1st John 2:3-11 (The Message)
Here’s how we can be sure that we know God in the right way: Keep his commandments.
If someone claims, “I know him well!” but doesn’t keep his commandments, he’s obviously a liar. His life doesn’t match his words. But the one who keeps God’s word is the person in whom we see God’s mature love. This is the only way to be sure we’re in God. Anyone who claims to be intimate with God ought to live the same kind of life Jesus lived.
My dear friends, I’m not writing anything new here. This is the oldest commandment in the book, and you’ve known it from day one. It’s always been implicit in the Message you’ve heard. On the other hand, perhaps it is new, freshly minted as it is in both Christ and you—the darkness on its way out and the True Light already blazing!
Anyone who claims to live in God’s light and hates a brother or sister is still in the dark. It’s the person who loves brother and sister who dwells in God’s light and doesn’t block the light from others. But whoever hates is still in the dark, stumbles around in the dark, doesn’t know which end is up, blinded by the darkness.
Well, here we are again, on a Sunday when we weren’t planning to be here, and it’s time to pick up where we left off a couple of weeks ago. Last week we didn’t meet at all because I was out of town, and the week before that we were here, but I veered off our current series to insert something from Acts that had caught my attention that week. So it’s been awhile since we were last into our Summer Sermon Series.
We’re in the last block of the New Testament, looking into the “other letters,” the ones that were not written by Paul or by Paul pretenders. To refresh your memories, we have so far gone into Letters of James, Hebrews, and Jude – and now we arrive at the First, Second, and Third Letters of John.
As with the other “rest of them” letters we’ve looked at so far, there appears to be a lot more that we don’t know than what we can claim to be sure about here.
Back when we studied the Gospel of John I mentioned briefly that the Letters would be very similar and are believed by some to have been written by the same writer. My guess is that they were not written by the same actual person but by someone from the same community of belief. As we’ve mentioned before, John was an extremely common name at that time – as it still is today. The writer may have been named John or he may have taken that name as a tribute to the writer of the gospel or as a means to tie his ideas to the gospel writer. We don’t know.
There is also the same uncertainty as to when they were written, with the current consensus being that the first letter was written around the first decade of the 100’s. The second and third letters may have been written near the same time or as long as a decade later. And they may have been written by a different author yet. We don't know.
The first “letter” doesn’t have any of the typical markings of a letter – no sender mentioned, no community to which it would be written. It reads, instead, like an expository teaching that has been consigned to paper. The second and third letters are clearly letters – referencing individuals and their communities in normal letter-style.
So – with all the “we don’t know’s” out of the way, what does this letter actually say? And why are we reading it? And what can it mean for us here today?
Well, first off, there is a goodly amount of perfectly lovely writing in this first John letter. I always find it intriguing that some of the shortest pieces turn out to have the most memorable quotes in them. The primary theme of this letter is love – the love God has for us, the love we should have for each other, and the love that should shine out from us if we allow the love of Christ to shine through us.
There are only five chapters all together – and so much love. Chapter three in particular seems to be full of memorable quotes we are all familiar with. It begins with a reminder that we are God’s beloved children and love is our destiny:
We’re in the last block of the New Testament, looking into the “other letters,” the ones that were not written by Paul or by Paul pretenders. To refresh your memories, we have so far gone into Letters of James, Hebrews, and Jude – and now we arrive at the First, Second, and Third Letters of John.
As with the other “rest of them” letters we’ve looked at so far, there appears to be a lot more that we don’t know than what we can claim to be sure about here.
Back when we studied the Gospel of John I mentioned briefly that the Letters would be very similar and are believed by some to have been written by the same writer. My guess is that they were not written by the same actual person but by someone from the same community of belief. As we’ve mentioned before, John was an extremely common name at that time – as it still is today. The writer may have been named John or he may have taken that name as a tribute to the writer of the gospel or as a means to tie his ideas to the gospel writer. We don’t know.
There is also the same uncertainty as to when they were written, with the current consensus being that the first letter was written around the first decade of the 100’s. The second and third letters may have been written near the same time or as long as a decade later. And they may have been written by a different author yet. We don't know.
The first “letter” doesn’t have any of the typical markings of a letter – no sender mentioned, no community to which it would be written. It reads, instead, like an expository teaching that has been consigned to paper. The second and third letters are clearly letters – referencing individuals and their communities in normal letter-style.
So – with all the “we don’t know’s” out of the way, what does this letter actually say? And why are we reading it? And what can it mean for us here today?
Well, first off, there is a goodly amount of perfectly lovely writing in this first John letter. I always find it intriguing that some of the shortest pieces turn out to have the most memorable quotes in them. The primary theme of this letter is love – the love God has for us, the love we should have for each other, and the love that should shine out from us if we allow the love of Christ to shine through us.
There are only five chapters all together – and so much love. Chapter three in particular seems to be full of memorable quotes we are all familiar with. It begins with a reminder that we are God’s beloved children and love is our destiny:
See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.
The chapter likewise ends with
Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.
And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.
Chapter four adds even more of these easily remembered verses:
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son for our sins.
Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us .... God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us.
Nothing here that we need to theologize about; nothing we need to struggle with – just love. The only thing here remotely theological is the fifth and final chapter’s reminder that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine – not just a human with divine approval and most definitely not divinity just pretending to be human – a heresy that was circulating around at this time.
This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. Christ was born both of the water of the Spirit’s baptism and of a human woman, with all its physical messiness, just like every other human person. Fully human and fully divine – a major component of any Johannine teaching. And the "John" writers legacy to us today.
I recommend you take the time to read the First of John’s letters – just for the beauty of what it has to tell us.
Next week we’ll look into the second and third letters, each of which has only about 3 paragraphs. We’ll see what they had to offer the emerging Christian faith and what they have to offer us today.
This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. Christ was born both of the water of the Spirit’s baptism and of a human woman, with all its physical messiness, just like every other human person. Fully human and fully divine – a major component of any Johannine teaching. And the "John" writers legacy to us today.
I recommend you take the time to read the First of John’s letters – just for the beauty of what it has to tell us.
Next week we’ll look into the second and third letters, each of which has only about 3 paragraphs. We’ll see what they had to offer the emerging Christian faith and what they have to offer us today.
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