1-3 John (eBook)

Fellowship in God's Family

David L. Allen (Autor)

R. Kent Hughes (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2013 | 1. Auflage
336 Seiten
Crossway (Verlag)
978-1-4335-3724-0 (ISBN)

Infos

This commentary on 1-3 John is a great resource for pastors and laypersons alike, showing how John's letters lay out the foundational nature of truth and love in the context of the local church, with teachings that overflow with theological depth and real-world wisdom.  Part of the Preaching the Word series.

David L. Allen (PhD, University of Texas at Arlington) is founding dean of the School of Preaching at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, where he also serves as distinguished professor of preaching and director of the Center for Expository Preaching. He served in pastoral ministry for twenty-one years and has been a teacher of preachers for more than twenty-five years. He resides in Irving, Texas, and has four grown children and five grandchildren.

Textauszug

1

Meet Jesus: God in Human Flesh!

TUCKED AWAY AT THE BACK of your Bible is a little letter called 1 John. John the Apostle, one of the original twelve disciples of Jesus, wrote it.1 At the time of writing, John was probably the only surviving member of the Twelve, and the only one who did not die a martyr’s death. He wrote five books in the New Testament: the Gospel of John, which looks back to the past and presents the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus; 1, 2, 3 John, which concern the present and teaches us how we should live now; and Revelation, which looks to the future and shows us how God will consummate history in the return of Jesus to this earth. Second and 3 John are very short letters, only one chapter each. We know John spent his later years in and around Ephesus. He wrote this letter to the churches of Asia Minor probably between a.d. 80 and 85. The church was now composed of second- and third-generation Christians. For some Christians this was a time of persecution. For others perhaps the thrill was gone and the flame of devotion to Christ was flickering. False teachers were infiltrating some of the churches, and some Christians were becoming lax in their Christian standards. Into these circumstances steps John with his letter.

John wrote with at least four purposes in mind. First, to combat false teachers who were beginning to infiltrate the churches. He exposes false doctrine and promotes spiritual truth. John was not afraid to engage the culture where first-century Christians lived. Second, John had an ethical purpose in writing. Specifically, he deals with attitudes toward sin and the necessity of love for other Christians. Third, John has a pastoral purpose in writing. His pastoral heart beats for the health of the church, for the strengthening of Christians in the faith, and for genuine fellowship among believers and with Christ. His frequent references to his readers as “children” and “little children” reflect the pastoral tone of the letter. As one who was at least probably an octogenarian himself, John could tenderly refer to all in the churches, young and old, as “children.” Fourth, John had a personal purpose for writing: “so that our joy may be complete” (1:4).2

Verses 1–4 of chapter 1 constitute the prologue to the letter. Its unusual structure can be confusing. What exactly is John trying to say here? The secret to understanding 1:1–4 lies somewhat behind the scenes, as we shall see. In these verses, “The greatest majesty is combined with the greatest simplicity.”3 John begins, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life.” Notice after verse 1 there is a dash in the esv translation, followed by another dash at the end of verse 2.4 Verse 2 is a parenthetical statement: “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.” Verse 3 reverts back to the thought at the end of verse 1: “that which we have seen and heard.” This is followed by the main verb in the paragraph: “we proclaim also to you.” This is the most important semantic information John is conveying in verses 1–3.5 Maybe it will be easier to understand what John is saying if you read it like this: “We proclaim to you that which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen, that which we have looked at, that which we have touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life.” Let’s unpack these statements.

 

John’s Declaration of Jesus the Word of Life (vv. 1–3a)

When John says “that which was from the beginning,” the antecedent of “that” is “the word of life.”6 Although John does not name Jesus until the latter part of verse 3, “the word of life” clearly refers to Jesus. One of John’s favorite descriptors for Jesus is “Word.” John began his Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Here is an “unbeginning beginning.”7 When John says that Jesus was from the beginning, the question is, which beginning? Is this the beginning of Jesus’ earthly life or perhaps the beginning of creation? Jesus’ existence did not begin when he was born in Bethlehem. Likewise, Jesus was not a created being like angels before the creation of the heavens and the earth. Before history heard the starting gun,8 Jesus was there. John’s “beginning” goes all the way back to eternity past. This is a statement about the eternal preexistence and deity of Jesus. R. G. Lee, the great pastor of yesteryear at Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee, often described it this way: “Jesus was the only man who had a heavenly Father, but no heavenly mother; who had an earthly mother but no earthly father; who was older than his mother and who was as old as his Father.” Jesus is fully God and thus eternal.

It seems peculiar for John to tell us that he and the apostles heard, saw, touched, looked at, and handled Jesus. Why would John make such odd statements, employing so many verbs of perception? One answer to this question may have to do with a new philosophy beginning to gain ground at the end of the first century called Gnosticism.9 The word Gnosticism comes from the Greek word gnōsis, which means “knowledge.” It was a combination of pagan mysticism and Greek philosophy, predicated on two primary principles. First, Gnosticism taught that the way of salvation was through secret, superior knowledge granted to the initiated. Second, Gnostics considered all matter to be evil, but spirit to be good. Therefore the Gnostics taught that your physical body is evil, but your soul is good. Some of the false teachers John is combating in this letter had begun to infiltrate the church with incipient forms of this Gnostic teaching. The first error was a practical error, teaching Christians wrong ways to live. Imbibing this error, Christians went to one of two extremes. The first extreme we call asceticism, where you begin to punish your body. Why would anyone do this? To free the spirit. Remember, matter is evil, but spirit is good. The other extreme is licentiousness, a word that means to live any way you want. After all, if your body is evil and spirit is good, then it does not matter what you do with the body. Rules don’t matter. You can get on drugs all you want, have all the sex outside of marriage you want. Why? Because the body is evil. It does not matter much what you do with your body. Do we have any Gnostics in our society today? Of course! Most of them just don’t know that’s what they are. Why is John harping on that? He is fighting the effects of incipient Gnosticism that had already begun to creep into the churches. First John was a general letter that was sent to all of the churches in Asia Minor to warn them of the practical dangers of Gnosticism.

Gnosticism also led to doctrinal error. Gnosticism generated two doctrinal errors concerning the person of Jesus Christ. The first one is called the docetic error. Docetic comes from a Greek word dokeō, which means “to seem” or “to appear.” If the body is evil, then God, who is a Spirit being, cannot have any contact with the body. What would such a false belief do to the doctrine of the incarnation of Jesus? You can’t have an incarnation if docetic Gnosticism is true. You could not have God becoming man. Thus the Docetic Gnostics taught that Jesus did not have a literal human body. They denied the real humanity of Jesus. They said Jesus was from God, but they denied he was God in human flesh. They said his spirit was from God, but when Jesus was on the earth that wasn’t really Jesus in human form. That was just what he appeared to be. He did not have a literal physical body like you and I do. So when people saw Jesus they were seeing something like a ghost or a phantom. If you were to walk over and touch Jesus, he would have no physical body to touch. You couldn’t shake hands with Jesus because he had no literal hand to shake. When Jesus walked on soft soil, he left no footprints. Docetic Gnosticism denied the incarnation of Jesus. Now we understand why, first rattle out of the box, John speaks about seeing, hearing, and touching Jesus. What John is saying is something like this: “Those Docetic Gnostics who slipped into your church are teaching you something that is entirely false. They deny the incarnation of Jesus. What they deny, I experienced personally. I was there with Jesus during his earthly ministry. I saw him with my own eyes, heard him speak with my own ears, and touched him with my own hands. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that his body was real.”

The second Gnostic error is called Cerinthian Gnosticism. Cerinthus was a contemporary of John and taught that because matter is evil, therefore the body is evil, but the spirit is good. Cerinthus taught that Jesus had a real human body (just the opposite of the Docetics), but he was just an ordinary man, and not God in human flesh. Joseph was his real father, Mary was his real mother, and he had a real human body. At Jesus’ baptism the Holy Spirit came on him, and that’s when the man Jesus became “the Christ.” The Holy Spirit remained with Jesus for his three-year public ministry. However, when Jesus died on the cross, the Holy Spirit couldn’t be associated with suffering and death according to Cerinthus, so...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 30.6.2013
• Reihe/Serie: Preaching the Word
• Mitarbeit: Herausgeber (Serie): R. Kent Hughes
• Verlagsort: Wheaton
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Christentum
• Schlagworte: Apostle John • bible commentary • biblical insights • biblical wisdom • Book of John • Christ centered • Christian nonfiction • Christian theology • Christ on the Cross • Destiny • Devotion • divinity • Faith • Fellowship • forsake sin • God • god and religion • Holy Spirit • Jesus Christ • John • johns letters • laypersons • local churches • Love • Obedience • Pastors • preachers • preaching the word • Religious • Sermons • Spiritual • spiritual growth • spiritual journey • Stories of Faith • Ten Commandments • truth and love • Walk in the Light
• ISBN-10: 1-4335-3724-9 / 1433537249
• ISBN-13: 978-1-4335-3724-0 / 9781433537240