1 John: light, love and life

About the book

The letter has no greeting and names neither writer nor readers, yet it is warm: the writer calls them "My little children" (1 John 2:1).

The church has long received it as the apostle John's. Its writer speaks as a witness of the Word of life, "which we have heard, which we have seen with our own eyes, which we have gazed upon and touched with our own hands" (1 John 1:1). Its language is that of John's Gospel: light and darkness, truth, love, abiding, the new commandment. Early in the second century Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, already drew testimonies from it Eusebius, Church History 3.39, and Irenaeus of Lyons records that John remained with the church at Ephesus "until the times of Trajan" Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.3.4. So it is usually dated about AD 90, from John's old age at Ephesus; the map under the Jesus tab sets John's three letters last in the era of the church (c. AD 30–90).

Many scholars think the Gospel and the letters came from a circle of John's disciples, some as late as about AD 100, noting that the writer gives no name and stresses some things differently from the Gospel. Many others, among them evangelicals, who stress the authority of Scripture and the telling of the gospel, hold that the apostle wrote it, pointing to its eyewitness claim and to the early witnesses.

How it unfolds

1 John circles back to the same themes, going deeper each time: walking in the light, loving one another, and believing in Jesus Christ come in the flesh.

Key passages

John's message is that "God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5). To walk in the light is not to pretend we have no sin, but to bring it into the light and be forgiven:

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:9

John marvels: "Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are!" (1 John 3:1). God's children love one another, and John shows where that love comes from:

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. … And love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

1 John 4:8-10

The eighteenth-century English preacher John Wesley says that the little sentence ‘God is love’ "brought St. John more sweetness, even in the time he was writing it, than the whole world can bring" Wesley.

John gives his purpose: "I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life" (1 John 5:13). What that assurance rests on is taught in the New Believers course: Assurance of salvation.

The book and Christ

The letter begins with Christ, "the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us" (1 John 1:2), the Word of whom John's Gospel says, "The Word became flesh" (John 1:14). Some had left the church (1 John 2:19) denying this, and many scholars see in them an early form of the later teaching that Christ only seemed human. So John makes one confession the test: "Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God" (1 John 4:2). See The incarnation, in the doctrine course.

For those who sin, "we have an advocate before the Father — Jesus Christ, the Righteous One" (1 John 2:1), who is "the atoning sacrifice for our sins" (1 John 2:2), our propitiation. Matthew Henry asks where love is shown most gloriously, and answers, "It is to be found in the person and the cross of Christ" Matthew Henry. Near its close the letter says, "He is the true God and eternal life" (1 John 5:20), words the church has long read as a confession of Jesus Christ, named just before.

Reading it

Five chapters make one sitting of twenty minutes or so; begin with 1 John 1. Read slowly, and each time light, love or faith returns, notice what is added.

Read it beside John's Gospel, written "so that you may believe" (John 20:31); the letter was written to those who believe, so that they may know they have life. Then go on to the elder's two short letters, 2 John and 3 John.

Practice