if it were sacrificed to an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled.” The reason their conscience is weak is because there is no knowledge. The second reason a believer can be weak is due to carnality and reversionism—1 Corinthians 11:30 in the context of the communion table. We can say that weakness means that the believer is unable to persevere or endure in times of trouble or adversity. The solution to weakness is first of all confession if the problem is extended carnality. If the problem is immaturity then, of course, the solution is to continue to learn and apply doctrine and that produces a strengthening in the soul which is called edification. Edification produces something, something that is built up brick by brick—the soul fortress. It is a strengthening of our souls.

Strength, which is ischuo [i)sxuw] is related to its synonym, dunamis [dunamij] which means power, and this brings on the whole concept of spiritual warfare. Ephesians 6:10 ^NASB “Finally, be strong [dunamij] in the Lord and in the strength of His might [i)sxuw].” Then we are told in the next verse to stand firm, the Greek word histemi [i(sthmi] which means to take up a defensive posture behind doctrine. We are to go into that soul fortress and stray there, not go out and try to engage the enemy offensively. Once we learn that, then we gain a measure of victory over the enemy. That is what John is talking about in terms of spiritual adolescence.