1 John

THE FIRST GENERAL EPISTLE OF

JOHN

[1] [2]

[3] [4]

[5]

INTRODUCTION

AUTHORSHIP.--POLYCARP, the

disciple of John [Epistle to the Philippians, 7], quotes

1Jo 4:3.

EUSEBIUS [Ecclesiastical History, 3.39]

says of PAPIAS, a hearer of John, and a friend of

POLYCARP, "He used testimonies from the First

Epistle of John." IRENÆUS, according to

EUSEBIUS [Ecclesiastical History, 5.8],

often quoted this Epistle. So in his work Against Heresies

[3.15; 5, 8] he quotes from John by name,

1Jo 2:18,

&c.; and in [3.16,7], he quotes

1Jo 4:1-3; 5:1,

and 2Jo 7, 8.

CLEMENT OF

ALEXANDRIA

[Miscellanies, 2.66, p. 464] refers to

1Jo 5:16,

as in John's larger Epistle. See other quotations

[Miscellanies, 3.32,42; 4.102]. TERTULLIAN

[Against Marcion, 5.16] refers to

1Jo 4:1,

&c.; [Against Praxeas, 15], to

1Jo 1:1.

See his other quotations [Against Praxeas, 28; Against the

Gnostics, 12]. CYPRIAN [Epistles, 28

(24)], quotes as John's,

1Jo 2:3, 4;

and [On the Lord's Prayer, 5] quotes

1Jo 2:15-17;

and [On Works and Alms, 3],

1Jo 1:8;

and [On the Advantage of Patience, 2] quotes

1Jo 2:6.

MURATORI'S Fragment on the Canon of

Scripture states, "There are two of John (the Gospel and Epistle?)

esteemed Catholic," and quotes

1Jo 1:3.

The Peschito Syriac contains it. ORIGEN (in

EUSEBIUS [Ecclesiastical History, 6.25])

speaks of the First Epistle as genuine, and "probably the second and

third, though all do not recognize the latter two"; on the Gospel of

John, [Commentary on John, 13.2], he quotes

1Jo 1:5.

DIONYSIUS OF ALEXANDRIA,

ORIGEN'S scholar, cites the words of this Epistle

as those of the Evangelist John. EUSEBIUS

[Ecclesiastical History, 3.24], says, John's first Epistle and

Gospel are acknowledged without question by those of the present

day, as well as by the ancients. So also JEROME

[On Illustrious Men]. The opposition of COSMAS INDICOPLEUSTES, in the sixth

century, and that of MARCION because our Epistle

was inconsistent with his views, are of no weight against such

irrefragable testimony.

The internal evidence is equally strong. Neither the Gospel, nor this

Epistle, can be pronounced an imitation; yet both, in style and modes

of thought, are evidently of the same mind. The individual

notices are not so numerous or obvious as in Paul's writings, as was to

be expected in a Catholic Epistle; but such as there are accord

with John's position. He implies his apostleship, and perhaps alludes

to his Gospel, and the affectionate tie which bound him as an

aged pastor to his spiritual "children"; and in

1Jo 2:18, 19; 4:1-3,

he alludes to the false teachers as known to his readers; and in

1Jo 5:21

he warns them against the idols of the surrounding world. It is no

objection against its authenticity that the doctrine of the

Word, or divine second Person, existing from everlasting, and in

due time made flesh, appears in it, as also in the Gospel, as opposed

to the heresy of the Docetæ in the second century, who

denied that our Lord is come in the flesh, and maintained He

came only in outward semblance; for the same doctrine appears in

Col 1:15-18;

1Ti 3:16;

Heb 1:1-3;

and the germs of Docetism, though not fully developed till the second

century, were in existence in the first. The Spirit, presciently

through John, puts the Church beforehand on its guard against the

coming heresy.

TO WHOM ADDRESSED.--AUGUSTINE

[The Question of the Gospels, 2.39], says this Epistle was

written to the Parthians. BEDE, in a

prologue to the seven Catholic Epistles, says that

ATHANASIUS attests the same. By the

Parthians may be meant the Christians living beyond the

Euphrates in the Parthian territory, outside the Roman empire, "the

Church at Babylon elected together with (you)," the churches in the

Ephesian region, the quarter to which Peter addressed his Epistles

(1Pe 5:12).

As Peter addressed the flock which John subsequently tended (and in

which Paul had formerly ministered), so John, Peter's close companion

after the ascension, addresses the flock among whom Peter had been when

he wrote. Thus "the elect lady"

(2Jo 1)

answers "to the Church elected together"

(1Pe 5:13).

See further confirmation of this view in

Introduction

to Second John. It is not necessarily an objection to this view that

John never is known to have personally ministered in the Parthian

territory. For neither did Peter personally minister to the churches in

Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, though he wrote his

Epistles to them. Moreover, in John's prolonged life, we cannot

dogmatically assert that he did not visit the Parthian Christians,

after Peter had ceased to minister to them, on the mere ground of

absence of extant testimony to that effect. This is as probable a view

as ALFORD'S, that in the passage of AUGUSTINE, "to the Parthians," is to be altered by

conjectural emendation; and that the Epistle is addressed to the

churches at and around Ephesus, on the ground of the fatherly tone of

affectionate address in it, implying his personal ministry among his

readers. But his position, as probably the only surviving apostle,

accords very well with his addressing, in a Catholic Epistle, a cycle

of churches which he may not have specially ministered to in person,

with affectionate fatherly counsel, by virtue of his general apostolic

superintendence of all the churches.

TIME AND PLACE OF WRITING.--This Epistle seems to

have been written subsequently to his Gospel as it assumes the reader's

acquaintance with the Gospel facts and Christ's speeches, and also with

the special aspect of the incarnate Word, as God manifest in the

flesh

(1Ti 3:16),

set forth more fully in his Gospel. The tone of address, as a father

addressing his "little children" (the continually recurring

term,

1Jo 2:1, 12, 13, 18, 28;

3:7, 18; 4:4; 5:21),

accords with the view that this Epistle was written in John's old age,

perhaps about A.D. 90. In

1Jo 2:18,

"it is the last time," probably does not refer to any particular event

(as the destruction of Jerusalem, which was now many years past) but

refers to the nearness of the Lord's coming as proved by the rise of

Antichristian teachers, the mark of the last time. It was

the Spirit's purpose to keep the Church always expecting Christ as

ready to come at any moment. The whole Christian age is the last

time in the sense that no other dispensation is to arise till

Christ comes. Compare "these last days,"

Heb 1:2.

Ephesus may be conjectured to be the place whence it was

written. The controversial allusion to the germs of Gnostic heresy

accord with Asia Minor being the place, and the last part of the

apostolic age the time, of writing this Epistle.

CONTENTS.--The leading subject of the whole is,

fellowship with the Father and the Son

(1Jo 1:3).

Two principal divisions may be noted: (1)

1Jo 1:5-2:28:

the theme of this portion is stated at the outset, "God is light,

and in Him is no darkness at all"; consequently, in order to have

fellowship with Him, we must walk in light

(1Jo 1:7);

connected with which in the confession and subsequent

forgiveness of our sins through Christ's propitiation and

advocacy, without which forgiveness there could be no light or

fellowship with God: a farther step in thus walking in the light is,

positively keeping God's commandments, the sum of which is

love, as opposed to hatred, the acme of disobedience to

God's word: negatively, he exhorts them according to their several

stages of spiritual growth, children, fathers, young men, in

consonance with their privileges as forgiven, knowing the

Father, and having overcome the wicked one, not to love the

world, which is incompatible with the indwelling of the love of

the Father, and to be on their guard against the

Antichristian teachers already in the world, who were not of the

Church, but of the world, against whom the true defense is, that his

believing readers who have the anointing of God, should

continue to abide in the Son and in the Father. (2) The second

division

(1Jo 2:29-5:5)

discusses the theme with which it opens, He is righteous;

consequently (as in the first division), "every one that doeth

righteousness is born of Him." Sonship in us involves our

purifying ourselves as He is pure, even as we hope to see, and

therefore to be made like our Lord when He shall appear; in this

second, as in the first division, both a positive and a negative side

are presented of "doing righteousness as He is righteous," involving a

contrast between the children of God and the children of the devil.

Hatred marks the latter; love, the former: this love

gives assurance of acceptance with God for ourselves and our prayers,

accompanied as they are

(1Jo 3:23)

with obedience to His great commandment, to "believe on Jesus, and love

one another"; the seal

(1Jo 3:24)

of His dwelling in us and assuring our hearts, is the Spirit which He

hath given us. In contrast to this (as in the first division), he warns

against false spirits, the notes of which are, denial of Christ,

and adherence to the world. Sonship, or birth of God, is then

more fully described: its essential feature is unslavish, free love

to God, because God first loved us, and gave His Son to die for

us, and consequent love to the brethren, grounded on their

being sons of God also like ourselves, and so victory over the

world; this victory being gained only by the man who believes in

Jesus as the Son of God. (3) The conclusion establishes this

last central truth, on which rests our fellowship with God, Christ's

having come by the water of baptism, the blood of atonement,

and the witnessing Spirit, which is truth. As in the

opening he rested this cardinal truth on the apostles' witness of the

eye, the ear, and the touch, so now at the close he rests it on

God's witness, which is accepted by the believer, in contrast

with the unbeliever, who makes God a liar. Then follows his

closing statement of his reason for writing

(1Jo 5:13;

compare the corresponding

1Jo 1:4,

at the beginning), namely, that believers in Christ the Son of God

may know that they have (now already) eternal life (the

source of "joy,"

1Jo 1:4;

compare similarly his object in writing the Gospel,

Joh 20:31),

and so have confidence as to their prayers being answered

(corresponding to

1Jo 3:22

in the second part); for instance, their intercessions for a sinning

brother (unless his sin be a sin unto death). He closes with

a brief summing up of the instruction of the Epistle, the high dignity,

sanctity, and safety from evil of the children of God in contrast to

the sinful world, and a warning against idolatry, literal and

spiritual: "Keep yourselves from idols."

Though the Epistle is not directly polemical, the occasion which

suggested his writing was probably the rise of Antichristian teachers;

and, because he knew the spiritual character of the several

classes whom he addresses, children, youths, fathers, he feels

it necessary to write to confirm them in the faith and joyful

fellowship of the Father and Son, and to assure them of the reality of

the things they believe, that so they may have the full privileges of

believing.

STYLE.--His peculiarity is fondness for aphorism

and repetition. His tendency to repeat his own phrase, arises partly

from the affectionate, hortatory character of the Epistle; partly,

also, from its Hebraistic forms abounding in parallel clauses, as

distinguished from the Grecian and more logical style of Paul; also,

from his childlike simplicity of spirit, which, full of his one grand

theme, repeats, and dwells on it with fond delight and enthusiasm.

Moreover as ALFORD well says, the appearance of

uniformity is often produced by want of deep enough exegesis to

discover the real differences in passages which seem to express the

same. Contemplative, rather than argumentative, he dwells more on the

general, than on the particular, on the inner, than on the outer,

Christian life. Certain fundamental truths he recurs to again and

again, at one time enlarging on, and applying them, at another time

repeating them in their condensed simplicity. The thoughts do not march

onward by successive steps, as in the logical style of Paul, but rather

in circle drawn round one central thought which he reiterates, ever

reverting to it, and viewing it, now under its positive, now under its

negative, aspect. Many terms which in the Gospel are given as Christ's,

in the Epistle appear as the favorite expressions of John, naturally

adopted from the Lord. Thus the contrasted terms, "flesh" and "spirit,"

"light" and "darkness," "life" and "death," "abide in Him": fellowship

with the Father and Son, and with one another," is a favorite phrase

also, not found in the Gospel, but in Acts and Paul's Epistles. In him

appears the harmonious union of opposites, adapting him for his high

functions in the kingdom of God, contemplative repose of character, and

at the same time ardent zeal, combined with burning, all-absorbing

love: less adapted for active outward work, such as Paul's, than for

spiritual service. He handles Christian verities not as abstract

dogmas, but as living realities, personally enjoyed in fellowship with

God in Christ, and with the brethren. Simple, and at the same time

profound, his writing is in consonance with his spirit, unrhetorical

and undialectic, gentle, consolatory, and loving: the reflection of the

Spirit of Him on whose breast he lay at the last supper, and whose

beloved disciple he was. EWALD in ALFORD, speaking of the "unruffled and heavenly repose"

which characterizes this Epistle, says, "It appears to be the tone, not

so much of a father talking with his beloved children, as of a

glorified saint addressing mankind from a higher world. Never in any

writing has the doctrine of heavenly love--a love working in stillness,

ever unwearied, never exhausted--so thoroughly approved itself as in

this Epistle."

JOHN'S PLACE IN THE BUILDING UP OF THE CHURCH.--As

Peter founded and Paul propagated, so John completed the spiritual

building. As the Old Testament puts prominently forward the fear of

God, so John, the last writer of the New Testament, gives

prominence to the love of God. Yet, as the Old Testament is not

all limited to presenting the fear of God, but sets forth also His

love, so John, as a representative of the New Testament, while

breathing so continually the spirit of love, gives also the plainest

and most awful warnings against sin, in accordance with his original

character as Boanerges, "son of thunder." His mother was Salome, mother

of the sons of Zebedee, probably sister to Jesus' mother (compare

Joh 19:25,

"His mother's sister," with

Mt 27:56;

Mr 15:40),

so that he was cousin to our Lord; to his mother, under God, he may

have owed his first serious impressions. Expecting as she did the

Messianic kingdom in glory, as appears from her petition

(Mt 20:20-23),

she doubtless tried to fill his young and ardent mind with the same

hope. NEANDER distinguishes three leading

tendencies in the development of the Christian doctrine, the Pauline,

the Jacobean (between which the Petrine forms an intermediate link),

and the Johannean. John, in common with James, was less disposed to the

intellectual and dialectic cast of thought which distinguishes Paul. He

had not, like the apostle of the Gentiles, been brought to faith and

peace through severe conflict; but, like James, had reached his

Christian individuality through a quiet development: James, however,

had passed through a moulding in Judaism previously, which, under the

Spirit, caused him to present Christian truth in connection with the

law, in so far as the latter in its spirit, though not letter, is

permanent, and not abolished, but established under the Gospel. But

John, from the first, had drawn his whole spiritual development from

the personal view of Christ, the model man, and from intercourse with

Him. Hence, in his writings, everything turns on one simple contrast:

divine life in communion with Christ; death in separation from

Him, as appears from his characteristic phrases, "life, light,

truth; death, darkness, lie." "As James and Peter mark the gradual

transition from spiritualized Judaism to the independent development of

Christianity, and as Paul represents the independent development of

Christianity in opposition to the Jewish standpoint, so the

contemplative element of John reconciles the two, and forms the closing

point in the training of the apostolic Church" [NEANDER].