December 17 1 John

December 17, 2014

1 John

The author of 4 of the last 5 books of the Bible is John, the disciple of Jesus, and the son of Zebedee. John probably wrote his letters later life (he did live longer than the other disciples) and his concerns reflect a certain twisted teaching that had begun to creep into the church. It’s called “Gnosticism,” after the Greek word for “knowledge,” and was marked by these beliefs: Spirit is good, but the body is evil. Salvation is escape from the body, achieved not by faith in Christ, but by special “knowledge.” This special knowledge denied the humanity of Jesus. God would be evil, they said, if he had become a human being. 

There were two strange brands of this false teaching: one taught that since the body is evil, it should be treated harshly and denied everything good, the other taught the opposite. If the body is evil, it doesn’t matter what you do with it; sin away!

If you understand this much about Gnosticism, it will help you navigate through John’s first letter. From the beginning, you can literally feel the weight of John’s arguments. Jesus, God’s Son, was a real, touchable, visible, audible human being (1:1-4)! We are neither to claim sinlessness nor grow satisfied in our sin (1:8f; 2:15-17). We are to believe that Jesus is both the Messiah of God (2:22-23; 4:15) and fully human (4:2-3). We are to live out the love that we have received (4:19-21).

Over all of this, I like to feel the weight of John’s repeated words. In defiance of “Gnostic knowledge,” John says “by this we know,” or “we know,” at least 13 times! John summarizes his reasons for writing in 1 John 5:13, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.”     

Your fellow traveler through the New Testament,

Pastor Gary