All of the material in this post is taken directly from:
The New Testament in Its World
Copyright © N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird 2019
First published in Great Britain in 2019
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The three short letters of John are most probably by the same author as the gospel of John. They definitely seem to have emerged from the same community, or cluster of churches, that was involved in the production of the fourth gospel. This trio of letters offer a wonderful account of ‘truth’ and ‘love’, as well as drawing together the atonement, the holy spirit, and the church as a community made up of children of God, and all within a meditative style, quite different from the other letters in the New Testament, reflecting from many angles on the outpoured love of God in Jesus the Messiah.
It is all the more poignant, then, that these letters seem to have been written under adverse circumstances. The network of Christians associated with the author has experienced painful division with the local Jewish community over Jesus’ messiahship.
Yet, in the end, these letters are a reminder that the best response to heresy and haughtiness is the practice of love.
The first letter moves in widening circles around the main theme of the love of God, revealed in Jesus and his death and needing to be worked out in and through the life of the community. Those who belong to Jesus have a new identity which will be fully revealed when Jesus appears, committing them in the present to a life of purity as well as love. Many will try to deceive the church, even from among their own number, either denying that Jesus is the Messiah, or denying that he came in the flesh. The sign of true belonging, however, is a resolute turning from sin, embodying the self-sacrificial love of Jesus for others. The letter binds together a rich faith in Jesus with a robust call to the love which will make that faith known in the world.
The short second letter continues the same theme as the first, addressed by ‘the Elder’ to a particular church, seen as ‘the Chosen Lady’. The author is part of a sister church, whose members he refers to as ‘the children of your Chosen Sister’. The letter, with its warning of ‘deceivers’, provides a quick glimpse of an early church in which different teachers are moving to and fro from place to place, so that local communities need to know who is to be trusted. The gold standard remains the coming of Jesus the Messiah in the flesh: from early days in the church this extraordinary truth, celebrated in the dramatic opening of John’s gospel (‘the Word became flesh’, Jn. 1.14), was under attack. The central thesis of the letter is that anyone who abides in ‘the teaching’—the true teaching of the father and the son—is part of the fellowship of ‘truth and love’.
The third Johannine letter is about hospitality. As the church spread, with groups of a dozen or two believers in a town or village, and with increasing hostility from the surrounding culture, it was vital that Jesus-followers travelling from place to place as teachers, or on other business, should be able to trust one another.
In reading the Johannine letters, one cannot help but notice the strong pastoral language, and the warmth of the author. On the one hand, these letters offer necessary warnings against false teaching, but on the other hand they are deeply reassuring to those who do believe. The Johannine letters urge their readers to know the love of God in truth and full assurance.
Origins of the Johannine letters
The authorship of the Johannine letters, like that of the fourth gospel, is variously contested. First John is strictly anonymous, but 2 and 3 John are written by someone who calls himself ‘the elder’. There are enough similarities in language, theology, and texture for us to posit a very close relationship between the Johannine gospel and epistles, with the likelihood being that the same person wrote them all. So it is very likely that either John the son of Zebedee or perhaps (and more likely) John the elder is the author of these three letters. They belong together: the problem of schism which prompted 1 John is summarized in 2 John, while 2 John and 3 John share the same designated author, letter form, and subject of mission-related hospitality. The letters were probably composed some time after the gospel of John, though this cannot easily be demonstrated (see text grid: ‘Examples of similarities between John’s gospel and letters’). It may well be that the letters reflect a time when some are contesting the legacy of the Johannine gospel in the churches of Asia.
First John was probably a circular letter, rooted in the author’s preaching. It was sent, we may suppose, to a number of churches in Asia Minor. Second and 3 John, by contrast, have specific audiences of ‘the elect lady and her children’ (2 John) and ‘Gaius’ (3 John). A plausible scenario is that 1 John is a circular pastoral letter, reinforcing christological boundaries against the teaching of the secessionists. Second John was a covering letter to a specific but unknown church, where the elder writes on behalf of the ‘children of your elect sister’ to the ‘elect lady’ (probably metaphors for two sister-churches), urging them to watch out for, and to refuse hospitality to, certain deceivers and anti-Christs who were teaching Docetism (the belief that Jesus only seemed to have a physical body). Third John is a personal letter from the elder to Gaius, probably a leader and ally in the church that received the other two letters. The writer is warning Gaius about Diotrephes and the threat he poses.
DATE
First John was well known in the second century; there is less good early evidence for 2 John, and very limited evidence for 3 John. The first person to mention all three Johannine epistles is Origen in the third century.
The secessionists
Unlike in the fourth gospel there is no polemic against ‘the Judeans’ (Greek hoi Ioudaioi), but critical remarks are levelled against a group of secessionists, former members of the community who had left (see 1 Jn. 2.19). This group had attempted to move their part of the church in a trajectory towards a denial of Jesus’ messianic identity on the one hand and of his genuine humanity on the other—thus conflicting with two of the central claims of John’s gospel, that Jesus is the Word made flesh, and that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God. One possible scenario is that the secessionists regarded Jesus as a ‘revealer’ of esoteric truths, rather than the messianic agent of Israel’s renewal. Thus they jettisoned messianism as the relic of an inferior or repugnant prior dispensation. Concurrently, their denial that Jesus came in the flesh probably reflected a hellenistic influence which would be antipathetic towards physical matter and strongly in favour of divine immutability and/ or impassibility. In this view, a truly divine being could neither become genuinely human nor suffer in a physical body (see below on ‘Docetism 101’). This might have emerged from a Jewish view that denied the possibility of either incarnation or deification, combined with a desire to safeguard Jesus’ divine nature by rescuing him from the crucifixion, so that he only ‘appeared’ to suffer. That view (which might have paved the way for a more gnostic interpretation of Jesus’ person) was combated later on by Ignatius of Antioch. Anyway, after failing to win support for their recasting of christology, the rival teachers had left the Johannine network of churches. The writer points out that their lack of love goes exactly with their view of Jesus: the incarnate love of God is meant to work through into fresh incarnations of that love in the community. As Parsenios points out, ‘Their anemic Christology diminishes the profundity of the incarnation, and their act of separating themselves from the broader community diminishes the love expressed through the concord of the community.’
A significant motif employed across these letters is the repetition of the phrase ‘from the beginning’. The letter is addressed to those who know the Johannine tradition from the beginning, including its eye-witnesses’ testimony to the ‘Word of life’, the community’s acknowledgement of the ‘truth’, and the practice of the love-commandment.
Can we speak, already at this early date, of ‘proto-orthodoxy’ and ‘heresy’ in relation to these letters? It does seem appropriate, given John the elder’s exhortation to ‘confess’ a particular faith (Greek homologeō) over and against the denial of the secessionists (Greek arneomai). Yet it would be wrong to regard the Johannine epistles as simply polemical tracts. The focus is not so much on the secessionists as on those who remain and abide in the truth. The author regards the recent division not as the occasion for vitriolic denunciation, but primarily as an opportunity to renew the community’s identity through a remembrance of the basic elements of the community’s own faith.
Excursus: Docetism 101
‘Docetism’ comes from the Greek word dokeō, which means ‘to seem’, ‘to appear’. The belief in question was that Jesus only ‘seemed’ or ‘appeared’ to be genuinely and embodiedly human, but that in reality he was an incorporeal being projecting an outward appearance. Our modern culture finds it hard to imagine why such a belief might be attractive, but in the ancient world it was a compelling option for those with a particular view of God, namely, that God was uninvolved in change, suffering, or (particularly) shame.
The idea that Jesus was merely a phantasm, not truly physical, was held by a certain Saturninus. He held that Jesus was ‘without birth, without body, and without figure, but was, by supposition, a visible man’. Similarly, in a gnostic document called Trimorphic Protennoia, ‘Jesus’ says: ‘I revealed myself to them in their tents as Word, and I revealed myself in the likeness of their shape.’ This makes Jesus a shape-shifter who could morph into human-like appearance but without being actually human. Such a view might claim support from Paul’s statement that God sent Jesus ‘in the likeness of sinful flesh’ (Greek en homoiōmati sarkos hamartias), though careful study of Paul’s whole sentence would make it clear that he was not at all denying Jesus’ genuine humanness. Such wording, however, was claimed by some as supporting a form of Docetism.
Some others accepted that Jesus did have a physical body, but claimed that ‘the Christ’ (here meaning his ‘divine’ self, not, as in its original meaning, his ‘messianic’ identity) departed from Jesus prior to the crucifixion. Another way to a similar conclusion was to claim that Jesus changed his form at the last minute, and that some other person was crucified in his place, thus safeguarding Jesus’s divinity from suffering. If, after all, divinity is impassible, then the divine Christ did not suffer, so the father must have rescued the heavenly Christ before he was crucified.
Such a belief is not without precedent. The Roman poet Ovid suggested that, just before the murder of Julius Caesar, the goddess Vesta ‘snatched him away and left a naked semblance; what died by the steel was Caesar’s shadow’. The real Julius Caesar ‘was raised to the heavens’, to the halls of Jupiter. Another way of saying this is to suggest that the gods were so impressed with Julius Caesar that they took his soul up to heaven, leaving only the vestiges of his shadowy self to be assassinated. One can see how this sort of view might be applied to Jesus by any who believed that he could not really have suffered the shameful death of the cross.
Similarly, a certain Basilides had a ‘trading places’ theory of the atonement. He is alleged to have taught that Simon of Cyrene was transformed into Jesus while Jesus transformed into Simon. According to Irenaeus, Basilides believed that
He appeared, then, on earth as a man, to the nations of these powers, and wrought miracles. Wherefore he did not himself suffer death, but Simon, a certain man of Cyrene, being compelled, bore the cross in his stead; so that this latter being transfigured by him, that he might be thought to be Jesus, was crucified, through ignorance and error, while Jesus himself received the form of Simon, and, standing by, laughed at them. For since he was an incorporeal power, and the Nous (mind) of the unborn father, he transfigured himself as he pleased, and thus ascended to him who had sent him, deriding them, inasmuch as he could not be laid hold of, and was invisible to all. Those, then, who know these things have been freed from the principalities who formed the world; so that it is not incumbent on us to confess him who was crucified, but him who came in the form of a man, and was thought to be crucified, and was called Jesus, and was sent by the father, that by this dispensation he might destroy the works of the makers of the world.
The same perspective is given a fuller description in the Second Treatise of the Great Seth, a gnostic document originating in the second century:
For my death, which they think happened, happened to them in their error and blindness, since they nailed their man unto their death. For their Ennoias did not see me, for they were deaf and blind. But in doing these things, they condemn themselves. Yes, they saw me; they punished me. It was another, their father, who drank the gall and the vinegar; it was not I. They struck me with the reed; it was another, Simon, who bore the cross on his shoulder. It was another upon whom they placed the crown of thorns. But I was rejoicing in the height over all the wealth of the archons and the offspring of their error, of their empty glory. And I was laughing at their ignorance. And I subjected all their powers. For as I came downward, no one saw me. For I was altering my shapes, changing from form to form.
Also, and (to our minds) stranger still, we find the Coptic Apocalypse of Peter, a third-century gnostic document. This work describes a vision of Peter, in which the ‘Saviour’ led Peter on a tour of the crucifixion scene featuring the ‘living Jesus’ laughing at the spectacle, while some other person, the ‘son of their glory’, was substituted for him and subjected to shame. (Note how exactly this reverses a major emphasis of the early gospel: someone else suffering shame and death in the place of Jesus!) The body on the cross was merely a demon-ridden shell, made by Elohim (the Old Testament God), while the living Jesus transcended the body and escaped pain and dishonour:
When he had said those things, I saw him seemingly being seized by them. And I said ‘What do I see, O Lord? That it is you yourself whom they take, and that you are grasping me? Or who is this one, glad and laughing on the tree? And is it another one whose feet and hands they are striking?’
But this one into whose hands and feet they drive the nails is his fleshly part, which is the substitute being put to shame, the one who came into being in his likeness. But look at him and me.’
But I, when I had looked, said ‘Lord, no one is looking at you. Let us flee this place.’
But he said to me, ‘I have told you, “Leave the blind alone!” And you, see how they do not know what they are saying. For the son of their glory instead of my servant, they have put to shame.’
And I saw someone about to approach us resembling him, even him who was laughing on the tree. And he was filled with a Holy Spirit, and he is the Saviour. And there was a great, ineffable light around them, and the multitude of ineffable and invisible angels blessing them. And when I looked at him, the one who gives praise was revealed.
And he said to me, ‘Be strong, for you are the one to whom these mysteries have been given, to know them through revelation, that he whom they crucified is the first-born, and the home of demons, and the stony vessel in which they dwell, of Elohim, of the cross, which is under the Law. But he who stands near him is the living Saviour, the first in him, whom they seized and released, who stands joyfully looking at those who did him violence, while they are divided among themselves. Therefore he laughs at their lack of perception, knowing that they are born blind. So then the one susceptible to suffering shall come, since the body is the substitute. But what they released was my incorporeal body. But I am the intellectual Spirit filled with radiant light.’
Even the Islamic tradition is docetic in its description of the cross, denying that Allah would allow Jesus to be killed or crucified. Jesus, seen in Islam as a great prophet, only appeared to die; in fact, Allah took Jesus up into heaven:
And because of their saying: We slew the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, Allah’s messenger—they slew him not nor crucified him, but it appeared so unto them; and lo! those who disagree concerning it are in doubt thereof; they have no knowledge thereof save pursuit of a conjecture; they slew him not for certain. But Allah took him up unto Himself. Allah was ever Mighty, Wise.
Varieties of Docetism were prevalent on the edge of, and sometimes infiltrating right into, the early Christian communities. That is clear from the many denunciations, ranging from those of John the elder in Asia, to Ignatius of Antioch in Syria, and Tertullian in north Africa. The latter wrote:
Surely he is anti-Christ who denies that Christ has come in the flesh. By declaring that his flesh is simply and absolutely true, and taken in the plain sense of its own nature, the scripture aims a blow at all who make distinctions in it.
Genre and purpose
As for genre and purpose, the Johannine epistles (much like the Pastoral Epistles) should not be lumped together. All three letters may have been sent together as part of one package, as we have suggested, but each of the three has an individual element:
- 1 John is an encyclical homily written to a network of churches with whom ‘the elder’ is in communion. The purpose is to assure his readers of God’s love for them and to urge them to continue to walk in that love towards God and one another. The polemics against the secessionists are ancillary to the wider design, which is the pastoral exhortation to hold fast the testimony to the Word of life, to rest in the security of God’s love, and to embrace the identity of God’s children
- 2 John is probably a covering letter for 1 John, written to a specific church, urging the recipients to continue walking in truth and love, and warning that the recently departed secessionists may attempt to encroach upon their assembly.
- 3 John has three purposes. It is a letter of friendship to consolidate the support of Gaius; a letter of commendation of Demetrius; and a warning against the inhospitality and insubordination of Diotrephes.
THE ARGUMENT OF 1 JOHN
- Prologue (1.1–4)
First John opens by rehearsing themes from the gospel’s prologue. John talks about what ‘we’ (a source for authoritative testimony differentiated from the community that receives and accepts that testimony) have heard, seen, and touched about the ‘Word of life’. In the opening sequence ‘verbs of sensory experience pile up—hearing, seeing, touching—emphasizing a physical reality that grounds what the author is about to write’. John testifies and proclaims ‘life’ and ‘eternal life’ coming from the ‘Father’ to ‘us’. Jesus was the life-in-person of God’s coming age, both the life of God himself and the gift of life from God to the world. What is more, the ‘fellowship’ between the father and son has now been extended to all who know, trust, and love Jesus. John considers it joy to write this to his audience.- The message of atonement (1.5—2.2)
John expounds the message by offering the first divine predicate: ‘God is light’ and ‘in him there is no darkness at all’. This leads to certain tests for having fellowship with God based on five conditional clauses. If we have fellowship with him, we should not walk in darkness. If we walk in the light, we have fellowship together and Jesus’ blood purifies us from sin. If we claim to be without sin, we are self-deceived. If we confess our sins, God is faithful and forgiving. If we claim to not have sinned, we make God a liar. John is warding off the teaching of the secessionists, who claim to be without sin and thus have no need for Jesus’ blood to be shed for their purification (1.5–10).John is writing, he says, so that ‘you will not sin’, yet he comforts his readers by adding, ‘But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.’ He goes on: ‘He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.’ Whenever we date the letter, that last phrase might perhaps suggest that John is writing within a largely Jewish-Christian context, and reminding his readers that what the Messiah achieved was for the whole world (see for example Jn. 11.50–52). John has thus far spoken of the defiling and destructive power of sin, for which the answer is the purifying power of Jesus’ death. The blood that flowed from Jesus’ body as he hung on the cross was somehow, strangely, the very lifeblood of God himself, poured out to deal with sins in a universal way that, much like John 3.16, encompasses the entire world (2.1–2).
- Knowledge of God and love for others (2.3–11)
A second test of fellowship with God is whether one truly knows God. A person who disobeys Jesus’ ‘commandments’ does not know him. In contrast, those who keep his word, who live as Jesus lived—such people know God, they know that they abide in Christ, and the love of God is fulfilled or made perfect in them (2.3–6).John hastens to add that this is not a new commandment, but an old one. If people love their brothers and sisters, they are in the light, but if they hate their brothers or sisters they walk in darkness. All other commandments are the outflowing of this love, the love which has been newly revealed in Jesus, the love which God now intends should be revealed in and through all those who follow Jesus (2.7–11).
- Exhortation to endurance (2.12–17)
John interrupts the flow of his exhortation with some words of assurance. The first set addresses children who have had their sins forgiven, fathers who know him from the beginning, and young men who have overcome the evil one. The second set addresses children who know ‘the Father’, fathers who know the one who was from the beginning, and young men who are strong and have the word of God dwelling in them. These are not prosaic pastoral utterances. They are strong and evocative reminders to members of a community traumatized by schism: they remain a family of faith (2.12–14). The opposite of love for the household of faith, after all, is love for the world. While ‘the world’ is for John the object of God’s saving love, it remains a force of darkness and a source of illicit desire. The world and its seductions are ephemeral, but the one who does God’s will already possesses the life of the age to come (2.15–17).- Denunciation of the secessionists (2.18–27)
John states that it is the ‘last hour’, which seems to approximate to the ‘last day’ we find mentioned also in John’s gospel. The proof for this claim is that strange and dangerous new things are happening: ‘the Antichrist’ is coming, akin to Paul’s ‘man of lawlessness’ and John the Seer’s ‘beast’.46 In fact, says John, ‘even now many antichrists have come’. These strange figures are not the notorious representatives of über-rebellion and ultra-wickedness that are yet to come. Rather, they stand in opposition to the community’s testimony about Jesus as the Messiah. They embrace the archetypal lie, denying that Jesus is the Messiah. This is not simply an intra-Jewish squabble about titles, but amounts to a denial of the father and the son. The Jewish myth of a boastful figure who opposes God (see Dan. 7.8, 11, 20–21; 9.26) has been reworked around the schism that affected the community. The antichrists left the community, taking their lie with them; and it is this leaving and disbelieving that proves that they never really belonged to the community in the first place (2.18–23).The secessionists may deny the Messiah, the ‘Anointed One’, but John’s audience have the ‘anointing’ from the holy one, and they know the truth. If they abide in the truth that was ‘from the beginning’, they will abide in close fellowship with the son and the father. To abide in the truth means to possess the life of the age to come, already in the present; to be led astray from the truth means to lose that life.
‘In the ancient world, the gods were parochial and had geographically limited jurisdictions. In the mountains, one sought the favour of the mountain gods; on the sea, of the sea gods. Ancient warfare was waged in the belief that the gods of the opposing nations were fighting as well, and the outcome would be determined by whose god was the strongest. Against that kind of pagan mentality, John asserts that the efficacy of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice is valid everywhere, for people everywhere, that is “the whole world”. The Christian gospel knows no geographic, racial, ethnic, national, or cultural boundaries.’ – Karen Jobes, 1, 2, & 3 John, 80
- God’s love for his children (2.28—3.10)
This leads to two criteria for remaining in the truth and being children of the father. First, those who do righteousness are born of him, belong to him, and abide in him (1 Jn. 2.28–29). Second, those who purify themselves are the children of God. The Jesus-followers are called ‘children of God’, yet still await the full revelation of their identity and status at the return of Jesus. The mark of this hope is purifying oneself to be like Jesus, who is pure (3.1–3).
The alternative is of course sin, which in the broadest sense is breaking God’s law, living in dissonance with the sinless Jesus (3.4–5). There is a delicate balance here. John has already criticized the secessionists for claiming to be without sin and hence without the need for Jesus to atone for sin (1.8, 10). However, John appears to be saying here that those who are children of God ‘do not continue in sin’. John clearly knows that Christians do sometimes sin and need restoration (see 1.6—2.2). What he seems to have in mind is not temporary moral lapses or character struggles, but sin as a mixture of the settled habit and drift of life. The devil, he says, is sinful; those who are like him are characterized by continuous sinning. In contrast, those who are born of God abide in Christ, and habitually do what is righteous. The children of God prove their familial identity by doing what is right and by loving their brothers and sisters.
- Communal love and confidence in Christ (3.11–24)
What distinguishes the children of God from the children of the devil is choosing love over hatred. The message has always been ‘love one another’ (see Jn. 13.34). The opposite is hatred, and the most supreme manifestation of hatred is murder, as with Cain’s murder of Abel. The most supreme example of love, of course, is Jesus ‘who laid down his life for us’ (see Jn. 15.12); it befits disciples to lay down their lives for one other. As a less dramatic and more practical example, perhaps, believers should seek to meet one another’s physical needs and provisions where they are lacking. The children of God love others, not with warm intentions, but ‘with actions and in truth’ (3.11–18).
The various tests and criteria that John makes about abiding in Christ and being a child of God might be unsettling to some of his audience. John balances the imperatives with words of assurance designed to engender confidence that the believers really do belong to God. First, if their hearts do not condemn them, if their hearts are not over-weighed with guilt, then God—who knows the heart—will not condemn them either. Second, if they believe in God’s son, and if they keep the command to love others, they are clearly dwelling in God, and God in them. Third, the spirit who effects the mutual indwelling and guidance into the truth provides added assurance (3.19–24).
- Test the spirits (4.1–6)
Mention of the spirit’s work leads John to warn against being too ready to believe any and every spiritual manifestation. There are lying spirits as well as the holy spirit. God’s spirit is easily recognizable through the confession that Jesus Christ did indeed come in the flesh. Here again John is probably refuting a form of Docetism (see ‘Excursus: Docetism 101’, above), either one that denied Jesus any true physical body, or one that suggested that the divine ‘Christ’ came upon the man ‘Jesus’ at his baptism, but departed before the crucifixion (4.1–3). Christology thus forms the yardstick for discerning the spirit of truth (4.4–6). - Love, new birth, and victory (4.7—5.5)
All this brings John back to one of his favourite themes, namely love. Twice he declares that ‘God is love’ (4.8, 16), as is proved by the father sending the son to die for sinners. Love, then, is the ultimate test for being born of God and knowing God (4.7–12). Jesus is the proof of God’s love for the ‘world’ and for ‘us’.
Abiding in love, abiding in God who is love, is dependent on the recognition of Jesus as the revelation of the being and character of love, of God. Consequently abiding in love is dependent on the christological confession of faith.
Christian faith grows out of this confession about God’s love and how the one true God has revealed himself through the son as love incarnate. Accordingly, love incarnate must be the badge worn by the members of the community, the sign not only of who they are but of who their God is (4.12–16a).
The language of abiding is married, again, with assurance. ‘God is love,’ John repeats, and those who love abide in God and God in turn abides in them. This love is ‘made complete’ (NIV) or ‘perfected’ (CEB; NRSV) by all who abide in love, knowing themselves to be loved by God, and in turn loving one another. The result is assurance rather than anxiety, since faith casts out fear. Love is completed wherever Jesus’ example is emulated, so that nothing perturbs his people as they look ahead to ‘the day of judgment’. If God revealed himself in the world by turning his love into flesh and blood, we should realize that, when we do the same, we are completing God’s love. That should increase our assurance (4.16b–18).
John stresses again the priority of divine love: ‘We love because God first loved us.’ God’s love reflects in our own love back towards God and then rebounds to others since ‘anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister’. This brings us back full circle to 1 John 3.11–12: hatred is incompatible with love. Thus John weaves together the love-command, the completing of love, and the christological confession: it all forms a single story (4.19–21).
Believing in Jesus as Messiah therefore entails loving all of God’s children (perhaps, again, a point to be stressed to any Jewish Jesus-followers who might be nervous about accepting gentile believers as full family-members). The secessionists claim to love God, but do not love all the brothers and sisters in the Johannine churches, which must mean that they are not truly born of God, nor do they truly love God. Keeping God’s command to love the brothers and sisters is not onerous, but it is an obstacle for the schismatics, proving once more that they do not know God (5.1–3). John further claims that everyone born of God triumphs over the world. The victory comes from the confession of faith, and the victory even is ‘our faith’, allegiance to the Messiah in a world riddled with the evil one, anti-Christs, and deceivers (5.4–5).
What distinguishes the children of God from the children of the devil is choosing love over hatred. The message has always been ‘love one another’ (see Jn. 13.34). The opposite is hatred, and the most supreme manifestation of hatred is murder, as with Cain’s murder of Abel. The most supreme example of love, of course, is Jesus ‘who laid down his life for us’ (see Jn. 15.12); it befits disciples to lay down their lives for one other. As a less dramatic and more practical example, perhaps, believers should seek to meet one another’s physical needs and provisions where they are lacking. The children of God love others, not with warm intentions, but ‘with actions and in truth’ (3.11–18).
- The community’s confession of faith (5.6–12)
John unpacks the community’s christological confession through the symbolically laden language of ‘water and blood’. The ‘water’ is probably a reference to Jesus’ baptism, while the ‘blood’ probably refers to Jesus’ death. Jesus did not come by ‘water only’, a possible refutation of the teaching of the secessionists, who accepted that the Christ and/or Logos descended on Jesus at his baptism, but who denied that Jesus’ flesh was crucified or his blood was shed on the cross. At the same time, the water and blood that flowed from Jesus’ side after the thrust of the Roman spear (Jn. 19.34) were the sure sign that he was really dead; the crucifixion was not a sham. Added to that is the spirit’s testimony to Jesus, since the spirit tells the truth about Jesus. Thus all three together—water (baptism), blood (atonement), and spirit (interior testimony)—testify to the truth that the crucified Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God. Those who make this confession have the testimony abiding within them, while those who deny this confession are liars. To accept the testimony about the son is to believe in the son, and there is life, the life of the age to come, in the son, and it is freely available for all who believe in him. - The community’s assurance in the faith (5.13–21)
In drawing to a close, John states his real purpose in writing: ‘I am writing these things to you so that you may know that you, who believe in the name of the son of God, do indeed have the life of the age to come.’ The language and intent reminds us of John 20.31. The son of God came to the world (see 4.9) to impart this new life; John wants his readers to know that they really do possess it. The recent schism and departure of the secessionists has created division and confusion; John is writing to bring unity to the network of churches, clarity to the believers’ confession, and confidence in their position before God. Such is their confidence that, as children of God, they can be assured that God always hears their requests and petitions (5.13–15).
John returns to the topic of sin. This might seem odd, but it is a further implication of the schism. He counsels those who mentor other believers to pray for those who sin or waver in their faith, but not to pray for those whose sin is of a type that leads ‘to death’. That presumably refers to those who, by leaving the community, have separated themselves irreversibly from the life that is found in the son. Those born of God are kept safe by God so that they will not abide in sin nor be harmed by the evil one (5.16–18).
The secessionists, however, have tragically returned to the world of sin, the abode of the evil one. Yet the author and his audience ‘know’ who they are (children of God), who Jesus is (the son of God), and what he has given them (knowledge of the truth). Because of the unique relation between the father and the son, to abide in the father is to also abide in the son. To be in the true God is to truly have, already, the life of the age to come (5.19–20).
The letter ends on a note that, though it may be unexpected to modern readers, made a lot of sense to the first hearers: ‘Children, guard yourselves against idols’ (5.21). An idol is anything that, though not itself divine, invites worship and service as if it were. The whole letter is about wrong views of Jesus, which are ultimately wrong views of God, and about the behaviour which, as always, follows from worshipping that which is not the true God.
“God is Love” on Newcastle Beach UK 6 August 2011
