The Best Christians

n 1 John 2:12-14, the apostle addresses the Christians using the terms “little children,” “young men,” and “fathers.”  John is clearly applying these terms to indicate differing levels of spiritual maturity.  The “fathers” are characterized by one thing—they know God.  They are twice described as those who “know Him who is from the beginning.”  Thomas Manton had this to say about these spiritual fathers: “They that have the most effectual apprehensions of the greatness. goodness, wisdom of God, and of their own sin, the need of Christ and grace, the truth and excellency of the life to come, and the vanity of this life, are the best Christians.  They who are most conformed to Christ in humility, meekness, and lowliness of mind, esteeming others better than themselves, that have the most hatred of sin, and care to subdue it, and victory over it, and can most deny the flesh, its evil desires, and bear the troubles of it, and whose greatest delight is in God himself, these are the fully grown Christians.”  Manton calls their knowledge “effectual apprehensions.”  This means that their knowledge of God and spiritual things has been effectively applied to their lives.  It is not just knowledge of the head, it is knowledge acquired by experience.  In the case of these “fathers,” they have acquired spiritual maturity by consistently applying what they have learned over the years.  That is what made them “fathers.”