1 John BIBLE STUDY SERIES

1 John                                         

bible study series       

OVERVIEW

Why does John write this letter?

1.     “…that your joy may be full” (1:4).

2.     Also, “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God” (5:13).

3.     John also writes to warn the believers of the uprising of the spirit of antichrist (2:26).

One of John’s literary styles is parallel dualism, which is a common Hebrew writing style. Thus, the phrases in 1 John that are parallel are the words: light, fellowship, love and truth. Likewise, the words darkness, hatred of brother, sin, and liar are synonymous.

Who wrote this letter?

Authorship

Early church history has maintained John the apostle as the writer of the three epistles, with a few deflectors.

·        Clement of Alexandria quotes 1 John in 1 Clement, AD 96 (Carson and Moo, New Testament, 670).

·        The Didache (AD 90 – 120) quotes 1 John.

·         The Epistle of Barnabas (c. 130) quotes 1 John and 2 John. 

·        Polycarp quotes 1 and 2 John.

·        According to Eusebius, Papias attributes the epistles to John. (Middle of the second century). (Carson and Moo, New Testament, 671)

·        Irenaeus (AD 180) attributes 1 and 2 John and the fourth gospel to John, the disciple of the Lord (Carson and Moo, New Testament, 671).

·        Clement of Alexandria knew of more than one epistle of John (Carson and Moo, New Testament, 671).

·        Origen (c. AD 253) mentions all three epistles but acknowledged that not everyone accepted the authenticity of 2 and 3 John (Carson and Moo, New Testament, 671).

·        Origen’s pupil Dionysius of Alexandria (d. 265) insisted that the apostle John wrote the fourth gospel and 1 John (but not Revelation) and that he knew about 2 and 3 John (Carson and Moo, New Testament, 671).

Those who argue against John the apostle as the author of 1, 2, 3 John and the Gospel of John reduce their argument to the discontinuities of the Gospel of John and 1 John. Here is a brief description of their arguments:

1.     The doctrine and wording do not line up.

   a.      The “word” in John is used differently in 1 John, “word of life

   b.     In John, the Holy Spirit is the “Paraclete,” in 1 John it is Jesus himself.

   c.      “God is Spirit” in John is different from God is love or God is light in 1 John.

   d.     In John, the death of Jesus is “lifted up” and “glorified.” In 1 John, Christ’s death is a propitiation.

   e.      In John, the eschatology is now, whereas in 1 John, it is in the future.

   f.       Carson and Moo rebuttals the above points, see page 673. “We should speak of complementary of vision and thought, of differentiation in application, not mutual contradiction.”

2.      There are words in John that are not in 1 John. However, there are greater divergence between Luke and Acts, Ephesians and Colossians, or 1 Timothy and Titus (Carson and Moo, New Testament, 673).

3.     Some see these writings coming from a “Johannine School.”

4.     Some see in 2 John and 3 John, the writer calling himself “the elder” and not an apostle see this as being someone different from John the apostle. Eusebius account is used for the defense of this view (Carson and Moo, New Testament, 674).

Place of Origin

Those who support Ephesus (Carson and Moo, New Testament, 675 – 676)

·        Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, writing to Victor, bishop of Rome, c. 190 (according to Eusebius.

·        Irenaeus, who knew Papias and Polycarp testify of the same.

·        The tombs of Phillip the evangelist and his daughters, and of the beloved disciples are in Ephesus.

Those who support Syria

·        Kummel urges for Syria.

o  Sees some connection between the fourth gospel and the Odes of Solomon. (Carson and Moo, New Testament, 676)

Date

·        The Gospel of John dated 80 – 85.

·        The Johannine epistles dated to the early 90s (Carson and Moo, New Testament, 676).

·        Time must be given for those who had the fourth gospel first and then added to it pre-Gnostic ideas, for John to send the epistles correcting and rebuking such heresy (Carson and Moo, New Testament, 676).

·        Other theories are given: 2 and 3 John written around AD 100, and as possibly as late as 130 with John and 1 John coming out in the middle of the second century.

·        With one manuscript P52 containing John 18, dated to 125, assigned a date of AD 200 or later (Carson and Moo, New Testament, 677).

Destination

These letters were sent to churches (and an individual) somewhere in Ephesus (Carson and Moo, New Testament, 677).

Who were the opponents?

·        Gnosticism or proto-Gnosticism (Carson and Moo, New Testament, 678 – 680)

o  Matter (evil) and spirit (good)

o  Knowledge, Wisdom, Thought… are all personified into deities. 

·        Docetism

o  That which divine cannot inherit a body. Thus, this teaching denies the incarnation of Christ (Carson and Moo, New Testament, 679).

·        The heresy of Cerinthus: Cerinthianism (Carson and Moo, New Testament, 679)

·        Smalley notes that the distinction between orthodox and heresy had not been defined (6 Carson and Moo, New Testament, 81).

·        See Brown’s reflections on page 681. There is not much to be gained from his insight.

Textual Criticism

We note here the notorious addition of 1 John 5:7 – 8a, which was not in any Greek manuscript before the fourteenth century, except for one eleventh and one twelfth century manuscript, where the statement was added in the margin much later (Carson and Moo, New Testament, 682).

Adoption Into the Canon

There seems to have been hesitation concerning early acceptance of the fourth gospel and 1 John. Concerning the 2 and 3 epistles of John:

·        Origen writes that John “left an epistle of a very few lines and, it may be, a second and a third, for not all of these are genuine” (quoted by Eusebius) (Carson and Moo, New Testament, 682).

·        Eusebius includes 1 John among the acknowledged books and 2 and 3 John among the disputed books (Carson and Moo, New Testament, 682 – 683). But, he says they are “well known and acknowledged by most.”

·        Eusebius was persuaded that all three Johannine Epistles were written by the Apostle John (Carson and Moo, New Testament, 683).

·        The Muratorian Canon refers to two of John’s epistles (Carson and Moo, New Testament, 683).

1 John was included among the NT epistles called “catholic” or general, because they were not addressed to a specific group/community or individual.

·        Origen applies the term “catholic” to 1 John.

·        Origen’s student, Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, lists 1 John among the catholic epistles.

·        All three were included in Athanasius’s list of 27 NT books in AD 367 (Carson and Moo, New Testament, 683).

·        Council of Hippo (AD 393)

·        Council of Carthage (AD 397).

·        The Peshitta included 1 John but not 2 and 3 John.

·        The Philoxenian version includes all three in 508.

Why did the author write this letter?

John writes the first epistle because of the emergence of false teachings concerning Jesus Christ that apparently was from within the church (2:22 – 23; 4:3). Since we believe that 1 John is dated in the AD 90s, we are hesitant to speak of full-blown Gnosticism at that time. Gnosticism does not emerge as a false doctrine until the second to fourth century. However, its roots were manifesting itself in small fragments even during the first century.

Who and what were the Gnostics? The Gnostics taught that all matter was inherently evil. Gnosticism was a mixture of Greek philosophy and polytheism. They believed that Jesus either did not possess a body or that he was born in the ordinary fashion and that he only became “the Christ” at his baptism. Three ancient groups held to this teaching in some kind of way: the Ebionites, the Docetics, and the Cerinthians.

           The Ebionites: the Ebionites were a sect of Jews that taught that Jesus was born to Mary and a Roman soldier. They believed Jesus was a perfect person, fulfilling the entire law and thus became “the Christ.” They believed that they and anyone one else fulfilling the law could also become “Christs” (Turner, Biblical Theology, 199).

           The Docetics: the Docetics were a subset of the Gnostics. Docetics taught that Jesus never occupied a human body but that he only appeared to be human. “The case is that the Docetics were plagued with the doctrine of Gnosticism; that is, the doctrine that the great Demiurge, a degraded Aeon far removed from the great supreme one, dared to put spirit and matter together, and that is when and how evil entered the world.” (Turner, 200). The Docetics believed that Jesus was a phantom.

           The Cerinthians: The Cerinthians held to the Gnostic teachings. Cerinthus [AD 88] lived and taught in Egypt. He was educated in the wisdom of the Egyptians. He taught that the world was not made by God but by a supreme Power. Cerinthus believed the universe consisted of several deities called Principalities. He taught that Jesus was from a lower God that rebelled against the principalities and put his spirit on Jesus, a righteous man at his baptism. Cerinthus also taught that “the Christ” withdrew itself from Jesus during His crucifixion. (Turner, 201).

Why the need for the early church to rush to canonize the 66 books?

Dr. Floyd O. Parker Jr. gives four reasons why the early church sought to close the books of the Bible at 66:

1.     Marcionism. 

Marcion was a native of Sinope in northern Asia Minor. In AD 140, he became a teacher in the church at Rome. In 144, he separated from the church there and began to teach his own version of Christianity. He distinguished between the Jewish God (violent, strict) and the Christian God (love, mercy). Judaism and Christianity were distinct, thus the Jewish Scriptures had no place in Christianity. He seems to have been the first to attempt a canon of the NT. His canon consisted of Paul’s letters and an abbreviated version of Luke. He removed all references to Judaism from these texts. Perhaps the orthodox groups saw the need of solidifying their own canon in response to his.   

Response: There is no clear-cut evidence that the creation of Marcian’s canon was the sole impetus for the formation of the orthodox canon. It is doubtful that Marcion and his followers wielded such power that orthodox groups considered them to be a major threat. Nevertheless, his canon may have sped up the process of canonization among mainstream groups (Carson, Moo, Morris, Intro. New Test., 492; as does Thiessen, Intro. New Test., 9). As we noted above, Marcion may have taken his canon from an earlier list used by orthodox Christians (after all, he was accused of truncating some body of literature that preexisted his canon; he could not have “truncated” something that did not yet exist).   

2.     Gnosticism.     

Some scholars suggest that the Gnostic threat forced orthodox Christians to form a canon because: (a) the Gnostics produced a large quantity of religious literature; (b) they claimed to have esoteric teachings, thus forcing the Church to respond with an authoritative canon list of her own; and, (c) the Church’s attempt to create the canon may have been an attempt to reclaim the authentic writings of the apostles from the Gnostics, who also used them.   

Response: The very fact that the Gnostics did have a corpus of literature, as did the Jews, may have been a factor in speeding up the formation of an orthodox canon. Yet, the Gnostics accepted many of the same texts as mainstream Christianity did (John and Paul).   

3.     Montanism.     

The Montanist movement became a threat to Christianity after the mid-second century. It began in Asia Minor with Montanus, who claimed to be the Paraclete promised by John. The church had difficulties with this movement because it not only drew on the same documents as the orthodox church did for support of its views, but because they taught no different doctrines, except for a radical view of prophecy and the imminent descent of the New Jerusalem in Asia Minor. Perhaps the church responded with an authoritative list of books because Montanus’s prophecies were written down and because he taught progressive revelation. If this is true, orthodox leaders may have been attempting to close the canon of Scripture.

Response: Although the writing of Scripture by Montanists may have influenced the canonization process in orthodox circles, the formation of the canon is probably not merely a response to the continuation of prophecy. This is because even in the second century, orthodox Christianity claimed that prophecies and inspired revelation – but not written revelation - were still taking place. Whatever one makes of the claim of the continuation of period of prophecy, it is clear that some within the second century church believed it continued well beyond the year AD 100. Celsus spoke of prophets in Palestine and Phoenicia c. AD 178 (were these orthodox or heretical groups?). The Shepherd of Hermas (c. AD 140-180) bears witness to the belief in the “spirit of prophecy” in written form. Ammia of Philadelphia was a well-respected Christian prophet. The Didache (c. AD 90-140) and other writings still speak of prophets (late 1st or early 2nd century). Justin Martyr, in his debate with Trypho the Jew (AD 150-55), uses the proofs of prophetic gifts within the Church as evidence that Christians are the chosen people instead of the Jews (J. G. Davies, The Early Christian Church, 90). Irenaeus (AD 140-202) spoke of people who had gifts (Pelikan, Christian Tradition, 1:99). Thus, the continuation of prophecy cannot have been the sole reason for the formation of the canon. The problem with Montinus was that he did not give prophecies in the “manner” of the church. He “spoke and made strange sounds, prophesying in a manner different from that which was traditional in the church from the beginning.” Even then, the mainstream church was not objecting so much to strange doctrine as it was to the rigorous ethic presented by Montanus (Pelikan, 1:100).   

4.     The Invention of the Codex. 

The codex was the first attempt to make a book (i.e. pages [written on front and back] and cover, instead of a scroll). Prior to the codex, books of the Bible were preserved on several scrolls. Most scrolls could not exceed a length of 30 feet. Therefore, a scroll could contain one book (Luke, Acts, or Revelation) or a collection of shorter books (Paul’s epistles). With the rise of the codex, entire collections could be bound in one book (Paul’s epistles, the 4 Gospels). Eventually, the entire NT would be placed within a single document. Since the number of pages and the contents of the codex had to be decided in advance, a decision had to be made as to which books would be included. Books could no longer be added or deleted as one could have done with individual scrolls. This may have done two things: (a) this would have forced a decision about which books were to be included; and, (b) given the impression of the Bible being one book instead of several books.

Chapter 1 The Elevation of Fellowship in Christ

1.     John identifies himself as an eyewitness to Jesus (1:2, 3, 5).

2.     John’s letter is a continuation of the same message that was first received from Jesus Christ (1:3, 4).

3.     True fellowship in Christ (1:6 – 10).

Chapter 2 Two Worlds Contrasted: Dialectic Dualism 

1.     Christ died for the whole world and not just for the elect (2:2).

2.     To know Christ is to keep his commandments (2:3).

3.     Attributes of darkness: hatred of brother (2:9-11).

4.     Attributes of light, “love not the world” (2:15-17).

5.     Introduction of the topic of the antichrist (2:18-19).

6.     This epistle’s relationship to the Gospel of John: “Know the truth” (2:21).

7.     John defines the meaning of the antichrist (2:22-23, 4:3).

8.     The Holy Spirit teaches the believers the truth concerning Jesus Christ – unction (2:20, 27; 3:24).

Chapter 3 The Current Status of Believers and the Works of Love

1.     “Now are we!” (3:2)

2.     A definition of sin:

a.      Sin the transgression of the law (3:4).

b.     All unrighteousness is sin (5:17).

3.     The test of a righteous person is that he does righteous things (2:29; 3:7, 3:10).

4.     Christ comes to destroy the works of the devil (3:8).

5.     A Christian, because of the Holy Spirit within him, cannot continue in a lifestyle of sin (3:9).

6.     The new commandment = the old commandment (3:11, 2:7-8). How is the commandment illustrated in believers or unbelievers?

a.      Through our deeds or works, here the example is given of Cain’s works of unrighteousness (3:12).

                                                                         i.     The word “wherefore” in this verse can be translated “why.” (Old English rendering)

b.     The commandment is seen in how we love one another (3:23; 4:21).

7.     Love is not of this world (3:14)

a.      Ej says there are aliens. Yeah, that might be so. Maybe love is like aliens.

b.     Love may be the UFOs today: unidentified flying objects. I hope not!

8.     Compare John 3:16 to 1 John 3:16. How are they similar and how are they different?

a.      John 3:16 ≈ 1 John 4:9

Chapter 4 Abiding and the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit

1.     The only way a person can abide (dwell) in Jesus Christ and Christ in the believer is by His’ Spirit.

a.      1 John 4:13

b.     John 15:6 – 12.

2.     The greatest demonstration of love for believers (and the litmus test!)

a.      1 John 3:17

b.     1 John 4:7 – 21

Chapter 5 “Believing in Jesus Equals Keeping His Commandment”

1.     The purpose of the letter (5:13, 1:4).

2.     A difficult verse to interpret (5:16).

3.     To John life is equated to Jesus

a.      1 John 5:11 – 12.

b.     John 10:10