Overview:
John Stott:
Even a superficial reading of the gospel of John and the first letter reveals a striking similarity between the two both in subject-matter and syntax... love of opposites set in stark contrast to one another - light and darkness, life and death, love and hate, truth and falsehood.
Those who have been born of God, God's children are variously described in relation to God, to Christ, to the truth, to each other, and to the world. They are 'of God' and have come to 'know' God, the true God through Jesus Christ. It may even be said that they have 'seen' God... Christians are not only of God but of the truth as well. The truth is also 'in' them and they 'do' it or 'live by' i, for the Spirit given to them is 'the Spirit of truth'
Occasion:
His first concern is not to confound the false teachers, whose activities form the background of the letters, but to protect his readers, his beloved 'children', and to establish them in their Christian faith and life. He defines his own reason for writing as being 'to make our joy complete', 'so that yu will not sin', and 'so that you may know that you have eternal life'
He is also concerned about: those who would lead you astray and deceive you.
The deniers of the divine-human person of Jesus are called: false prophets, deceivers, antichrists.
"Once they passed as loyal members of the church, but now they have seceded and 'gone out into the world' to spread their pernicious lies."
The heretical teaching is either a denial that 'Jesus Christ has come in the flesh' or a denial of Jesus as 'Christ come in the flesh.'
The denial of the incarnation took two forms: one who denied Jesus' humanity, one that denied his divinity.
The three 'if we claim' sentences of 1:6-10 are a denial either that sin exists in our nature, or that it has erupted in our behaviour, or that it interferes with our fellowship with God.
'whoever claims' to live in Christ ought to give evidence of it by walking as Christ walked. And what do the commands of God and the walk of Christ involve? In a word, love.
Of the liars: they cannot claim to 'be' righteous unless they actually 'do' righteousness.
Sin and lovelessness are as much at variance with the mission of Christ as they are with the nature of God.
Gnosticism summary: the impurity of matter and the supremacy of knowledge.
Certainty about Christ.
Perhaps realigning the gnostics emphasis on knowledge John says: we know... that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true.
But how do we know these things? Three stages.
1) The historical event, Christ's being 'sent'
2) The apostolic witness. The even did not pass unnoticed. The one who came in the flesh was seen, heard and touched, so that those who say could testify from their own first hand experience.
3) The anointing of the Holy Spirit, by whom we are taught and therefore know.
We are not to lead the congregation into novel doctrines, but to recall them to what they have heard 'from the beginning'.
Certainty about eternal life.
To be a Christian, in the language of John is to have been born of God, to know God, to live in him, and to enjoy that intimate, personal communion with him which is eternal life.
The three 'cardinal tests' by which we may know whether we possess eternal life or not:
1) theological, whether we believe that Jesus is 'the son of God' 3:23
2) moral, whether we are practising righteousness and keeping the commands of God. Sin is wholly incompatible with the nature of God.
3) social, whether we love one another.
The three tests belong to each other because faith, love and holiness are all the works of the HS. It is only if God has given us his Spirit that we are able to believe, to love and to obey.
To fail to pass these tests is to stand self-exposed.
A fresh certainty about Christ and about eternal life, based upon the grounds which John gives, can still lead Christian people into that boldness of approach to God and of testimony to the world which is as sorely needed as it is sadly missing in the church today.
David Jackman:
1 John is a cicular letter. It was probably sent from Ephesus to the congregations of Asia Minor.
These letters may well be the last of the canonical scriptures to be written, probably during the decade AD 85-95
The first letter is directed to a specific situation in the churches, where false prophets have separated themselves and their followers from the main body of believer and so divided the church.
Their reasons for this action seem to have centred on their claim to a special 'anointing' of the HS, by which they had been given true knowledge of God. This knowledge became the centre of their distinctive beliefs and lifestyle.
John's concern, as we shall see, is to emphasise and define what is a true knowledge of God: 'we know' is one of his favourite recurring assertions.
Among the many strands of gnostic belief, we can note two major ones which are vital to our understanding of John's context. The first is the exaltation of the mind, and therefore of this speculative knowledge, over faith and behaviour. The second is the conviction that matter is essentially evil because the physical world is the product of an evil power.
Three times he describes them as 'liars'.
To the gnostics to describe the eternal Son as having flesh and blood was unthinkable; to John it was the heart of our salvation. His body given for us, his blood shed for us were the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world and the supreme demonstration and guarantee of the love of God for mankind.
False teaching always leads to false living, and the ethical implications of gnosticism are equally John's concern throughout the letters... Such an attitude led them to separate themselves from the churches as a new moral and spiritual elite.
On: 'my dear children' Lenski comments: this is the voice of a father.
When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do? Psalm 11:3
John has no doubt as to the answer. Doubtless aware of the special personal relationship he had had with the real, historical Jesus in his incarnation.
Belief and behaviour are inseparable. Mind and heart belong together. True light leads to real love.
'The gospel and...' is at the root of many errors.
In every generation the church is challenged by the world, either to confront or to absorb its culture, to 'be squeezed into its mould', or to 'let God re-mould your minds from within'.
John does not attempt a detailed analysis or critique of error; he has no need to do so. He proclaims the truth in the characteristic apostolic confidence that where the truth is declared and believed, error will be undermined and will ultimately collapse.
Chapter 1:
Phil Moore:
- example of William Pit making a return visit to the House of Lords as an old man to implore them concerning a decision over France. He died during his speech.
John as an old man (80-90) addresses his church to reassure and strengthen their confidence in the gospel.
'True Knowledge' Phil says is it what 1 John is about.
The Fixer - he says that John is keen to lend whatever help he can to fixing the church and ensuring her nets are capable of catching fish.
First: John fixes their view of the Christian message. He emphasise 'eternal life' meaning both undying in the face of persecution but also the power of the life in the gospel: 'the life of the eternal age;
"We are meant to feast so fully on the delights of the coming age that we are able to bring down its power to people living in this age that is passing away. If the church remembers this, its powerful preaching will never fail to catch a crowd of eager converts, but it never will if its nets are broken through forgetfulness."
Second: He fixes our view of Christian calling. Koinonia = partnership. We are called to partner with one another and with God.
Third: He fixes our view of Christian experience. we are meant to be marked by joy.
John Stott:
The word of life is not a title for the Son but an expression for the gospel, the message of life... the particular emphasis of which concerns that which was from the beginning which we have heard, seen and touched... what the apostle stresses in his proclamation of the gospel is the historical manifestation of the eternal.
The preface's sweep is: from eternity to eternity, from that which was from the beginning to the fullness of joy.
The eternal pre-existence:
The author is announcing, he says, 'what has always (from the beginning) been true about the word of life.'
The historical manifestation:
The four relative clauses proceed 'from the most abstract to the most material aspect of divine revelation'. To have heard was not enough; people 'heard' God's voice in the OT. To have seen was more compelling. But to have touched was the conclusive proof of material reality, that the word 'became flesh, and lived for a while among us'.
The word 'pselaphan' is to grope or feel after in order to find... it may also mean 'to examine closely.' Although this is the climax of the sentence the emphasis is on seeing. Two verbs are sued for sight: see and behold.
It is impossible to distinguish between Jesus and the Christ, the historical and the eternal. They are the same person, who is both God and man.
The authoritative proclamation:
He must be a witness before he is competent to bear witness.
It is for this reason that the verbs to 'see' and to 'testify' are so commonly associated with each other in the NT, as they are in v2.
Our author insists that he possesses these credentials. Possessing them he is very bold. Having heard, seen and touched the Lord Jesus, he now testifies to him... For the Christian message is neither a philosophical speculation, nor a tentative suggestion, nor a modest contribution to religious thought, but a confident affirmation by those whose experience and commission have qualified them to make it.
The communal fellowship
The proclamation was not an end in itself; its purpose immediate and ultimate is now defined. The immediate fellowship and the ultimate joy. Westcott: 'the last of the apostles points to the unbroken succession fo the heritage of faith.'
'Fellowship' is a specifically Christian word and denotes that common participation in the grace of God, the salvation of Christ and the indwelling Spirit which is the spiritual birthright of all believers... our fellowship with one another arises from, and dpends on, our fellowship with God.
This statement of the apostolic objective in the proclamation of the gospel, namely a human fellowship arising spontaneously from a divine fellowship, is a rebuke to much of our modern evangelism and church life. We cannot be content with an evangelism which does not lead to the drawing of converts into the church, nor with a church life whose principle of cohesion is a superficial social camaraderie instead of a spiritual fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
The completed joy
The substance of the apostolic proclamation was the historical manifestation of the eternal; its purpose was and is a fellowship with one another, which is based on fellowship with the Father and the Son and which issues in fullness of joy.
David Jackman
The phrase (from the beginning) echoes the start of the gospel of John... Go back as far as you will in your imagination, says Genesis, before anything that exists came into being, and you will find God, the eternal Being.
The phrase pros ton patera (with the Father) indicates the closest sort of face-to-face fellowship, existing in the eternal mystery of the Godhead.
Jesus himself asserted: I am the life.
Paul could say, "We preach Christ" showing that the message and the person are ultimately identical.
Every clause of this introduction has its own edge.
Everyday experiences
Some of the strongest rebukes and warnings of the NT are reserved for such double-mindedness, which is at root hypocrisy.
Faith is the door to fellowship.
The word fellowship (koinonia) is an interesting one. Used in classical Greek as a favourite expression for the marriage relationship, the most intimate bond between human beings, it is particularly appropriate to describe the Christian's personal relationship with God and with his fellow believers as here.
In our desire for visible unity among Christians, however, we must not forget that it is fellowship with God that comes first; fellowship with one another is derived from that.
The conscious possession of eternal life, the daily enrichment of personal fellowship with the living God, the deepening awareness of oneness with all God's people everywhere - could there be any comparable recipe for fullness of joy?
As a spiritual song from a bygone generation put it: happiness happens; but joy abides.
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