1 John

1. THE PROLOGUE—FROM WITNESS TO FELLOWSHIP (1:1–4)

The first Johannine Epistle appears to have been written as a circular to one or more Christian communities in Asia Minor. The author simply begins with a worship piece that is very similar in vocabulary and form to the prologue of the Gospel of John. Note the use of first-person plural references (“we,” 1:1–5) as a means of including the audiences with the community of the elder.

1:1–2. Like the prologue of the Gospel (Jn 1:1–18), the prologue of the first epistle begins with a declaration of that which was from “the beginning” (1:1). The testimony of what has been heard, seen, touched, and beheld connects second- and third-generation believers to the firsthand experience with the ministry of Jesus (Jn 20:29). [Logos]

1:3–4. The author here stands with the firsthand experience of the apostles and others who encountered the ministry of Jesus some five decades earlier. The testimony to “what we have seen and heard” (1:3) is an explicit Johannine association in Luke’s rendering of the testimony of Peter and John in Ac 4:19–20. The goal of the elder’s sharing is koinōnia, “fellowship” (1:3), extended from one generation and sector of the Jesus movement to others. This unity is both spiritual and missional. The loving fellowship between the Father and the Son and between Christ and his followers has a name: the Holy Spirit now avails without measure. This spiritual unity is experienced in fullness where believers gather in the name of Jesus (Mt 18:18–20). Believers share unity with the Son, as he does with the Father (Jn 17:20–26), as his partners and friends because they know and do his will (Jn 15:14–15). True Christian fellowship then inevitably leads to joy (1:4; cf. Jn 15:11; 16:20–24; 17:13).

Both 1 John and the Gospel of John begin with similar themes: “the beginning,” personal testimony, what was revealed, the Word, light versus darkness, and an emphasis on Jesus becoming a genuine human being (incarnation).

2. THE QUESTION OF SIN AND THE COMMANDMENT TO LOVE (1:5–2:17)

A. Those claiming not to be sinning (1:5–2:2). 1:5–7. Like many ancient teachers, the elder employs the inclusive “we” as a way of addressing his second-person audience, “you.” He does this in 1:5 just as he has in each of the first four verses; 1:6, however, turns the use of “we” to others. “If we say . . .” is a way of confronting the claims of others, either in his immediate audience or among those his audience is having to engage (for more on the identity of these people who claim to “have no sin” [1:8], see “Occasion and Content” in the introduction to 1 John). Walking in darkness is not spelled out, but it likely refers to particular moral practices that are out of step with the elder and at least some leaders within the community. Conversely, the life-producing way forward involves “walk[ing] in the light” (1:7) just as God is in the light, which avails the believer Christian fellowship and the cleansing blood of God’s Son, delivering believers from sin. [God as Light and Love]

1:8–10. The elder directly challenges the next two statements regarding what “we say”: the claims to “have no sin” (1:8) and that “we have not sinned” (1:10). If we claim to have no sin, he argues, “we are deceiving ourselves” (1:8). To confess our sins, though, is to acknowledge the authenticity of our condition and to avail ourselves of God’s forgiveness and cleansing power (1:9). More pointedly, to claim that we have not sinned is to “make him [God] a liar,” and to expose the fact that God’s word is not abiding in us (1:10). Again, the confronted might not have been claiming sinlessness proper, but the elder has hopes of getting them to acknowledge the darkness of their ways that they might be persuaded to walk in the true light.

2:1–2. In the next sentence (2:1) the elder extends his ethical appeal to the entire audience; at the same time he emphasizes the availability of grace. He employs a word (“advocate”) used for the Holy Spirit in the Gospel of John (Jn 14:16), but here he uses it in reference to Jesus. Conversely, he then employs an unusual reference to the “atoning sacrifice” (Gk hilasmos; see also 1 Jn 4:10; cf. Rm 3:25; Heb 9:5) of Jesus Christ the righteous one. The redeeming work of Christ is not simply for the community’s benefit; it extends to the entire world, and that is the power of the gospel being proclaimed (2:2).

B. The old commandment of the Lord: Love your brothers and sisters! (2:3–11). The true evidence of knowing Christ is incarnational: obeying his commandments (2:3), the chief of which is to love one another (3:11). To obey the original commandment of Jesus is to experience God’s love being perfected within (2:5). The elder now moves to the third-person singular in confronting the problematic community member. “The one who says . . .” is the hook, and three statements listed are that one has come to know him (2:4), to remain in him (2:6), and to be in the light (2:9). The true evidence of authenticity is that a person will obey Christ’s commandments (2:4), will walk as Christ walked (2:6), and will not hate his or her brother or sister (2:9). The clearest measure of one’s abiding in the love of Christ is the demonstration of loving consideration for others. Anything short of that is darkness and blindness (2:11).

C. Love not the world! (2:12–17). 2:12–14. Lest particular members of his audience feel singled out or left out, the elder now addresses specific demographic groups, covering the range of ages and relationships. To the “little children” he announces forgiveness in the name of Christ (2:12); to the fathers, he affirms their knowing of “the one who is from the beginning” (2:13a; cf. Jn 1:1–3); to the youth, he extols their conquering the evil one (2:13b). This triad is followed, then, by a second (2:14). To the children, he writes to affirm their knowledge of the Father; to the fathers, he writes because they know “the one who is from the beginning”; and to the youth he writes because they are strong and indwelt by the word of God, and because they have overcome the evil one.

As with James and other NT letters, 1 John makes it clear that our love for the Lord and our love for other believers are closely tied together.

2:15–17. The repetition and the parallel references add emphasis to his affirming message (2:15). Rather than spell out particular sins, however, the elder is content to leave the sins of worldliness general: the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and pride in wealth (2:16) cover the territory effectively. These drives come not from the Father but from the world. And the world, along with its desires, is a fleeting reality, not an enduring one (2:17). Doing the will of God, however, leads to eternal life.

3. THE ANTICHRIST HAS COME! THE SECESSIONISTS DENY JESUS’S MESSIAHSHIP (2:18–29)

A. The departure of the antichrists shows their inauthenticity (2:18–20). The schismatic crisis this Johannine community has experienced fulfills the prediction of old that an adversary to the Messiah would come. This shows that it is the last hour (2:18), calling for a special measure of faith and faithfulness. Many antichrists have come, and their advent is marked by community members’ having left John’s church and abandoned fellowship with their brothers and sisters in Christ (2:18–19). Further, their departure shows they never were convinced of the truth to begin with, which reflects the elder’s own thoughts on why some are able to remain with Christ and his fellowship and some are not. Those who remain are encouraged by the elder’s affirming their anointing by the Holy One and their abiding in true knowledge (2:20). [The Identity of the Antichrist ]

B. Those who deny Jesus as the Christ lose the Father (2:21–25). In declaring again why he is writing (1 Jn 1:4; 2:1, 7–8, 12, 13–14, 21, 26; 5:13; 2 Jn 5, 12; 3 Jn 13), the elder affirms what he hopes for in his audience as though it were an actualized reality: their knowing and abiding in the truth (2:21). The “liar,” though, is the one who denies that Jesus is the Messiah (2:22a). This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son (2:22b).

After the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, a more definitive split between Jesus followers and traditional Jews began to take shape. Some Jewish Christians had abandoned the Jesus movement to return to the religious security of the synagogue and its monotheism. This would explain the elder’s positing of holding to Jesus as the Messiah as integral to the approval of the Father. To deny the Son is to forfeit the Father, but to confess the Son is to receive the Father (2:23), and thus eternal life (2:25).

C. Abide in Christ and his anointing (2:26–29). Here the deceivers (2:26) would be appealing to the hallmarks of Jewish faith and practice at the expense of the Jesus movement. The elder places emphasis on the spiritual anointing that believers have received from the one who abides in him and in whom they abide (2:27). Reminding them of the words of Jesus about God’s direct instruction through the Spirit (Jn 6:45; 14:26; 15:26; 16:1–15), the elder affirms the importance of abiding in Christ as the present teacher (cf. Jn 15:1–15). This will strengthen them in their time of trial, and it inspires them to live in the righteousness they have received as a result of being born anew in the life of Christ (2:29).

4. TO ABIDE IN CHRIST IS TO ATTAIN VICTORY OVER SIN (3:1–24)

In chapter 3, the elder challenges conventional examples of sin. While the author does not spell things out with particularity, he does mention seeing a brother or sister in need and not helping them by sharing the means one has (3:17).

A. Christ removes our sins . . . and our sinning (3:1–6). 3:1–3. Now the elder emphasizes the benefits of faith in Christ, leading with the privilege of being called the children of God (3:1). The community hymn celebrating the conviction that as many as received him received the power to become the children of God (Jn 1:12–13) is here developed as a benefit of abiding in Christ and his community. From the perspective of this-worldly existence, however, the prospect of next-worldly glory is extolled. We see now only in part, but when the fullness of God is revealed, believers shall be like him and will see him as he really is (3:2). This hope in God’s glory in the future emboldens faithfulness to his ways in the present.

3:4–6. A vision of God’s purity therefore becomes the motivator of purified living in the present (3:4). Finally, the elder emphasizes Christ’s taking away the sins of believers, implying both the power of his sacrifice and the capacity of his work to deliver the one abiding in him from the power of sin (3:5). Relationship with Christ involves transformation and deliverance from sin; this is central to the power of the gospel (3:6).

B. Those who sin, not loving brothers and sisters, are not from God (3:7–10). Now the elder moves back to countering the seditious influence of those who would deceive them or lead them astray (3:7). Motivating his audience to live in righteous ways if they hope to be righteous, he also links the committing of sin to being a child of the devil (3:8). With this polarizing of options, he seeks to bolster believers’ commitments to right living commensurate with their right believing. Those who are born of God do not sin because the “seed” of God abides in them (3:9). To be born of God is to eradicate the human bent toward sinning. More specifically, to not love one’s brothers and sisters betrays a lack of rootedness in God (3:10).

C. The party of Cain—the brother killers—includes the indifferent (3:11–17). 3:11–15. Appealing again to the original teachings of Jesus, commanding his followers to love one another (3:11; see Jn 13:34–35), the elder leverages the worst of fratricidal archetypes: Cain, the brother killer (3:12; see Gn 4). The threat of being labeled a brother killer becomes a negative incentive used to motivate the opposite: loving regard for members of the community. This ploy is followed by a positive reference to loving one another as the true measure of having passed from death to life (3:14). Back to negative intensification in 3:15, to hate a brother or sister in the community is to be guilty of murder (Mt 5:21–22), and to be guilty of murder is to forfeit eternal life. By veering back and forth between negative and positive means of motivation, the elder seeks to steer his audience toward right practice as well as righteous faith.

3:16. The example of Jesus is used climactically as the one who laid down his life for others as the ultimate example of love. Here the teaching of Jesus in Jn 15:13 becomes an example for others to emulate. If Jesus was willing to lay down his life for his friends, and if the Johannine community is indeed inhabited by friends of Jesus, they ought also to be willing readily to lay down their lives for one another. The willingness to suffer for Christ may have been more than an abstract consideration, if some believers were being martyred for their refusal to worship the emperor (see “Historical Context” in the introduction to 1 John). Suffering for Christ therefore may indeed have been a measure of one’s ultimate love and dedication to the Lord and his community.

3:17. Next the elder emphasizes the issue of those having physical means and refusing to share with brothers and sisters in need. Perhaps the appeal to love one another as motivated by the love of Christ simply had to do with caring for the sustenance of fellow believers—sharing. After all, if this was the mark of the true fellowship of believers after the Holy Spirit had come upon them (Ac 2:42–47; 4:32–37), why was it not more evident within this community? The love of Christ also delivers us from the most insidious of sins: indifference.

D. On loving in truth and in deed (3:18–24). The elder concludes his exhortation to love others with an appeal to integrity. Love should be not in word only but also in truth and in action (3:18). Congruity between word and deed reassures the believer’s heart, but even if one’s heart feels condemning, the good news is that God is greater than one’s heart (3:19–20). Better yet, if one’s heart is not condemning but confirming, the believer has boldness before God and receives what is asked for because of obeying God’s commandments and doing what is pleasing to him (3:21–22; cf. Jn 14:13–17; 15:7, 16; 16:23–27; Jms 4:2–3).

Notice the vertical and horizontal components of the commandments of God: to “believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another” (3:23). Just as abiding in him leads to fruitful discipleship (Jn 15:1–5), to obey his commandments is to abide in Christ and he in the believer (3:24; cf. Jn 15:8–10). Knowing this to be true is conveyed as a gift by the Spirit (Jn 14:15–17).

5. THE ANTICHRISTS ARE COMING! THEY DENY JESUS CAME IN THE FLESH (4:1–6)

A. Those who deny Jesus’s humanity are false prophets and antichrists (4:1–3). While the first antichristic threat (1 Jn 2:18–25) involved the splitting off of Johannine Christians, likely to rejoin the local Jewish community, the second antichristic threat involved the crisis of false prophets coming to their church with a troubling message, that Jesus had not come in the flesh. These traveling Gentile Christian ministers likely sought to negotiate a middle path between the Jewish Christian rejection of “worldly” behavior and an accommodation of standard religious, political, and moral practices within the pagan Greco-Roman world.

The way to test these false prophets (4:1) is to examine their christological claims. While their assimilative teachings might have excused social and religious compromise in the name of prosperous living in the world, costly grace implies costly discipleship. Docetic preachers could be distinguished from suitable traveling ministers, however, by testing their beliefs and asking whether they believed Jesus Christ actually came in the flesh (4:2). If so, they could be warmly received; if not, they should be kept away from the community and rejected as perpetuating the spirit of the antichrist (4:3), which destroys Christian fellowship.

To believe in Jesus and to love one another (1 Jn 3:23) recalls Jesus’s words about the greatest commandments (Mt 22:37–40; cf. Lv 19:18; Dt 6:5).

B. Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world (4:4–6). John’s readers would have been surrounded by reminders of Roman domination, but the author here assures his audience that “the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (4:4). The worldly origin of the adversaries explains why the worldly listen to them (4:5), but the elder contrasts himself and his audience with the antichrists and their cohorts. Claiming to be from God, those who heed the elder show themselves also to be knowers of God; conversely, those who are not rooted in God turn a deaf ear to the Johannine leadership (4:6a). The parallel to the interpretative reflection on the reception of Jesus here is clear. Just as the response of Jesus’s audiences to him and his message exposed the degree to which they were “of truth” and knowers “of God,” the same measure is now extended to the elder’s audiences. The spirit of truth and the spirit of error are distinguished, from the elder’s perspective, in the telling response to his corrective word (4:6b). Those who do not heed his word do not know God; the responsive ones, however, do.

This marble relief depicts Nike, the goddess of victory. This large figure was likely part of the Heracles Gate in Ephesus. Located just a few steps from the temple to the emperor Domitian, it would have served as a constant reminder that Rome was the conquering power. But John reminds his readers that “the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 Jn 4:4).

© Baker Publishing Group and Dr. James C. Martin.

6. LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER! (4:7–21)

The elder obviously has attained a good deal of personal authority, and he casts all his influence into the appeal for his audiences to “love one another” as a means of motivating righteous living, right belief, and right relationship with other believers. This appeal to follow the loving commandment of the Lord becomes the centripetal force levied to create relational harmony and corporate solidarity. This love-producing agenda is conveyed by means of three strategic appeals.

A. We love because God has first loved us (4:7–10). The first appeal to love one another roots its persuasion in the essential character of God, which from beginning to end is love. Not to love is not to know God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God (4:7–8). God’s love, of course, must be extended, and the means by which God has done so is the sending of his Son so that the world might live through him (4:9).

The very character of love, however, is defined as a factor of God’s initiative, not human ingenuity. God’s favor cannot be garnered by human merit or evoked as a consequence of human initiative. The loving work of God is granted without prior condition and freely. Sacrifices offered by humans can in no way compare with the ultimate atoning sacrifice offered by God (4:10; see also 2:2). That is the perfect sacrifice, which eclipses all other approaches to justification (Heb 10:1–39), and this is why it requires a revelation from God to be understood (4:9). Human attempts to garner divine favor can never suffice, for God’s love is essentially undeserved.

B. The perfecting of love in us (4:11–17). The elder’s second appeal for his audiences to love one another moves the locus of the revelation of God’s love through Jesus as the Son of God to the lives of believers (4:11). The perfecting of God’s love in the Christian life becomes the locus of the ongoing revelation of God’s love in the world, and it thereby is of world-changing significance (4:12). Our love for one another is a direct implication of God’s love for us, and it becomes the truest evidence of the believer’s mutual abiding in God (4:13, 16).

Evidence of abiding in God is also manifested in the believer’s confessing Jesus as the Son of God (4:15), and this becomes the believer’s testimony to the world about its Savior (4:14). Therefore, the perfection of God’s love in the life of the believer is a factor of boldness on the day of judgment (4:17).

C. To love God is to love brothers and sisters (4:18–21). 4:18–19. The third strategic attempt to motivate loving action and character among the elder’s audience involves an appeal to the believer’s aspirations and identity. The human-divine relationship is rooted not in fear but in love; after all, perfect love casts out all fear (4:18). Again, our love as a response to God’s love is emphasized (4:19) as an echo of verse 10. While the saving initiative of God’s love is the central hope of the gospel, that reality evokes an irresistible human response of love for God.

4:20–21. And how can one claim to love God, whom one has not seen, without loving one’s brothers and sisters in faith, whom one has seen (4:20)? The appeal to the believer’s identity and aspiration is a winsome move. One cannot authentically claim to love God without also loving those God loves—brothers and sisters within the beloved community of believers. This makes the original commandment of the Lord that much more compelling: those who love God must love Christian brothers and sisters (4:21). To refuse to embrace the beloved of God is to deny, in effect, one’s love for the Father.

7. THE VICTORY THAT OVERCOMES THE WORLD (5:1–21)

In the final chapter, both faith and faithfulness are lifted up as a response to, and an implication of, the victory of God.

A. Belief in Jesus as the Christ is victory (5:1–3). 5:1. Just as the Gospel of John is written in order that hearers and readers might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and in believing have life in his name (Jn 20:31), the promise of this message concludes the final chapter of the first Johannine Epistle. To believe that “Jesus is the Christ” implies the content of Christian faith, but the loving regard for his followers is again declared as its authentic measure. Especially as an antidote to Christians who might yet be tempted to abandon the community and their belief in Jesus, the elder emphasizes that believing “Jesus is the Christ” is the center of spiritual birth.

5:2–3. For those refusing to risk synagogue expulsion (Jn 9:22; 12:42; 16:2) by confessing belief in Jesus’s messiahship openly, this reminder was a targeted appeal to bolster their courage. And, in contrast to the first antichrists, who split off from the church and denied their fellowship with brothers and sisters in Christ, obeying God’s commandments and abiding in his love is measured by love for one another. The implied meaning here is for corporate solidarity with Christ and his community. Thus, Christian faith is the victory that overcomes the world and all of its temptations (5:4).

B. The life-producing testimony (5:4–12). 5:4–9. To believe in Jesus as the Christ is also to believe in him as the Son of God (Jn 20:31), and Gentile believers are thus included in the confessional formula, as well as Jewish believers. Not only is it the Christian faith that overcomes the world (5:4), but so do the Christian faithful (5:5) by their trust and obedience. Jesus’s coming by water and by blood (5:6a) likely refers to one or more of the following: the physical birth process emphasizing Jesus’s humanity, martyrological associations with the sacramental themes of baptism and communion, or the water and blood that flowed from the side of Jesus in Jn 19:34. Whatever the case, the emphasis is on the suffering humanity of Jesus and its implications for discipleship: if Jesus indeed suffered and died, we must be willing to do the same (Jn 6:27, 51–58, 63). To this emphasis is added testimony of the Spirit (5:6b), and these three testify to Jesus’s authenticity as the Son of God (5:7–8). As the Johannine Jesus emphasizes three witnesses, not just his own (Jn 5:31–38; 8:13–19; Dt 17:6; 19:15), so the Johannine elder emphasizes three witnesses—the water, the blood, and the Spirit—which bear final testimony in the hearts of believers (5:10). These are ultimately the testimony of God (5:9), which outweighs human testimony on all accounts.

While some Greek and Latin manuscripts preface this threefold witness with a trinitarian formula (see the CSB footnote to 5:7–8), that addition to the text clearly represents a later development in Christian theology.

5:10–12. Parallel to those who “make [God] a liar” in 1:8–10 by denying one’s sin, one here makes God a liar by not receiving God’s testimony about Jesus’s fleshly humanity (5:10). If claiming to be without sin is a matter of arguing that cultural and religious assimilation (participating in pagan festivals, worshiping Caesar, etc.) are not sinful, these liberties were likely challenged by the docetic teaching that Jesus was so divine that he could not have suffered and died. Therefore, one cannot expect believers to risk suffering and loss; if Jesus did not suffer, we need not do so either. Just as hope for the resurrection can only come by means of the cross, the only way to life is through the dead and risen Son of God (5:12).

C. The boldness of faith (5:13–15). Again the elder declares his purpose in writing (see 2:14, 21, 26), and this time he explicitly echoes the evangelistic purpose of the Fourth Gospel (Jn 20:31): that his hearers/readers might believe in the name of the Son of God and thereby know that they have eternal life (5:13). The elder then reminds them of the promise of Jesus that anything asked in his name will be granted by the Father (Jn 14:13–14; 15:16) and that by asking in his name, the world is overcome (Jn 16:23–32) (5:14–15). Just as the purpose of Jesus is to further the will of the Father who sent him (Jn 4:34; 5:30; 6:40), the purpose of his followers should be the furthering of his will in the world (Jn 15:14–15) as his partners and friends.

For prayer to be effective according to the will of God or the will of Jesus, the believer must first discern the divine will (5:14). Mutual abiding implies intimate relationship and dialogue. God hears the believer’s petitions because the believer has heard and discerned the will of God. Laying down one’s own will and embracing the will of the Lord reorients one’s life and reformats one’s prayers. This is the confidence and boldness of the believer’s prayer: not in the right words or proper forms, but in the will of the Lord.

D. Keep from mortal sins—in particular, idols! (5:16–21). 5:16–17. This section picks up again the main topic outlined in the opening chapter (1:5–10): sin—its identification and its consequences. Here the elder distinguishes between mortal sins (leading to death) and venial ones (not leading to death) (5:16). The practical importance of the distinction involves prayerful graciousness and discernment regarding some sins but the stern rejection of death-producing ones.

John relates eternal life directly to knowing Jesus (1 Jn 1:2; 2:24–25; 5:11–13, 20; cf. Jn 3:15–16, 36; 5:24; 6:40; 10:27–28; 11:25; 17:2–3).

The fact that there was apparent disagreement on which category some practices fit into casts some light on the claim to “have no sin” (1:8–10). If the Johannine leadership were challenging some sins as mortal sins, to be rejected and disavowed on pain of spiritual death, and if some Gentile Christian were claiming that some practices were neither sinful nor a problem, that likely reflects an acute crisis faced by the elder and the communities he was addressing. Of course, all wrongdoing is sin (5:17), although not all sins lead to death. The root and the stock of the tree, however, determine the character of its fruit.

5:18–20. Therefore, the one who is truly begotten of God does not sin, and he or she is protected by the Only Begotten Son of God (Jn 1:14, 18), who has overcome the evil one (5:18). The elder thus concludes his letter with three corporate affirmations of what “we know” as bases for Christian faith and practice.

First, we know that those who are really born of God do not sin, and this serves as an exhortation for authentic believers to live with integrity, ensuring their outward deeds match their spiritual commitments. Second, we know that believers are “of God,” while the whole world is rooted in the evil one (5:19). This should account for the disparity between the way of life and the way of death, which creates tensions in every context and generation. Third, we know that the Son of God is come and has given us understanding to know the one who is true, and to do so authentically (5:20). The Son of the true one is Jesus Christ, and he is even the “true God and eternal life” (see Jn 1:18). To worship him alone is to refuse the appeals—political, societal, and material—to worship false gods and programs. All of this comes clear, then, in the last sentence.

5:21. On one hand, the last verse seems out of place. What if, however, it is added as a crystallization of the central spiritual and moral thrust of the entire epistle? To commit oneself to Christ as the Only Begotten Son of the living God is to deny and disavow all idolatries and their associated practices, including pagan worship and its festivals. There is one Lord—Christ Jesus—and just as he laid down his life for his friends, so should his followers be willing to do on behalf of others. So staying away from idols becomes a leading measure of one’s love for Christ and for one another.