New Testament · General Epistles · Book 62 of 66
1 John
A letter without greeting or signature, from one who saw and handled the Word of life, written so that believers may know that they have eternal life.
- 5 chapters
- 105 verses
- About 11 minutes to read
- Letters to the Churches, c. AD 48–96
First John has no greeting, no sender’s name and no farewell. It opens on what the apostles heard, saw and handled “of the Word of life” (1 John 1:1) and closes on a single command: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (5:21). Between the two it turns again and again on plain opposites: light and darkness, truth and the lie, love and hatred, the children of God and the children of the devil.
The occasion is a departure. Some had left the congregation: “They went out from us, but they were not of us” (2:19). They denied that Jesus is the Christ, come in the flesh. Against them John sets the apostles’ witness, the anointing his readers have received, and the commandment they have had from the beginning. He names his purpose near the end: “that ye may know that ye have eternal life” (5:13). The word hereby marks its tests, and each is a way of knowing, given to those who already believe.
Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
1 John 4:10 KJV
Before you read
- Who wrote it
- Not named in the letter; traditionally the apostle John. The writer speaks as one who saw and handled “the Word of life” (1:1), and Dionysius of Alexandria took the letter and the Gospel for one man’s work:
The evangelist, on the other hand, has not prefixed his name even to the catholic epistle
. - When it was written
- Not dated in the letter. It was known early: Polycarp of Smyrna, writing to the Philippians, echoes it,
For whosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is antichrist
(compare 4:3). - To whom
- Not named. John writes to believers he calls “little children” (2:1), who have “an unction from the Holy One” (2:20) and have seen false teachers leave them (2:19).
- About the text
- The KJV prints verse 7, “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one” (5:7), and “in earth” in verse 8. Faithful Christians differ on whether these words were John’s own. Both views confess the triune God (Matthew 28:19).
Those who receive verse 7 as John’s own The verse completes the witness of verses 6–9: three in heaven, three in earth, and “the witness of God is greater” (5:9). Latin copies carried it, and Cyprian in the third century wrote:
And again it is written of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, ‘And these three are one.’
Grounds 1 John 5:71 John 5:9Cyprian 258
Those who hold the words were added in Latin copies John’s text named three witnesses: the Spirit, the water and the blood. The words stand in no Greek copy before the fourteenth century, and no Greek writer cites them in the fourth-century debates over the Trinity. Leo read the passage as
the Spirit of sanctification, the blood of redemption and the water of baptism, which three are one
.Grounds 1 John 5:61 John 5:8Leo the Great 461 · Letters 28
How 1 John is laid out
8 movements · 22 passages · 105 verses
The Word of life, handled
1:1–4 · 4 verses
What was “from the beginning” the apostles have heard, seen with their eyes, looked upon and handled: the eternal life that was with the Father and was manifested to them. They declare it so that their readers may share their fellowship, which is “with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ,” and so that their joy may be full.
God is light
1:5–2:2 · 8 verses
The message is that “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” To claim fellowship with him while walking in darkness is a lie. In the light the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin. To say we have no sin is self-deceit; to confess it is to find him faithful and just to forgive. If any man sin, Jesus Christ the righteous is advocate and propitiation.
Commandments kept, the world refused
2:3–17 · 15 verses
Knowing God shows in keeping his commandments and walking as Christ walked. The commandment to love the brother is old, heard from the beginning, and new, because “the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.” John writes to little children, fathers and young men, then warns them: “Love not the world.” Its lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and pride of life pass away.
The last time
2:18–29 · 12 verses
It is the last time, and many antichrists have come. They went out from the congregation, and their going showed they were never of it. The liar is he who denies that Jesus is the Christ, and whoever denies the Son has not the Father. The readers have an unction from the Holy One, and are to abide in what they heard from the beginning.
Called the sons of God
Chapter 3 · 24 verses
The Father’s love has made them sons of God, and when Christ appears they shall be like him. He was manifested to take away sins and to destroy the works of the devil, and “whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin.” Cain hated and slew his brother; Christ laid down his life for us. Love in deed and in truth assures the heart before God.
Spirits tried, love made perfect
Chapter 4 · 21 verses
Every spirit must be tried. The one that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God; the one that does not is the spirit of antichrist. God is love, and he showed it by sending his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Whoever dwells in love dwells in God. Perfect love casts out fear, and he who loves God loves his brother also.
The witness God has given
5:1–12 · 12 verses
Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and that faith overcomes the world. Jesus Christ came by water and blood, and the Spirit bears witness. The witness of God is greater: he has given eternal life, and this life is in his Son. “He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.”
That ye may know
5:13–21 · 9 verses
John states why he has written: that those who believe on the name of the Son of God may know that they have eternal life. They ask according to his will and are heard, and they pray for a brother who sins, though John does not bid them pray for the sin unto death. Its closing verses rest on “we know,” and it ends: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”
The words 1 John turns on
To know, to abide and to love carry the letter, against a passing world. Its word for propitiation (2:2; 4:10) is in no other New Testament book.
What 1 John teaches
phōs · light
Walking in the light
The first message of the letter is “that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1:5). Three claims follow, each opening “If we say”: to have fellowship with him while walking in darkness, to have no sin, never to have sinned (1:6–10). Each is false. Against them John sets what God has provided: “the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1:7), and “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins” (1:9). God is just in forgiving because the sin has been answered: Christ “is the propitiation for our sins” (2:2). To walk in the light is not to be without sin, but to live in the open before God, where sin is confessed and cleansed.
gennáō · born
Born of God
John marks God’s children by their birth: “every one that doeth righteousness is born of him” (2:29), and “every one that loveth is born of God” (4:7). The hardest is “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him” (3:9). It does not take back the confession of 1:8–9 or the advocate of 2:1. It describes the course of a life God has begotten, set against the devil, who “sinneth from the beginning” (3:8). Clement read the seed as His word in him who is born again through faith
. The “sin unto death” John leaves unnamed (5:16). Augustine took it to be the sin of one who opposes the brotherhood and is aroused by the fires of envy against that very grace
; Andreas as the sin of heresy, or of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit
.
agápē · love
God is love
Twice John writes “God is love” (4:8, 16), and he does not leave the word to be filled in from elsewhere: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (4:10). Love is defined at the cross before it is asked of anyone: “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us” (3:16). From there it binds the believer to his brother. Of one who has this world’s goods and shuts up his compassion from a brother in need, John asks, “how dwelleth the love of God in him?” (3:17). And “he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” (4:20).
ginṓskō · know
That ye may know
John states his purpose: “that ye may know that ye have eternal life” (5:13). The letter’s tests are given for that knowing, and several begin with hereby. “Hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments” (2:3). “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren” (3:14). “Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit” (4:13). Each is a sign of life already given, not a price paid for it. Beneath them all lies God’s own record, received as a witness is received: “God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son” (5:11). Not to believe it is to make God a liar (5:10).
Christ in 1 John
The letter begins where John’s Gospel begins. “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1); here the apostles declare “that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us” (1 John 1:2). The test of every spirit is that same fact: “Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God” (4:2). He came “not by water only, but by water and blood” (5:6). Bede took these as the water of baptism and the blood of His passion
; Augustine as the blood and water which flowed from his side
(John 19:34).
His work is stated in the letter’s own words. He is “the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (2:2), and “an advocate with the Father” (2:1). “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil” (3:8), as Hebrews says he did through death (Hebrews 2:14). And when he appears, “we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (3:2).
People
By how many verses name them
Where 1 John reaches
The passages it leans on, and the ones that lean on it
John 1:1 1 John 1:1 John 20:27
The Word who was in the beginning; the apostles’ hands that handled him; Thomas bidden to reach his hand into the risen Lord’s side.
God sent “his only begotten Son”: the letter restates the Gospel’s best-known verse as the measure of love.
The commandment John calls both old and new is the Lord’s own: love one another as he loved them.
1 John 3:12 Genesis 4:4 Hebrews 11:4
Cain slew his brother because Abel’s works were righteous; by faith Abel offered the more excellent sacrifice.
The Gospel was written “that ye might believe”; the letter, to those who believe, “that ye may know that ye have eternal life.”
Books 1 John links to most
The Church Fathers on 1 John
710 quotations from 39 writers before AD 800 · the ten most quoted, in date order
- Clement215
- Tertullian220
- Origen253
- Cyprian258
- Didymus398
- Augustine430
- Hilary449
- Gregory604
- Andreas614
- Bede735
Bede, on why the apostles could declare the Word of life plainly.
The disciples were with Jesus from the beginning, and so they could preach what they had seen and heard in his presence without any ambiguity.
Hilary of Arles, on “greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.”
God’s power to save is always much greater than the devil’s power to do harm.
Augustine, preaching through the letter, found its commandments gathered into love.
See here of what commandments this whole epistle talks. Therefore hold fast love, and set your minds at rest.
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