1 JOHN
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the introduction to 1 John. There are at least three themes in the book of 1 John, namely:
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Light versus darkness,
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Love versus hatred and
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Truth versus error.
In the Gospel of John, he tells us how to be saved and in 1 John, he tells us how to be sure that we are saved. The letter deals with the test of fellowship and the test of sonship. God's children have fellowship with God and with fellow Christians, they walk in the light and not in darkness, uphold truth and reject error, love God and fellow Christians and shun hatred.
1 JOHN 1
John, as the beloved disciple of Christ had known Him first-hand. He had heard, seen and touched Him and known that Christ was God the very God Who was from eternity past. He had known Him to be the Life and the Light revealed from God. John was enjoying a tremendous fellowship with Christ and he wished that all God's children could experience such a joyous fellowship.
In the chapter, he states two practices that will keep us in such a fellowship with God:
1. Walking in the light.
We must walk in the light and not in darkness. That means our lives must be holy and guided by the Word of God. Walking in darkness is leading a sinful life. God's children should strive by His grace to live holy lives. Living such a life puts us Christians in fellowship with God and with fellow Christians. Our misunderstandings and fights with other Christians is many times a clear indication that we are not in fellowship with God.
2. Confessing sin.
God's children genuinely constantly seek forgiveness and cleansing from their sins. They are constantly aware of their sinfulness and so they are quick and regular in asking God to forgive and cleanse them. As God's children, we should not hesitate to do this because God is so gracious and faithful to forgive and to cleanse us of all our filth. That is what Christians do and this is the only way to enjoy the life of being a Christian.
Unfortunately, when we allow sin to dominate our lives, we live miserable lives. Be warned, God cannot allow us as His children to enjoy a life of sin, and even we "enjoy", it is a short-lived "joy". John's intention was so that we may have great joy in knowing this. God wants you to enjoy being a Christian and He has made provisions for that. What an assurance!
1 JOHN 2
John begins by addressing his audience as "my little children". His audience, very dear to him, was either those whom he had personally led to Christ or believers from the church at Ephesus which he had pastored before. He was quick to caution them that sin would destroy the beautiful fellowship they enjoyed with the Lord but also pointed out that should any of them fail, he should seek forgiveness through our Advocate, Christ Jesus in order to be restored back into fellowship.
His audience was being bombarded by false teaching of the agnostics, who mainly denied that Christ had come in the flesh and His deity. Of course, false teaching leads to disobedience, which destroys our fellowship with God and those who love and obey Him. He wrote to caution his audience not to allow any of that to destroy the heavenly fellowship they were enjoying with the Lord. To maintain and enjoy this heavenly fellowship, there is what they needed to and not to do. They were to keep His commandments, love the brethren, and not love the world nor heed the false teachers. That's what God's children do.
Praise God that He has not left us to do this on our own, but He has given us the unction or the anointing from the Father, the Holy Spirit. He has given us the Holy Spirit to help us to discern and obey the truth of God's Word. Ours is to yield to Him so that we will not be ashamed but rejoice at His appearing.
This is what walking in the light is all about. If we walk in the light we have and enjoy fellowship with God and with those who love and obey Him. Are we enjoying that fellowship or do we feel crushed under the weight of some dominating sin? The choice as always is ours!
1 JOHN 3
John begins by stating the specialty and uniqueness of our sonship; that we are overwhelmingly loved by God in a way that the world can not even understand. He says that the best is yet to come, because what awaits us is beyond our wildest imagination.
Like it's always the case, false teachers (gnostics) who had emerged in John's day were claiming to be true Christians. False teachers confuse and mislead believers. Our Salvation is an act of God that cannot be fabricated or feigned. Therefore, John spelled out the marks of a genuine believer so that his audience could have a measure to distinguish between true believers from false ones.
True believers:
1. Don't live a life of habitual sinning, (vv. 7-10).
2. Love the brethren (sacrificially), (vv. 11- 18,23).
3. Have the witness of inner self (conscience), (vv. 19-22).
4. Experience answer to prayer (vs. 22).
5. Have the witness of the Holy Spirit (vs. 24).
Therefore, seeing what God has made us in Christ and what awaits us, we must keep ourselves pure. We keep ourselves pure because of His wonderful love, our Lord's promised return, His death for us at the cross, we have a new nature and the witness of the Holy Spirit. We sin when we fail to reckon Christ's love for us, who we are in Him, and what He has promised us.
1 JOHN 4
John pointed out that there were false or satanic spirits behind the false teachers of his day, just as it is today. Therefore, he cautioned his audience not to be naive as many are today but to test or evaluate the spirits behind the work of those who claimed to be teachers of the word of God because there were many false teachers. If that was true in John's time, how much more is it today?
Like the Bereans, Christians are to have healthy skepticism. First, John said that false teachers deny or distort the incarnation of God. They deny that Christ came into the world bodily and that He is God-Man, 100% God, and 100% Man and not half-half. All religions of the world apart from biblical Christianity deny this cardinal doctrine in one way or another. All the religions that believe in salvation by their good works, by extension don't believe that Christ is God the very eternal Creator-God; because if they did they will not have a problem believing that His Sacrifice at the cross was enough to atone for all their sins. If He is God, He can save me, if He isn't, He can't, simple.
Secondly, John says that false teachers are popular with the world. The world that is opposed to God hears them. Actually their teaching resonates well with the world and they disregard and deny the truth of God's Word. On the contrary, believers are identified with love. He charges believers to love one another because:
1. We have a new nature.
Our new nature in Christ so demands that we love one another (vv. 7-8).
2. Of Christ's sacrificial love for us (vv. 9-11).
3. It displays and helps others to see God and His love through our love for the brethren (vv. 12-16).
4. It will give us confidence in the day of judgement (vv. 17-19).
5. It's hypocrisy to claim to love God and not love our brethren.
False teachers are all over today and they are led by false and demonic spirits that are opposed to Christ. They are characterized by selfishness, manipulation, falsehood and all kinds of evil. As God's children, we have the Holy Spirit and we are to love and care for one another. Through this, others will see God in us. Is the world around you seeing God through your love for Christ, His Word and His Bride?
1 JOHN 5
In the first 5 verses, John talks of the one who is born of God as an overcomer. His faith in Christ is not temporal or for convenience but he remains faithful to the end. He also loves God and obeys Him. These three are interrelated. The proof of genuine love is obedience and the proof of genuine faith is love.
Vv. 6-13 tell us of the external and internal witnesses that God has given us about the Deity of Christ, that He is the Messiah of God so that all may believe in Him:
a) External witnesses - the water and the blood which refer to the baptism and the death of Christ.
b) Internal Witnesses - is the Triune God: The Father, the Son (the Word), and the Holy Spirit.
At the baptism of Christ by John the Baptist, God the Father and the Holy Spirit bore witness visibly and audibly that Christ was the Messiah. Anyone who rejects such a testimony from God concerning His Son blasphemes because his rejection is tantamount to calling God a liar.
John concludes his letter by stating 5 things that are certain to a genuine believer by using the phrase, "we know" A true believer has:
1. Assurance of eternal life (vs. 13),
2. Confidence in answer to prayer (vs. 14),
The only prayer that will not be answered is the one hindered by premeditated and unconfessed sin (this is the sin that leads to death),
3. Victory over satan and sin (vs. 18),
4. Assurance of sonship-
he knows that he belongs to God - that means the unsaved belong to the devil, (vs.19),
5. Knowledge that Christ is of God.
He is God the very God Who became man (incarnation) so as to save us. This is the greatest truth that the rest are built on. Any Christian who knows this keeps himself/herself from idols, and there are many in our day. We pollute ourselves when we forget who we are in Christ.