Chapter 13

1 John 4:17–5:3

Literary Context

This pericope continues the discussion that began in 4:7 on how love for others expresses love for God. It provides a theological basis for this argument and ties the topic to eschatology by (1) pointing to the believer’s confidence to face the coming day of judgment without fear (4:17–18), (2) explaining that it is impossible to love God without loving fellow believers (4:19–21), and (3) showing how having been born of God through faith in Christ entails the command to love others who have also been reborn (5:1–2).

  1. XII. God’s Love Expressed (4:7–16)
  2. XIII. God’s Love Perfected in the Believer (4:17–5:3)
    1. A. God’s Love Perfected in the Believer Produces Confidence to Face the Coming Day of Judgment (4:17–18)
    2. B. The Believer’s Love for God Is Demonstrated through Love for One Another (4:19–21)
    3. C. What the New Birth through Faith in Christ Produces (5:1–3)
  3. XIV. The Blood, Eternal Life, and Assurance (5:4–13)

Main Idea

John presents the theological basis for the command that Christians are to love one another by building on his argument in 4:9–10 that God’s love for us is best displayed in the atonement of the cross of his Son, Jesus Christ. When God’s atoning love has fully reached its goal in a believer’s life, it produces two results: (1) they will rest in the assurance that they have nothing to fear in the coming judgment; (2) God’s transforming love enables believers to love others, which fulfills the command to love God. Being reborn through faith in Christ entails loving others who share such faith.

Translation

Structure

This passage is composed of three parts, 4:17–18; 4:19–21; and 5:1–3. John first explains the goal of God’s ongoing love in the believer’s life with respect to the future judgment; he then goes on to explain that love for God entails love for others. The prepositional phrase in 4:17, “in this way” (ἐν τούτῳ), links this pericope to the previous statement in 4:16, that the one who remains in God’s love remains in God and therefore has eternal life. “In this way,” by remaining in God’s love, which is centered on the atoning death of Jesus, “we” have confidence to face the coming day of judgment without fear.

The second part of the passage shows that Christian love for others is derived from God’s love, and that it is impossible to love God genuinely without loving other believers.

At first glance it may seem that John has moved to a new topic of faith and new birth in 5:1, especially since the discussion of faith continues in 5:3 and following. But the second part of 5:1 concerns love for those born of God and brings the discussion of love begun in 4:7 to its conclusion. This is a good example of how tightly braided John’s topics are, such that janus verses like this stand between two related topics.

Exegetical Outline

  1. XIII. God’s Love Perfected in the Believer (4:17–5:3)
    1. A. God’s love perfected in the believer produces confidence to face the coming day of judgment (4:17–18)
      1. 1. Only by the believer’s remaining in God’s love can God’s love for the believer reach its culmination (4:17a-d)
        1. a. When God’s love is perfected in the believer, confidence results (4:17a-b)
        2. b. When God’s love is perfected in the believer, he or she is like Jesus (4:17c-d)
      2. 2. Perfected love casts out the fear of punishment (4:18)
    2. B. The believer’s love for God is demonstrated through love for one another (4:19–21)
      1. 1. Christian love derives from God’s love (4:19)
      2. 2. One cannot love God and not love others (4:20)
      3. 3. Love for God entails love for others (4:21)
    3. C. What the new birth through faith in Christ produces (5:1–3)
      1. 1. Love for others who have been reborn (5:1)
      2. 2. Love for God by keeping his commands (5:2)
      3. 3. Love for God defined: keep his commands (5:3)

Explanation of the Text

4:17 In this way God’s love has been perfected with us, with the result that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because just as that One is, we also are in this world (Ἐν τούτῳ τετελείωται ἡ ἀγάπη μεθ’ ἡμῶν, ἵνα παρρησίαν ἔχωμεν ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῆς κρίσεως, ὅτι καθὼς ἐκεῖνός ἐστιν καὶ ἡμεῖς ἐσμεν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ τούτῳ). John explains that God’s love has a transforming purpose in the life of the believer that allows Christians to face God’s judgment with confidence.

Some interpreters take the phrase “in this way” (ἐν τούτῳ) to point forward to the hina clause,1 but it is preferable to understand it as pointing backward to the statement just made, because it then mirrors the thought in v. 12.2 The anaphoric article, “the love” (ἡ ἀγάπη), points backward and indicates that the love in view is that just previously mentioned in v. 16. Mutual love—God’s for the believer and the believer’s for God—comes to its fullest realization when a believer looks toward the day of judgment with confidence. This coheres with John’s purpose to reassure his readers that they do in fact have eternal life because of their right belief in Jesus.

The preposition “with” (μεθ’), where one might expect “in” (ἐν), emphasizes the communal nature of this love and reminds readers of John’s desire that they remain in God’s love in Christ to enjoy fellowship with “us” (1:3).3 The perfect passive verb (τετελείωται) is a divine passive; “God’s direct and transformative presence” in the community brings his love to its goal (see comments on this verb at 2:5 and 4:12).4 God loves us by sending his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sin so that we might not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). When that love has completed its work in our lives, we are freed from fear of death and can stand confidently before God’s judgment, washed clean in Jesus’ blood (cf. Heb 2:14–18). John has previously stated the same thought in 2:28, “And now, children, remain in him, so that when he appears, we might have confidence and not be shamed away from him whenever he comes.”

It is difficult to see at first how the remainder of the verse, “just as that One is, we also are in this world,” logically functions. The demonstrative pronoun translated “that One” (ἐκεῖνος) is used often in John’s writings where one might expect a personal pronoun, and it often refers to God or Jesus. Here it almost certainly refers to Jesus because the phrase “in the world” suggests the human presence of the Son (cf. 2:6; 3:5, 16; John 1:18). Clearly John is presenting an analogy between “we are in this world” and “that One is,” perhaps with the prepositional phrase “in the world” to be understood. The variant reading here in NA 27 (but omitted from NA28) reflects an interpolation that takes this to be an analogy between how Jesus “was in the world blameless and pure” and how “we” are to be in this world. By this understanding, the analogy is to the mode of being. Ben Witherington understands the analogy to be showing “no fear in the face of judgment or punishment.” He observes, “If there was ever a person who walked this earth in whom love was perfected and fear was banished, it was Jesus.”5 Kruse lists three representative interpretations:6

  1. (1) Christ has retained in heaven the characteristic he had on earth and is still a pattern for his followers on earth (Schnackenburg).
  2. (2) Believers are children of God just as Christ is the Son of God, and because Christ is the Judge, believers need not fear (Brown).
  3. (3) Believers in this world who love as Christ loved his disciples show that they live in God and need not fear judgment (Kruse).

Brown points out that the various interpretations of this statement fall into three categories: Christ’s incarnate human status, his moral life, and his love for others; but he rejects all such analogies with the “terrestrial” Christ because he takes “in this world” to describe us but not Christ: “The logic of the statement is that since we are already like Christ, we shall not be judged harshly.”7 Smalley offers perhaps the best understanding by linking this text with the Farewell Discourse in John’s gospel, which does seem to underlie the letter.8 He understands John to be saying that “the relationship of believers to God in the world can and should reflect that of Jesus to God (as it was on earth, and as it still is in heaven: this includes the Son’s own ‘confidence’ before God)” (italics original). He paraphrases v. 17, “As he [Jesus] is (in the Father’s love), so we are (in him, and therefore in the Father’s love) in the world (obediently making God’s love known).”9

4:18 There is no fear in God’s love; rather, his love that has been perfected [in us] casts out fear, because fear implies punishment, and the one who fears has not reached the goal of God’s love (φόβος οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ, ἀλλ’ ἡ τελεία ἀγάπη ἔξω βάλλει τὸν φόβον, ὅτι ὁ φόβος κόλασιν ἔχει, ὁ δὲ φοβούμενος οὐ τετελείωται ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ). If God’s love for us is most clearly expressed in the atoning death of Jesus to cleanse us from our sins and free us from fear of God’s judgment, then there is nothing left for us to fear once we have fully comprehended God’s love for us. (Note that the anaphoric article “in the love” [ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ] indicates the love in view is the same love mentioned in vv. 16–17; see comments on 2:5 and 4:12 for discussion of the perfect tense verb.)

John points out that fear implicitly entails a fear of punishment or suffering related to the object of fear. A fear of water implies a fear of drowning. A fear of fire implies a fear of being burned. A fear of God’s judgment implies a fear of punishment. Note that the only other occurrence of “punishment” (κόλασιν) is found in the eschatological context of Matt 25:46, where the Master condemns the goats to “eternal punishment [κόλασιν].” But if God so loved the world that he sent his unique Son to deliver the world from perishing (cf. John 3:16), the punishment has already been meted out to Jesus Christ on our behalf. The mission of God’s redeeming love is completed in a believer’s life only when they realize fully that there is nothing of eternal condemnation left to fear. As Yarbrough puts it, “There is no fear of estrangement from God in the love that by definition establishes intimacy with God.”10

4:19 We love because he first loved us (ἡμεῖς ἀγαπῶμεν, ὅτι αὐτὸς πρῶτος ἠγάπησεν ἡμᾶς). God’s love for us is the source of all genuine human love for God and others. Both as Creator and Redeemer, God has taken the initiative.

Some people are quick to condemn God for all the evil in the world, doubting either his goodness or his ability to do anything about evil. But the greater question is perhaps where do love, beauty, and joy come from? Theologians may debate whether love is an attribute of the character of God in distinction from his other attributes, or whether love is actually the sum of God’s attributes, but John is clear that God’s love precedes human love. To whatever extent the world’s counterfeit “loves” intersect true love as God defines it, it is because of God’s common grace at work.

All human love is distorted by our fallen nature, such that no one can truly love God or others as we ought. It is only when a person comes to Christ and begins to realize the extent and nature of God’s love that their ability to love rightly can be transformed by the work of the Spirit. To whatever extent the Christian community achieves and enjoys genuine love, it is only because God first extended his cross-shaped love to the human race.

4:20 If anyone says, “I love God” and hates his brother or sister, they are a liar. For the one who does not love the brother or sister whom they have seen is not able to love the God whom they have not seen (ἐάν τις εἴπῃ ὅτι ἀγαπῶ τὸν θεόν, καὶ τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ μισῇ, ψεύστης ἐστίν· ὁ γὰρ μὴ ἀγαπῶν τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ ὃν ἑώρακεν, τὸν θεὸν ὃν οὐχ ἑώρακεν οὐ δύναται ἀγαπᾶν). Here John comes full circle in his discussion of love, especially for fellow believers (“brother or sister”), that he introduced back in chapter 2 and picked up again in chapter 3:

The command to love God was long-standing in the Jewish faith from which Christianity emerged. Ancient Israel’s foremost command was the Shema, “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deut 6:5). Such love for God was coupled with obedience to the covenant, which included treating others rightly, both fellow Israelites and foreigners. John’s argument is similar: love for God must be constituted by love for others, particularly fellow believers.

The premise that God is unseen is part of John’s argument that the failure to love the brother or sister who is in front of our eyes prevents our ability to love God. Some interpreters take this as an argument from the easier to the harder case on the premise that it is easier to love another person who is present than to love God, who is intangible and invisible.11 After all, one can send a Valentine to or hug a person, but not even FTD delivers flowers to God. Or, as Calvin explains, “It is a false boast when anyone says that he loves God but neglects his image which is before his eyes.”12 So how are human beings to express love for God? What can we give him? Anyone who has lived within the church for any length of time could dispute the premise of how much easier it is to love people than God, but that is probably not John’s point.

Others understand the argument to mean that since God is invisible, there is no way to know if someone loves him or not, but a relationship with another person can be easily observed and evaluated.13 This argument also seems vulnerable, since there is observable behavior that can express love for God, such as not taking his name in vain, attending worship, praying, and the like. Furthermore, even outward behavior both toward others and toward God can be equally tainted by impure motives.

Perhaps there is another thread to John’s thought related to the revelation of God in Christ. The unseenness of God is overcome by the incarnation of Christ, who has come for the very purpose of revealing God (John 1:18). Perhaps the idea in the present verse is that the one who does not love their Christian brother or sister is not able to love God apart from his visible manifestation in Jesus Christ; that is, only a believing Christian can genuinely love the one true God. Therefore, love for the unseen God must be defined by the Christian gospel, which, as John will say in v. 21, means that one must love others.

John has argued sufficiently about the origin of love in God’s redemptive purposes, the self-sacrificing nature of God’s love in Christ, and the transformation of the believer’s love by the Spirit to now conclude in v. 20 that a profession of love for God is an empty lie if love for fellow believers is absent. In other words, a failure to love others means that a person has failed to see the God who is revealed in Jesus Christ and therefore is unable to love God at all. In this way, love for God is identified with the knowledge of Christ.

Conversely, love for others is empty if not derived from love for God in Christ. Because human love derives from God’s love, the two are inextricably joined. As D. Smith puts it, “The gospel cannot be reduced to a kind of benign humanism with a horizontal, but no vertical, direction. Our love for each other is beautiful, ennobling, but ringed with sadness and ultimately tragic apart from love of God.”14

If genuine love for others is supremely based in God’s redeeming love, then in addition to caring for the needs of the community (3:14–17), no word or deed is loving that puts an obstacle in the way of others knowing the true value of the cross of Jesus (2:10). Although John may not be directly addressing the “antichrists,” who left the congregation (2:19), his explanation of genuine love condemns anyone who would profess to know and love God but then teaches something other than the atoning cross of Jesus as its basis.

4:21 And this is the command from him: that the one who loves God must also love their brother or sister (καὶ ταύτην τὴν ἐντολὴν ἔχομεν ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ, ἵνα ὁ ἀγαπῶν τὸν θεὸν ἀγαπᾷ καὶ τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ). John here disallows any argument that one can truly love God but be indifferent or hateful toward others in the community. Although the discussion has referred to “God” (θεός), John’s discussion of love clearly alludes to Jesus’ teaching in the gospel just after he washed the feet of his disciples:

Thus, John is saying that there is no love for God that is not focused on Jesus Christ. Kruse points out that this passage accomplishes two ends: first, John reassures his readers that they really do know God; second, he wants to show them that the claims of religious people to know and love apart from Christ (the secessionists?) are false.

5:1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. And everyone who loves the Father loves his child as well (Πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων ὅτι Ἰησοῦς ἐστιν ὁ Χριστὸς, ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ γεγέννηται, καὶ πᾶς ὁ ἀγαπῶν τὸν γεννήσαντα ἀγαπᾷ [καὶ] τὸν γεγεννημένον ἐξ αὐτοῦ). John bases his final point in the argument that Christians must love fellow believers by pointing again to their faith in Jesus Christ, who is the Father’s expression of love for his children. As Yarbrough pithily says, “The road to love … is paved with faith” in Christ.15 John does not suggest that belief in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah is an adequate basis for Christian faith, but that “Christ” (Χριστός) should be understood in its later sense as a title referring to the Son of God (see “In Depth: Messiah or Christ?” at 1:3). Calvin commented on the nature of this faith of which John speaks:

The only true way of believing is when we direct our minds to him. Besides, to believe that he is the Christ, is to hope from him all those things which have been promised as to the Messiah.

Nor is the title, Christ, given him here without reason, for it designates the office to which he was appointed by the Father. As, under the Law, the full restoration of all things, righteousness and happiness, were promised through the Messiah; so at this day the whole of this is more clearly set forth in the gospel. Then Jesus cannot be received as Christ, except salvation be sought from him, since for this end he was sent by the Father, and is daily offered to us.16

If someone has come to such faith in Christ, that person has been born again as a child of God into the Father’s family (cf. 2:29; 3:9). This faith in Christ presumably produces love for God the Father, that is, “the begetter” (τὸν γεννήσαντα). A person who loves the Father also loves the Father’s child, “the one who has been begotten from him” (τὸν γεγεννημένον ἐξ αὐτοῦ). This statement builds on the idea that Jesus Christ, Son of God, whom believers love, is the begotten of the Father (5:18; cf. Nicene Creed, “begotten not made”). But here John uses that christological point to argue that all who have come to faith in Christ are also children of the Father to be likewise loved.

It is striking that Christian believers are brought into a relationship with the Father that is described in the same terms as the Son’s relationship with the Father, though certainly not identical with it.17 This distinction is made in 1 John, which refers to Jesus as God’s Son (υἱός) but to all believers as his children (τεκνία). Therefore, “anyone who loves God necessarily loves a God who begets offspring; love of those others who like oneself are begotten by God follows inescapably.”18 In fact, not to love fellow believers is evidence that one has not truly been born of God (2:9–11; 3:9–10, 14–17; 4:20).

5:2 So this is how we know that we love the children of God: when we love God and do his commands (ἐν τούτῳ γινώσκομεν ὅτι ἀγαπῶμεν τὰ τέκνα τοῦ θεοῦ, ὅταν τὸν θεὸν ἀγαπῶμεν καὶ τὰς ἐντολὰς αὐτοῦ ποιῶμεν). John restates the relationship between love for God and obedience to his commands.

Although this Greek sentence looks simple, there are some exegetical questions that need to be considered before concluding John’s meaning here. First, which way does the prepositional phrase “in this way” (ἐν τούτῳ) point, forward to the next clause (cataphoric) or backward to what was just stated (anaphoric)? Second, while the second occurrence of “we love” (ἀγαπῶμεν) is clearly subjunctive, following after “when” (ὅταν), could the first also be subjunctive? And is there a way of understanding what John says here that is not viciously circular or tautologous? For as Brown points out, “One tests love for God by love for brothers (4:20–21) and then tests love for brothers by love for God.”19

In the common view that takes the prepositional phrase “in this way” (ἐν τούτῳ) as pointing forward (as in NIV, NLT, and most English translations), it points to the ὅταν clause: “This is how we know we love … when we love God and carry out his commands.”20 On this reading, loving God and carrying out his commands is how we know that we love the children of God, which seems to be the reverse of what John has just previously argued in 4:20. But rather than a contradiction or convolution, it is another way of saying that we cannot define love for others until we obediently love God. In other words, “love is not defined instinctively but is rather revealed (3:16; 4:19), so that the knowledge that we love is grounded in the love of God and the keeping of his commandments.”21

But some interpreters have seen the prepositional phrase “in this way” (ἐν τούτῳ) to refer to the preceding statement. As Dodd explains it:

The words “by this” now refer to what precedes (cf. iv. 6, iii. 19), and we have a perfectly logical argument, which may be thus stated in syllogistic form:

He who loves the parent loves the child:

Every Christian is a child of God:

Therefore, when we love God we love our fellow Christians.22

Howard Marshall agrees that up to this point in the letter John has been arguing that it is love for the brothers and sisters that shows one truly loves God (3:14–18; 4:20), not the other way around. Thus, he argues that the prepositional phrase points back to the preceding statement, but also that the verb is “a virtual statement of obligation,” yielding, “by this principle, namely that we must love our father’s [other] children, we know that we ought to love the children of God” (italics added).23 Verse 1 then is read as the theological principle on which our love for brothers and sisters is commanded, because they too are God’s children. However, there are no clear parallels of this use of the present indicative (but see discussion of 3:6).

A similar problem arises with taking the first “we love” (ἀγαπῶμεν) as a subjunctive, since in form it could be either indicative or subjunctive. As Wallace explains the relationship of the subjunctive to the imperative (which lacks a first plural form), “the subjunctive is also used for volitional notions … an acceptable gloss is often should.”24 If the volitive sense of the subjunctive can be allowed here, the thought expressed is that because of the principle in 5:1 (ἐν τούτῳ), we should or ought to love the children of God.

Nevertheless, without clear parallels for this use of the present subjunctive, the volitive sense of the first occurence of “we love” (ἀγαπῶμεν) probably comes more from the context of John’s exhortation than from the mood of the verb. The volitive sense of the verb is necessary for taking “in this way” (ἐν τούτῳ) as pointing back to 5:1. But taking “we love” (ἀγαπῶμεν) as indicative and the prepositional phrase as pointing at the hotan (ὅταν) clause is consistent with the logical flow of John’s argument that love for others is defined only by first loving God and doing his commands:

Calvin’s thoughts on this are worth quoting at length:

He briefly shows in these words what true love is, even that which is towards God. He has hitherto taught us that there is never a true love to God, except when our brethren are also loved; for this is ever its effect. But he now teaches us that men are rightly and duly loved, when God holds the primacy. And it is a necessary definition; for it often happens, that we love men apart from God, as unholy and carnal friendships regard only private advantages or some other vanishing objects. As, then, he had referred first to the effect, so he now refers to the cause; for his purpose is to shew that mutual love ought to be in such a way cultivated that God may be honored.25

John’s logic is also consistent with the OT moral code of the covenant, where covenant obedience to God was expressed in keeping the Ten Commandments, some of which regulated behavior toward others, such as “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” and “You shall not give false testimony” (Exod 20:1–17; Deut 5:6–21). Love for others is not a sentimental emotion or merely getting along; it is living in right relationships with others by not murdering, not stealing, not giving false testimony, and the like, and by meeting the need of others for life’s sustaining provisions. Moreover, the work that God commands is “to believe in the one he has sent” (John 6:29).

The apparent circularity of the argument that Brown points out may be seen, as Smalley explains, as inherent in the inextricability of love for others and love for God, “for the fact is that each kind of love (for God, and for others) demonstrates the genuineness of the other, and reinforces it.”26 Von Wahlde sees this rhetoric as “intended to show the unity of these obligations.”27 Therefore, as John argues, it is impossible to love God and treat others in ways that violate God’s revealed will.

5:3 For this is the love of God: that we keep his commands, and his commands are not burdensome (αὕτη γάρ ἐστιν ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ, ἵνα τὰς ἐντολὰς αὐτοῦ τηρῶμεν, καὶ αἱ ἐντολαὶ αὐτοῦ βαρεῖαι οὐκ εἰσίν). John clearly and explicitly defines love for God as obedience. One cannot claim to love God and be indifferent to his commands. Because one loves God, his commands are not burdensome but liberating. The word translated “burdensome” (βαρύς) does not occur frequently in the NT (Matt 23:4, 23; Acts 20:29; 25:7; 2 Cor 10:10). John’s statement recalls that of Jesus in Matt 11:30, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” When we are set free by Christ to love God, we are set free to live rightly with one another as God has defined “rightly.” That freedom is light compared to the weight and heaviness of sin.

Theology in Application

Free from Fear

Reassurance of eternal life is based on God’s love, which is most clearly expressed on the cross, and that love when properly understood frees us from fear of God’s coming day of judgment (vv. 17–18). Perhaps a primary reason that so many people have a difficult time trusting God’s love is that society at large, and even the church to some extent, has let go of the idea that we will be judged by a holy and righteous God after this life. Consequently, the gracious atonement for our sin is not viewed as the greatest gift of love but as an irrelevant and outdated belief of primitive religion.

Instead of pondering the cross of Jesus Christ, fallen creatures seek God’s love and goodness elsewhere in a fallen creation. Horrible things such as the untimely death of innocents, gruesome violence, cataclysmic natural calamities, and “man’s inhumanity to man” seem to weigh heavily against God’s goodness (or his omnipotence), all of which cause many to doubt God’s love for us. If there is no sin and no judgment of sin, then Jesus’ death was a horrible farce.

But John and all the other NT writers argue that there is no greater expression of God’s love than the cross of Jesus, and to accept God’s love and continue in it means embracing the gospel of Jesus Christ by acknowledging our sin, repenting of it, and living in Christ. John underscores that apart from this gospel, there is no assurance of eternal life. John further teaches that there is no genuine love for God apart from embracing the gospel of Jesus Christ and continuing in it (see The Theology of John’s Letters).

The cross of Jesus delivers us from the coming judgment and frees us to live and love as God created us to do. The NT is full of ethical and moral principles, but John’s writings are strangely void of anything other than the command to love one another. In fact, John says, a person is self-deceived who claims to love God but is indifferent toward his church. So many in our modern society see themselves as spiritual, but have disdain for the church and organized religion. While churches and denominations certainly have their flaws and problems, it is an oxymoron to think that one can love and worship God in splendid isolation from the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is only in community with others who have received God’s atoning love in the cross of Christ that one can truly love God. It is only in the ups and downs of relationships with other believers that one has the opportunities to love.

Love Takes a Community

John repeatedly points to Jesus’ new command that his followers must love one another. But is this really a useful principle of Christian ethics since the command is so broad and vague and depends so much on how “love” is defined? Andreas Köstenberger asks, “What is John’s moral vision? Some have difficulty identifying John’s ethics or allege a limited interest in moral conduct on John’s part.”28 Wayne Meeks points out that the Fourth Gospel “offers no explicit moral instruction”; John’s “only rule is ‘love one another,’ and that rule is ‘both vague in application and narrowly circumscribed, being limited solely to those who are firmly within the Johannine circle.’ ”29 Richard Hays observes the same issue: “The strongly sectarian character of the Johannine vision stands at the opposite pole within the New Testament from Luke’s optimistic affirmation of the world and its culture.”30 If John’s writings were all we had, these points would be well taken. The command to love one another seems too broad to be of practical value in guiding specific behavior, and it seems focused on the Johannine community to the exclusion of those outside.

Hays points out that immediately before Jesus gave the new command to his disciples to love one another (John 13:34), he washed their feet, demonstrating that love means “humble service of others.”31 The fact that John reflects Jesus’ teaching that focused special attention on his followers’ relationships with one another does not deny the fact that Jesus also taught about loving one’s neighbor, even the neighbor one is most likely to hate (Luke 10:25–37). He expounded on the Ten Commandments, reinforcing their ongoing relevance to his followers (Matt 5:17–6:4), and he preached an ethical foundation for life in the Beatitudes (5:3–11). Although John exhorts his readers not to love the world (1 John 2:15), he also acknowledges that God so loved the world that he sent his Son to die for its sins (John 3:16). “Thus, Jesus’ death is depicted by John … as an act of self-sacrificial love that establishes the cruciform life as the norm for discipleship.”32

Beyond the Gospels we have the NT letters, full of ethical and moral instruction for a variety of life and cultural situations. John clearly believed there is an ethical and moral standard for Christians that involves principles revealed by God (1 John 2:15; 3:6, 7, 10, 24; 5:3, 18; 3 John 11). But he subsumes the ethical and moral codes of Judaism under the authority of Jesus, who sums them all up as “love your neighbor” and defines his disciples as a particular group of “neighbors” to love (John 13:34).

Johannine Ethics

So John does present an ethical grounding for Christian life, which, as Köstenberger points out, “is a call to evangelistic mission that is grounded in God’s love for the world and undergirded by communal love and unity.”33 In fact, one could argue that without John’s moral vision centered in the cross, all ethical behavior would be just going through the motions. It is good to feed hungry people, but if those same people are heading toward their judgment without Christ, is it loving to give them bread but not the Bread of Life? Is it loving to affirm Christian brothers and sisters in their sin rather than call them to live as God has revealed in Scripture?

John does expect his readers to care for others in need (3:17–18), but the real and present danger of that moment was that his readers might be led astray and not continue in genuine faith in Jesus Christ (2:19; 3:7; 4:1–3; 2 John 7–11). As Köstenberger concludes:

John’s moral vision is simple yet profound. Knowing the world’s spiritual and moral darkness apart from the light, Jesus Christ, John holds out no hope for those without Christ. He does not discuss keeping the law; he does not explicitly address the issue of righteousness other than to urge rejection of sin (1 John 3:6; cf. 3:4–10); he does not engage the isssue of works, other than to report Jesus’ answer to those who asked him what they must do to perform the works required by God: “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent” (John 6:29).34

In a religiously pluralistic society (as we live in today), the greatest act of love—the sharing of God’s love in Christ—is increasingly perceived as a self-righteous power play that is taboo in polite company. Jesus was sent into such a world, and as he was returning to the Father he said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you” (John 20:21). This call to continue to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ in a pluralistic society increasingly hostile to the idea of exclusive spiritual truth will be the church’s greatest challenge in the years to come.