First John 2:3 says that we can be sure we know God when we keep his commandments. Obedience is the evidence, not the price of admission, and it shows whether our claim to know him is real. The apostle John wrote this to the believers he called “my little children,” the members of the churches he was caring for in the late first century.
This is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commandments.
1 John 2:3 (WEB)
What 1 John 2:3 Means
The phrase “this is how we know” is the heart of the verse. John is not asking us to earn God’s favor. He is describing a test that anyone can apply to their own life. If someone claims to know God but lives in open defiance of what God has asked, their words do not match their lives, and John calls that gap into question.
The word “commandments” refers to God’s instructions as they have been revealed, and in this letter they center on love for one another and walking in the light. Keeping them means letting them actually shape choices, not merely agreeing with them in theory. The verse does not promise that a believer will never stumble, and the verses that follow speak directly to sin and forgiveness. What it does promise is that real knowing of God will show up in a real pattern of obedience over time.
The Context of 1 John 2:3
The letter of 1 John was written to a community that was being shaken by people who claimed special knowledge of God while teaching and living in ways that denied the reality of Jesus’s humanity and his demands for holiness. Tradition connects the letter with the apostle John, though scholars debate exactly who wrote it and where. Its aim is to give believers confidence in their faith by describing what genuine fellowship with God looks like.
Just before this verse, John reminds readers that Jesus is their advocate and the atoning sacrifice for sin, which keeps the test from turning into a source of despair. Just after it, he warns that someone who says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar. Read in that setting, the verse is not a demand for flawless performance. It is a reassurance that grace and obedience belong together, and that a life of trust in Christ will bear the fruit of walking as he walked.
Key Phrases in 1 John 2:3
John 14:15
If you love me, keep my commandments.
(WEB)
Here Jesus links love for him with keeping his commands, which helps explain why John treats obedience as the evidence of a true relationship. Reading the two passages together shows that the connection between knowing God and obeying him comes straight from Jesus himself.
1 John 4:7
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves has been born of God, and knows God.
(WEB)
This verse shows that love flows from God and reveals that we have been born of him. It deepens the picture in 2:3 by showing that the commandments John has in mind are shaped around love, and that genuine knowledge of God produces that love in practice.
A Short Prayer From 1 John 2:3
Father, you have not left us to guess whether we know you. Show me honestly where my words about faith have drifted from the way I actually live. Forgive me for the places I have ignored what you have asked, and give me a willing heart to keep your commandments with joy rather than fear. Let my obedience grow out of real trust in Jesus, my advocate, so that others can see that I belong to you. Amen.
