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FURTHER INFORMATION ON THE THREE EPISTLES OF JOHN
The entire study on "The Three Epistles of John" is only available on audio tapes consisting of ten messages on five 90-minute audio tapes packaged in a convenient and attractive cassette album.
To obtain the album on "The Three Epistles of John" enter Tape Album A017 on the order form.
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THE EPISTLES OF JOHN
PART 1
Today we are going to begin a study of the epistles of John, but before we do let's review a little bit of what we know about the apostle John. First of all, in reading John 1:19-42, we know that he was an early convert of John the Baptist and he spent some time with him in the Jordan Valley where he met Jesus and transferred his allegiance from John to Jesus. But John and his brother James returned to fishing in the Sea of Galilee where they again encountered Jesus and followed him to become fishers of men.
We also know that John was with Jesus throughout His Galilean ministry; that he was an eyewitness of the raising of the daughter of Jairus' (Jay-i"ruhs) along with James and Peter. He was one of the three apostles with Christ on the mountain when the transfiguration occurred, and just before Passover, John and Peter were commissioned by Jesus to prepare a place for partaking of the Passover. At the last supper, it was John who was reclined close to Jesus and was the first to learn the identity of the one who would betray the Lord.
We also know that John is the only apostle whom we know was at the crucifixion of Jesus where Jesus told John to take His mother into his own house, and later on it would be John who would first recognize the significance of the empty tomb. And it was John at the Sea of Tiberias (T-bihr'ee-uhs) who was the first to recognize the risen Christ on the shore and reported to Peter, "It is the Lord."
There is more that could be said of John, but I will stop here. There are many reasons why John is credited with the writing of the three epistles but I don't think it's necessary to address the subject.
When were the epistles written? It is presumed by some that they were written before Paul's writings, and belong in the time frame of the writing of James and Jude, but all this is pure speculation. There is nothing in the epistles that gives us any real clue as to when they were written or to whom they were written, but the words John uses tell me that his epistles were written to the Diaspora. I have also noticed that Jude, James, and Peter's epistles are all presumed to have been written in the time frame 41-46 A.D., so it is not too difficult to conclude that all of these epistles were written to the Diaspora, and to me, that gives some support to John's epistles having been written in the same time frame, but all is sheer speculation.
I did find it interesting that Bullinger seems to support the position that the epistle belongs among the writings to the Diaspora, which strengthens the argument in my mind that it was written to them. Of course, when we speak of the Diaspora, we are referring to the dispersed or scattered tribes of the house of Israel. But if we assume they were written in 41-46 A.D., then they were written around the time of the events that are described in Acts Chapters 11 and 12.
As for the contents of the first epistle, what we find are practical teachings in the light of the love of God. John would have us know that God is Light, God is truth, God is Righteous, and that God is Love. He would also have us know that we have fellowship with Him and the Lord Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. In fact, in chapter 3:24, John writes:
"... we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.”
John also sets in vivid contrast for us the death, darkness, falsehood, and hate, which are the characteristics of the wicked, who as John says in chapter 3:8, "sinneth from the beginning." In this same group we also find those who are led by the spirit of error, and again, these things and these wicked people are contrasted with the work of the Holy Spirit in believers.
The following is the structure or the overall outline of 1 John, and it is quite simple as there are only three topics, and each of the three are covered twice:
OUTLINE OF THE FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN
GENERAL OUTLINE
| A. CONCERNING CHRIST |
1 John 1:10-2:17 |
| B. ANTICHRIST |
1 John 2:18-29 |
| C. LOVE |
1 John 3:1-24 |
| B. ANTICHRIST |
1 John 4:1-6 |
| C. LOVE |
1 John 4:7-21 |
| A. CONCERNING CHRIST |
1 John 5:1-21 |
Thus, the structure of the epistle gives us the major topics, and we see that the topics begin with Christ, flow to the Antichrist, and then to Love, and then the subjects will be repeated beginning with the antichrist, then to love, and back to Christ, and so, John begins and ends this epistle with things concerning Christ. Having said that we will obviously begin at the beginning and look at the first topic which is "Concerning Christ." Before beginng this topic I want you to have an outine to follow along as were move through these verses:
| A. CONCERNING CHRIST |
1 John 1:10-2:17 |
| 1. Cause of Writing |
1 John 1:1-5 |
| 2. Test of Fellowship |
1 John 1:6-10 |
| 1. Cause of Writing |
1 John 2:1-2 |
| 2. Test of Knowing God |
1 John 2:3-6 |
| 1. Cause of Writing |
1 John 2:7-8 |
| 2. Test of Being in the Light |
1 John 2:9-11 |
| 1. Cause of Writing |
1 John 2:12-14 |
| 2. Test of Loving God |
1 John 2:15-17 |
Now we can begin looking at the first topic being the "cause of writing" in verses 1-5:
1 “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;
2 “ (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)
3 “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.
4 “And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.
5 “This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.”
Let's go back and take another look at verse 1. I don't see how can we read this verse and not be reminded of what John said in his Gospel at chapter 1 verse 1. Did he not begin that Gospel with the words: "In the beginning was the word?" Well, certainly, he did, and what do we see here in verse 1 if not basically the same thing. John begins, "That which was from the beginning," and then he goes on to say things about their witness and ends up with the words, "the word of Life." So, basically we have "That which was from the beginning" was "the word," but then he adds "of Life," and John does a like thing in John 1:4, saying "In him was life."
We do not have any trouble understanding that Christ was "from the beginning," but I wonder if any of you know how many times we find this expression in Scripture, and who used it the most. Whether you know it or not, you do know that I am going to tell you. The expression "from the beginning" appears 40 times in Scripture: 15 times in the OT and 25 times in the NT. In the OT we find it most often in Isaiah. In the NT we find that Christ used the expression eight different times, and it appears in 1 John nine times and twice in 2 John, so that's eleven usages for John and 8 for Christ, which totals 19 out of the 25 usages.
I don't know that there is any great revelation or significance in this, but I find things like this of interest, and I guess you can call it Bible trivia if you want to -- and another piece of trivia is that "In the beginning" is used 17 times, and only 4 of those are in the NT.
You might also notice that John uses the word "we" rather than the singular pronoun "I." In so doing he is letting those to whom he is writing know that he was telling them that what he witnessed, he did not witness alone, as there others -- those who were with them -- and this would, of course, add credibility to what he was going to say.
There is no question that in saying, "That which was from the beginning," he was referring to Jesus Christ, and what John is specifically interested in, in these three verses is his witness of Christ, and today we also give witness in our conversation. For example, someone will say something and another person will quickly ask, "How do you know that?" and the response may well be, "Because I saw it with my own eyes." Generally, that ends any question of the authenticity of what was said -- generally, I said -- for the world is also full of liars.
John gave us a list of things they witnessed. He says: 1) we have heard; 2) we have seen with our eyes; and 3) we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the Word of Life.
Again, John said "we have heard." We should keep in mind here that John was with the Lord through His entire ministry, and John wrote more of what the Savior said than did anyone else, and what the Savior said of Himself, which John recorded, comprises a great deal of the evidence that he was the son of God. But the point John makes here is this: what the Savior said "we have heard," and we have written what "we have heard" and we speak to you the things "we have heard."
Next John says "we have seen with our eyes," and ooooh, what wonders they saw with their eyes! I don't think John refers to just seeing the Savior here, but also the actions and works of the Savior, and yes, John saw the man, but John also witnessed miracle after miracle, from the healing of the blind, to the casting out of demons, and raising people from the dead. In other words, John had seen enough evidence that there was no doubt in his mind that the man who had done these things was indeed the son of God. John does not rely on hearsay for this evidence, as he relies upon that which he and others witnessed with their own eyes.
The third thing John said was that: "we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the Word of Life." Now in what John says here I think he is getting a little more personal, for you see, John not only heard the Savior, he not only saw His great works, but he also ate with the Savior, he walked with the Savior, he talked with the Savior, he slept with the Savior, and he had physical contact with the Savior. In other words, John basically lived with the Savior, and that's a mighty close relationship, and John offers his experience in this close relationship as further evidence the Jesus was indeed the "son of God."
Again, I want to point out that John ends verse 1 with the words "the word of life," and in saying this he means the word in which life resided, and that needs to be understood as we look at verse 2, which is in parenthesis. He begins verse 2 saying, "for the life was manifested." In other words, life was made visible to them in the form of Jesus Christ, and He appeared among men so that they could see and hear Him and His word, and John continues saying "and we have seen it." Now I don't know whether or not this is repeated for emphasis, but I do know that being in John's position, and seeing and hearing what John saw and heard, would have to be the greatest thing on this earth, and I imagine that I would have been so awed by all this that I, too, would have said over and over and over again -- "I have seen it!"
John's next comment is "and bear witness," which simply means that John, having heard Him, and seen Him and His mighty works, was in a position to speak with authority about the things which he was telling them, and next John attributes eternal life to Christ, saying that "eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us."
John’s presentation here is that: 1) Christ was forever with God, 2) the "word of life" was descriptive of His nature, 3) there was a manifestation of this "word of life" on earth which appeared among men and that His presence was a real existence -- not a vision, and 4) that the true nature of Christ could be testified to by those who had seen Him, heard Him, and been with Him during His ministry.
That brings us to verse 3, in which John begins to give the cause of His writing, beginning by repeating himself, saying "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you," and by now he has made it perfectly clear that what he had told them, and what he was now telling them, was not some rumor, it was not hearsay, it was not tradition nor conjecture, as we have seen these things, and we have heard Him, and we declare unto you those things which He has revealed unto us.
Next we come to the reason for his writing, and that reason is:
"that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ."
There are two things John addresses here: the first being fellowship with those who had witnessed these things, and fellowship with the Father and His son. John wanted them to know and understand all that he knew and understood, and he wanted them to have the same hope, the same joy, the same peace, and the same happiness which he himself had, and is this is not the meaning of fellowship?
The next thing we have to deal with is fellowship with the Father and His Son, which seems to mean that he partook, at least in some respect, the feelings, the aims, the views and the joys which God and the Son have. There was a union between them, so to speak, a union in feeling, in desire and plan, and that union was a source of joy to John and it was this type of fellowship that he wanted them to experience.
This brings us to verse 4 which is an extension of verse 3. In verse 3 John wanted them to be able to have fellowship, and in verse 4 he explains to them "that your joy may be full." This is almost the identical language the Lord used to His disciples when He was about to leave them, and we will now look at John 15:11:
11 “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.”
I imagine that when John wrote "that your joy may be full" in his epistle, he had this declaration of our Lord and Savior in mind; again, the idea being expressed here is that with the knowledge he had given them and with fellowship with them, as well as fellowship with the Father and His Son, all these things would be a source of joy and happiness to them.
Verse 5 is a declaration, as when John says "this then is the message which we have heard," he does not refer to what he has previously said, but to what he says next which is: "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." Now this is the only time we find these exact words in Scripture, that is "God is light," but what does this mean?
To begin with, in Scripture, light is the emblem of purity, truth, knowledge, prosperity and happiness, and darkness is symbolical of just the opposite, and so the phrase "God is light," has to do with the nature of God. He is all light. He is perfectly pure. He is without sin. He has all knowledge as He is ignorant of nothing. He is infinitely happy and knows no misery, and He is infinitely true as nothing about Him or His being is false.
We can also say that God is to us what light is to the world, because without light the world is nothing -- all life depends upon its existence -- thus if there is no light from the sun, the world becomes an empty mass of nothingness. And as for us, what would become of us without the light of God? I shudder at the thought. But all this, yes all this, and even more, makes God's way, not only right way -- but the only way.
But getting back to John, John contrasts "God is light" with the words "and in him is no darkness at all." This is just another way of saying "God is light," because, if there is no darkness in Him, then He is light.
John had a point to make, and that point was that the doctrine that "God is light" was the substance of all that he had learned from Him who had been made flesh, and it was the substance of all that he had to teach them. Stop and think about this for a minute: What would Christianity be without an all-knowing, a pure, a righteous, and a perfect God? Just what would it be? Well, it would be like the dead letter box at the post office -- it would be as nothing.
We will now move on to the test of Fellowship addressed in verses 6-10:
TEST OF FELLOWSHIP
6 “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:
7 “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
8 “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10 “If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”
We might notice the use of the word "if" at the beginning of each of these verses. Of course, in verse 7 the word “but” precedes the word "if," but for all practical purposes it still begins with an "if." But what does this two-letter word "if" mean to us? As used in these verses, the word "if" expresses a hypothetical, but possible condition, a condition contingent on circumstances which the future will show.
In verse 7 the first "if" is in reference to having fellowship with God. In other words, if we profess to be a friend of God, then we would profess to be like Him, and we would do the things He would have us to do. But "if" we profess these things "and walk in darkness, we lie." We have talked a little bit about darkness being the opposite of light, but to be a little more specific, when we live in darkness we live in sin and error, and so the idea here is that if we live in sin, that sin is the proof that our profession that we "have fellowship with God” is a false profession.
In other words, we lie, and we are not only false professors, but we are also deceiving others as well as ourselves, if we think we can have fellowship with God and yet lead a life in the practice of sin. Now this does not necessarily mean they would set out to deceive others, but that their life was being lived in an irreconcilable contradiction between a life of sin and fellowship with God, and again the basic idea here is that since God is pure, so must we be -- that is, if we desire to fellowship with God.
This brings us to the fact that if we lie then "we do not the truth," the meaning of which should be quite obvious to anyone, and we see a lot of these kinds of things in Scripture, that is saying something twice which means the same thing -- in this case we read "we lie, and do not the truth." But, and again, if "we lie" it is obvious that "we do not the truth," and it can likewise be said that if "we do not the truth," then "we lie." Now I don't know why we see things stated like this so much, but when we do, it leaves no doubt about what is being said.
And with that we will move on to verse 7:
7 “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”
It seems obvious that verse 7 is being contrasted with verse 6, because verse 7 states just the opposite of what is said in verse 6, and since we have already covered light and darkness, we won't go over it again. But I do want to point out to you that the phrase "one with another," may lead you to believe that the fellowship meant here is between believers, but that is not the case. First of all "one with another" should be "with one another," and then the verse makes more sense. But the idea is that the fellowship mentioned here is between the "we" who "walk in the light" or "he that is in the light" and Jesus.
This brings us to the last thing John says in this verse, which is: "the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." This may seem like a strange place for this to appear in light of what has been said so far -- but not really.
Earlier we read that "God is light," and saw that this has to do with the nature of God, and earlier, I said that God is all light. He is perfectly pure. He is without sin. He has all knowledge as He is ignorant of nothing. He is infinitely happy and knows no misery, and that, He is infinitely true since nothing about Him or His being is false. I have also said that unless we are as He is, then we cannot have fellowship with Him. Now let me ask the question of each of you: "Are you light as God is light? Are you perfect as God is perfect? Are you without sin as God is without sin? Are you all knowledgeable and ignorant of nothing? Are you infinitely happy and true? Well, we all know the answers to those questions and the answers are all an emphatic no.
That being the case, it takes the power of cleansing blood of Christ to make us pure in God's sight that we might fellowship with Him, and we will see more of this in the last three verses, 8, 9, and 10:
8 “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
From my point of view, I don't see how anyone could then, or now, say that "we have no sin," and I say that because the Scriptures teach exactly the opposite. In fact at Romans 5:12 we read:
“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:”
We are taught that in the beginning there was no sin and therefore no death. But when Adam sinned, then sin entered the world, and the result of Adam's sin was that He would die. But Adam's sin nature was passed down through the generations to us, and since all men are sinners then death comes to all men, and to me, this is the plain teaching of what is said here.
We also read in Romans 3:23:
“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;”
The doctrine of death being the result of sin should have been no mystery to those in Christ's day either, as 1 Ezekiel 18:4 says : "the soul that sinneth, it shall die." Therefore it is difficult to understand the necessity to say what we find here in 1 John 1:8, but I guess there were those sects that believed that nothing was forbidden by God, and that being the case, from their perspective, if nothing was forbidden, then there could be no sin; and it could well be that since some people held to this position, it was necessary to address the subject. It may also have been taken into consideration that people in the future would also hold to this position.
As a side note here, many years ago a Christian told me that his sins were forgiven before he committed them. But to me, if your sins are forgiven before they are committed, then you cannot sin, and I would have to ask if they are forgiven before we commit them, then why are we told to confess our sins? Somewhere in all this, confusion has been created where there should be none.
Nevertheless, John implies that it is the nature of man to sin, and that being the case, if we on any pretense deny that fact, then we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Now this I do understand, as it is plain to me that if we want our sins to be forgiven, then the requirement is that we confess our sins, and this is another one of those things which should have been well known to all because in Leviticus 26:40-42, we read:
40 “If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me;
41 “And that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity:
42 “Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land.”
Please notice the "if" here: "if they shall confess their iniquity,..." Then in verse 41 he continues, saying, "if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled;" and if "they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity:" -- then God will act as we see in verse 42, as John says "Then" (that is, when they have done the things I mentioned), "then I will...." And not before, and therefore confession by man must precede forgiveness by God.
In Psalm 32:5, the Psalmist says:
“I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD;....”
Again, we see the same doctrine at work, as first, sin had to be acknowledged and confessed "unto the Lord," and once that was accomplished "THEN" "thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin."
Let's look at one more verse in Proverbs 28:13:
13 “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.”
Once again we see the same doctrine at work. But the bottom line is that forgiveness, in Scripture, always presumes that there is a confession of sin, and there is no promise anywhere in the Good Book that forgiveness will be given -- until and unless that acknowledgement is made. But we have to get back to 1 John, and in doing so we will finish by looking at verse 10:
10 “If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”
This verse is almost the same as verse 8, where we read that, "if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves." But here it gets a little more serious because here it says "if we say that we have not sinned, we have made him a liar." Now I don't know about you, but I, for one, don't even want to think that God is a liar. But as it says -- "if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar."
Well folks, I don't guess that there is any declaration in Scripture which is as clear as this one, and it has been stated from Genesis on, and if you want to read about the universal sinfulness of man then I suggest you take a look at Romans, chapters 1, 2, and 3, for starters.
I am thankful that we were able to get entirely through chapter 1 in this session, and I hope that with the information we now have, that we will able to conclude chapter 2 in our next session as that will close the first item on our general outline of 1 John -- the subject being "Concerning Christ."
Love is the major theme of these epistles, but they also cover more specific subjects such as: God is light, but what does this mean? They also examine sin and forgiveness, fellowship, and the "royal law" of Scripture, as well as how we know if we're children of God.
The study will also take a look at the question: Is the "wicked one" (a pronoun), or is it the word wicked used as an adjective?. And of course we will also be interested in studying the word antichrist, or is it antichrists? It would make a difference if it was singular or plural -- wouldn’t it? And we will take a look at the words and their relationship to the "man of sin" in 2 Thessalonians, and how to identify these antichrists. And finally we will have explained to us the Father's and the Son's love to us, and its effects upon us, and more.
FURTHER INFORMATION ON “The Epistles of John”
What you have read is only the first message of 10 messages on this subject. The entire study on “The Epistles of John” is only available on audio tapes. It consists of ten 45 minute messages recorded on five 90-minute audio tapes and is packaged in a convenient and attractive cassette album.
To obtain the series “The Epistles of John,” enter Tape Album A017 on the order form.
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