Walking in the Light and the Problem of Sin
The next two sections of 1 John are on the theme of walking in the light. The first section, 1 John 1:5–2:2, addresses the theme in relation to the issue of sin, while the second section, 1 John 2:3–11, focuses on walking in the light in relation to obedience, especially to the love command. The terms walk, light, and darkness occur throughout the section (1:5–7; 2:6, 8–11) and unify it. The Elder’s opponents are always present in the background. They have made certain claims (e.g., If we claim in 1:6, 8, 10; “The man who says” in 2:4; “Whoever claims” in 2:6; and “Anyone who claims” in 2:9) which the Elder must raise and refute. In 1 John 1:5–2:2 the theological and ethical principles of light and darkness are stated and then worked out in relation to the problem of sin. The Elder and his opponents view this subject quite differently. Perhaps the author begins his teaching with this subject because it was the one which was most troublesome spiritually to his community. It also allows him to introduce the incarnate Jesus in his role as redeemer from sin.
1:5 God is light. This is both a theological and a moral statement, i.e., it describes the essential nature of God, as well as God’s character in relation to humanity. Later (4:8, 16) the Elder will affirm that God is love. Here, though, the emphasis is first upon the character of God as good, pure, and holy. Light implies integrity, truthfulness, and authenticity. It is also the nature of light to shine, to manifest itself, to reveal, and this God has done in him who is the light of the world (John 3:19; 8:12; 9:5).
The author claims that this understanding of God is what Jesus taught; it is the message (angelia) which the first generation heard from him and now declares (anangellō; the same verb is translated as proclaim in vv. 2–3) to those who follow. It is also what they learned from observation of his life (John 14:9: “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father”).
The last part of the verse strongly affirms, as if in bold contrast to an unspoken claim to the contrary, that there is absolutely no darkness in God. Light and darkness are favorite antithetical concepts in the Johannine writings (John 1:4–5; 3:19–21; 8:12; 12:35–36, 46; 1 John 2:8–11; cf. Rev. 21:24 and 22:5). Darkness stands for evil, sin, and impurity. It implies deceit, falseness, and inauthenticity. Light and darkness are ultimately incompatible, and, while in all human character and behavior there is gray, in God there is nothing unworthy, undependable, or morally ambiguous. God is light.
1:6 If we claim. The opening of v. 6 begins a series of three pairs of contrasting If-clauses (1:6a and 7a, 1:8a and 9a, 1:10a and 2:1b). The we is now not the special and limited “we” of the first generation of witnesses to the Word, so prominent in 1:1–5, but includes every Christian. (In each instance a claim from the false teachers is answered with the true Johannine teaching from the Elder. The secessionists, who have divided the community (1 John 2:19), have left a strong impression on the remaining Johannine Christians. In fact, they continue to visit the house churches of those loyal to the Elder to win them over (2 John 10–11). The Elder must counter their teaching lest he lose his flock.
The first claim of the schismatics is to have fellowship with God; yet at the same time they walk in the darkness. After the opening verb claim, which is in the aorist tense and marks a definite assertion, the tenses of the verbs are all continuous present: “we are having fellowship” … “we are walking” … “we are lying” … “we are not doing.” The author points out the falseness of a lifestyle, an ongoing pattern of behavior, characterized by such a contradiction.
To have fellowship with means “to live in communion with,” “to be in a right relationship with,” to be part of one body, unified, at peace, and sharing the same life. This is its sense in v. 3. It is the saving fellowship of union with God, akin to the Pauline “in Christ.” Such a close relationship cannot be maintained while a person (or group—the Elder has the heretics in mind) walks in the darkness. This phrase deliberately contrasts and recalls God is light from the previous verse. It implies moral, spiritual, and, for the Elder, doctrinal error. It is thinking and action that are inconsistent with the nature of God and that are incompatible with the claim to be in fellowship with God. Darkness and light are moral and spiritual realms. They are mutually exclusive. For the author, one is either in the light or in the darkness (cf. 2:9–11), just as one is either a child of God or a child of the devil (3:10; 5:19), either from God or from the world (4:5–6).
Lying and truth is another frequent contrast in the letters of John, and its first appearance is in v. 6. Those in the sphere of darkness lie and do not live by the truth. From the author’s viewpoint, their lie consists in the false claim to be in an ongoing, right relationship with God (to have fellowship with him) while they walk in the darkness. Since light, God’s nature (v. 5) and locus (v. 7), and darkness, the opponents’ situation outside the community of truth, are mutually exclusive, the secessionists are lying.
It is not just their words which are false; their lives are: “and we are not doing the truth” (lit.), or as the NIV insightfully translates it, we do not live by the truth. For the author(s) of the Gospel and letters of John, truth is not so much a set of propositions to be believed and confessed, as it is a way of life to be lived and put into practice (cf. 3:22). The standard for this life of truth is God’s revelation in Jesus Christ (John 14:6: “I am … the truth”).
1:7 If the behavior and attitude of the secessionists, described in v. 6, are unacceptable, what is the positive alternative? The Elder says, walk in the light: be continuously thinking and living in God’s sphere of being. Brother Lawrence might have said, “Practice the presence of the God who is Light.”
This is the only conduct consistent with the nature of God (as he is in the light). Rather than claim fellowship with God while walking in the darkness (v. 6), live in ongoing fellowship with God in the light. That is the only authentic alternative. Just as in the Sermon on the Mount God’s character is the pattern and model (Matt. 5:48: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect”), and just as Paul told the Philippians, “Let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel” (Phil. 1:27, RSV), so the Elder holds up a divine standard for human conduct.
Two consequences follow for those who walk in the light. They have fellowship with other true Johannine Christians, and they are purified from all sin. We would have expected the author to say that walking in the light issues in fellowship with God, in order to parallel v. 6. But he assumes that truth and moves on to a new one: it is only those who walk in the light who are truly members of the author’s community, and, by extension, of the Christian community at large. We saw above in v. 3 that part of the author’s purpose was to complete and to strengthen the circle of salvation. Those who broke with the Elder and with the truth and who have left the fellowship are in serious spiritual danger. They are now outside the community of life (vv. 1–3). Therefore, walking in the light keeps one in the community, in fellowship with other faithful believers.
The second result of continuous contact with the light is that the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. The closer one’s fellowship with God and with those who walk with God, the more aware one will be of sin in one’s life. The secessionists fled the light (cf. John 3:19–21), claiming continuous fellowship with God, while their pride, dishonesty, and lack of love belied them. They could not “own up” to their sins. But, the Elder teaches, if we persist in the light (confessing our sins, v. 9), we will discover that God loves us and has sent his Son to be “an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10).
The blood of Jesus refers to his sacrificial death on the cross. It is the Christian’s agent of purification and cleansing, and it draws its meaning from the Jewish sacrificial system. The Elder emphasizes, contrary to the opponents’ rejection of Jesus’ physicality, that it is the blood of Jesus which is the effective antidote for sin in the believer’s life, not denial of the existence of sin. In fact, this antidote keeps on working: the present tense of the verb katharizō stresses continuous purification.
The term sin or sins (hamartia) occurs seventeen times in the Gospel of John (the verb hamartanō occurs three times) and seventeen times in the much smaller book of the letters (all in 1 John; the verb hamartanō occurs a surprising ten times). Clearly the problem of sin vexed the Elder’s community. Most of the references to sin are in the singular, calling attention to the principle or fact of sin in human life (e.g., 1:8), rather than to individual acts of sin. Certainly, though, from all sin includes both. For the Elder, sin means lawlessness (anomia, 3:4) and unrighteousness (adikia, 5:17) or wrongdoing (NIV), any departure from God’s norm or standard of light as revealed in Jesus Christ.
1:8 The second claim of the secessionists is to be without sin (lit., “we do not have sin”). They claim that they do not need to be purified from sin by the blood of Jesus (v. 7), since they are sinless. They do not sin at all (v. 10). They do not see themselves as sinners in disposition or in practice. Some interpreters understand the claim in v. 8 as an assertion not to have a sinful nature or a principle of sin operating in one’s life (Brooke, Epistles, p. 17; Stott, Letters, pp. 81–82).
Why do the opponents believe that they are “without sin”? Perhaps it is because they believe that their exalted spirituality has put them in a state beyond sin such that they are free from it, or that it is irrelevant to them. In any case, they deceive (planaō, “lead astray” or “go astray”) themselves. Denying their sinfulness, they believe something about themselves that is contrary to the universal experience of human nature and patently not true in their particular case.
To be self-deceived means that the truth is not in us, i.e., in our hearts or inmost being. If it were, we would recognize and admit our condition, stay in the light, and be forgiven. “Our self-understanding is false” (Kysar, I, II, III John, p. 39).
1:9 If the opponents’ attitude and belief are wrong (vv. 6 and 8), the right approach to sin is to keep on walking in the light (v. 7) and to be honest about one’s sins (v. 9). If we confess our sins is the true alternative to claiming to be without sin. The word confess (homologeō) means, literally, to say the same thing, thus, to agree or to admit. When we confess our sins, we agree with God and the community that they are sins (which the secessionists would not do). Then our self-understanding is true, and we have the basis for an effective solution to the sin problem. Confession was likely not only in private to God but publicly to the community (cf. Matt. 3:6; Acts 19:18; Jas. 5:16; and Didache 4:14 and 14:1, an early Christian document written about the same time as the letters of John).
There are (as in v. 7) two consequences of openly acknowledging our sins. God, who is faithful and just, will (a) forgive us our sins and (b) purify us from all unrighteousness. Literally, the verse says, If we confess our sins, he is faithful (pistos) and just (dikaios), with the result that he will forgive (hina aphē; hina with the subjunctive mood is here a result or consecutive clause) us the sins and cleanse (katharizō, purify; cf. v. 7) us from all unrighteousness (adikias).
He is God, as in vv. 6–7. His character is faithful and just. That is, he is true to his people and to his promises (especially to forgive on the basis of the blood of Jesus, v. 7), and he puts things right which are wrong (especially people, in a right relationship with himself). Faithful and just are terms which reflect God’s covenantal connection with his people (Brown, Epistles, pp. 209–10).
These qualities in God are seen as he acts redemptively toward those who humbly acknowledge their need (v. 9a). God forgives and cleanses his people from all their unrighteousness. These two verbs show that the problem of sin in one’s life cannot be solved by human action (v. 6, claiming to be right with God when one is not, or v. 8, denying that one is a sinner). Even confession only opens the door to an answer; it is not self-efficacious. God must act, and God does. As in all of Scripture, salvation is from God. The form of salvation here is forgiveness and cleansing from sin. The verbs are parallel and functionally synonymous. From all unrighteousness (adikias) recalls God’s character as just (dikaios v. 9b).
1:10 This is the third claim of the false teachers in chapter 1, all presented with the identical words If we claim (ean eipōmen). The assertion in this verse goes beyond that of v. 8. Not only do the opponents claim not to “have sin” as a principle or disposition within them, they claim not to have committed specific sins. Hence they do not need redemption by the “blood of Jesus” (1:7). Gnostically inclined, the death/blood of Jesus offended them, as did any “enfleshment” of the divine Christ (4:2; 2 John 7). Their own “perfectionism” and high, yet self-deceived, spirituality could do without the cross, as modern psychologies of self-actualization and “success” often do.
Such a claim (we have not sinned) has serious consequences. First, while the writer might have been expected to argue that such an assertion makes the claimant a liar, he goes beyond this to a more profound, and more spiritually dangerous, theological conclusion: to deny that one has sinned is to make him, God (as in v. 9), out to be a liar. (The same accusation and warning occurs in 5:10, this time with respect to believing God’s testimony about Jesus, his Son.) One does not only lie about one’s own condition, but, more seriously, one blasphemes God by, in effect, calling God a liar. This is so because God has said that we have sinned, and honest confession of one’s sins is prerequisite to benefiting from “the message” of salvation from sin and eternal life through Jesus’ death (1:5–7).
The second consequence of denying that we have sinned is that we “cut ourselves off from what he has to say to us” (J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English, p. 500). Literally, the text says, “and his word (logos) is not in us.” The word or logos of which the writer speaks is the same as in v. 1: it is the message or “word of life” which finds its embodiment in the person, words, and deeds of Jesus Christ (vv. 1–3), the Word made flesh (John 1:14). The Elder says that making this false assertion, as the secessionists do, means that they have separated themselves, not just from the community (1 John 2:19), but from the gospel: God’s life-giving word has no place in their lives. They are not, from the Elder’s standpoint, Christian believers, even if they originally claimed to be or still do. The right response to the reality of sin will be seen in 2:1b.
2:1 The first part of v. 1 is parenthetical, intended to remind the readers that what the Elder has written so far, about forgiveness and the purifying death of Jesus (1:7, 9), is not a license to sin. Just because sin is an inevitable reality and forgiveness is available does not mean that the believer should take a lenient attitude toward it. (Paul faced the same concern in Romans 6:1: “Shall we go on sinning that grace may increase?”) In fact, the author says that it is one of his purposes in writing (cf. 1:3–4) that the community will not sin, that they will completely reject sin as a way of living. The Christian ideal remains not to sin (John 5:24; 8:11; 1 John 3:6).
He calls his readers my dear children (lit., “my little children”). The Greek teknia is a diminutive expressing affection (Marshall, Epistles, p. 115). It also implies parental authority and is complemented by the possessive pronoun “my.” The Elder is very concerned about his community, not only because of the schism and false teaching, but also for their positive spiritual understanding and maturity. He also uses for the first time the first person singular, “I,” after using “we” throughout chapter 1.
The second half of v. 1 is the answer to 1:10 (just as v. 7 answers the claim in v. 6, and v. 9 responds to v. 8). Rather than assert that one has not sinned, the faithful must acknowledge (if anybody does sin; cf. 1:9) and recognize Jesus Christ as their solution. The rest of vv. 1 and 2 explain (in addition to 1:7) how this is so.
Jesus is described in a formal way with his title, Jesus Christ. This is in part because another descriptive title follows, the Righteous One, and because v. 2 is like a creedal statement. He is the Righteous One (also 2:29; 3:7; cf. Acts 3:14; 7:52; and 1 Pet. 3:18; as God is righteous in 1:9), not only in view of his sinless character (John 8:46) but because he saves and advocates for sinners.
He is our paraklētos, translated in the NIV as one who speaks … in our defense. The Spirit is the paraklētos in John 15:26 and “another paraklētos” in 14:16–17, in which it is implied that Jesus himself is the original. Before God, or in the presence of the Father (pros ton patera; cf. 1:2), Jesus intercedes for sinners and speaks on their behalf. The same function is attributed to him in Rom. 8:34 and Heb. 7:25.
2:2 The second part of the Elder’s christological answer to the problem of sins is that Jesus is the atoning sacrifice. He who is our advocate (paraklētos) is also our atoning sacrifice (hilasmos). Much debate has occurred over this word. Outside the Bible and in some OT passages it means to appease an angry or offended party (usually a divine being) with a sacrifice. Inside the Bible, including other OT texts, it means to expiate, cover, or remove the offense of sin. The context in 1 John clearly favors the latter. In 1 John 4:10 it is God who, out of love for the world, sends the Son as its hilasmos, and in 1:9 God is “faithful and just” and forgives and cleanses those who confess their sins. The NIV translation, atoning sacrifice, is a good one; it retains the idea of blood sacrifice (1:7) from the OT sacrificial system, while pointing to the purpose of Jesus’ death: reconciliation (at-one-ment) with God. Jesus is such an effective paraklētos “in our defense,” because he is “the Righteous One” and because his own death for our sins is the ground of his advocacy. He pleads with his own blood.
The Elder strongly emphasizes that Jesus’ atoning death is potentially effective not only for the sins of the community but for the sins of the … world. He even adds the word whole (holou) to underscore this further. Perhaps the gnostically inclined opponents understood the salvation which Christ brought as redemption or enlightenment for an elect few. It is certain that they would have found the author’s insistence on the importance of Jesus’ blood sacrifice in death a complete offense.
Additional Notes
1:6 The structure of 1:6–2:1 has been most clearly set forth in Brown, Epistles, p. 191.
In sociological terms, a schism is a form of disruptive or divisive social conflict, a kind of factionalism within a specific community or group. On the phenomenon of schism, see J. Wilson, “The Sociology of Schism,” A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain—4, ed. M. Hill (London: SCM, 1971), pp. 4–5, and J. P. Gustafson, “Schismatic Groups,” Human Relations 31 (1978), pp. 139–54. On schism as it relates to the Johannine community, see Johnson, Antitheses, pp. 231–60.
Strictly speaking, the terms “heresy” and “heretical” belong to a later time when there was a more clearly established church-wide “orthodoxy.” But it is also appropriate within the Johannine frame of reference, since the Elder and his followers have well defined doctrinal views, based on the tradition of the Beloved Disciple and the Fourth Gospel. To deviate from this teaching is “heretical.” See W. Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971); H. D. Betz, “Orthodoxy and Heresy in Primitive Christianity,” Int 19 (1965), pp. 299–311; J. Bogart, Orthodox and Heretical Perfectionism in the Johannine Community, SBDLS 33 (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars, 1977); and J. D. G. Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament (London: SCM, 1977).
While the false teachers may walk in the darkness, it would be a mistake to think of them as immoral or licentious. They are not like the Corinthian “gnostics,” for whom bodily life was spiritually irrelevant. In fact, as 1:8, 10 make clear, they claim a high standard of holiness. There is no list of sins which the Elder can cite against them. The only accusations of immorality or unethical conduct which the Elder ever directly makes against the opponents are lying and breaking the love command, both of which the opponents themselves would deny. The dispute which has divided the community is primarily doctrinal and personal, not ethical: the schismatics do not accept the community’s Christology, and they reject the authority of the Elder. The latter calls their claims “lies” and their secession from the group a rejection of the obligations of love among disciples.
The positioning of believers and unbelievers in opposing spiritual realms (darkness/light) is typical of the world view of the first-century Jewish group known as the Essenes. It may be found in a form closest to the Gospel and letters of John in the Manual of Discipline (or Community Rule, 1QS) and the War Scroll (or War Rule, 1QM) of the Dead Sea Scrolls. See G. Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1975), pp. 71–94, 122–48. Given the close similarities between the language and conceptuality of the Scrolls and that of the Johannine literature, some scholars think the Dead Sea writings or the movement which produced them influenced the Johannine community. See Charlesworth, John and Qumran and R. E. Brown, “The Qumran” Scrolls and the Johannine Gospel and Epistles,“New Testament Essays (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968), pp. 138–73.
The other occurrences of the contrast between truth and its opposites are in 1:8, 10; 2:4, 21–22, 26–27; 4:6; 2 John 1–4, 7. A thorough study of this language of contrast may be found in Johnson, Antitheses.
The concept of doing the truth is also common in the Dead Sea Scrolls and other Jewish intertestamental literature. See I. de la Potterie, La vérité dans Saint Jean (2 vols.; AnBib 73–74; Rome: Biblical Institute, 1977, and A. Thiselton, “Truth,” NIDNTT, vol. 3, pp. 889–94.
1:7 The false teachers would not have welcomed this reference to Jesus’ full corporeal humanity, given their denial of his incarnation (4:2; 2 John 7).
In the Gospel of John, references to the blood of Jesus occur in John 6:53–56, a passage which recalls the elements of the Lord’s Supper, and in John 19:34, where the beloved disciple sees blood and water flow from the wounded side of the crucified Jesus. In the letters of John, the term appears three times in 1 John 5:6–7, a passage in which the author strongly affirms that Jesus “did not come by water only, but by water and blood.” The blood is an important witness to his identity. Finally, if the book of Revelation also comes from the Johannine community, which it almost certainly does, then there is further evidence of the importance of the blood of Jesus for Johannine Christology. In Rev. 1:5, Jesus “has freed us from our sins by his blood.” In 5:9, as the slain Lamb he has purchased with his blood people from every tribe and nation. In 7:14 the tribulation martyrs have “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Finally, in 12:11 the saints have overcome Satan by the blood of the Lamb. While the Word of God appears in a robe dipped in blood in 19:13, it is likely not his own blood but the blood of his enemies. See also F. Laubach, “Blood,” NIDNTT, vol. 1, pp. 220–24.
Referring to Christ as Jesus, his Son includes the author’s preferred name for his human nature, Jesus, and a title that points in the Johannine literature to his deity, Son of God.
The 1984 edition of the NIV changed the phrase “every sin” to all sin.
1:8 In the Gospel of John “to have sin” means to be in a state of guilt. Thus, the opening If-clause may be translated, “If we boast, ‘We are free from the guilt of sin’ “(Brown, Epistles, pp. 205–6).
The schismatics not only are self-deceived about their spirituality, but they deceive others and lead them astray. In 1 John 2:26 the Elder has written “about those who are trying to lead you astray.” In 3:7 he warns, “Do not let anyone lead you astray.” In 4:5–6 he contrasts “the Spirit of truth” in those who “are from God” with “the spirit of falsehood” (planēs, error, deceit) in those who “are from the world.” 2 John 7 calls these people planoi, “deceivers.”
1:9 Confess occurs four times in the Gospel of John and six times in the letters. First John 1:9 is the only instance in which homologeō means to confess or admit sins. All of the other uses are in the positive sense of making a confession of faith, esp. in Christ. See John 1:20; 9:22; 12:42; 1 John 2:23; 4:2–3, 15; 2 John 7.
On confess, see O. Michel, “homologeō,” TDNT, vol. 5, pp. 199–220.
2:1 The Elder uses three different terms for his parentally caring yet authoritative relationship to the readers in his community: teknion, little child (2:1, 12, 28; 3:7, 18; 4:4; 5:21; cf. John 13:33), teknon, child (3:1, 2, 10; 5:2; 2 John 1, 4, 13; 3 John 4; cf. John 1:12; 11:52) and paidion, child (2:14, 18; John 21:5). They are virtually interchangeable, though the Elder prefers teknion for his relationship to the readers and teknon for their relationship to God. See Brown, Epistles, pp. 213–15.
There is a shift in emphasis from the Spirit as the Paraclete to Jesus as the Paraclete probably because the opponents of the Elder also claimed to be prophetically inspired by the Spirit (4:1–2; R. A. Culpepper, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Knox Preaching Guides (Atlanta: John Knox, 1985), pp. 20–21.
Jesus’ role as paraklētos is in contrast to Satan’s: “Believers now have someone who defends them before God instead of accusing them” (Brown, Epistles, p. 217; cf. Matt. 10:32). The name “Satan” means “accuser” (cf. Job 1:6–12).
2:2 See the history of the debate over the meaning of hilasmos in Brown, Epistles, pp. 217–22. First John 2:2 and 4:10 are the only two uses of hilasmos in the NT, although linguistically related terms occur in Luke 18:13; Rom. 3:25; Heb. 2:17 and 9:5.
This is the first use of kosmos, world, in the Johannine letters and, unlike most uses of the term in the Gospel and epistles of John, it is positive, or at least neutral (like John 3:16–17; 4:42; 8:12; and 1 John 4:14). The world is usually seen as the sphere of Satan’s activity (1 John 5:19) and, therefore, as opposed to God and God’s people (1 John 2:15–17; 3:13; 4:4–5; John 15:18–19). In his study of kosmos, Brown suggests that “the overall effect of such contradictory statements within the same works is to create a theological sequence wherein the divine intent is initially salvific toward the world, but people prefer darkness to light (John 3:19); and so ‘the world’ becomes the name of those who refuse Jesus and choose Satan as their father, ‘the Prince of this world’ (cf. 1 John 3:1, 10)” (Epistles, p. 224).
Walking in the Light Tested by Obedience
The next section of 1 John continues the theme of walking in the light begun in 1:5. In 1:6, 8, 10 the Elder dealt with the three false claims of the opponents with respect to sin. Now he deals with another trio of false claims, all of which relate to being in a right relationship with God/Christ: knowing God/Christ, v. 4; abiding in God/Christ, v. 6; being in the light, v. 9. In each instance, just as in the previous section, he answers them with a test of the claim’s authenticity: obeying Christ’s commands, vv. 4–5; walking as Jesus did, v. 6; loving other Christians, v. 10. All of the answers have this in common: they emphasize obedience or the Christian walk as the test of claims to a profound spirituality.
2:3 The NIV does not translate the opening Greek particle, kai. But, like the kai which begins 1:5 (which the NIV also does not translate), it marks the beginning of a new section. The rest of the verse literally says, “By this we know (present tense) that we have come to know (perfect tense) him, if we keep his commands.” The If-clause explains the expression “by this”: “this” is obeying God’s/Christ’s commandments. The Greek text’s “By this” (en toutō) does not occur in the NIV.
The issue in vv. 3–5 is knowing God/Christ. The word know is used four times in these three verses. First, the Elder states the general principle by which Christians are assured that they truly know God/Christ (v. 3); then he takes up the opponents’ false claim (v. 4) and refutes it (v. 5; Barker, “1 John,” p. 315). “Knowledge” was an important concern to the gnosticlike secessionists. The very name “gnostic” means “one who knows” (from gnōsis). This knowledge was special; it conveyed salvation. To know God is eternal life (John 17:3). It meant fellowship with God (1:6) and walking in the light (1:7; 2:9). But, how can one be sure that one really knows God/Christ? This was a question on the minds of the loyal Johannine Christians as they listened to the seceding teachers’ assertions. The Elder’s answer is as profound today as it was relevant then: we know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands.
The word obey in the NIV is tēreō. Its literal meaning is “keep.” It is a favorite Johannine term, occurring eighteen times in the Gospel and seven times in 1 John. It connotes both preserving or protecting, especially when its object is a person, and obeying or observing when its object is God’s or Jesus’ word(s) or commands (cf. John 14:15, 21–25). “Keeping his commands is the sure test that we have come to know God” (Culpepper, 1 John, p. 25). One’s claim must be validated by one’s conduct. The evidence is obedience.
What commands does the author have in mind? In the context of 1 John it can only be faith in Jesus and love for other Christians (1 John 3:23). There is no substantial evidence anywhere in the letters of John for any other moral or ethical concern. The opponents are never accused of other sins or immorality. They have violated the most fundamental standards of all, even if their lives appear morally upright: they deny that the human Jesus is the divine Christ, and they do not love their Christian brothers and sisters in the community.
2:4 Verses 4, 6, and 9 begin in the same way, a stylistic feature which is not clear in the NIV. All three verses quote or paraphrase a claim of the secessionists and introduce it with the formula “the one who says” (ho legōn). In this verse the claim is: “I have come to know him” (perfect tense). It is a claim to intimate, personal, saving knowledge of God. It is experiential, not merely intellectual. The perfect tense connotes a reality that began at some time in the past and continues on into the present.
Anyone who makes this claim and at the same time is not keeping God’s/Christ’s commands (especially to love others and to believe in Jesus, 3:23) is a liar. This is the same contradiction between confession and conduct which we saw in 1:6–10 (Kysar, I, II, III John, p. 45). In typically antithetical style, the author immediately contrasts the word liar with its opposite, truth, as in 1:6 (cf. 1:8; 2:21; 4:6). Such people (en toutō; lit., “in such a person”) lack integrity; they claim one thing in words, but its reality is not demonstrated by their actions.
2:5 Verse 5 is the positive contrast and answer to v. 4. It is not the disobedient person who truly knows God, but the one who obeys his word. The emphasis is on the continual present tense of the verb, “keeps on obeying.” His word (autou ton logon) is synonymous with “his commands” (tas entolas autou; NIV, what he commands) in v. 4. The antithetical style of the author is also seen in the contrast of truly in v. 5 with liar in v. 4.
The Elder’s opponents claimed to know God (v. 4), but their disobedience to God’s commands proved them false. In v. 5, the Elder affirms that the obedient Christian grows in the agapē (love) of God until that love is mature, perfect, or complete. Here, knowing God and growing in God’s love complete the parallelism between the verses. To know God is to experience agapē love, and such knowledge or love (also claimed by the opponents; cf. 4:10) is demonstrated by doing what God has commanded. “The proof of love is loyalty” (Stott, Letters, p. 96), and in the letters of John that means believing in Jesus and loving one’s brother or sister in the community of faith (1 John 3:23; cf. John 6:28–29).
Divine love is truly made complete in the person who obeys his word. Made complete translates teteleiōtai, another favorite Johannine term. It signifies a process of spiritual maturity which begins with faith in Jesus and ends at his appearing in becoming like him (1 John 3:2). Growing in love for God is an important part of spiritual growth, as is love for others, a point the author will make forcefully later (cf. 2:9–11; 4:20–21).
The last part of v. 5 looks forward, as the NIV punctuates it, to v. 6. This is how we know we are in him. The “how” is defined in the verse which follows. But we should take note that once again the subject is assurance (a confidence in short supply in the Johannine community because of the threat and boasts of the secessionists). How can we know that we are truly in a right relationship with God? This is what the phrase “to be in him” connotes. It means “fellowship … with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ” (1:3), to “walk in the light, as he is in the light” (1:7), and to “know him” (2:3). But how can we know we are in him?
2:6 The Elder’s answer is a practical one: walk as Jesus did. This verse contains the fifth stated claim of the Elder’s opponents, the secessionists, who had denied the full humanity of Jesus (1 John 4:2; 2 John 7) and separated themselves from the community (1 John 2:19). They claim to live in him. Actually, the Greek original is stronger: they claim to abide or to dwell (menō) in him. Menō means to live in an ongoing, close, personal relationship with God/Christ. It parallels to live in “fellowship with him” (1:6), to “walk in the light” (1:7), “to know him” (2:3–5), and “we are in him” (2:5). The Elder’s opponents claimed to have this profound relationship with God/Christ unbroken by sin (1:8, 10), whereas the believer confesses sin (1:9) and counts on Christ as advocate (NIV, “one who speaks … in our defense” [2:1]) and “atoning sacrifice” (2:2).
The Elder insists that the opponents’ claim be tested by a life in imitation of Jesus. You must walk as Jesus did. This test, he is convinced, they cannot pass, because they do not keep God’s commands (2:3–4), as Jesus did. Above all, they do not love as Jesus loved (John 13:34). “The test of our religious experience is whether it produces a reflection of the life of Jesus in our daily life; if it fails this elementary test, it is false” (Marshall, Epistles, p. 128).
2:7 Walking as Jesus did (v. 6) leads the author to think of Jesus’ example and his “new command” of love (John 13:34–35). He addresses his readers as “beloved” (agapētoi; the NIV’s Dear friends misses the connection with the love command implicit in the address), loved not only by the Elder, but loved also by God (4:9–10) and by Jesus (John 13:34). With a play on the idea of the new command in John 13:34, he says that he is really writing to them not about a new command but about an old command, one which they have had ap’ archēs, since or from the beginning. Since the beginning refers to the founding tradition of the Johannine community in the teaching of Jesus, as remembered and passed on to them by the disciple whom Jesus loved, their founder. It means “since the beginning of the Christian movement, as we have known it” (cf. 1:1; 2:13–14, 24; 3:11; 2 John 5–6; also John 15:27, in which Jesus says to his disciples “from the beginning [ap’ archēs] you are with me”). This foundational teaching gave them a new command, to love one another “as I have loved you.” By now it is to them an old one.
He calls this command (entolē) the message (logos, or “word”; 1:1, 10; 2:5) which they heard (aorist tense, at a definite time in the past). The writer can use the words logos, entolē, and angelia (1:5; 3:11) for written and oral communication synonymously. The content of the message is, in this case, not the gospel (euangelion), a word which never appears in the Gospel or letters of John, but the ethical imperative to love one another.
2:8 But, in a sense, it is also a new command, both because it was called the “new command” by Jesus (John 13:34), and also because of the new age which has dawned with his coming. It is a command which belongs, not to the old era of the law of Moses, but to the new day of grace and truth in Jesus Christ (John 1:17). Stott points out that the new command was and remains new in emphasis (the whole Torah hangs on it; Matt. 22:40), in quality, as measured by Christ’s love for them (John 13:34), in extent, including enemies (Matt. 5:44), and by our continued, fresh, daily application of it to new circumstances (Stott, Letters, p. 98).
It is the latter sense which the Elder has in mind here, especially within the life of this community torn by schism and attacked by false teachers. Following the example of Jesus (“as I have loved you”), believers are to let the truth of love shine forth from their lives. Jesus and his disciples (of the first generation and today) are the streaks of dawn from the rising of a new era in human history, the kingdom of God inaugurated by Jesus Christ and bringing into time the age to come, ever longed for by the people of God (cf. Col. 1:12–13). When Christians love, there is evidence that the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining (cf. Eph. 5:8–9; 1 Thess. 5:4–8).
2:9 Verse 9 contains the sixth and final claim of the opponents of the Elder. It closely integrates the themes of light/darkness and love/hate in a profound moral and spiritual antithesis. These schismatic false teachers claim to be in the light. This is also implied in 1:5–7, where walking in the light in fellowship with God is at issue.
To be in the light is the equivalent of having fellowship with God (1:6), knowing God (2:3–4), being in him (2:5), and abiding in him (2:6), all claims which both the opponents and the author’s community are making of themselves. But the opponents’ claims are belied by their behavior. They “walk in the darkness” (1:6); they “lie and do not live by the truth” (1:6); they “deceive [themselves]” (1:8); they “make him [God] out to be a liar” (1:10); they do “not do what he [God/Christ] commands” (2:4); and they do not “walk as Jesus did” (2:6). In v. 9 the indictment against them is that they hate their brothers and sisters. Just as love is characteristic of those who truly walk in the light, so hate describes those who walk in the darkness.
What is this hatred to which the Elder refers? It was seen most profoundly in the deliberate schism or splitting of the community which the false teachers caused when they left the fellowship (1 John 2:19), but roots of it may have been put down earlier, since the author claims that “they did not really belong to us.” In fact “their departure showed that none of them belonged to us” (1 John 2:19). Hatred for their former brothers and sisters may also be evidenced by their claims to spiritual superiority (1:6, 8, 10; 2:4, 6, 9), by their lack of help for Christians in need (3:17–18), by their denial of the fundamental christological belief of the community, Jesus Christ come in the flesh (4:2; 2 John 7), and perhaps by their refusal to accept the Elder’s authority in matters of faith and practice (e.g., 3 John 9–10).
The Elder adds the little phrase heōs arti, translated by the NIV as “still” (NASB, “until now”). Those who live in hatred for their brother and sister Christians have yet to experience the light of the new age which has dawned in Christ; they are not yet in the Kingdom but are still in the darkness. They are living in an era that has passed, instead of in God’s new future which has come in Jesus.
The moral and spiritual differences between the Elder’s community of true, faithful, persevering believers and the secessionist false teachers could not be more profound.
2:10 Verse 10 states the positive alternative to the opponents’ claim to be in the light while “hating” their brothers. It is only the person who loves his brother or sister who also remains or abides (menō) in the light. One cannot be or stay in the light while cultivating negative, critical, and compassionless attitudes and actions toward other believers. The two spiritual states are incompatible. God is light; to live in the light is to walk in continuous fellowship with God (see also the comment on 1:5 and 2:9). But it is also to live in loving fellowship and community with one’s brothers and sisters in the faith. An otherworldly, self-isolated spirituality is not authentic life before God. Love among Christians is the touchstone of true discipleship (John 13:35).
The second half of v. 10 is difficult to understand. Literally, it reads: “and there is no cause for stumbling (skandalon) in him [or, in it].” The NIV translation is ambiguous. It seems to mean that such loving believers have nothing in their lives which will make them fall. There are two other options. It could mean that the Christian who loves others has or does nothing to cause others to stumble (Kysar, I, II, III John, p. 50), i.e., love excludes giving unnecessary offense. Or, thirdly, if the pronoun is translated as “it” instead of him (see NIV footnote), the meaning then would be that there is no cause for stumbling in it, i.e., in the light. Loving others is living in the light, a condition in which there is no cause for offense as long as one stays there. You can see where you are going morally and spiritually and, as a result, don’t fall yourself or cause others to do so (Smalley, 1, 2, 3 John, pp. 61–62).
2:11 Verse 11 directly contrasts to v. 10 and returns to the negative side of the theme first expressed in v. 9: people who do not love brother and sister Christians are lost and blinded in the darkness, despite their claim (v. 9) to be in the light. Note the continuing use of pairs of contrasting words in this passage: light/darkness and love/hate. This kind of moral and spiritual antithetical language is used throughout the letters of John. The Elder sees the world and his community’s part in it in black-and-white, dualistic terms. He prefers to state situations in language which leaves no middle ground, no ambiguity, and no question. This way of speaking is characteristic of groups in crisis and conflict, as the Johannine Christians were due to both their earlier schism with Judaism and the recent secession of the gnosticlike false teachers (1 John 2:19).
How dark the situation is for those, like the secessionists, who hate their brother or sister, is emphasized in a threefold way. They are in the darkness, they walk around in the darkness, and the darkness has blinded them. But “God is light” (1:5) and “is in the light” (1:7); therefore the opponents described here are not where God is. In 1:6 walking in the darkness was contrasted with walking in the light, or being in fellowship with God. Thus, the false teachers are not in communion with God. They do not know where they are going, despite their claims to possess knowledge (2:4). Like the Pharisees in John 9:39–41, the schismatics claim to see but actually are blind (cf. also the summary indictment of Jesus’ opponents in John 12:35–40.) Blinded by the darkness, these false teachers are likely not only to stumble themselves but to cause others to stumble. Thus, there is an implied contrast also with v. 10b.
Additional Notes
2:3ff. In this passage and elsewhere in 1 John it is not possible to know whether the author intends God or Christ when he uses the pronouns “he,” “him,” or “his.” A good case can be made for either person. The Elder may be referring to both. God/Christ will be used throughout this section.
2:5 Word (logos) and “commands” (entolai) are also used interchangeably in John 14:21 and 14:23. Logos can, of course, have a broader meaning, as we have already seen in 1:1 (where it refers to Christ, the Word of life), and in 1:10 where it is a synonym for the gospel, God’s message (angelia, cf. 1:5).
The Greek phrase hē agapē tou theou, “the love of God,” could be translated in three ways: as a subjective genitive (God’s love for the obedient Christian), as an objective genitive (the obedient Christian’s love for God), or as a qualitative genitive (God’s kind of love, divine love—the likely meaning in 2:5; Stott, Letters, p. 96). Given the fluidity of the language of the author, such fine distinctions as NT scholars make may be overly precise interpretation.
This is the first use of “love” (agapē) in the letters of John, where it occurs thirty-one times as a verb and twenty-one times as a noun. The term of fond address, agapētos, also occurs ten times. It is a high frequency word in these letters (one-fifth of the entire NT usage). For a detailed study of the use of agapē in the letters of John, see Brown, Epistles, pp. 254–57 and in the Gospel of John (Brown, Gospel, I–XII, pp. 497–99). Love is the free decision of one person to give himself or herself up for the highest good and well-being of another person without regard to reward. It is best seen in God’s love for humankind in the sending of the Son to be the Savior of the world (1 John 4:7–12).
The Gospel and letters of John contain nine of the NT’s twenty-three uses of the term teleioō, to “make complete, fulfill.” 1 John always uses it in relation to “love” (2:5; 4:12, 17–18).
We are in him. “To be in” (einai en) is one of the writer’s favorite expressions. It occurs eighteen times in these letters. See, e.g., 1:5 (“in him there is no darkness”), 1:7 (“as he is in the light”), 1:8 (“there is no truth in us”), 1:10 (“his word is not in us”), 2:4 (“there is no truth in such a person”), 2:5 (“we know that we are in him”). Kysar says that it describes “the relationship which determines one’s being,” or “the primary factor which shapes the behavior and character of a person” (I, II, III John, p. 46).
2:6 The secessionists’ earlier claims are in 1:6, 8, 10; 2:4, and the sixth claim occurs in 2:9, which ends the series of direct quotations of or references to the spiritual self-descriptions of the schismatic false teachers.
Menō, to live in, is a favorite Johannine term. It occurs forty times in the Gospel of John and twenty-seven in the letters of John. “Remain,” “abide,” and “dwell” are its primary meanings. The NIV translates it variously as “live” (1 John 2:6, 10, 14, 17; 3:6, 24; 4:12, 13, 15, 16; 2 John 2), “remain” (1 John 2:19, 24, 27; 3:9, 14), “continue” (1 John 2:28; 2 John 9), “be” (1 John 3:17), and leaves menō untranslated in 1 John 3:15. See the concise study of menō in Brown, Epistles, pp. 259–61.
The name Jesus is not in the Greek text; instead the special Johannine use of the term ekeinos appears. Ekeinos means “this one,” “that one,” or simply “he.” In 1 John it always refers to Jesus (3:3, 5, 7, 16; 4:17; cf. also John 1:18; 3:30; 7:11) and “was common as a designation in the circle of the author” (Bultmann, Epistles, p. 26).
2:7–8 These verses contain typical Johannine antitheses: new/old and light/darkness. New/old occurs only here and in 2 John 5, and never in the Fourth Gospel. Light/darkness is more frequent, occurring in the epistles here and at 1:5–7, and in the Gospel in seven passages (1:5; 3:19–21; 8:12; 9:4–5 [day/night]; 11:9–10 [day/night]; 12:35–36; and 12:46). John 1:5 refers, as in 1 John 2:8, to the dawning of a new age of light which the darkness cannot overcome. In 3:19 light has come into the world and divides humankind into two camps of moral contrast. Jesus declares himself to be that light in 8:12 (so also 9:5), while in 9:4–5 his time on earth is called “day” after which comes the “night.” Day/night occurs also in 11:9–10. The meaning is more difficult to discern but appears to be christological: “walk” by the day/light which is Christ. This is precisely the connotation of 12:35–36. Jesus has come into the world as light, so that those who believe in him may escape the darkness (12:46). On the antithetical language of the Gospel and letters of John, see Johnson, Antitheses, pp. 31–161.
2:9–10 Light / darkness and love / hate are also intertwined in the Manual of Discipline of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1QS), the language of which is closely related to the Johannine writings (see Charlesworth, John and Qumran). Cf. 1QS 1:9–10; 3:24–26; 4:5–13; Johnson, Antitheses, pp. 169–71.
When the Elder writes of love / hate for the brothers and sisters, he is referring exclusively to members of the Johannine community. He is wrestling with a local issue, albeit one which has relevant application today. There is no reflection on “love of neighbor” or “love of enemies” in the Johannine Gospel or epistles. The focus is on the importance of love among the threatened yet believing community, among disciples (cf. John 13:34–35; cf. D. Rensberger, Johannine Faith and Liberating Community [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1988], pp. 124–31).
2:11 This social conflict-based cause of the antithetical language of the letters of John is explored in depth in Johnson, Antitheses, pp. 224–60. See the Introduction for discussion of the historical setting of 1–3 John.
There is a close parallel to 2:11 in John 12:35. Jesus warned those who had not yet put their trust in him (12:36) that “the man who walks in the dark does not know where he is going.” The Elder’s opponents had denied that the divine Christ was actually Jesus (1 John 2:22); they had not put their trust in him, and so, like those described in John 12:35 and 1 John 2:11, they walk in the darkness and have lost their way.
The Victorious Community and the World
This section of 1 John is composed of two distinct parts. Verses 12–14 describe the victorious Christian community, addressing three groups of family members: children, young men, and fathers. Verses 15–17 exhort this faithful community not to love the world but to continue to do God’s will in it. The author’s purposes in this passage are to strengthen the Johannine Christians’ confidence, so that it will not be further eroded by the secessionist false teachers, and to warn them against the kind of worldly compromise which characterized the opponents’ lifestyle.
Verses 12–14 have a special structure as the indented printing of the NIV clearly shows. There are several parallel structures in these three verses. Though one cannot tell this from the NIV translation, the first three sentences (vv. 12–13) begin with “I write” (graphō), while the last three sentences begin with “I wrote” (egrapsa). Further, three groups of persons are addressed, all viewed as parts of one family or community of believers, well known to the author: “children” (12a, teknia; 14a, paidia), “young men” (13b, 14c), and “fathers” (13a, 14b).
These groups may stand for different levels of Christian maturity or experience in the community, although the Elder can also call the whole community “children” (teknia in 2:1, 28; 3:7; 4:4; 5:21; and paidia in 2:18). What is said of each group also does not appear to be age- or experience-related but is true of the whole community. So referring to these groups is best thought of as a stylistic device that sets forth several truths about the spiritual victory of the whole Johannine fellowship.
The variation of the verbs for “write” is to be understood in exactly the same way. There is no significant difference in meaning between the author’s use of graphō and egrapsa. One of the characteristics of the aorist is definiteness: at most, then, v. 14 is saying “I am definitely writing to you because …” In fact, all the author’s uses of “write” in 1 John until 2:14 (1:4; 2:1, 7, 8, 13) are present tense (graphō), while all of his uses of “write” after 2:14 (2:21, 26; 5:13) are aorist (egrapsa), without any apparent change of significance (Brown, Epistles, p. 297). Stylistic variation is one of the chief literary characteristics of the Johannine writings as a whole (e.g., in John 21:15–17 of sheep/lambs and the verbs for “love” and “feed”).
It should also be noted that there is disagreement among biblical scholars as to the best interpretation of the word which the NIV translates “because” (hoti) in each of these verses. The same Greek word can also mean “that.” The connections between the halves of the sentences in all these cases would then be declarative rather than causal: “I write to you that …” rather than “I write to you because …” But, as Marshall puts it, “It does not make a lot of difference to our understanding of the passage whether we use ‘because’ or ‘that’ to introduce John’s statements” (Epistles, p. 136).
2:12 The decisive fact which the Elder here wants to underscore for his readers is that their sins have been forgiven. The past has been taken care of; they have been cleansed. Forgiven is in the perfect tense, implying an act begun at a specific point in the past (conversion) and whose effects continue on into the present (they stand forgiven). This forgiveness is renewed on a daily basis by confession (1:9).
Forgiveness is based on his name. It is on account of his name that the community enjoys its victory over sin. In 1:7 and 2:1–2 the writer states the christological foundation of forgiveness: “the blood of Jesus … purifies us from all sin” and “Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, … is the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” The name of Jesus is also the object of the believer’s faith in 3:23 and 5:13. It is by faith in his name (who he is and what he has done) that we are forgiven and have eternal life.
2:13 The second decisive victory of the Johannine Christians who have remained loyal to the Elder is knowledge of God/ Christ. The fathers (possibly a reference to the community’s more experienced leaders, but certainly representative of all Christians) have come to know him who is from the beginning. Their spiritual experience is not bogus but authentic. As the author writes in 2:3 and 2:5: “We know that we have come to know him” and “we know we are in him.” He grounds these true claims on the obedient, Christlike lifestyle of the readers, a verification the author’s opponents lacked. Thus, the community can be assured of its position before God; they do not need to be thrown into doubt and uncertainty by the false teachers.
Him who is from the beginning recalls 1 John 1:1, the Word of life, “which was from the beginning,” and John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word.” This points to Jesus as the one to whom the writer is referring. In 13c (NIV; Gk. 14a) the children are said to know the Father, while in 14a (NIV; Gk. 14b) the fathers know him who is from the beginning, a pointless repetition unless the two phrases refer to different persons.
The third victory of the Johannine community is conquest of the evil one. This is attributed to the young men. Brown translates neaniskoi as “young people,” a good reminder that all that is said here applies also to the women of the fellowship, though predominantly male terminology is used (Brown, Epistles, ad loc). Although young men may refer to a younger and less mature subgroup within the whole (Smalley, 1, 2, 3 John, p. 70), representatively their victory is one in which all Christians share.
Overcome is in the perfect tense, again, as in all these verses, implying a past reality with continuing consequences. It is Christ’s past victory, by his death and resurrection, over the powers of evil and darkness which gives believers the victory today. They have conquered the evil one because Christ has done so, and they are in him. In 1 John 4:4 the “dear children” have “overcome” the false prophets who deny Jesus, and in 5:4–5 those truly “born of God” have “overcome the world” by their faith in Jesus as God’s Son.
The evil one in the Johannine literature refers to the devil, rather than to an abstract power of evil, though the two are clearly related. In John 17:15 Jesus prays that his disciples be kept from the evil one, while in 1 John 5:18 he fulfills his own request by keeping God’s children safe so that the evil one cannot harm them. “The whole world is under the control of the evil one” (1 John 5:19), who in John 12:31 is called “the prince of this world.” The murderer Cain belonged to him (1 John 3:12). It is this personified power, God’s ancient enemy, Satan (Rev. 12:9), whom the Johannine community has already overcome. Their victory is realized in the present because of what Christ has done in the past.
With v. 13c the cycle of addressees begins again. This time the dear children (paidia) are said to be victorious because they have known the Father, a favorite Johannine term for God. As in 13a, the issue is assurance of real spiritual knowledge in the face of the assertive gnostic false teachers who claimed a special and superior knowledge of God. The children, here clearly the whole community, need not worry or be confused. They know the Father; indeed they have known him from the beginning of their Christian experience until now (the thrust of the perfect tense). This true knowledge of God is authenticated by their obedience to God’s commands (2:3–4), proof the opponents cannot match.
2:14 The first half of v. 14 is nearly an exact repetition of v. 13a. Only the tense of the verb has changed. This change of tense is stylistic, as we discussed in the introduction to this section. At most it adds a note of intensity and definiteness to the assertion that the fathers have known him who is from the beginning, that is, Jesus, God’s Son, the Word (1 John 1:1; John 1:1). Although many theories have been offered concerning the Elder’s reason for repeating this assertion about the fathers in nearly identical terms, none of them are convincing, and the reason remains unknown.
The second half of v. 14 contains the final admonition to the community, addressed to the young men. The “because clause” contains three elements this time, only one of which is identical to v. 13b, the previous address to this subgroup: you have overcome the evil one. To this the writer adds two new descriptions of their victorious condition as God’s faithful community: (a) they are strong and (b) the word of God lives in them. The word strong refers to their spiritual strength, likely (in view of the mention of Satan) their ability to resist temptation (possibly the temptations to be mentioned in v. 16). But the source of their strength is the word of God which abides or dwells (NIV, lives; menei) in them. Here God’s word is, as in 1:10, the truth about Jesus, who is himself “the Word of life” (1:1). This saving message dwells in the young men and gives them strength to overcome the evil one. What is true of the young men is true of every member of the community, the Elder’s and the Christian community today.
2:15 Verses 12–14 have described the victorious, faithful community. The Elder has assured them of their wealth of spiritual resources: they are forgiven (12), they know Jesus (13a, 14a), they have overcome the evil one (13b, 14b), they know the Father (13c), they are strong, and the word of God dwells in them (14b). Now he warns them against losing what they have gained by compromising with the world. The Elder’s opponents are still in the background. In his view, they love the world, and the world loves them (4:5). They have given in to its desires and do not share their material possessions with their needy brothers and sisters (3:17). The faithful Johannine Christians are not to be like them.
Do not love the world. This is an odd command coming from the community which wrote, “For God so loved the world” (John 3:16). The resolution lies in different senses of world in the Gospel and letters of John. In this verse world is like “mammon” in Jesus’ saying about the impossibility of serving two masters (Matt. 6:24). Loving God and loving the world, in this sense, are mutually exclusive, like the Old Testament prophets’ insistence that Israel could not serve both Yahweh and Ba’al. The nation had to choose (Josh. 24:14–24; 1 Kgs. 18:21). James agrees in 4:4: “Friendship (philia, love) with the world is hatred toward God.” Here the world is Satan’s domain, in the control of the evil one (1 John 5:19). It does not mean “the created universe, nor the human race as such … but the life of human society as organized under the power of evil” (Dodd, Epistles, p. 39). The command is a present tense imperative connoting a way of life characterized by not loving the world, nor the things in the world (NIV, anything in the world).
Before the Elder clarifies in v. 16 what he means by anything in the world, he finishes v. 15 by stating the fundamental incompatibility of both loving God and loving the Satan-controlled world. One cannot do both. To love the world is to be devoid of love for the Father; the writer leaves no middle ground. Authentic love for God and “worldliness” cannot coexist in the same person at the same time. By this strong antithesis the Elder challenges his readers to purity of life (1:6, 9; 2:1; 3:3), especially so that there might be a difference between them and the “worldly” lifestyle of the false teachers.
2:16 The for at the opening of v. 16 indicates that v. 16 is giving a reason for the assertion in v. 15b that love for God and for the world are an impossible contradiction. Why? Because everything in the world (cf. in v. 15 “anything in the world”) has its origin not in the Father but in the world itself. God and the world are an absolute antithesis as sources of value. They stand over against each other like light and darkness, truth and error. The controversy which has pitted the Elder and his remaining loyal band of followers over against the popular false teachers has caused him to see the choices facing Christians in clear black-and-white terms. Just as one must choose which side of the schism one is on, so one must choose whether to serve and love God or the world (cf. Matt. 6:24).
What is everything in the world of which the author is thinking? He defines it in three phrases: the desire (epithymia) of the flesh, the desire (epithymia) of the eyes, and the boasting of what he has and does (lit., “the boasting in the life,” hē alazoneia tou biou). This is the essence of the “worldly” person; it is a way of feeling, looking, and expressing oneself. This approach to life is self-centered: the thoughts, decisions, and activities of everyday life are dominated by the cravings of one’s own “flesh” (sarx; NIV, the sinful man), the longings (NIV, lust) of one’s own eyes (TEV, “what people see and want”), and the personal boasting in material possessions (tou biou; cf. 3:17, where the phrase ton bion tou kosmou, lit., “the life of the world,” means the material possessions of this world, the physical resources which one could use to help people in need).
2:17 A further reason for not loving the world (v. 16 was the first reason) is that it is temporary, passing away, and impermanent, while the true Christian lives forever (cf. 2 Cor. 4:18). The focal point of the antithesis is now the believer (rather than God) and the world.
The world and its desires (lit., “desire”; cf. the two references to desire in v. 16) pass away (paragetai), in the sense that this age is ending and God’s reign is coming, just as “the darkness is passing (paragetai) and the true light is already shining” (2:8); indeed, it “is the last hour” (2:18), when the end-times “antichrist” who was supposed to come has already appeared (2:18; 4:3) in the form of the false teachers with their denial that the Christ is the fully human Jesus (2 John 7; cf. 4:2–3).
By contrast with the ephemeral world, the one who does the will of God abides forever. This description of the faithful member of the Johannine community derives from the Gospel of John. Jesus’ food is to do God’s will (John 4:34), he seeks not his own will but the will of the one who sent him (5:30), and he has come down from heaven to do not his own will but the will of him who sent him (6:38). The man born blind tells the Pharisees that God listens only to “the godly man who does his will” (in this context, Jesus; 9:31). Jesus’ true followers also do God’s will by looking to the Son and believing in him (6:40), and if they do God’s will, they will discover whether Jesus’ teaching is from God (7:17).
Such obedient, believing members of the Elder’s community will live (lit., “abide,” menō) forever. They are not like the world which passes away. The antithesis here is really between life and death. Johannine Christians have already passed from death to life (3:14–15; John 5:24). They have life through their faith in the Son, which those who reject Jesus do not have (5:12). This is part of the Johannine “realized eschatology,” in which formerly anticipated blessings of the age to come are now realized in the earthly experience of those who believe in Jesus. They do not wait to receive eternal life until the resurrection but have it as a present possession by faith in Jesus (John 3:16, 36; 5:24; 6:47, 54; 11:26; 20:31).
Additional Notes
2:13 Realized eschatology is one of the principal theological themes of the Gospel and letters of John. Spiritual realities expected to happen only in the future reign of God have become a part of the present experience of believers in Jesus. Victory in the judgment, the defeat of Satan, the reception of eternal life, the indwelling of the Spirit, and other “events” were all viewed in Judaism as future hope, but the Christian community, especially the Johannine community, though also Paul, claims these blessings as available in the present to those who believe in Jesus. See G. E. Ladd, “Eschatology,” ISBE, vol. 2, pp. 136–37.
In editions of the Greek New Testament, such as the UBS text and Nestle’s, and in most modern translations, v. 14 begins at v. 13c. The NIV and NASB are exceptions.
2:14 On the repetitive language of 2:12–14, see Smalley, 1, 2, 3 John, pp. 66–79.
2:16 “The desire of the flesh” (NIV, the cravings of sinful man) is a phrase common to Paul’s writings but does not occur elsewhere in John’s. In the letters of John, “flesh” (sarx) occurs only here, in 4:2, and in 2 John 7, where the reference is to the full humanity of Jesus, the incarnation (cf. John 1:14, “The Word became flesh” [sarx]), a teaching which the opponents denied. “Flesh” may mean “all that satisfies the needs and wants of human beings taken as such” (Brown, Epistles, p. 310).
Boasting (alazoneia) means pretentiousness, ostentation, or over-confidence. Here in 1 John this attitude is based on the security one feels in material possessions. It is exemplified by the rich man in Jesus’ story who said to himself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink, and be merry.” But of him God said, “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded of you” (Luke 12:19–20). The Elder believes that this “worldly” attitude is also characteristic of the secessionists.
