1 John

Overview

John writes so that believers may know they have eternal life — and he gives tests rather than feelings: do you walk in the light, do you love other Christians, do you believe that Jesus Christ came in the flesh?

Teachers had gone out from the churches claiming a higher knowledge and denying the incarnation. John answers with what he touched and handled and heard, and with a standard anyone can apply.

Background

An early form of what later became Gnosticism was spreading: spirit good, matter evil, and therefore a Christ who only seemed to have a body. If that were true, the cross saves nobody.

John is the last apostle, writing decades after the events, to congregations he calls my little children. The tone is a father’s, and the letter has no greeting or signature.

Key themes

• God is light, God is love, and God is faithful to forgive.
• Fellowship with God shows in how we treat each other.
• Love is not a feeling but a laying down — He laid down His life for us.
• Test the spirits: any teaching that denies Christ come in the flesh is not from God.
• Assurance is possible: these things are written that ye may know.

Outline

1. Light and confessionChapter 1

   That which we have seen and heard — and if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just.

2. Obedience and the worldChapter 2

   Keeping His commandments, loving not the world, and a warning about antichrists.

3. Children of GodChapter 3

   What manner of love, and love in deed and in truth rather than in word.

4. Test the spirits, and loveChapter 4

   God is love; we love him, because he first loved us.

5. Faith and assuranceChapter 5

   Overcoming the world, the witness of God, and knowing you have eternal life.

Key passages

• 1 John 1:7 The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
• 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us.
• 1 John 2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.
• 1 John 3:1 Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us.
• 1 John 4:4 Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.
• 1 John 4:10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us.
• 1 John 4:19 We love him, because he first loved us.
• 1 John 5:13 That ye may know that ye have eternal life.

Christ in 1 John

John begins with hands that handled the Word of life, because the whole letter turns on Christ having really come in a body. He is the propitiation for our sins, the advocate with the Father, and the Son in whom life is — he that hath the Son hath life.

Reading it

• Read it in one sitting, then go back for the tests.
• Notice that John returns to the same three themes in circles rather than a straight line.
• Read it when assurance is shaky; that is the stated reason it exists.