An Introduction to the Book of 1st John: Lesson 1

 This morning I want us to begin a study of the book of 1 John. I have preached through 1 John many years ago. Those of you who have been here long enough that you were here when I did that are like me. You are now too old to remember what you had for breakfast this morning, so there is no danger in you getting the feeling that I am repeating myself. All my study notes and files on 1 John are long gone. Best I remember the files are on a 3.5” floppy. Some of you are too young to even know what that is. I am starting fresh and new in this book. As it happens every time I start a new book of the Bible, I am excited about what lies before us.

 We won’t get into this letter in detail today. We will cover some important introductory material. Today I want to introduce you to the man John, and give you an overview of his message. If you are familiar at all with First John you know that John is very much a black and white kind of person. He does not paint with shades of gray. His tendency is to tell it straight, in direct terms, leaving no room for mistaken interpretation of what he is saying. John is dogmatic, firm, authoritative, absolute, and clear. No other New Testament writer is as dogmatic as John. No one else writes in such clear absolutes. 

 This is one of the reasons I chose to move into this book at this time. We live in a culture that abhors absolutes. Our society refuses to define things in terms of right and wrong. Our culture demands tolerance, acceptance of all kinds of aberrant behavior. Even the message of the church is trending further and further in the direction of acceptance, tolerance, inclusion, and compromise. If the Apostle John were preaching today, he would be pounding the pulpit, boldly proclaiming an uncompromised message that would leave his listeners with no question about what is according to the truth and what is from Satan.

 It is in this culture of inclusion that we need the message of 1 John. John paints a very clear contrast between light and darkness, between the love of God and the love of the world, between Christ and the antichrist, between good and evil, between the Holy Spirit of truth and the spirit of error, between genuine love and pious pretence, between those born of God and those who are children of Satan.

 Why is this important to understand? This obviously tells us John was a man of truth. He is a defender of truth. He shows us how to tell the difference between what is of the truth and what is not. He shows us how to know for certain if we are walking in the truth, or if we are walking in error. He is a man entrenched in the truth. However, John is known as the Apostle of love. He is called the Apostle of love because he wrote more about love than any of the other New Testament authors. He is the one who told us that God so loved the world… He recorded the words of Jesus regarding the importance of loving one another. A very strong emphasis of this epistle is love.

 John is a man of truth and a man of love. He is the kind of person we need in our world today. John was this way because he learned to be this way by watching Jesus. He modeled his life after Jesus.

 John wrote this letter near the end of his life. He is the sole surviving Apostle of Jesus Christ. John lived well into his nineties. He spent the last years of his life exiled on the Island of Patmos off the coast of Greece. Before that he was in Ephesus, serving as the overseer of the churches in Asia Minor. You will recognize the names of some of these churches. There was Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. These are the churches to whom the letters were addressed in the second and third chapters of the Revelation. It was from Ephesus that John provided apostolic leadership to these churches and the rest in Asia Minor.

 It is very likely that John wrote the Gospel of John and these letters of 1, 2, 3 John somewhere between 90-95 A.D while at Ephesus. There was an intensification of persecution under the Roman Emperor Domitian in 95 A.D. that is not mentioned in any of the letters. This leads scholars to conclude that these were written before this started. As a result of this intensified persecution John was exiled to Patmos because he would not stop preaching Christ. It was there he received and wrote the Revelation before his death.

 To understand the man we must go back to the earlier stages of his life. He was the brother of James and along with Peter these three were part of the “inner circle” of the Apostles. John is the undisputed author of the Gospel of John but he never identifies himself by name. He is simply “the apostle whom Jesus loved.” John enjoyed an intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ that was shared by only a select few. It was this relationship with the One who is full of grace and truth that shaped John into the man he would become.

 There was some transformation that needed to take place. John would not have always been known as the apostle of love. James and John, these brothers who were called as Apostles of Christ, were named by the Lord as the “sons of thunder.” When Jesus gave you a name, it was appropriate. James and John were the two most ambitious of the Apostles. It was a trait they probably inherited from their mother. She was the one who asked Jesus to give her two sons the seats on His right and left hand when He came into His kingdom.

 If Jesus calls you “sons of thunder” you have a bold, aggressive, ambitious personality. Thunder is explosive in nature. Such were James and John. This is what characterized John in his early years. This still is evident in his writing of 1 John. It was the work of Jesus that tempered these characteristics over the years. He was called a son of thunder because of his volatility, his ambition, and his aggressive nature. Turn with me to Luke 9 for a moment.

 In Luke 9:28-36 is the account of the transfiguration of Jesus. Peter, James, and John were with Jesus when Moses and Elijah appeared to Jesus and the appearance of His face became different and His clothing became white and gleaming. The three apostles knew it was not good to be there. But it was a unique experience. These three were privileged to see what no other human saw. This was an experience that had an affect on these three. The affect may not have necessarily been all positive.

 We only need to go as far as verse 46 in Luke 9 to see what the affect may have been. “An argument started among them as to which of them might be the greatest.” The Scriptures don’t tell us who started this argument but I don’t think it would be hard to figure out. It was probably the two who were among those closest to Jesus and whose mother had asked for the favored positions in the kingdom. Who had the upper hand in this argument? I can only imagine how this argument was going. Peter, James and John had everyone else beat hands down. They were the only three who could say, “You haven’t seen what we just saw.” Then, among these three the two brothers no doubt thought they had the upper hand on Peter because they had him outnumbered. It was two against one.

 In response to this argument Jesus brought a little child before them to teach them the important lesson of humility. Then, Luke records for us the only words of John that are recorded in the Synoptic gospels. Look at verse 49-50. Why did John make this confession to Jesus? Luke gives us this account because John started to get the lesson on humility Jesus had just taught. He is confessing his attitude of superiority over someone else who had been trying to cast out demons in the name of Jesus. John’s attitude was one of superiority. He was sectarian in his thinking. He liked being in the exclusive club of Jesus followers. He is convicted about this so he confesses his wrong attitude.

 If we read on in Luke 9 we find further evidence of the reason Jesus named them sons of thunder. Read verses 51-56. You don’t get more aggressive and volatile than to want to call fire from heaven to consume the people you don’t happen to like. John wasn’t exactly demonstrating the love of Christ towards these people. He was still a son of thunder.

 These glimpses into John’s life help us understand his nature. Jesus chose John as an apostle knowing exactly how he was. All the Apostles had warts. They were all flawed because they were sinners. What we see John become after more than 60 years as a follower of Christ is a tempered, toned down son of thunder. He is seasoned. He has matured. He has grown into the perfect balance of love and truth. He is the apostle of love but he is still so dogmatic about the truth.

 The overarching lesson from John’s life and writings is simple. Love and truth must exist in tandem. They must both be evident and in balance or there will always be problems. Love without truth leads to compromise, tolerance, acceptance of error in the church. Truth without love leads to cold orthodoxy. Truth without love motivates you to want to call fire from heaven to burn up the infidels. John was the apostle of love, and he knew that the most loving thing you could do for someone was give them God’s truth.

 As John writes this letter, he is as committed to the truth as he ever was. His growth into the apostle of love did not diminish is commitment to the truth. There were some things going on historically that kept John focused on the truth. It is because he was so focused on the truth that he writes this letter with so much emphasis on the stark, clear, and dogmatic contrast between truth and error.

 Remember, John has lived into his 90’s. He is responsible for apostolic oversight of the churches of Asia Minor. In just a few short years he will be responsible for penning the message from the Lord Jesus Christ to those churches. If you know anything about those messages you know that most of those churches were being negatively impacted by error. Ephesus was leaving its first love. Pergamum had embraced the teachings of Balaam and the teachings of the Nicolaitans. Thyatira tolerated the woman Jezebel. Sardis had a name that they were alive but they were dead. Many had soiled their garments with ungodly character. Laodicea had become lukewarm and indifferent and satisfied. 

 This was the condition of these churches in the 90’s. These were the same churches that had been started by the Apostle Paul in the 50’s and that had grown into strong, committed, evangelistic churches in the 60’s and 70’s. But in this brief time, while the Apostle John was exercising apostolic oversight, these problems identified in Revelation 2-3 had crept in. The warning the Apostle Paul gave to the Ephesian elders concerning savage wolves in Acts 20 had actually happened. The apostle of love pens 1 John to be circulated throughout these churches because he loves these people enough to call them back to the truth. His letters of 1,2,3 John would be followed by the message from the Lord Himself warning these churches to repent and return to the truth.

 We don’t love those whom we allow to persist on the path of error. If they are not confronted with the truth by those who know the truth, they are headed for eternal destruction without ever having heard the warning. It is the truth that transforms. It is the truth that sets sinners free. We can’t change hearts but we can share truth. If we love others we must preach God’s truth without compromise, with clarity, and with conviction. John shows us this.

 This historical background also should serve to remind us of the importance of the systematic proclamation of the truth of God’s word within the church. There is only one way that the churches of Asia Minor got into the condition they were in when Jesus appeared to John and gave him those messages to the seven churches. They got off track because error had been allowed to creep in. False teachers were tolerated. False teachers are tolerated because God’s people don’t know the truth well enough to see the error when it surfaces. This is why we have so much gross error in the church today. People do not know the truth so they lack discernment to recognize the subtle errors of false teachers.

 There is no question about John’s willingness to confront error. He confronts it boldly, directly, consistently, and authoritatively. There was an early church writer who had known John personally. His name was Papias. He lived beyond John’s lifetime and he wrote of John saying that John was “a living and abiding voice for God.” This is what men are who are willing to proclaim the truth of God clearly, correctly, and with conviction and without compromise.

 This is the man whose writings we will be studying. What was his message? Turn to Chapter 5 and look at verse 13. John writes, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” This is an important statement regarding the purpose for which this letter has been written. John wants us to know that we have eternal life. There are a lot of people in the world who have a “hope so” confidence regarding eternal life. They hope that when they die they will be accepted into heaven. John tells us that we may “know.”

 This idea of “knowing” is probably the most prevalent theme in this letter. The Greek verb “ginosko” means “to know by observation and experience” is found 15 times in this letter. Another word translated “know” is “oida.” It means “to know by reflection.” It is used 25 times. “Ginosko” speaks of acquired knowledge. “Oida” speaks of intuitive knowledge. We will encounter other words translated “to make known” or “confidence” that are used another 13 times in these chapters. Over 50 times John makes the point that he wants his readers to know. John will take the guess work out of determining where we stand in our relationship with God. He will give us the evidences upon which we can base our knowledge. We can know for certain that we have eternal life.

 John will not tell us we can know because we believe in Jesus. He will not tell us we can know because we have had a religious experience. He will not tell us we can know because we prayed a prayer and got baptized, or attended church. This assurance comes from simply looking at the truth and comparing the truth with the evidence we see in our lives. Let me show you some examples throughout the letter. Look at 1:5-7, 2:3-6, 2:9-11, 2:15, 3:4-10, 3:14-15, 4:7-8.

 We will find in this letter several defining characteristics of a true follower of Christ. These are the characteristics of a genuine believer. These things mark the authentic Christian. The test is not what we say. The test is what we see in our lives. The first test is found in 1:6. “If we say we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” This is the test of fellowship with Christ. If we are walking in fellowship with Christ, we will walk as He walked. We will walk in the light. Men who love darkness love darkness because their deeds are evil.

 The second test is the test of righteousness. We find this test in 1:8-10. Who would say “I have no sin?” or “I have not sinned.” Only those who are self-righteous. The self-righteous are shut off from the forgiveness of sins. Only those who confess, or agree with God regarding sin, are promised the forgiveness that cleanses from all unrighteousness.

 The third test, or defining characteristic, is obedience. It is found in 2:4-6. The one who says one thing and does another, is a liar and the truth is not in him.

 The fourth defining characteristic is love for others. Look at 2:9-11. 

 Another is love for God rather than a love for the world. See 2:15-17

 So why did I choose 1 John? Look at 1 John 1:4. We learned a lot from Paul in Philippians about joy. We are going to build upon that with the truth of 1 John. The way our joy is made complete is by growing in our understanding of God’s truth and by committing to walk in that truth. There is no joy in walking in disobedience to the truth. My hope is that our joy may be complete.

 Second reason is found in 1 John 2:1. John wrote these things so the people might not sin. I want us to grow in holiness. God can only bless this church to the level of our purity. If our garments are soiled, if we have too much love for the world, if we are not walking in truth and righteousness, God will not bless. I want this church to grow in holiness. Joy and holiness.

 Third reason we have already mentioned. 1 John 5:13. I want to help you grow in assurance of your salvation. I don’t want anyone to have a “hope so” kind of faith in this church. We can have assurance. I want you to know that you have eternal life.

 Let’s pray.