From the heights of the great theater, one may look down the Arcadian Way to the harbor that made Roman Ephesus the first city of Asia. Its temple to Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, drew innumerable visitors and fostered trade. The Church, too, prospered here, where the apostle John preached and taught.
The Book of Revelation and other early Christian sources describe the woes John faced in the last years of his life when the emperor Domitian exiled him to the rocky island of Patmos. Tradition indicates that at the end of the first century John was the last of the apostles, all others having died as martyrs. After returning from exile, John completed his years in Ephesus, from which he most likely wrote these letters.
The Gospel of John was to some degree polemical. It was probably not directly occasioned by false teaching, but some characteristic accents and features of the Gospel are most readily understood as John’s answer to a false teaching that perverted the true Gospel. The First Letter of John is wholly and vigorously polemical. It is aimed at false teachers, and although the letter never enters into a detailed refutation of their error, much less a full presentation of their teaching, the general character of the heresy can be ascertained with tolerable accuracy from hints given in the letter.
False teachers had arisen within the Church. “They went out from us,” John writes, “but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:19). At the time John wrote, they had separated themselves from the Church—or had been expelled. “You are from God and have overcome them,” John tells the Church (4:4). These false teachers had apparently constituted themselves as a separate community; they continued to make vigorous propaganda for their cause (cf 2 John 7 and 10) and still constituted a threat to the Church (1 John 2:27; 3:7).
They were a real threat, for they were very “religious” men. They were “spiritual” men and claimed the prophetic authority of the Holy Spirit for their teaching (1 John 4:1). They propagated a high and solemn sort of piety, a piety that claimed immediate communion with God and operated with slogans such as “I know Him,” “I abide in Him,” “I am in the Light” (2:4, 6, 9), and “I love God” (1 John 4:20). They likely felt themselves and professed themselves to be a new elite in Christendom, the “advanced” type of Christian. John is probably referring to them in his second letter when he speaks of those who “[go] on ahead” and do not abide in the doctrine of Christ (2 John 9). It was no wonder that they deceived many and that many who remained in the Church were perhaps not fully convinced that the Church had been in the right when it separated itself from them. Or there might well have been some who were still secretly attracted to this brilliant new theology.
There can be little doubt that the first letter is by the same author as the Gospel of John. The first words of the letter (1 John 1:1–4) seem expressly designed to recall the opening of the Gospel. First John and the Gospel of John have so many traits of language and style in common and have so large an agreement in substance that only common authorship serves to explain them, as most modern scholars also have recognized. One also answers the question of the authorship of the First Letter of John when one answers the question of the authorship of the Fourth Gospel. Those features that are peculiar to 1 John are readily explained by the particular purpose of the letter.
The second and third letters are not so well attested in the Early Church as the first letter. There was, in fact, some doubt as to their authorship. But the evidence of the letters themselves indicates that they are both by the same author. Compare, for example, 2 John 1 and 3 John 1; 2 John 4 and 3 John 3–4; the negative statement of 2 John 10 and the positive statement of 3 John 8; 2 John 12 and 3 John 13–14.
The evidence further indicates that the two shorter letters are by the same author as the First Letter of John. Compare 1 John 2:7 with 2 John 5; 1 John 2:18 and 4:1–3 with 2 John 7; 1 John 2:23 with 2 John 9; 1 John 3:6–9 with 3 John 11. In the light of such evidence one can understand why Eusebius, surveying the situation in the Church as it had developed by the beginning of the fourth century, included the smaller letters of John among those books of the New Testament “that are controverted by some, yet recognized by most.”
Since the author of both these short letters designates himself simply as “the elder,” some scholars are inclined to ascribe these letters to an “elder” or presbyter John, distinct from John the apostle. But there are two difficulties in the way of interpreting “elder” as a description of office, that is, as presbyter. For one thing, there were so many presbyters in the churches of Asia that the mere designation of “elder” could hardly serve by itself to identify a man. For another, the kind of authority exercised by the “elder” of the letters in congregations obviously not his own far exceeds that which any mere presbyter might exercise or aspire to. It is more natural to see in this word elder a self-designation of the apostle in the later days of the Church when the men of the older apostolic generation had become few and were distinguished from others by their age. According to tradition, John outlived his co-apostles and could therefore have been known as “the elder” (the outstanding man of the first generation) in the churches to which he ministered in his old age.
1 John 1:1–4 John begins this letter much like his Gospel account, with the Eternal Word, who was always with the Father and was working with the Father at creation. But here John’s point is that this same Word who is “eternal life” is the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ, whom all the apostles had physically seen, heard, and touched.
1 John 1:5–3:10 John writes about faithfulness in our walk with God. God sees our true nature, and in Christ He reveals His nature, which is both just and gracious to us. Only true children who know Jesus as their Savior can truly walk as Jesus walked and love one another as Jesus has loved them. Jesus has shown us the love of God on the cross. This is the love the Law commanded but we could never fulfill. But more than that, it is the love that the Gospel imparts to those who love their brother and abide in the light so that there is in them nothing that would cause them to fall away from faith in Christ. True Christians abide in Christ through faith in Him and all His teachings. There are many antichrists, false teachers who infiltrate the Church and attempt to draw Christians away from the true Christ.
1 John 3:11–4:21 Our heart condemns us when we look at our brother, see his needs, and yet excuse ourselves from acting in love. However, in Christ we know that we have passed out of death into life; that is, we have true saving faith, because we love our fellow Christians. Whenever a teacher speaks of a “Christ” or a “Jesus” or a “God” who comes to us without human flesh, know this: it is a demon speaking through a man, a demon who is seeking to destroy faith everlastingly. “Whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works” (2Jn 11).
1 John 5 The children of God bear the family traits of their Brother, Jesus. He has faith, love, and victory over the world. The testimony of the apostles, the life of Jesus, and the work of the Spirit testify that God has given us life in His Son. Knowing that we have eternal life in Jesus gives us confidence to ask for anything, and we can be certain that we shall receive what we ask according to God’s will, especially when we pray for our brother for Jesus’ sake.
2 John The apostle John and all who truly know Christ as the Father’s Son in human flesh love one another in truth. We walk in love and truth only by remaining faithful to Christ’s teaching that He is God in human flesh who came to save us. Those who depart from Christ’s teaching do not have God the Son or the Father or eternal life. Those who support them share in their wicked work and will share in their punishment as well. The apostle is planning to come and set straight all outstanding issues. Until then, the congregation has his warning and admonition to stand firm in the faith.
3 John The apostle prays that Gaius might be physically as healthy as he is spiritually healthy. Whatever flattery or intimidation people may use to get their way, there always comes a day when their works are brought into the open—when they will be shamed before God and His faithful. John gives Christ’s blessing of peace and extends the greetings of all of Gaius’s friends in Ephesus. John withholds all that he might say about Diotrephes until he meets with Gaius face-to-face.
“The first epistle of John is a genuine apostolic epistle and ought to follow right after his gospel. For as in the gospel he promulgates faith, so here he opposes those who boast of faith without works. He teaches in many different ways that works are not absent where faith is; and if they are absent, then faith is not genuine but is lies and darkness. He does this, however, not by harping on the law, as the epistle of James does, but by stimulating us to love even as God has loved us.
“He also writes vigorously here against the Cerinthians, against the spirit of Antichrist, which was beginning even then to deny that Christ has come in the flesh, and which is today for the first time really in full sway. For although people do not now publicly deny with their lips that Christ has come in the flesh, they do deny it with their hearts, by their teaching and life. For he who would be righteous and saved by his own works and deeds is as much as denying Christ, since Christ has come in the flesh for the very purpose of making us righteous and saving us without our works, by his blood alone.
“Thus the epistle fights against both parties: against those who would live in faith without any works, and against those who would become righteous by their works. It keeps us in the true middle way, that we become righteous and free from sin through faith; and then, when we are righteous, that we practice good works and love for God’s sake, freely and without seeking anything else.
“The other two epistles are not doctrinal epistles but examples of love and of faith. They too have a true apostolic spirit.” (AE 35:393)
Blog post adapted from Lutheran Bible Companion, Volume 2: Intertestamental Era, New Testament, and Bible Dictionary © 2014 Concordia Publishing House. All rights reserved.
Scripture: ESV®.
The quotation from Luther’s Works in this publication is from Luther’s Works, American Edition, vol. 35 © 1960 by Augsburg Fortress. Used by permission of the publisher.