The letters of first, second and third John first
John is actually anonymous but second
and third John are written by someone who is
called "The Elder". Now the language and
style of all three of these works are
identical to each other and to John's
gospel and so most people think that all
of them come from the disciple that
Jesus loved now that could be John the
sons of Zebedee, one of the twelve
apostles, or it could be another John
among Jesus's earliest disciples known
as John "The Elder". Whichever John it was he's
now in his old age and he's overseeing a
network of house church communities that
are likely around the city of ancient
Ephesus. Now, from clues within the gospel
and from these letters
it seems that these communities were
made up mostly of Jewish followers of
Jesus and that they had recently gone
through a crisis that motivated John to
write these letters. He mentions that a
group of people have broken off from
these churches these people no longer
acknowledge Jesus as Israel's Messiah or
as the Son of God and they're stirring
up hostility among those who stayed
faithful to the churches. In fact, second
and third John clearly addressed this
conflict. Second John is a warning to a
specific house church. There are people
who deny Jesus John calls them deceivers
and they're probably going to come
looking for validation or support and
this church community is not to offer
any. Third John is actually written to a
member of one of these house churches,
a man named Gaius, and the elder asked him
to welcome legitimate missionaries who
are going to arrive soon. He has to tell
him to do this because the leader of
that church community , Deotrephes, is
acting like a jerk and he's rejecting
anybody associated with John the Elder.
and so these letters give us a window
into the tension and conflict that John
faced in these churches and first John was
written as a response to all of this, as
a form of damage control. The Elder
assures those who still believe in the
Messiah, Jesus, that God is with them as
they adhere to the truth. And so all of
this helps us understand the uniqueness
of first John which is actually not a
letter at all.
It reads more like a poetic sermon sent
to these churches. John says that he's
not communicating new information. In
fact almost all of the key ideas and
words in first John come right out of
Jesus's teachings in the Gospel of John
and so John's goal is to remind them and
persuade these Christians to stay true
to what they already say they believe,
The poetic quality of John's sermon is
really cool
he doesn't develop his ideas in a linear
or logical way rather he uses a
well-known technique of ancient rhetoric
called amplification. S o John has just a
few core ideas he wants to communicate
about life and truth and love
and he's going to cycle around these ideas
repeatedly each time offering a little
bit different of an angle or emphasis. He
uses a lot of hyperbole, uses very stark
contrast with simple images of light and
dark and love and hate and good and evil
but don't let the simplicity of first John
fool you. This work is deeply profound.
There's a clear introduction to first John
and then a clear conclusion and the
flowing cycles of the sermon in between
these two don't follow any kind of rigid
literary design, but there do seem to be
two larger sections each one is marked
off by the introductory phrase: "This is
the message", and then each is followed by
a repetition of images about how God is
first light and then how God is love and
all of the ideas in these two parts flow
out of and cycle back into these two
core ideas. So, the introduction is very
similar to the prologue of the gospel of
John. It has echoes of Genesis chapter one
and proverbs chapter eight. John speaks of
the "word of life" that was with God in
the beginning. For John the word God
refers to both the Father and the Son
who came to bring life into the world.
And so those who saw and heard and
touched the Son are called "we". John's
referring to himself and the apostles
who were eyewitnesses of Jesus and so
now, "we" have a message for "you" the next
generation of Jesus's followers. So when
the Apostles share the word of life with
others, these others are also brought
into fellowship with the Father and the
Son through the Apostles The word
fellowship here is "Koinonia" in Greek, it
means "a participation" or "sharing" when
people hear the message about Jesus
through the Apostles that
message brings them into a real
relationship with Jesus himself and into a
real participation in God's own love and
life. And so this flows right into the
first main section. This is the message:
God. Is. light. This is the message of the
Apostles that the God revealed in Jesus
is light. And so, if people want to
participate in God's own life through
Jesus they need to keep walking in the
light which is a really cool image but
what does it mean? It means for John to
keep Jesus's commands. A nd that's hard so
when you fail Jesus's atoning death will
cover for your sins and then once again
you're called to get up and obey Jesus's
teachings. But which one of he's
teachings? John reminds the churches of
Jesus's "old / new command" given to the
disciples at the Last Supper, that they
love one another as he loved them. Doing
this is walking in the light. Now, if
God's light is now shining through Jesus
then that means the world's darkness is
passing away, which also means that God's
children already, in this moment, have
victory over the sin and evil and death
that reigns in the world. And so that
leads John to challenge the churches:
"Don't love the world". Because it's
passing away too.
He's referring here specifically to
pride and sexual corruption likely these
are problems connected to the conflict
that was happening in the churches. And
so this leads John to warn the churches
about these people who have left the
communities and who deny Jesus as the
Messiah. John calls them the anti
messiahs and deceivers but he's
confident that those who still know the
truth about Jesus are in fact the true
children of God and they are loved by
the Father and they show that they're
part of God's family when they do
righteousness and when they love one
another
unlike the deceivers, who are generating
anger and strife and division. And so the
transitions into the second main section
of the sermon. This is the message of the
Apostles ,John says, that: God. Is. Love. and
so God's children should love one
another and avoid hatred.
Don't be like Cain from Genesis chapter
four, John says, his hatred led him to
murder his brother.
But for Christians, love is defined
by giving up one's life as a sacrifice
for the well-being of others.
That's what Jesus did, and when God's
children trust in that love for them
it changes them. And so, John warns once
again of the deceivers. This time he
calls them "false prophets". When they deny
Jesus is the Messiah, they apparently
claim to speak for God but John says to
test the spirits. If anyone claims to
speak on God's behalf but doesn't focus
on Jesus as the Crucified Son of God,
they do not speak for God, John says.
God's true children will Center their
whole lives on the crucified and risen
Jesus because that's where we see God's
true heart revealed. We see on the cross
that God is a being of total self giving
love, and that love is what compels
Jesus's followers to love others in the
same way. And when people meet this God
of love it does away with fear and angst
foreve. Which is part of what John means
by "having victory over the world". When
you realize that God so loves you that
he is crazy about you despite your
deepest flaws and failures, that love
becomes the thing that grounds your
entire life.
This love is what comes through trusting
in the crucified Jesus, it comes through
trusting God's testimony about Jesus
given by the Spirit and is trusting in
the message from the Apostles about
Jesus. And when God's love gets ahold of you
it opens up eternal life.It's a life
permeated with God's own presence and
life and love and it begins now carrying
on into eternity .And so, this leads John
to the climactic conclusion of his
sermon. He says: "We know the Son of God
has come
and so we can know the one who is true
and we are in the one who is true in his
son Jesus the Messiah. This is the true
God and eternal life."
Now if your heads kind of spinning after
hearing that sentence and you're
wondering ."wait, who is the one who is
true?
Who is the one who gives true life? Is
that Jesus or is it God?". And John's
answer is of course: "Yes". John doesn't
know any God apart from Jesus and when
he and the other apostles encountered
Jesus they discovered the God who loves
us so deeply that He has chosen not
exist without us
despite our failures. And this God is so
surprising,
so unexpected, that John's final words
call us to keep away from idols. That is
to resist any temptation to remake the
surprising God in our own image, to know
Jesus is to know the God of creative
life giving others centered love. This,
John says, is the one true God and that's
what the letters of John are all about.