“That which we have seen and heard we declare to you that our joy may
be full.” - 1 John 1:4
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| Byzantine picture of the apostle John teaching a disciple. |
Our small, discussion-based Bible study at the chapel (Wednesdays at 7:15 - you are cordially invited) has
given me truck loads to think about lately.
We started studying First John a couple weeks ago and so far we've covered a whopping four verses. Like
John in the prologue of his letter, I find myself so full of what I’ve learned
that my happiness depends on sharing at least some of it.
The first four verses of First John set the stage for the rest of
the epistle. If we check out mentality
during these four verses we miss the setting for everything that happens later and we are highly likely to misinterpret the book. Reading different commentaries and listening to
various sermons on first John has convinced me that when a person goes wrong on
a passage, it is because they have lost sight of the theme and purpose
of First John.
A common approach to First John is the “tests
of life” view. Warren Wiesbe’s comments are typical of it: “Eternal
life, the life that is real, is a gift from God to those who trust His Son as
their Saviour. John wrote his Gospel to
tell people how to receive this wonderful life (John 20:21). He wrote his first letter to tell people how
to be sure they have really been born of God (1 John 5:9-13).”
Watch out! This is a bad approach! If John wrote his gospel to tell people how
to receive life (and he did), then wouldn’t a person know they had eternal life
if they did what John told him to do? There’s
a lot of screwy theology behind the tests of life view, but leering behind it all is the
assumption that a person could believe in Christ and not know it.
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| Christ healing the blind, by Nicolas Colombel, 1682 |
But that’s absurd.
Think of the Lord’s question to the man born blind, “Do you believe in the
Son of Man?” and his simple reply after finding out that it was Jesus, “Lord, I
believe!” (John 9:38). What was Christ’s
response? “Whoa, wait a minute buddy –
how can you know if you believe in Me? It
takes a long time of obeying my commands to know if you do that – better wait
for First John to come out?”
Far from
it. Christ says, “For judgment I have come into this
world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made
blind.”
On top of that, John clearly speaks of His readers’
regeneration (i.e. 1 John 2:12-14). What
sense would it make to say on the one hand – here’s a way of knowing you are
regenerate and then follow it up with “I am persuaded that you are regenerate?” If your mechanic gave you a long check list
to determine if you need a new engine and then said “but I just looked at your
engine and it’s in excellent condition,” what would you do? You'd skip the list because you had the results already!
I was alerted to the danger of the “tests of life view” a
while ago (10 years?), and since then I have been fond of the approach to First John that
says the purpose is fellowship, not relationship (meaning it’s not about figuring
out if you are a child of God but about how to be close to your Heavenly
Father). Fellowship is the intended
purpose of First John as 1:3 says "these things we write to you that you may
have fellowship."
But purpose is different than theme. The theme is clearly stated in verses one and
two. First John starts off with “That”
(neuter pronoun) and not “He” (masculine pronoun). First
John is not about the life / biography of Jesus Christ (the Word of Life), as the gospel of John
is. But the theme is about the life
that was in Him and is in us. In fact,
he reiterates the theme in verse two – it is eternal life. That is what he is declaring all throughout
the epistle!
He brings up the One whom they heard, saw and handled
because Jesus Christ is the very embodiment of life.
“In Him was life.” “He is the
true God and eternal life.” As those who
had the privilege of sleeping next to life incarnate, he is more than
abundantly qualified to describe real life.
I think that’s wonderful.
It stands in contrast to what the gnostic “anti-christs” taught and it
stands in contrast to the world around us.
The world holds out life, the good life.
But those who fall for the lie in looking for life in possessions or
pleasure or power end up in despair.
Look at the situation of the Lord Jesus.
Nowhere to lay his head. No money to pay the tax. No coin to use for his illustration. A borrowed donkey to for the triumphal entry. He was
despised and rejected and yet “in Him
was life.” He had none of the things
society says are really necessary for life and yet He had life to the fullest.
John will go on to describe what spiritual life really looks
like if it is manifested in us. Every believer has this life ("He that has the Son has life," 1 John 5:12). That’s not in question. The issue is not how to get life but what is life? Sometimes we let that life come out in our actions and sometimes we hold it back and let the old man take the reigns.
We need to constantly reminded about what God's life really looks like in action. A wholesome,
vital, fresh, thriving godliness is not refusing to “smoke or chew or hang with
those who do.” John describes it as an
experience of obedience, love, faith.
But the picture is better than the description. We get the clearest picture of life when we
examine the person of the Lord Jesus.
As I’ve been preparing for our Wednesday night Bible studies,
I’ve been reading more of the “older brethren,” – Darby, Kelly, etc. I was struck that their approach is also
opposed to the “tests of life” view and in favor of the “fellowship” view. I was also struck that they are so much more
suave and eloquent than me. So take
these quotes as examples of older, godlier, more intelligent, and more
persuasive brothers who see First John the same way I do.
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| J. N. Darby (1800-1882) |
“By grace we have the life, but in the believer there is
often much failure that mars the expression and enjoyment of the life. We can only see and learn the perfection of
the life we have by looking to Christ.”
– Hamilton Smith
“When. . .I turn my eyes to Jesus, when I contemplate all
His obedience, His purioty, His grace, His tenderness, his patience, His
devotedness, His holiness, His love, His entire freedom from all self-seeking,
I can say, That is my life. . .It may be obscured in me, but it is nonetheless true,
that is my life.”
– John Nelson Darby
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| William Kelly (1821-1906) |
“We are just as different in
manifesting our spiritual life, as far as its exercises go, as we are in the
natural life of man. It is of course the
same in all, but the old life mixes, as it ought not, to produce these
differences. Impossible to find
satisfaction in a scene so shifting, one may find a little more of what the new
life is in this one as compared with that.
But for the truth of it one must turn to Christ as eternal life itself
without the least alloy or obscurity. . .He is not writing to let lost sinners
know how to be justified in God’s sight.
The Epistle is to God’s children, that they may be filled with joy. . .he [one immature in the faith] at once naturally turns to look
within. He does not find ground for
satisfaction there, and, what is more, he never can. What we have to do is in the first place to
rest on Christ made to us righteousness.
This therefore is the direction of faith. There is no object of faith in looking at
ourselves; it brings experience of our utter weakness. Only when Christ fills the spiritual eye is
His strength made perfect in our weakness.”
–William Kelly
If I don’t end the post now, I’ll get scolded that these
things are getting too long. Lord
willing, there will be more to come.
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