Introduction

CHURCHES OFTEN STRUGGLE. Even good churches. What seems to be an ideal and harmonious situation on the surface may disguise a congregation wrestling at a profound level with questions of mission, belief, and leadership. Sometimes there is outright conflict.

Unfortunately we often idealize the New Testament era and its churches. We fantasize about how life must have been then. We think, for instance, that the congregations of Paul generally found their conflicts to be external to their congregational life. A synagogue, perhaps, much like those in Antioch of Pisidia or Iconium (Acts 13–14), gave Paul’s followers trouble. Or perhaps it was a rival body of believers, another “denomination,” like the Judaizers who dogged his churches in Galatia. But rarely do we accept the notion that some of these churches struggled internally; that they experienced a laity in revolt, or failed leadership, or elders who rivaled the authority of the pastor, or genuine confusion about Christian faith and practice.

Occasionally we are given glimpses of such struggles. The church at Corinth, for instance, certainly had internal problems of leadership and mission. First Corinthians 1:10–17 means at least this much. Likewise, Paul’s letter to Philippi was occasioned not simply by the persecutions of those hostile to Christ (Phil. 1:27–30), but also by reports that members of the church itself were at each other’s throats, living selfishly, arguing aggressively, and barely exhibiting the character of Christ (2:1–18). Simply put, Paul had churches that were engaged in seriously destructive behavior.

I am convinced that the churches led by the apostle John likewise struggled. And the letters of John, particularly 1 John, are documents that lend some insight into difficult years of pastoral leadership. For instance, 1 John 2:18–19 suggests that the church receiving this letter had even split; some members had left the congregation in an uproar. John even uses the term “antichrist” to describe their behavior. But the trouble didn’t stop there. These disgruntled former members still held a pull on the church.1 They were playing heavy-handed politics. They were cajoling John’s faithful members to come away and join the revolt (2:26). John spares no words in criticizing these people. He calls them “children of the devil” (3:10).

This commentary is committed to “bridging” the contexts of the biblical text and the context in which we live today. In the past I have valued the letters of John as sources of personal encouragement and exhortation. I still do. Just like the Fourth Gospel, these letters—particularly 1 John—are filled with memorable thoughts that seem timeless. However, recent years have done much to reconstruct the likely setting of these letters and unveil the circumstances that brought them to life. Discovering that original context has, for me, given them a relevance for the modern church that is unparalleled. In other words, the Johannine context can be bridged because its setting is utterly germane to our world today.

Recently I attended a men’s retreat, thinking that most of the participants would be laymen of our church. But sitting across from me the first morning was a minister from a mainline denomination—an ex-minister I should say—who had been “run out of his church” (to use his words). A circle of elders claiming inspiration in the Spirit had challenged his authority and demolished his ministry. They claimed to know new things about the Lord and the Spirit, and their persuasive abilities had won over the bulk of the congregation. The pastor had become a casualty of the many lethal skirmishes that went on weekly.

The letters of John know conflict and struggle. They were born in the midst of intense controversy. In their pages John works to give guidance; in doing so, he draws a sweeping panorama of what should be normal Christian thought and behavior when congregational life gets tough. But this hardly means that we have to be in crisis to appreciate the words of these letters. While the original context may have been conflictual, still, the substance of John’s response to this conflict has value for many other situations. Life in community is often challenging and sometimes difficult. John provides us with guidelines that help us assess the quality of our life together as we try to build the type of Christian communities John no doubt envisioned.

John’s Timeless Questions

UNFORTUNATELY MANY COMMENTARIES on these letters attempt to reconstruct the questions of antiquity without sincerely bringing their concerns into our own generation. I am convinced that these letters have a great deal to say when we lift their concerns from the first century and bring them into our own. Many come to mind immediately:

Handling conflict. Are there limits to dissent in a congregation? What does leadership do when members decide that the usual course of church life is no longer satisfying? Or what if the usual course of theological orthodoxy is deemed archaic? What happens when dissent becomes so acerbic and biting that it inevitably splits the congregation? What is a pastor supposed to do? John found himself in this very predicament.

Charismatic tensions. When debate is fueled by people claiming new experiences and revelations in God’s Spirit, conflicts become that much more intense. How do we confront wrong teaching when it is buttressed by claims of spiritual authority? How can we spiritually equip sincere believers so that they will not fall prey to people who irresponsibly undermine pastoral authority? John’s opponents were claiming to be filled with the Spirit, and this inspiration was the basis of their complaints.

Testing true faith. Many people claim to be Christians today and even embrace a faith that says, “Jesus is the Son of God.” But what happens when doctrinal compromises seem to change what it is these people actually believe? Does the Christian faith bear a content—not just an experience or feeling—about which there is no compromising? What is doctrinally essential for Christian faith? Today we live in a world of competing religious truth-claims, and “heresy” is a noun few of us are comfortable using anymore. John’s opponents would readily say that they were Christians; but they had put a spin on Christian doctrine that the apostle found utterly abhorrent. Should we be as intolerant—even abrasive—as John seems to be when confronting these views?

Testing Christian conduct. What happens when people with crystalline orthodoxy pursue a lifestyle that makes you wonder if the Christian faith has even touched their personal lives? What if their behavior, their attitudes, or their ethical decisions are utterly foreign to discipleship in Christ? Does Christian faith require Christian conduct for it to be valid? Or better still, is it appropriate to weigh the sincerity of someone’s faith by looking at the way he or she behaves in community and in the world? John’s opponents were threatening his congregation. Did their behavior invalidate their claim to be Christians? If so, how do we identify such behavior without becoming legalists?

Is love the most important value? Everyone knows that 1 John again and again affirms the importance of love and acceptance in a Christian community. But a more perplexing question has arisen today: Should love and tolerance be the litmus test of acceptable theology today? Is there no longer room for serious (or severe) doctrinal disagreements? My Presbyterian colleagues are wrestling with this as I write. For instance, those who take a “literal” reading of the Bible want to claim that homosexuality is an unacceptable lifestyle and that those who are self-affirming and active in the gay community should not be ordained. Others in the PCUSA call this “gay bashing” and a “gross distortion of Christian teaching and logic” that denies the scriptural command to love and respect the differences among God’s children.2 Does loving one another mean that we dare not be inflexible about some theological positions?

The History of John’s Church

SCHOLARS TODAY RARELY view the Johannine literature3 as the product of an author without a historical context. In fact, elaborate theories have attempted to reconstruct the precise setting of the Christians who owned this literature in order to help us better understand their convictions. Such a history for Paul’s churches has been helped no doubt by Luke, who penned Acts, thereby giving us a chronological framework in which to place Paul and his letters. Thus, for example, reading Acts 15 helps us immeasurably to understand the depth of Paul’s feeling in Galatians.

The Johannine literature owns no such chronology. Nevertheless, we can safely assume that it did not surface in a vacuum, but that Christians in living congregations read and venerated these documents. It is also not far-fetched to assume that John himself—John the apostle, son of Zebedee, one of the Twelve—was a pastor/evangelist who built churches in the Mediterranean world and was a custodian of traditions about Jesus.4 If this is the case, then we may wonder if the literature that survives this community, the biblical documents we possess today, do not bear some evidence of the character of these Christians. All literature tells us something about its author and its recipients.5 And sometimes when pieces of this literature are compared carefully, we learn more: They tell us something of the development of thought among John followers, along with their passions, their wars, and even their history.

John’s Fledgling Community6

EARLY TRADITIONS INDICATE that John planted churches in Ephesus. Eusebius, the fourth-century historian, quotes Irenaeus (A.D. 130–200), bishop of Lyons (France), who tells us that John was a leading ecclesiastical figure in Asia Minor (present-day western Turkey). Clergy from throughout the area traveled to Ephesus just to learn from John and hear his stories about Jesus. How did Irenaeus know all this? He says it was confirmed to him by Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, who in his younger years was instructed by John.7 Similarly, Eusebius also preserves for us a letter by the bishop of Ephesus itself (Polycrates), in which the Ephesian bishop tells us that John, who reclined near the Lord at the Last Supper (John 13:25), was buried in Ephesus. Today two tombs still exist in this ancient city, both claiming to be the burial place of John.

While the early church was well known for its fanciful traditions about the apostles, many scholars do not count this story about John among them.8 John was a pastor, a leading pastor, whose memory of Jesus and whose recollection of his teachings gave him unique prowess in antiquity.

John’s community of believers lived on the frontiers of Judaism. His church was heterogeneous: Jews who had moved into the Greek world lived alongside Greeks who knew nothing of the Old Testament.9 Their common bond was a firm allegiance to Jesus, their Messiah, and John was their leader. And yet because John himself and his “Christian message” were rooted in Judaism, it was natural that this community would live in close proximity to the synagogues of his city. In fact it is here, in this relationship with the synagogue, that the Johannine community’s “story” was forged.

The Fourth Gospel

THE GOSPEL OF John is a by-product of John’s ministry. That is why it repeatedly anchors its message in John’s “eyewitness” testimony (John 19:35; 20:24). Its text tells us about Jesus, to be sure; but more than that, the way its message is framed tells us about its author and his audience. This explains, for instance, why again and again the Gospel refers to “the Jews” as if they were the opponents of the church (neither Paul nor Luke write with this same tone).10 Even though some have criticized the New Testament and especially the Fourth Gospel as anti-Semitic, such a view misrepresents the cultural and historical framework unique to these writings. In its earliest days, John’s congregation felt that it was under siege: External enemies particularly from the synagogue were in debate with them. This also explains the importance of John’s lengthy story in John 9, where the blind man’s expulsion from the synagogue may have meant a lot to John’s Jewish followers who themselves were being expelled.

At its earliest stages, this community was cultivating an outlook of division: The world outside the church was a place of darkness, persecution, and turmoil. In Jesus’ prayer (John 17) there is not even a record of Jesus praying for the world; he simply prays for the survival and success of his followers. Above all, stories that held deep meaning for the community ended up in the Johannine archive about Jesus: fights with Jewish leaders (see John 5, 8, 9, and 10), the continuing relevance of Jewish festivals like Passover (see John 6), and the ongoing importance of John the Baptist (see 1:35–51; 3:22–36), to name a few. We know, for example, that Ephesus had a community of people who were followers of John the Baptist but not of Jesus (see Acts 19:1–7). Did these groups debate? Did a story like John 1:35–51 encourage many of them to join the followers of Jesus?

In these earliest days the Fourth Gospel may have been a loose collection of stories preached by John. It may have even concluded without chapter 21 (notice that chap. 20 has a natural ending). Likewise, this early Gospel may have lacked its unique prologue (1:1–18), thus giving it a starting point like Mark, where John the Baptist is the introductory character. These were the formative years of the community, when prized stories about Jesus were being preserved and polished, and when a collection of John’s best memories and personal accounts were being written down.

To be sure, this was a Gospel to be proud of. It elevated Jesus to a lofty status and showed how he surpassed the efforts of Moses (for Jewish debaters) and fulfilled in abundance the various Jewish festivals like Tabernacles, Passover, and Sabbath, dramatically replacing them. The Gospel of John even gave generous amounts of teaching from Jesus—teachings that predicted the sort of persecution the church was having and yet promised an intimacy with Christ that made such suffering immaterial. This was a Gospel that described the Holy Spirit in detail, talking about conversion in terms like “rebirth,” “drinking living water,” and “eating the bread of life.” This was a Gospel that encouraged a profound relationship with God and could inspire the fantasies of those believers prone to mystical experiences of the faith.

Indeed, the Gospel of John was an empowering Gospel that shaped this Christian community so that it would expect dynamic spiritual experiences. Jesus and the Father were dwelling inside these spiritually reborn believers (John 14:23)! No other gospel speaks like this! The Holy Spirit promised to provide them with incredible powers: power to recall Jesus’ very words (14:26), power to work miracles greater than those of Jesus (14:12), power to have prayer answered (14:13–14), and power to confront a hostile world (16:7). They even had the power to forgive sin (20:23). Above all, the Spirit gave them the power of prophecy, to continue speaking with Jesus’ voice, revealing new things not recorded in Scripture (16:13).

John’s Gospel suggests that his community was a pneumatic community. Today we might call it a charismatic community. This is not to say that the Johannine literature provides a detailed working-out of the spiritual gifts as, for example, Paul does in 1 Corinthians 12–14. There is no evidence that the Johannine Christians spoke in tongues (though it is not implausible). Rather, the Johannine literature evidences a community alert to the centrality of the Spirit and ready to experience the Spirit in its fullness. In short, Johannine theology laid the context in which a pneumatic/charismatic Christianity would flourish.

Chaos and Conflict

BUT WE CAN only speculate that something serious happened at a later stage of the church’s life. The once-unified congregation began to tear apart from within. Threats that were once external now were found within the ranks of the fellowship itself. For John, it must have been a crisis beyond belief. In 1 John 2:18 he even says that it is “the last hour” for the community.

Who were these dissenters? In a moment we will outline their beliefs and speculate who they were. But for now, we need to sketch the role they played. Essentially, these were a select group of Johannine Christians who knew the Fourth Gospel well, claimed to be inspired by the Spirit, and challenged John’s understanding of Jesus Christ’s personhood and work.11 And apparently they were succeeding. The community was splitting, harsh words were being exchanged, and the vocabulary once reserved in the Fourth Gospel for those in “the world” was now being aimed at fellow Christians within the church.

Our evidence for this division is found in John’s response to the crisis: the first letter of John. In its pages we have evidence of severe social conflict: the painful departure of the group (1 John 2:19–26) and warnings about “deceivers” and “liars” who twist the truth of Christ (2:22; 2 John 7). In addition, severe theological debates (1 John 5:5–8) were being fought among teachers claiming to be filled with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (2:20–21; 4:1–6). The letter’s repeated emphasis on love hints at the severity and desperation of the situation.

The Johannine scholar Raymond Brown believes that at this point the Fourth Gospel may have gone through a revision to correct some of these misunderstandings.12 The Gospel, for instance, gained its prologue (John 1:1–18), which emphasizes Jesus’ full incarnation (v. 14). These introductory verses have an uncanny resemblance to the opening verses of John’s first letter (see 1 John 1:1–4). It is possible that the event that inspired this “writing up” of the Gospel was John’s death. John 21 implies that the apostle has died, even though his community thought he would survive till Christ’s second coming (see John 21:20–25). In fact, when John’s disciples stitched together their leader’s story of Christ, they gave him a title of veneration that would make him famous: the beloved disciple (13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7, 20). John did not call himself this; rather, his followers gave him this name.

Therefore, we might view the literary sequence in this way: (1) An early draft of the Fourth Gospel circulates widely and is subject to misinterpretation. (2) John pens his letters and writes a prologue for the Gospel. (3) John dies, and his followers publish the final form of the Gospel (including the prologue and chap. 21), as well as organize and preserve his letters.

In other words, we can say that in some respects John’s letters are a response written in debate with those who may be interpreting an early draft of the Fourth Gospel. For some the letters serve as a sort of commentary on the Gospel. Still others would describe them as an “epilogue” to the Gospel, designed to circulate with it so that erroneous interpretations would not be reached. Stephen Smalley prefers to describe John’s first letter as a paper that

The Fate of the Church

BUT THE JOHANNINE church was not to survive the conflict. The church split, with strong leaders taking the fellowship down the road of Gnosticism and Docetism while John’s own disciples remained in communion with the other New Testament churches of Paul and the apostles. The earliest commentaries on John (e.g., Heracleon) were written by Gnostics, which shows how the Fourth Gospel was embraced in these heretical circles. And the orthodox church (the “Great Church,” as Brown labels it) only embraced the Fourth Gospel reluctantly. The church’s Gnostic enemies were using it—or a form of it. As many scholars believe, it was the letters of John—1 John in particular—that redeemed the Fourth Gospel for the New Testament we possess today.

Was John a Successful Pastor?

THIS IS AN intriguing question. By modern standards, if this above historical reconstruction is accurate, John failed to build the kind of church we esteem today. His congregation did not thrive, grow, and prosper. Paul and Barnabas’s church in Antioch became a mega-church. It was large, wealthy, and influential, sending missionaries throughout the Mediterranean. Even famous biblical scholars in later centuries (such as Diodore and Lucian) hailed from this church. For six hundred years (until the conquests of the Ummayad Muslims) Antioch gave theological and pastoral leadership to the Christian world.

But no such claim can be made for John’s career. The Johannine community disappears into history. No heritage. No records. No fame. Controversy swirled around his writings as they were being twisted by his opponents. And so the question remains: Was John a successful pastor?

John was a faithful pastor. He was a pastor who found himself navigating his congregation through an impossible storm. And as his community was being battered, he distinguished his leadership with discretion and good judgment. With the aid of the Spirit and deep study he cultivated sound theological instincts, which served him well in battle. He knew which issues were utterly essential to the faith. He knew where there could be no compromise. He also possessed keen insight into what made for a vital Christian community. John did not want a church that was orthodox but unloving, any more than he wanted a church that misrepresented Jesus Christ. He wanted both—sound doctrine and vibrant community—and he refused to settle for less.

John was faithful because he knew how to stand firm in what was essential. His compassion for his congregation burned as intensely as his anger against those who were making them prey. In one breath he could speak of “his little children” and then chastise his opponents as “the children of the devil.”

John’s Opponents

WHO WERE THESE opponents whom John confronted? What issues did they debate? It is virtually impossible to name them specifically or label their “movement” (although some scholars have attempted to do so). What we can do is outline their beliefs, using the refutation that John has given us in his letters. But let me say at the outset that this is a difficult endeavor. Writers rarely give a complete hearing to their opponents’ views, and we have no firsthand information from John’s adversaries. None of their writings have survived. Moreover, sometimes John opposes things in his letters that may not be on the agenda of his opponents. For instance, in 1 John 4:18 he says there is no fear in love because perfect love casts out fear. John may be taking an opportunity to chastise his followers, not necessarily addressing anyone else.

But it is important that we do our best to discover the context that forced John to pen the letters we possess today. If we are careful, we can then take the hints given to us in these letters and compare them with doctrinal distortions we know existed in antiquity. By understanding his opponents, we can better understand John himself and reflect on his themes.

This was a difficult period of Christian history, when the boundaries between orthodoxy and heresy were unclear. There were no creeds or church councils. There was not even a collection of books called “The New Testament” that could be used to arbitrate theological disputes. But John returns to two major subjects repeatedly as he writes: Christology and ethical behavior.14 And it is likely (as we shall see) that the two are intimately connected. The secessionists had embraced an aberrant form of Christology that led them to make wrong judgments about Christian living.

Christology

WHAT SOMEONE THINKS about Jesus often lies at the heart of most theological disputes. John says that his opponents hold the following beliefs:

These statements may be compared with affirmations in the letters that buttress John’s own Christology. It is likely that these verses are also connected to the opponent’s Christological error.

From these statements a composite image of John’s opponents begins to emerge. They are no doubt Christians who have begun to deviate from the traditionally received understanding of Jesus Christ. They affirm the idea of Christ, but doubt whether Christ became flesh and whether the man Jesus was indeed the incarnation of God.

Today many scholars have concluded that John’s opponents embraced a “high Christology” that elevated Christ’s divinity at the expense of his humanity. The Hellenistic world commonly affirmed a cosmos populated by numerous deities. Elevating Christ into their company was easy, given the tolerant and syncretistic outlook of the day. And yet this same Hellenistic world was predisposed to reject that such divinities ever materially entered our world. Using a dualistic outlook, Christ was separated from the world, set apart with the divinities of heaven, and there left to rule. One Christian variety of this view said that Christ may have “seemed” (Gk. dokeo; hence, Docetism) to appear in the flesh but in actuality did not. To them, the notion that Christ would appear “in flesh” was ridiculous if not abhorrent.15

If the earthly life of Jesus Christ was now irrelevant, these people still claimed to have immediate access to God. In their view they had moved beyond the basic, elementary orthodox teachings of Christianity and, inspired by the Spirit, could know God directly. I. Howard Marshall describes them well: “They were like men kicking away the ladder on which they have climbed to the heights and leaving themselves without any visible means of support.”16 The very gospel that had given birth to their faith was being jettisoned. Second John 9 says it nicely: They are not abiding in the teaching of Christ but are going beyond it.17

This tendency to divide the world along dualistic lines that separated reality into opposing forces (light/darkness, above/below, spirit/flesh, etc.) was common in the first century. Furthermore, the notion of immediate revelation through divine knowledge (known as Gnosticism) was just coming to life.18 But the application of these principles to a Christian Christology was something new.

One of the first teachers to do so was Cerinthus. What we know about him is contained in the records of his opponents, particularly, Irenaeus. In Irenaeus’s work Against Heresies (c. A.D. 180), we find an important story, reported by Polycarp, that brings Cerinthus and John together. Apparently once when John was in the public baths at Ephesus, he discovered Cerinthus there and cried out, “Let us save ourselves; the bath house may fall down, for inside is Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth.” Irenaeus goes on to say that John proclaimed his gospel in order to refute the errors of Cerinthus.19

Irenaeus carefully outlines Cerinthus’s theology. He was one of the first to distinguish carefully Jesus and Christ. He argued that Jesus was the earthly man of Nazareth, well known for his piety and wisdom. Christ was a heavenly deity, who descended on Jesus at his baptism and departed before the crucifixion. Thus, the man Jesus died on the cross, not the Son of God. When we therefore read in 1 John 2:22, “Who is the liar? It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ,”20 many commentators wonder if it is just this sort of distinction that John has in mind (see also 5:1, 11, etc.). Someone was saying that the man Jesus is not the Christ.

It is notoriously difficult to confirm Polycarp’s bathhouse story or build any kind of chronology for Cerinthus. But even if he lived after the time of John, incipient ideas like his, ideas shaped by the dualistic environment of Hellenism, were likely present in Asia Minor.

In summary, we have cautiously rebuilt the Christological context from which John’s opponents were working. The incarnate Jesus Christ was no longer occupying the central place in Christian faith. At best, the secessionists had a nominal interest in the Jesus of history and tradition and instead were looking to inspired spiritual experiences that lifted them above the conventional views of John.

Ethics

JOHN’S LETTERS ALSO evidence a sustained critique of the moral disposition of certain persons. This is not like the usual exhortations we find in Paul’s writings, where believers are warned against catalogues of sins (1 Cor. 6) or dispositions of the heart (Gal. 5). In the Johannine context a theological rationale had formed that made ethical behavior of no consequence for the Christian life. John mentions his opponents’ views in a number of places:

John also repeats a number of affirmations that shed light on the nature of the secessionist’s ethical position:

While I believe that Christology was the main battleground in the community, the tangible expression of these disagreements came in the form of open conflict and hostility. In other words, faulty Christology spilled into unethical conduct.

What does John mean when he says that these people are not obedient? There is no evidence that they were living immoral lives; 1 John 2:15–16 is likely a general exhortation for the church not to be worldly. Instead, these people were not following the conventional authoritative teachings of the church. Since they denied the significance of Christ’s incarnation, it stands to reason that they would deny the significance of his earthly teachings. As a result, they did not heed Jesus’ words written in the Gospel. Likewise, if they denied their own sinfulness, they would feel no need for Christ’s atoning death on the cross. Theirs was a “deeper” religion, a mystical faith, fueled by nontraditional insights gleaned from the Spirit (2:20–23; 4:1). They refused to conform to traditional teachings and consequently refused to submit to the leadership that bore those teachings.

The secessionists were not simply indifferent to those who disagreed with them; they were intolerant. This explains the repeated reference of John to “hating” fellow Christians. Conflict resulted from their superior spirituality. These people had become elitist in their view of themselves. And those who sought to exhort them, who could not catalogue similar experiences for themselves, had no credibility.

We must not, however, read John’s words about community love as applying merely to his opponents. Too often we have characterized these unorthodox Christians as difficult, haughty, and unremitting in their attitudes toward the church. John also exhorts his own followers to exhibit love because they were responding to the secessionists with equal hostility. And just because their theology was right by no means says their angry attitudes were justified. Defenders of good traditions cannot defend their own misconduct because they are correct.

This disposition to spiritualize the earthly career of Christ, giving it no great salvific importance, and to deny the spiritual importance of one’s own physical, moral life had some currency in antiquity. Gnostic systems of religious thought were in intense debate with Christianity from about A.D. 150–300, years after John’s death, yet the framework that would lead to these systems was already in place. This later literature speaks of a religion of enlightenment and of special knowledge, preserved only for the initiated. Believers were “reborn,” creating a unique union with God that literally brought about a state of sinless perfection. “Sin” belongs to another nature, our material nature, which no longer mattered in God’s economy. Hence, enlightened spiritual experiences validated spirituality while at the same time practical questions of moral conduct were deemed irrelevant.

Scholars who have compared the Johannine literature with second-and third-century Gnostic writings find striking similarities of language and tone. For instance, when 1 John 3:9 talks about God’s “seed” remaining in one born of God, this echoes the teaching of the Valentinian Gnostics, who were great opponents to the orthodox church. In the nineteenth century this even led some to conclude that John was directly in debate with a fully developed Gnostic religious system (and hence his writings were to be dated much later than the first century). But this is not necessary. The predisposition to divide the world along material and spiritual lines (dualism), to seek spiritual enlightenment (mysticism), and to deny personal moral responsibility were well established. Colossians and the Pastoral Letters, for example, bear similar witness to Christians with Christological deviations, who disregarded the value of practical moral conduct.

John’s Secondary Concerns

A NUMBER OF secondary themes are found throughout these letters. In some sense these appear by accident because they are a part of the refutation the author is making against his opponents. In most cases these are intimately connected with the two primary subjects under debate in his church: Christology and ethics.

The Holy Spirit. If study of the Fourth Gospel was central to this community’s spiritual formation, as I have suggested, it comes as no surprise that the Spirit played a pivotal role in discipleship. No Gospel places as much emphasis on the Spirit as John’s Gospel.21 In fact, the indwelling of Christ and the transformation of the believer are both framed in terms of Spirit-experience in this literature (John 3:1–8; 14:23–24). Even the Lord’s Supper is defined as an assimilation of Christ in Spirit (6:52–63). This is why I suggested above that John’s community had strong pneumatic or ecstatic tendencies. His followers were confident of their “anointing,” and in his polemic against the secessionists, he must take this pneumatic context into consideration.

In 1 John 4:13 John reassures his followers that possessing the Spirit is characteristic of those who “abide in God.” Such abiding is not simply a matter of orthodox confession (4:15) or loving conduct (4:16), although these are important. Abiding in God is experiential, it is a personal experience with the Holy Spirit. Therefore John’s opponents (the false teachers) must buttress their authority with some pneumatic experience, some evidence that they have the Spirit too. This explains why in 4:1–3 the church is called to “test the spirits.” These opponents are claiming to be prophets (4:1 labels them false prophets) who, under the inspiration of the Spirit, are making striking new claims about Christ.

This is a pneumatic context. It is interesting to note what John does not say. He does not employ his apostolic authority as, for example, Paul does in Galatians to refute the Judaizers. He does not leverage pastoral authority, power anchored in a position. Instead, he urges the church to test the spirits to see if they affirm traditional beliefs about Jesus, thereby undercutting the authority of these prophets. His tactic, therefore, is characteristic of those struggling against rival leadership claims in a “charismatic” setting. One cannot deny the Spirit. One must teach discernment and urge congregants to weigh claims made in the voice of the Spirit.

But John goes further. If these secessionists are claiming a superior spirituality, John reminds the church that each member has been equally anointed with the Spirit (2:20, 27). In other words, spiritual discernment is the task of every person. To be a Christian is to possess the Spirit, and no one may come along claiming exclusive spiritual insight. Thus 2:27 remarks, “As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you.” Christians must be well grounded and confident in the authenticity of their own spiritual experience and not swayed by the seemingly more compelling experiences of others.

Discernment and tradition. These letters remind us that the church is the custodian of the truth. Foremost among John’s concerns is the responsibility of the corporate community to discern false belief and practice, to distinguish between truth and error. While this theme is explicitly mentioned only in 4:1ff., it is assumed throughout 1 John. The church must stand guard against any who would bring distortion or error (cf. 2 John 8).

But this presents a problem. How can we discern truth from falsehood? If a prophet urges something new under the authority of the Spirit, how can it be weighed? In 1 Corinthians 14:29 Paul confronted a similar dilemma. His solution was to have the prophets weigh one another’s words, thereby checking individual inspiration in a deliberative corporate body. John nowhere uses that tactic, setting prophet against prophet. Rather, he believes that the church is accountable to the historic revelation given in Jesus Christ and passed down through the apostles. Individual inspiration, therefore, must be weighed against truth revealed in Scripture and tradition.

Throughout 1 John the author affirms that what was “from the beginning” should be the anchor for what we believe now (1:1; 2:13, 14; 3:11). In fact, “from the beginning” becomes a virtual refrain as John urges his readers to recall what they first learned and measure everything else by it. “Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you will abide in the Son and in the Father” (2:24 NRSV). He says that his commandments are not new, but “old [commandments], which you have had since the beginning” (2:7; cf. 2 John 5).

John is not merely writing in defense of tradition, as if “older is better” or any innovation is suspect. He is pointing elsewhere. By “the beginning” he refers to the historic coming of Jesus Christ and the preservation of that revelation. What was revealed in the Incarnation must be the litmus test for all new theological insights. Thus in 1 John 1:1–3, John points to what he saw with his eyes and touched with his hands—the incarnate Christ. Historic Christology must be the touchstone for all Christian belief. How do we know love? God “sent his one and only Son into the world” (4:9). Curiously, his exhortation in 2:12–14 twice reminds the fathers—those who are older—to rekindle their acquaintance with the ancient teachings, things the younger generation may no longer treasure.

This theological anchor in historic Christology is reminiscent of what we read in the Gospel of John. In his farewell discourse, Jesus talks about the Spirit and the limits of what he will do. As Jesus’ words cannot deviate from the Father’s words (John 5:19), so too the Spirit will reiterate what Jesus himself has said in history (14:26). The Spirit “will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears” (16:13). In Christian faith, Father, Son, and Spirit provide a revelation that is self-consistent and harmonious. No later revelation contradicts what has gone before.

Since John did not possess the Scriptures as we do today, he was forced to elevate “tradition” or historic teaching passed down with apostolic authority. No doubt his own record of Christ—the Gospel of John—served as a reservoir of such traditional teachings. Were John with us today, he would undoubtedly point to Scripture as an apostolic archive of teachings against which our modern teachings should be weighed. And this is how many Christians have generally understood John’s view of things. But other more ancient Christian communities (such as the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches) object to such a narrow explanation of “tradition.” Tradition means the archive of normative religious truth passed down from one generation to the next, which has an authoritative voice in the present. The most obvious examples for us are the Councils of Nicea (A.D. 325) and Chalcedon (A.D. 451), where orthodox views of the Trinity and incarnational Christology were decided.22 John is affirming that Christian wisdom and truth—anchored in right Christology—are cumulative and that they are binding. Those who are tradition’s heirs are right to defend this heritage.

Love, unity, and fellowship. The letters of John, along with the Gospel of John, place a high premium on the quality of Christian community. Jesus’ commands in John 13:34 and 15:12, 17 made clear that love should be the hallmark of his followers. In his prayer in John 17 Jesus prays for harmony and unity among his followers so “that they may be one,” on the model of the oneness of the Father and the Son (17:20–23).

No doubt the schism in John’s church placed unity and love on the ecclesiastical agenda. He even makes love a command: Christians who love God must love their brother or sister in the church (1 John 4:21). This teaching John anchors “from the beginning” as well (3:11; 2 John 5), harking back no doubt to the Gospel. In 1 John 3:23 he almost sums up the Christian life, giving two simple exhortations: believing in Jesus Christ and loving one another.

But John does not give an exhortation without offering some theological ground, since there are indeed times when loving those who are unlovely seems impossible. God first loved us, he says (1 John 4:19). Love, especially in difficult circumstances, cannot be fueled by human energy. Love originates from God when we apprehend the depth of his love for us (4:7a) and when we are born anew by his Spirit (4:7b). For John, intimate knowledge of God is the same as enjoying the intimate reciprocity of God’s love: He loves us, we love him, and this love spills over to those near us. In harsher terms, not to love is evidence, severe evidence, that someone does not know God and has failed to experience him fully (4:8).

If we are uncertain about God’s profound desire for us, we need only look to God’s love shown to us in Christ. Christ is the material expression of God’s tangible love and so once again, John is making a claim for the value of historic, incarnational Christology to address issues of ethics. Because Christ laid down his life for us, so too we ought to do the same for one another (1 John 3:16). John puts it succinctly in 4:10: “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

John describes living in God’s love, knowing him, and obeying his commands as “walking in the light.” This is one more metaphor for normative Christian discipleship. Therefore in 1:7 he affirms that when people walk in the light together, when corporately they experience God’s love, unity and fellowship result. Vibrant community is the natural outgrowth of people who genuinely live in God’s presence. But the reverse is also true. When people exhibit hostility and division, when they “hate” (to use John’s term), they prove that their lives are being lived “in the darkness” (2:9–11) or even “in death” (3:14). Such so-called Christians are “liars” and hypocrites (4:20). John spares no words for people who claim to know God but fail to exhibit genuine godliness.

There is an important nuance to John’s teaching that we dare not miss. To anchor our love in God’s affection might inspire passivity. That is, we may wait for God’s love to mature and change us, to shape us, before we apply any effort to our own growth. If we cannot feel God’s love, John would have us exhibit love toward others as a way to step into God’s presence. In 1 John 4:12 he talks about the limits of our experience of God: “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” Loving the unlovely or the difficult-to-love is an avenue, a mystical avenue, to discover God in our midst.

A concrete example of how this love might be expressed is in a simple act of charity among God’s people. First John 3:17–18 remarks: “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action” (NRSV). In 3 John 10 we are even given a negative example of someone named Diotrephes, who did not know the first thing about Christian charity and hospitality.

Are there limits to love? Of course! John says that we must not love the world (1 John 2:15)—not meaning the people of the world (John 3:16) or God’s creation (17:24). This refers instead to everything that is hostile to God and inimical to the truth of the gospel. But in 2 John 10 we have an interesting problem that will require careful attention. John urges his followers not to welcome (better, not to receive into fellowship) anyone who intentionally professes false doctrine. Could John be referring to the secessionists who have divided the church? While participation with the unbelieving world is a necessary facet of Christian discipleship, still, if we are to have integrity, there must be a limit to tolerance. There are lines of personal interaction and public participation that Christians must not cross.

Authorship and Setting

Authorship

WHILE CHRISTIAN TRADITION has attributed these letters to John the apostle, the Johannine letters are anonymous, except that 2 and 3 John call their author “the elder” (2 John 1; 3 John 1). Locating his identity would, of course, solve the mystery. On the one hand, the title may simply refer to a man of high esteem in the community. On the other, good evidence shows us that the apostles themselves were described as “elders” in antiquity.23

The situation is sorely complicated by a reference in Eusebius (Church History, 3.39.4) to two “Johns,” one clearly the apostle and the other possibly an elder who lived later (some have speculated that he was a disciple of the apostle John). Could the elder in our letters be this second John? Marshall has shown that this does not necessarily have to be the case and that even if two persons named John lived in this period, the attribution of authorship to the later man is purely hypothetical.24

While 2 and 3 John appear to come from the same pen, does 1 John originate with this author since he is nowhere described as “the elder”? Exhaustive comparisons of style and content show striking similarities among all three writings and suggest that common authorship is not at all unlikely.25 A more compelling question is whether the same pen wrote the letters and the Gospel of John. As early as the third century scholars were making this claim based on similarities of content and style, and today the parallels between the Gospel and the Johannine letters is a commonplace in New Testament studies. This is particularly true of 1 John and the Gospel. In fact, careful comparison of 1 John and the Gospel’s farewell discourse (John 13–17) shows even more remarkable parallels.26 As Brown remarks, the parallels in style and content are comparable to those found in Luke and Acts or even Colossians and Ephesians. This has led the vast majority of scholars to affirm common authorship for 1 John and the Gospel.

If the documents have a literary history as I have suggested, we can see John as the source of most of the Johannine materials. (1) John’s early draft of his Gospel circulated widely, but its misuse by some required further clarification. (2) John penned his letters as well as the Johannine prologue to correct Christological errors in his community. He may have added other changes to his Gospel (the Farewell Discourse is a strong candidate), but these remain uncertain. (3) When John died, his disciples gathered up his writings—the Gospel (which may have been edited again), a story about the resurrection (now chap. 21 of the Gospel), and John’s letters. This then became John’s legacy to his community.

But this still fails to solve the mystery completely: Unambiguous objective evidence for apostolic authorship is not at hand for the Gospel or the letters. But the absence of such evidence does not make such authorship implausible, and, I would argue, the burden of proof rests with those who want to dismantle the tradition.27 I have chosen, therefore, to label the author of the letters as “John,” keeping in mind the limits of any historical investigation.

Date

SINCE THE LETTERS have been closely associated with the Fourth Gospel, those who place the Gospel in the late first century locate the letters anywhere from A.D. 90–110.28 However, arguments for such a late date now must bear the weight of serious criticisms, and increasingly the Gospel has been given an earlier time frame, closer to A.D. 70 or 80.29 Allowing time for the development of the heresy described in the letters, a date between 70 and 90 is not unreasonable.

Location

THE TRADITIONAL VIEW that the Johannine writings originated from Asia Minor is sound. The heresies addressed in the letters (and perhaps the Gospel) were well established in this area. Furthermore, the Fourth Gospel is traditionally associated with Ephesus. We can also argue by inference. John 1:35–42; 3:22–4:3; and 10:41 suggest that the Johannine community was in a debate with followers of John the Baptist, who had not affirmed the messiahship of Jesus. Acts 19:1–7 describes twelve such followers of the Baptist in Ephesus, who found themselves at odds with the Christians in that city.

The Sequence of 1, 2, and 3 John

SINCE LITTLE SUPPLEMENTAL information exists telling us about the circumstances of these letters, we cannot simply assume that they were written in the sequence in which they appear in our New Testament. Scholars have rearranged the three letters in every conceivable configuration. Some have argued that 2 John precedes 1 John because the tone is quite different: In 2 John the false teachers are addressed mildly (2 John 7–9), while in 1 John the struggles are described more severely (1 John 2:19; 4:1ff.). We can wonder, then, if the problems brought on by the secessionists are just beginning in 2 John (making it earlier) and only later come to blows in 1 John.

On the other hand, the differences in the letters may be explained by geographical locale. That is, 1 John may be addressed to a community setting at the heart of the Johannine world, perhaps the very center where the secessionists had launched their campaign. This would explain the personal nature of the letter as well as its intensity. On the other hand, 2 John may be addressed to outlying house churches not fully embroiled in the controversy. Perhaps this is why 2 John is more formal and detached in the way it addresses its readers (see 2 John 1, 5, 13) and essentially is a warning about what is to come (2 John 8–11).30

Another possibility is that 2 John and 3 John were cover letters that were accompanied by the more substantial treatise, 1 John. Some believe that this fits 3 John particularly well since it is addressed to Gaius, and Demetrius (being commended to the church) may have been the letter’s courier (3 John 12; cf. 8). But we cannot be confident about any of these theories.

It is no doubt best to view these letters as coming from the same approximate time period and addressing the same general crisis in the church. First John is the author’s full broadside against his opponents, while 2 and 3 John are personal notes that either accompanied 1 John or were sent separately to another destination.

Epistolary Structure

SECOND JOHN AND 3 John have all of the usual features of first-century letters: the author and recipient are identified at the beginning, a blessing or prayer follows (“Grace, mercy, and peace … will be with us,” 2 John 3; “I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you,” 3 John 2), and there is a concluding greeting (2 John 13; 3 John 14).31 The letters also contain personal references and allusions that suggest they are intended for a specific, personal situation.

The same cannot be said, however, for 1 John. There is no address and no greeting at the beginning. No conclusion ends the document—5:21 even sounds abrupt, as if the writer’s thoughts have been cut off. Furthermore, no personal comments suggest that the author is writing a personal letter. No names appear anywhere. This is highly unusual when we consider the intensely personal character of the crisis in the church. This could be helpfully compared with Galatians, where Paul confronts a theological crisis but writes directly and personally to the recipients.

This absence of form has rightly led many to suggest that 1 John is not a personal letter at all but a general treatise aimed at wide distribution.32 Some prefer to call it a sermon or an address. Perhaps it is a pamphlet, a brochure, or an encyclical. Kümmel prefers to think of it as a tractate engaged in some sort of polemic, a kind of manifesto that addresses specific theological issues across a general front.33

The Structure of 1 John

DISCOVERING A RECOGNIZABLE pattern or structure of thought in 1 John has proven impossible. Most scholars have sought to divide it into either two or three sections.34 Some commentators, such as Brooke, Dodd, Grayston, Marshall, and Houlden, believe this is pointless and find instead either spirals of cyclical thought or a list of unconnected units. According to this view, John’s units link up with each other only casually and are “governed by an association of ideas rather than by a logical plan.”35

The most famous threefold division belongs to Robert Law, whose 1909 commentary argued that 1 John had three parts, each part offering three “tests of life”: righteousness, love, and belief.36 The secessionists fail to acknowledge the importance of righteous behavior, do not love fellow Christians, and deny belief in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. While such a theory’s creativity is attractive, it falls short in many places in the letter, particularly in the third part (4:7–5:13). Nevertheless, a number of current scholars have defended such a three-unit theory: A. E. Brooke,37 E. Malatesta,38 P. R. Jones,39 M. Thompson,40 and R. Schnackenburg.41 Those who find a threefold structure appealing generally look for thematic divisions at 2:27/28/29 and at 3:22/24, 4:6, or 4:12.

A twofold or bipartite division has traditionally been less popular but today is commanding renewed attention. Marshall notes that the French scholar A. Feuillet defended this view in 1972,42 and most recently R. Brown and S. Smalley have become its champion in their 1982 and 1984 commentaries. Two observations argue for this structure. (1) John makes two main declarations about God in his Gospel, which Brown suggests are keys to his master plan: “God is light” (1:5) and “God is love” (4:8). (2) The Gospel of John, which enjoys a bipartite form, may therefore be the structural model for this second Johannine writing. Similarities between the two writings have often been observed. Each begins with parallel prologues, and the bodies of each writing move from doctrinal truths to practical applications for life.

If these observations are correct, the symmetry of 1 John and the Gospel of John might look like this:43

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN	THE FIRST LETTER OF JOHN
A. Prologue 1:1–18	A. Prologue 1:1–4
The entry in the beginning of the word of life into the world.	The revelation of life in Jesus Christ who appeared “in the beginning.”
B. The Book of Signs 1:19–12:50	B. Part One 1:5–3:10
The light shined in the darkness of Judaism and was rejected.	God is light and like Jesus we must walk in his light.
C. The Book of Glory 13:1–20:29	C. Part Two 3:11–5:12
Jesus cares for and nurtures “his own,” those who believe in him.	God is love and those who know him must love one another.
D. Epilogue 21	D. Epilogue 5:13–21
Final resurrection stories about Jesus and explanation of purpose.	The author explains his purposes.

Smalley prefers to divide the letter between 2:29 and 3:1, which employs a division popularly used by those making a threefold division. Brown’s divisions shown here provide proportionally sized halves for the letter and also find parallel introductory lines for 1:5 and 3:11, “This is the message we [you] have heard …”

While none of these theories find universal acceptance, we can at best attempt to make some orderly sense of John’s progression of thought. I have found Brown’s argument for a twofold division convincing, but within these divisions there seems to be a loosely connected series of exhortations reinforcing the themes of the division itself.

The Structure of 2 and 3 John

FEW HAVE DISCOVERED a careful literary structure for these brief letters. Like personal letters everywhere, they simply begin with a greeting and proceed developing one theme after another in a casual manner.44 Each letter is occasioned by the same concern: living the truth. This takes on two dimensions: (1) It means loving those who abide in the family of God; (2) it means chastising those who want to dismantle that family. In each case John warns against community destroyers—a theme grounded in the concerns about division well known throughout 1 John.