Take Heart

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The Background and Authorship of 1 John

Today, as we have mentioned the last few weeks, after spending several months in the beginning of Genesis, we finally begin a new study and we return to the New Testament. And as we have said, we specifically come to the first letter of John.

I believe this is actually the first time that we're in one of the epistles that has not been written by Paul. And so feel free to turn there with me as we consider some of the background information or the historical setting.

We have to lay out the land a little bit and get our bearings right before we look at the actual text. So 1 John is a letter that reminds the reader, in many ways, of the very fundamentals of Christianity.

That Christ really did come in the flesh, that we ought to obey His commandments and love of brothers. It differs somewhat in style, though, if we will notice that once we get into it, compared to some of the other epistles that we do find in the New Testament.

Even if we just look at the opening words right away, we notice that there is no introduction, that there's no greeting, no thanksgiving, or even an identification of the author who actually wrote it.

This familiar phrase that we're so familiar with from Paul, especially, Paul, a servant of Christ, or Peter saying an apostle of Jesus Christ, is absolutely nowhere found in this epistle. And then it also lacks the common benediction at the end of the epistle.

I know the author, though he's not named, we can be confident that the title given to this book in your New Testament rightly attributes it to the apostle John. In the very first sentence, you notice that the author describes himself as an eyewitness of Jesus, along with a group of others who have seen, heard, and touched the very Word of Life, which was made manifest.

The way it's written, the style, the vocabulary, and emphasis are very much like that found throughout the Gospel of John. And so this has led to actual great agreement among scholars that the same person wrote this epistle as well as the Gospel.

Besides that, we have some external evidence, some early church testimony telling us that John, the disciple whom Christ loved, is in fact the author of this letter. Polycarp, a student and disciple of John, cited this letter as John's writing, and so did other early church teachers after him, such as Irenaeus and Tertullian, for example.

Irenaeus and his famous magnum opus, probably, against heresies, quotes from the Gospel, and this epistle attributes both to John, the disciple of the Lord. We have no reason, brothers and sisters, to doubt that this epistle really does come from the pen of the apostle, that this letter does come with apostolic authority from our Lord's very closest companions, from the very hand of the one who leaned back against Christ during the Lord's Supper, asking him who would betray him, who along with Peter and James went up on the mountain of Transfiguration and saw Christ's glory, was allowed to be there when Christ raised Jairus's daughter to life and go with his master further into the Garden of Gethsemane than the rest of the apostles when Christ withdrew to pray on the night that he was betrayed.

Early Christian tradition also tells us that the apostle ministered in Ephesus toward the end of his life and that this letter was likely written towards the end of the first century in the early 90s AD, and that John was writing to several churches in that region surrounding Ephesus, and that's why we don't have a specific address either to one specific church or audience, and so this letter is intended to be a general epistle.

No, just because it is addressed to a wide and general audience doesn't mean that it has no purpose and is not helpful for us. Today in chapter 5 and verse 13 he gives us the main purpose, the overarching reason really for writing this letter.

He says, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. If you believe in Christ, if you are a follower of his, then this very letter from John is written to you for your comfort, for your confidence, and your assurance.

When this was written, false teaching was beginning to infiltrate these churches John is writing to. There were people trying to deceive Christians. John refers to these deceivers in chapter 2 verse 26 and chapter 3 verse 7 when he urges his listeners not to believe these falsehoods that were being proclaimed to them, that they were denying that Jesus was the Christ, that he did not actually come in the flesh, and some people it seems had already left that fellowship of which John says that they left only because they were never children of God to begin with.

And so amidst all this confusion John reminds his readers then to take heart that those who believe in the true Christ have indeed that eternal life and that the fruit of this is seen and obedience to his commandments and love for the brethren.

The True Christ: The Word of Life Made Flesh

Now as we look in the opening of this epistle in chapter 1 and we'll be looking at verses 1 through 4, John lays that very foundation for what will continue all throughout this letter to develop. He's conveying to his audience here that despite the uncertainty that these false teachers have been sowing, they can take heart.

If they believe in Christ and his work they do have fellowship with the Father and the Son and they can indeed find full and complete joy in that. He begins with giving them comfort, confidence, and encouragement and reminds us today of these great truths that we must not forget, that we must always under all circumstances have a firm grasp upon these truths that truly shape our Christian lives.

And so I want to look together at three of these truths that John puts for us before us. It is firstly a true Christ, that we have a true Christ. And then second that we have fellowship with one another as well as with God the Father and the Son Jesus Christ.

And then lastly that we have a complete joy. Now let's turn to the text and see them there. First we'll look at the true Christ. Verses 1 and 2, John writes, that which was from the beginning which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of life.

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. John gets straight to the point. He launches us right in there.

He puts Christ right before his readers from the outset. He says, behold him. And he uses a similar language to that which he uses in the gospel. In the first chapter in verse 1 we read, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

Before then in verse 14 of the same chapter saying, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory. Glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. Echoing back to the words of Genesis, we looked at them just a few months ago.

He's saying that the one that was with the Father in the very beginning, the one through whom all things were made, who had glory with the Father before the world began. Him, John and the apostles had heard, seen, and touched.

The invisible had become visible and entered into the world as a real man. One of the false teachings that was plaguing the church at the time, at least the early roots of this, was Gnosticism. It basically taught that everything that was material was evil and only the spiritual was good.

It had this emphasis on a special or secret elevated knowledge that did not come from the scriptures or its interpretation. Some of them professed to have some deeper knowledge of God, claiming to have received some form of special divine revelation.

Closely related to this was something that became known as the heresy of Gnosticism, coming from the Greek word meaning to appear, teaching that Christ did not actually come in the flesh and only seemed to be real.

That could very well have been the reason why these Christians may have been concerned. So John is saying, as I was part of a group of eyewitnesses, there is no secret. There is no new hidden. There is no unknown knowledge about Christ.

We actually have heard him preach. We have heard him pray. We have seen him in the flesh. He has walked among us. He has lived a human life, experiencing the very limitations that come with a human body like fatigue and hunger.

We have touched him. He did not appear to be human. He was human. The apostle is driving home the point. You see that he repeats the same thing, having seen, heard, and touched Christ several times in verses one through three.

The apostles were not a bunch of crazy lunatics. Over the course of three years, Christ's life, his preaching, the turning of water into wine, the raising of the dead, the feeding of the crowd multitude.

We read about it in Matthew earlier. His betrayal, crucifixion, and resurrection all had been heard, seen, witnessed by the apostles from the beginning of his ministry to the very end until he ascended to the Father.

He remained human after the resurrection. The apostles, along with hundreds of others, did see Christ again. In no time was there probably greater doubt in them, understandably so, that he was truly alive.

We read about this at the end of Luke's gospel. The experience that the two men on the road to Emmaus shared with them of how Christ appeared to them alive. They begin to discuss these things. All of a sudden, Christ appears to them.

They are frightened, thinking they're seeing some sort of spirit. What does Christ do? He shows them the very marks on his hands and on his side. He invites them to actually see and to come and to touch him.

When they still didn't believe, he goes on to eat food with them. Then, of course, famously, Thomas didn't believe Christ had been resurrected until he touched him. Christ is not, was not, some phantom or vision, not a figment of the apostles' imagination.

Jesus is the eternal God, become man, truly God, and truly man as the saying goes. But not only did they see him physically with their eyes. More importantly, they saw and heard him as the word of life, the one who is life, the one who gives eternal life, in whom dead sinners are made alive.

In other words, they believed who he said he was. We read this earlier. Again, Peter, when the apostles were asked who the answered, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. And so, John is saying, as these close companions to the Lord, as eyewitnesses, we now testify and proclaim that eternal life, the true Christ and the true gospel to you.

He reiterates this in chapter 4 and verse 14. He says, and we have seen and testify that the father has sent his son to be the savior of the world. Peter affirms this in his second epistle and says, for we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

Christ charged his disciples to be witnesses. The last recorded words we have of him to his disciples, Christ says, thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem.

You are witnesses of these things. John's giving us a summary of the essential gospel teaching that he and the apostles were charged to proclaim. That Christ is God really came in the form of man to grant eternal life to those who repent and believe on him.

As he says at the very end of this epistle when he refers to Christ, he is the true God in eternal life. That's at the very core of Christianity, the person and the work of Jesus Christ. It is what life and death, your life and death really depend upon and what assurance and confidence of the Christian stands or falls on.

This is where you have to start. You look to him. You behold him. I have no doubt that some of you here actually in this very room do not believe. Nevertheless, you are sure that you have life. Listen, if the truth of the gospel and it is most assuredly true has not penetrated your heart, if it has not pierced it, shattered it really before it then mends it again.

If you think intellectual ascent is all that is necessary, you have absolutely no life no matter how sure you are. You may think you are and have no reason for confidence because you have no confidence.

It is but a mere illusion. Oh that the Lord, we all of us pray that the Lord would pull that veil from the unbelievers eyes and show you the Christ that really lived, really died and surely saves. There's another group among us.

Some of you who do believe but may not be sure at the moment. This I believe is the case for almost all Christians at some point or other in their life. Maybe a short season or continued struggle but you simply do not feel saved at times.

Why? Well you know your sin severed before you. Surely you know that God knows how terrible a you are in the depths of your heart and couldn't possibly allow you to be reconciled to him. How in the world could Christ's once for all sacrifice possibly atone for your repeated sin when his mercy is repaid over and over by your unbelief and further transgression?

Is it really possible you you ask yourself to have all your wretched deeds wiped away for good when so much of the flesh and its corruption remains? Certainly if you were true followers of Christ you would not so readily and quickly fall into sin but being so slow to repent.

You know that kind of argument don't you? I know you've been you've been engaged in it. I've entertained it. Oh and you begin to sense that you're not as diligent in your Bible reading and praying. Lack of assurance likes to to creep in whispering to you surely a child of God would never miss a day of reading his or her Bible, spending time with the Lord in prayer.

You should delight in these things. It should be the easiest thing in the world for you to apply yourself to the Christian spiritual disciplines. Brothers and sisters at times in the Christian life it is irrelevant how you may feel.

The heart is deceitful. What you must do is preach that gospel to yourself. When you find yourself in the very middle of this argument don't look at yourself. Look at him. You'll find no comfort in yourself.

He will calm the stormy waters when you see him there with outstretched arms calling believe on me. I read one of Spurgeon's sermons recently. Christ being crucified and he said this, ah what a mercy it is that it is not your hold of Christ that saves you but his hold of you.

What a sweet fact that it is not how you grasp his hand but his grasp of yours that saves you. Christian, the truest thing, the true Christ rather is the surest thing of all under heaven and earth. We must at all times look to him and behold him.

Fellowship with the Father, the Son, and One Another

Secondly, not only have we a true Christ but we have been given fellowship with the Father and the Son. Certainly Christ has given those that truly believe on him eternal life and they can be fully assured of it but it's not all he's given.

Look at verse three. That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you so that you too may have fellowship with us and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. The Greek word for fellowship is koinonia.

You may have heard it before. It refers to a partnership, a common participation in something or a communion with one another. The gospel, the truth of who Christ is and what he has done is proclaimed so that others can join, partake in the communion that the apostles had with Christ and in fact they are now through Christ in fellowship with the Father himself as well as the Son.

John's not speaking about fellowship in the sense of of being in the same place as he is on the Lord's day as he addresses these different churches in the region of Asia Minor that were so disturbed by this teaching denying that Christ came and was in the flesh.

He urges his audience rather to continue in the faith to hold fast to Christ because those who do are really in fellowship with one another and with God while those who make these false assertions most certainly are not.

This is a form of fellowship we enjoy as the greater body of Christ with Christians all over the world, with other like-minded gospel preaching churches, a fellowship that we have because we believe in the same Christ and the same gospel.

It is the very thing that ties Christians together. Joel Beakey commenting on this writes, authentic Christian fellowship is based on the apostolic truths of knowing who Jesus is, what the gospel is, and what Christ has done for us.

It means that we do not have fellowship, any common participation with anyone who does not believe the truths about Christ. We do not call Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims, Mormons, and all others that deny the biblical Christ brothers and sisters.

We may engage them and be kind to them and be friends with them and most certainly proclaim the truth to them, but we do not share with them in the same common fellowship of the Father and the Son. It is not an all-inclusive fellowship.

It is in the sense that any man from anywhere may come and stay, but he must come on Christ's terms and not on his. It also means that Christians, you have become part of a family. You have brothers and sisters.

You are part of one and the same body. It is not a superficial organization. It is a divinely built household in which we love and care for one another. It is not held together by any human means or relations, but the very work of the Savior.

Scriptural, truly biblical fellowship that we are called into as Christians, made part of through Christ. It is difficult though, isn't it? It is difficult, but when we do enter into it, it is of great blessing.

It begins with giving up our very selves for our brothers and sisters in ministry and service to them. Giving up ourselves is not easy to the flesh. Together we devote ourselves to the apostles' teaching found in the scriptures as well as prayer.

We're a family that when we someone has a crisis on their hands, when we lose our job, need food and clothing, we're received with open arms and any support possible. When we're ailing, tied to a hospital bed or cannot leave our home, people that we love and that love us come to visit in our suffering, in our loneliness, serving and helping in any way possible.

But all of that requires us to be open and honest in times of our greatest weakness. It requires to put our self-reliance and sufficiency aside to be vulnerable. I'm thankful to the Lord that we have seen some of this and done some of this and continue to do them, but I want to urge us to press on and to even go beyond that because I believe it involves a closeness and openness with one another that is very contrary to our flesh.

To be open with one's sins, to at times lay them before others, to be ministered to by them, to allow them to storm the throne of God of grace on your behalf in prayer and earnestly join you in your suffering, in your weeping, as well as your rejoicing.

It means to be exhorted not to persist in sin. In Hebrews chapter 3, after speaking about Christ being the builder of a house, which are his people, the author writes, take care brothers, in chapter 3, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God.

And then he says in verse 13, but exhort one another every day as long as it is called today that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Too often a level of fellowship like that, a level of friendship that goes that deep, I think is missing in our churches.

We don't like to put in the hard work to build that kind of relationship. It's uncomfortable to let others see your sins at times, to show them your weakness, your vulnerability, your fears. You have to understand that though we are saved, you're saved as an individual.

You're not to live the Christian life as an individual. We go so much against even our own Christian culture to think that people are to be involved in our lives to such a degree like that, that it is offensive and absurd to us.

But we're called within the body to rejoice together, to weep together. And I believe in all honesty that this includes rejoicing over one's repentance and weeping together over one's sin. It's not limited to simply rejoicing if somebody gets a promotion or weeping with them when somebody dies.

Often we do have here good, good God-honoring, enjoyable fellowship when we meet, not only on Sundays, any day during the week. But let's not be content with that. The Lord has redeemed us, grafted us into fellowship with one another.

Let us strive to build these deep, meaningful relationships with one another, more and more marked by brotherly affection that we can come to the point where we can admit our weakness and our need for help and can confess our sins to someone within this very body for our own encouragement as well as exhortation.

We're also brought through Christ into fellowship with the Father and Himself. And what a fruit of the Gospel that John puts forth for us, that we are united to God the Father and to His Son. Fellowship with God begins again with the belief in Christ, what is revealed about Him and His work.

The one that denies that Jesus is the Christ is a liar, as John writes, and does not have fellowship with God. Fellowship with God is an agreement with God about the truth He revealed. It is an intimate fellowship with Him.

Koinonia was actually used in Greek society to describe marriage. And what a privilege it is that we, as believers, should then be referred to as those who have an intimate relationship with God through His Son, Jesus Christ, on the basis of His work alone.

The one separated, now we're united, having received God's favor, having been restored to a right relationship with Him, that He has now become our very Father. We can say, Abba Father. He's not a distant, angry, vengeful deity.

We have full peace with Him. We're members of the very household of God. We are His and His treasured possession. We can pray. We can be sure that He will hear and listen and even answer. And as part of being in that communion, we agree with Him.

We agree with His Word. We delight in it. We love it. It is sweeter to us than honey from the very honeycomb. We love what He loves and hates what He hates. We desire to see His purposes fulfilled, His glory proclaimed, His name exalted.

And we love Him because He first loved us. John will go on to expand on this fellowship with the Father quite a bit in verses 5 through 10, and I don't want to take anything away from next week's sermon, but now in fellowship with our God, we obey His commandments.

We're no longer friends with the world, for friendship with the world is enmity with God. We acknowledge our sin and sinfulness and do not willingly continue in it. Our desires and affections have been changed.

We conform our lives to His Word through the gospel or through the truth of the gospel. Having been brought into fellowship with one another and with God in full agreement with Him and obedience to Him, we then find and have complete joy.

Complete Joy in Christ

Look at verse 4. Another goal of John's in writing this letter is joy. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. If you have an ESV, a footnote in your Bible will tell you that there's a possible alternate translation for your joy.

It says our joy instead. It's just a minor variant, really similar to the English and the Greek. There's only one letter difference between our and yours, and I believe you have a King James or a New King James that does say your joy.

It doesn't drastically change our interpretation of the text. In our immediate context, John has just spoken of his reader's fellowship with him and the apostles, as well as with the Father and the Son.

He has included them in that, and in all likelihood means to include them in this complete joy of his, regardless of whether it says your or our. It is a joy of the Christian, the gospel through Christ.

The fellowship with his people and the Father stirs in the Christian a joy. One Puritan minister put it this way, the gospel dispensation is not properly a dispensation of fear, sorrow, and dread, but of peace and joy.

Terror and astonishment may well attend Mount Sinai, but exaltation and joy Mount Zion, where appears the eternal word, the eternal life manifested in our flesh. The one who believes on Christ, the one who partakes in the fellowship of the saints and the Father will find ultimate, lasting, meaningful joy in Christ.

He is all of your joy. It doesn't mean that you're running around every day cracking jokes and laughing and are never grieved by anything. It doesn't mean there's never a period of sadness in the Christian life, but you have said him before you.

He is your treasure, and where your treasure is there your heart will be also. Brothers and sisters, you know exactly if you are in Christ the full and complete joy, the true and lasting joy of the Lord, don't you?

You've experienced that very joy of knowing Christ, the delight that he is to the point where all else in life seems to to become meaningless, and all you long for from the bottom of our heart is more of him, more of the Father, more of the Spirit.

You don't care for anything in this life. You'd be perfectly content to to rot away in a dungeon as long as he is by your very side, when nothing in this life is worth comparing to him, when you're ready to depart and be with him now face to face.

When in the words of Samuel Rutherford, as he was in prison, the very dust that falls from his feet, even his old ragged clothes and that naughty black rugged cross are sweeter to you than the golden crowns of kings and their fleeting pleasures, for the fullness of joy of Christ.

Some of you, this sounds very foreign. You have not the slightest idea of what we're talking about. You have never experienced even that sliver of that kind of joy that is totally unattached from anything in this life, never experienced the joy of salvation, the truth that the eternal God descended, took on flesh in the form of Jesus Christ to die for you, bearing the complete and full weight of the wrath of God on your behalf, to give you eternal life, to bring you into union with him and the Father.

If there's one thing that is joy instilling in life for the Christian, it is these truths that possibly, I don't know any man who could begin to express them in words. It's not pure emotionalism, not at all.

You see, the joy that John is speaking about is not based on emotions. He doesn't speak about feelings at all. It is based on truth, truth about Christ and his work, and it is that which leads to that sort of joy.

It's not emotion that leads to love for Christ. It never works that way at all, actually. It's a one-way street. You cannot flip a switch inside of you and turn on that joy when you feel like it. It's not a man-made or fabricated emotion.

It is a joy flowing from deep within your soul, stirred by the very love of God for you in Christ. Some of you are going now and will go through a season of joylessness when you do. This is one of those things that you have to preach to yourself until your heart gets it, until it gets realigned.

When you feel like you're in that prison of joylessness and your soul cannot seem to sing at all of the joy of your salvation and you think it'll be the death of you, don't lose heart. Take heart. Make use of the means in this text.

Meditate on the very gospel. Pray and seek the Lord with earnestness to ignite in you again the flame of joy in you. He doesn't delight in you being grieved and saddened and miserable. Listen to good gospel, Christ-exalting sermons that impress on your heart that surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, your Lord.

Fellowship with other believers, fellowship with God in His Word and prayer and He will in time restore to you that very joy that you once knew. Brothers and sisters, take heart. Take confidence not in yourself.

Take confidence in the real Christ, the real gospel, the fact that those who believe in Him, who repent, truly have eternal life. That you can do nothing to separate you from Him because you have been brought into that very fellowship with the Father and the Son, not by your doing but the work of Christ.

If you take comfort in the gospel, if you partake in that fellowship with the Father, you will have complete joy in your savor, lasting joy. Let's pray. Oh Lord, these things are so basic to us. I'm afraid that's what makes them dangerous sometimes and we lose sight of the reality of Christ, of His walking among us, really setting foot on this earth, having descended from heaven, from leaving that glory that He had with you behind and really humbling Himself on our behalf that there is only one true gospel and one true Christ.

It is a great matter of life and death, Lord, instill in us a greater appreciation, a greater love for these truths, a greater sense that we are in fellowship now with you, that you do not leave us after you have saved us, that you remain with us, that we get to commune with you, draw close and near to you and be with you.

And Lord, may all of that stir in us a joy, the joy of our salvation. We ought to be a joyful people. If there's a people in the world that ought to be filled with joy, it is us, it is those who believe on you, for we have received a gift far too great for us, that we are not worthy of.

We pray all these things in the name of Christ.

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