This summer I want to dive into the letters of John for Tuesday devotionals. It's mostly for me, but I welcome your company on the journey!
"The life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us" (1 John 1:2, ESV).
A little context to set up the letters:
Scholars generally agree that the letters are written by the Apostle John, also known as "the disciple whom Jesus loved." Early in the gospels, John and his brother James were the "Sons of Thunder," fishermen with attitude, whose mother argued for them to sit at the right and left hands of Jesus in the heavenly kingdom. He was the only disciple to live to old age, although he spent most of his later years alone on the island of Patmos off the Grecian coast. John wrote his story Jesus, now called the Gospel of John, usually the fourth book of a New Testament, sometime before 70 AD. John also wrote the Revelation of the Apocalypse about the same time, although many scholars date it in the mid-90s AD. John's letters to the churches near Ephesus date somewhere between 85 and 95 AD. Most scholars agree that the same John wrote the gospel, the letters, and the revelation.
The importance of authorship is credibility. While modern academics compose lengthy curriculum vitae and endless literature reviews to ensure readers believe them, John made it clear in his opening statements that his credibility came from his lived experience.
"We have heard." "We have seen." "We have touched."
Three times John reminds readers that he saw Jesus. Twice he says he heard Jesus. He touched Jesus; the manifest life of Jesus was real, and John was there. Clearly, John's authority comes from personal knowledge of the ways in which Jesus demonstrated that he was, indeed, the promised Messiah. As a result, John's proclamations contain Truth, and his testimony a reflection of reality.
John's authority played an essential role in the reason for the letters. The letters were written to a network of house churches around Ephesus who were being infiltrated by false teachers who insisted that Jesus was not the Messiah. These false prophets and anti-Christs denied apostolic authority, withdrew from the early Christian fellowship, sought to replace the gospel by reducing Jesus' humanity to insignificance (including the sacrifice of his life on the cross for salvation), and divided the church by claiming their unacceptable christology was more important than Jesus' admonition to love one another.
1 John 1:1-3
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life--the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it…
John 1:1-2
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
Revelation 1:4-6
Grace to you and peace from…Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
In each passage, John opens with the dual nature of Jesus: fully God from before time AND fully man for a short time for one purpose: the freeing of people enslaved to offending both God and others. Correctly understanding the nature of Jesus forms the foundation for all of Christianity. If Jesus is fully God but not fully man, then his death is not a perfect substitutionary sacrifice. If he is fully man but not fully God, then he can be no more than a prophet, but a false one, because he, himself, claimed to be God. The primary reason the religious leaders wanted him dead was because of his presumed blasphemy in equating himself with God.
In John 8, Jesus identified himself using the same phrase that God chose when he identified himself to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:14): אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה (Hebrew literally translated into English as "I will be what I will be"). John's consistent teaching about the dual nature of Jesus began in the first chapter of his gospel: "No one has ever seen God, the only God" are the same words in the Greek translations of Exodus, likely texts many educated Jews knew along with the original Hebrew of the synagogues.
Why does all of this word study matter? Charles Dickens wrote of his long description of just how dead Jacob Marley was in the opening of A Christmas Carol, "This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate" (Dickins, 1843, 1). The same is true of אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה . If Jesus is not fully human and at the same time fully the Holy One who IS, then nothing else in the New Testament matters. John knew he would address the false teachers who denied the paradox of incarnation, and he wanted to make sure that his readers were certain of his authority to assert the complete nature of Jesus as both Light and Life.
References
The ESV Bible. Crossway, 2001, www.esv.org/.
Book of First John Overview - Insight for Living Ministries
Books of 1-3 John Summary: A Complete Animated Overview
1 John | Commentary | Ray Van Neste | TGCBC
Background and Setting of 1 John | Bible.org
John’s Gospel May Have Been Last, But It Wasn’t Late | Cold Case Christianity
When was the book of Revelation written?
Did Jesus Claim to Be God? | Reformed Theological Seminary
The Trilemma Of C.S. Lewis, Part Two: Did Jesus Claim To Be God?
"I am" in Greek Septuagint translation of Exodus 3:14 vs. John 8:58 - how do they compare?
John H Walton & Craig S. Keener (Editors). NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible (Context Changes Everything), Hardcover, Red Letter: Bringing to Life the Ancient World of Scripture. Zondervan, 23 Aug. 2016.
Harris, W. Hall III. "From the Series: 1, 2, 3 John Comfort and Counsel for a Church in Crisis: The Author’s Opponents and Their Teaching in 1 John." Bible.org, 28 July 2004, https://bible.org/seriespage/3-author-s-opponents-and-their-teaching-1-john.
The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens