FIRST JOHN
First Test:
1 John 2:3-17
INTRODUCTION
Anytime there is conflict within a church, people are forced to ask themselves where they stand on the issue. Some conflicts result in some people doubting what they believe to be true. The same is operating here in 1 John. For over 30 years certain doctrines have held sway in the church of Ephesus and the churches in the neighboring cities. Suddenly, a new heretical theology has arisen, and many of John's followers are beginning to question what they have always believed.
One thing they questioned was whether or not they were in a right relationship with God. How could John's followers be for sure that they were in a right relationship with God? John addresses this issue by giving his followers 3 tests they can use to determine whether or not they see God's people. If they pass these 3 tests, then they can know for sure that they truly belong to God. (Compared to 1 John, no other book in the NT stresses more the certainty a Christian can have that he belongs to Christ. The verb "know" with this definition stresses more the certainty a Christian can have that he belongs to Christ. The verb "know" with this definition occurs no less than 13 xs in this brief letter. People don't have to go around wondering whether or not they are right with God. If they pass these 3 tests, they can know for certain they belong to Him.) The 3 tests are
There are several reasons why John stresses the command to love; one, however, harmonizes with the context of the letter. Whenever there is conflict within the church (like there is in John's church), love tends to be the first casualty. We are more interested in defending ourselves against our opponent than we are in loving that opponent. We are more interested in getting our own way than we are in loving our opponent. As we shall see, obedience to the requirement to love is the essence of our relationship with God and with others. When a church ceases to love, it ceases to be the church. When a person who claims to be a Christian does not love, then he should ask himself if he is truly a Christian. I was glad that after the vote on the future of the sanctuary was taken; all sides seemed to lay down any differences and chose to love each other. That's the mark of a genuine church—not which side gets its way.
Note that in 2 of the tests—obedience to the command to love and the life of righteousness, John uses the present tense with his verbs. By using the present tense, John is stressing the habit that a person engages in. He is not interested in one or 2 individual acts; he's looking at the tenor of a person's whole life. For example, when you look at a certain person's life, do you feel that love characterizes that person's life? We're not asking if at some time that person got angry and so disqualified himself as God's child. Rather, the sum total of a person’s life is what matters—not a few instances.
The reason why focus is on the whole life and not on1 or 2 instances is that people are going to sin. According to John, the person who claims to be sinless is deceiving himself; in fact, that person is a liar (1 John 1:6-10). John knows that a person is going to sin; that’s the reason he comforts us with the knowledge that Jesus Christ Himself continues to be our defense attorney in God's court of law (2:1). So John is not interested in a few lapses but rather in the overall characteristics of a person's life. We will look at love in this chapter and in more depth in chapter 4.
Finally, notice that John is using a style of teaching which is foreign to us but quite familiar to the Jews of the first century. Normally, we like to have 3 points all nicely laid out. We deal with point one completely, then proceed to point two, and finally to point 3. When we finish a point, we feel that nothing more is to be said. John, on the other hand, like other Jewish teachers (for example James the author of the Epistle of James) will touch on a theme, go on to one or more other themes, then go back to the first theme, and then back to the other themes he's already dealt with. This style of teaching is cyclical in nature. Using this method, John is able to build and develop the themes. By the times he deals with the themes the last time, he has slowly built to an impressive climax. Yes, it does take some time to do this, but the purpose is to build slow and steady growth. Too often, we are more interested in micro-wave teaching: "Give it to me fast and furious! I don't have time to wait!" But then also we don't grow. This allows time for what John has said to sink in.
IMPORTANCE OF OBEDIENCE (2:3-6)
John's disciples are having serious questions about themselves and their relationship with Christ. How do they know that they have a genuine relationship with Christ and John's opponents do not? John claims that the first way you and I can know whether or not we're in a right relationship is by the test of love. The person who obeys God, that is keeps His commandments, is in a right relationship with God. The person who does not obey God is not in a right relationship with God. The person who claims he is in a right relationship with God and yet does not obey Him is a liar.
As we shall see in our next lesson, John uses the word "liar" to describe a person as being closely associated with Satan and his antichrist. Knowing who God is and yet refusing to obey Him is the sin of Satan. The other night, before Mike Taylor, Melissa Means, and I were about to go door-to-door cold turkey evangelism, we went over the different elements of leading a person to Christ. As we were talking, I mentioned that we should not be content with a person's response if he says he believes in Jesus as Savior. I said we also need to see if Jesus is Lord of their lives. When asked why, Mike Taylor responded that even Satan believes Jesus is Savior and yet is condemned because Jesus is not Lord of his life. Obedience is not incidental to the Christian life; it is mandatory. It is required. If you study the 4 gospels, you will see that Jesus describes the person who is right with Him as being the person who is humble and obedient to Him. This should not surprise us in light of who we are and who God is. The only proper response to any god, must less the one true God, is obedience. If you and I live a life of habitual obedience, then we are in a right relationship with Him. Again, this does not mean that we are never going to fail. It just means that our lives should be characterized as that of being obedient.
THE SPECIFIC COMMAND TO LOVE (2:7-11)
In the previous section, John has spoken in generalities about the need to obey God. Now he becomes more specific as to what command(s) we should obey. The command, the overarching command we should obey is the command to love. This does not mean that there are no other commands; it just means that the command to love is the greatest commandment which encompasses all the other commands. For example, if you keep the command "Do not steal," you still have not necessarily kept the command "Do not murder"; however, if you keep the command to love, you will neither steal nor murder. If we keep the command to love, then we have kept all the other commands (Rom. 12:10).
John next writes what appears to be 2 contradictory statements. First, he claims that the command to love is not a new commandment but actually is an old one; then he goes on to claim that it really is a new commandment. What does he mean by this apparent contradiction? First, the command to love is an old commandment because even Moses gave us the command to love not only God but also our neighbors as ourselves (Lev. 19:18). Since Moses lived 1400 years before John, John was able to describe this command as being old. On the other hand, he can claim that it is a new commandment because of the emphasis Jesus placed on it in addition to the extra content Jesus added to it. Before Jesus came, the command to love was basically one of 436 commandments in the OT. It was not any more important than the commands not to steal or to murder; Jesus, however, made this command the centerpiece of His message. It is so important to Jesus that He claimed that this love would be the dominant characteristic of the believer (John 13:34, 35). Furthermore, Jesus expanded on the OT command to love—both how to love and whom to love. We're to love the way Christ Himself loved—sacrificially and unconditionally (John 13:34). Just like Jesus' love cost Him His life, so our love should cost us something as well. Moreover, Christ redefined whom we should love. The OT commanded us to love our neighbor. The Jews naturally interpreted this to mean those Jews living next to them. Neighbor according to Jesus includes more than just those Jews they knew and loved; in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus claims that anybody we come into contact with and has a need—regardless of race, etc., is our neighbor. In other words, the whole world has potentially become my neighbor. Just like Christ loved the entire world of mankind, so we are to love all—good as well as evil.
John claims that we are to love because the darkness is passing away and the light is already shining. This may be difficult to understand, but John is actually drawing a vivid picture of the time in history in which we are now living. Before Christ came, the world was basically plunged into darkness because of sin and death; however, when Jesus came, the light and everything associated with it, especially love, dawned upon the world.
Think about dawn for a moment. When you see the dawn, you see not only light but also darkness. It's the time of day in which darkness and light coexist. The same phenomenon occurs at dusk; however, the critical difference between dusk and dawn is that whereas at dusk the darkness is growing, at dawn the light is growing. In fact, whereas within a few hours after dusk darkness overwhelms the light, within a few hours after dawn, the light has completed conquered the darkness. So too with Christ. His first coming has ushered in light, the light of love. Upon His second coming, His light of love will completely conquer the darkness and everything associated with it, especially hate.
At the present time, though, we live in the dawn in which the darkness as well as light is still present. The darkness is still here because Satan is still alive and doing well, wrecking havoc on the lives of untold millions. At the same time, though, Jesus the Light is operating in the world and is rescuing us from the clutches of Satan. We have the choice either to follow the darkness or follow the light. If we follow the light, then we will live lives of love. If we are genuine believers, then we are going to live in the light part of this dawn and live love. The person who claims he is a believer and yet hates is in the darkness, no matter how loudly he may protest or claim the opposite.
Before we leave this section, we first need to observe that the command to love is exactly that—a command. It is not optional. Just like the command not to murder is not optional, so neither is this command optional. Moreover, since it is a command, God is going to command whom we're to love and how we are to love. Too many times we determine whom we're going to love. We love those who love us in return. Normally, the people He commands us to love are the unlovely, even those who are hateful towards us. He doesn't focus the command on loving family or even friends because that comes naturally. What God is interested in is commanding us to do the impossible because He knows that the only way we can fulfill those kinds of commands is by letting Him live HIs life through us. The same applies to how we love. Most of us love the way that seems natural to us. I love to receive gifts; therefore, I love others by giving gifts. The truth, though, is that others may experience love by somebody spending time with them. Gifts mean nothing to them, whereas time well spent does. Since we are loving others for their own sakes and not ours, then we need to love them the way they experience love.
Why don't we love the way God commands us? Many times we think that if we love others, they will love us in return, even if they started out hostile towards us. This kind of thinking can lead to some serious disappointment. Sometimes loving somebody who is hostile towards you results in that person becoming only more hostile because they feel so guilty about their hostility. Your love only highlights their hostility. Other times we love others thinking that they might even change and become better persons. Well, sometimes they don't change. The truth, though, is that the goal of love is love itself. The main purpose behind loving is to become a loving person. If a person who is loved changes for the better, well and good. If not, it still does not relieve us of the obligation to love. Christ's death on the cross is the supreme example of this. While on the cross, He loved the religious leaders even though they were never going to change. He died for them just as much as He died for you and me.
GROUND FOR JOHN'S APPEAL (2:12-14)
Many times during crises like the one John was facing, Christians tend to become irrational and operate out of their emotions. In cooler moments, some Christians would never do what they do in the heat of a conflict. They are going through an emotional time right now and need to think about themselves and their relationship with God and Christ. They need a cooling-off period. John in this section is trying to settle them down and make them think about their past experiences with the Lord so as to motivate them to remain faithful to Him.
First, he reminds all the believers in Ephesus, etc. ("little children") that their sins are forgiven them for His name's sake. In other words, because of the relationship with Jesus Christ that John preaches, these believers have experienced forgiveness of sin, that is the removal of that barrier which had separated them from God. This new religion touted by his opponents would never give them this forgiveness. Second, with regards to the more mature believers in the church ("fathers"), he writes that they know Jesus, the eternal one. They have a dynamic relationship with Jesus. John's opponents are teaching something radically contrary to what John has taught them about Jesus, and since they really do know Jesus personally, they know that John is right and his opponents are wrong. Finally, he writes to the less mature Christians—those young in the faith, that they are strong and have overcome the evil one because they have held true to God's Word. When they had been confronted with heresies in the past, they had remained firm in the faith and had not yielded to Satan, the evil one. On the basis of their past behavior, John is urging them to remain faithful to Christ in the present.
AVOID LOVE FOR THE WORLD (2:15-17)
Before leaving this major section on the command to love, John wants to address one other matter. Sometimes people misuse Jesus in order to get what they want, even though what they want might really contradict Jesus. For example, for the past several verses, we've been speaking about the command to love. Well, some will interpret this to mean that they are not only to love everybody but also to love everything, even things which God would forbid us to love. John, on the other hand, commands us not to love the world, nor the things in the world.
By this command, John is not saying it is wrong to appreciate the things in the world. For example, it's not wrong to like a nice house or new car. What he is saying is that these things should not control us, that we should not set our affections upon these things. Some people are so compelled to own nice things. They will work ungodly hours in order to achieve a certain social or economic status. When they don't get what they want, they become agitated or even get out of control. Well, how do I know if something controls me or if I control it? Ask yourself how you would feel if you had to give that thing up. Would you be angry or ridiculously sad? IF your answer is yes, then you are guilty of loving the world in the way that John condemns.
Why is this kind of love wrong? John claims that it is not love but actually lust. We just call it love in order to justify the way we feel about these things or rather to feel OK about what we're feeling. Well, John claims that this love is none other than the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life. (We don't have time to go into this, but these 3 examples of lust and pride relate very specifically to the situation of John's churches.) Lust of the flesh—sexual and sensual sins; lust of the eyes—obsession with clothes, physical appearance; and boastful pride of life—sheer arrogance. John claims that these do not originate from God but from the world when it is apart from God.
Why should we not engage ourselves in these 3 types of lust? According to John, the world is transitory. God is going to do away with it (as we know it) when Jesus returns. If this world is going to pass away, then everything associated with it is going to pass away also. Well, these 3 types of behavior are a part of this world and therefore will pass away along with the world. On the other hand, the person concerned with following God and His will is going to last forever because he has attached himself to God who is eternal.