Have We Missed the Point of 1 John? (Part 1) | Theocast

1 John as a Letter of Comfort Rather Than a Salvation Test

Hi, this is John, and today on Theocast, Justin and I tackle 1 John. This is definitely a controversial book, and it's been misused throughout the years. So we wanna do our best to help explain to you what's the original context, why did he write it, who are the two groups of people he's aimed at, and I don't believe he is trying to call into question the believer's salvation.

Next week, we're gonna deal with a lot of the problem passages that often are used to call people into question whether they're a true believer. We hope you enjoy.

If you'd like to help support Theocast, you can do that by leaving us a review on iTunes and subscribing on your favorite podcast app. You can also follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Plus, we have a Facebook group if you'd like to join the conversation there.

Thanks for listening.

Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ, conversations about the Christian life from a Reformed and pastoral perspective. If you wanna know the heart and mission behind Theocast, we're here to clarify the gospel and reclaim the purpose of the kingdom, and that's what we're gonna do today.

Your hosts are Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina and I am John Moffitt, pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee. And it's been a lively few weeks, Justin.

We don't necessarily always talk about what's going on in our lives, but the last couple of weeks, we've had opportunities to speak. Justin got to speak at a Nine Marks conference. I don't know if and when that will be available, and I hope they do because it was a powerful message on prayer.

And stay tuned. A lot of what he said there, we're gonna do on a podcast coming up.

Yeah, that was a good opportunity to go speak. And Theocast came, we had a booth. John and other friends were there, and good interactions, and we hope some good cross-pollination on some stuff there.

Yeah, I assume the message and even the panel discussions, at some point, if they're not already available, would be available on ninemarks .org or sebts .edu. Make sure I got all those.

Yeah, he got to sit on all the panels, and let's just say there was lots of gospel. It was great. It was encouraging.

Yeah, it was a good time.

And I got to speak at a conference. It was something I've never done before. I spoke at a conference for parents who had lost children to brain cancer. And so that was sobering, at the same time, giving the hope of the gospel.

So it was encouraging to them. And I think I'm gonna have the opportunity to do that a little bit more here in the future. And then today, I got to, for those of you who know who Dave Ramsey is and his show, he actually does a devotional for all of his employees, like 1 ,100 employees.

So I got to share the power of the gospel from Romans 1 there today. I don't know if they'll have me back. So we just go ahead and drop one bomb and made sure it was the gospel.

If you have one opportunity to go speak somewhere, give them Christ.

That's right. So, well, Justin, today is an episode that is needed to be done. Justin and I, someone asked me the other day, do you guys feel like you're ever gonna run out of things to talk about? And I'm like, nope, because I'll never get to the bottom of the Bible.

I'll never reach a depth. So as long as the Lord gives us lungs and opportunity, we'll continue to preach. It's like asking me, are you ever gonna run out of things to preach about? And I'm like, yeah, I'm not going to.

So today's one of those episodes that you've seen in the title already. We're gonna be talking about 1 John. And I think 1 John next to James is one of the most confused books for people as it relates to salvation and obedience and apostasy.

And we're going to do this in two parts. We thought we could do it in one episode. We decided not to do that. We'd have to crunch things in. And for those of you would like a full exposition of 1 John, Justin has preached through the entire book.

A couple of years ago, you can go to the notes and get a link to that and listen to that. I would highly recommend that. But we're gonna condense that down into a conversation. And the way I wanna set this up, and then I'm gonna hand it over to Justin to really walk us through the book because you have to always read things in its original intention, its original context.

A lot of when I interact with people and they over social media or email will send me quotes from 1 John, they're doing so and they're doing it by kind of cutting sections out of the Bible. And they're not looking at the surrounding either context or even the author in general who wrote more than just 1 John.

He wrote a lot. And we have to look at everything he wrote. We have to look at the entire Bible. So biblicism is a problem here. We did an entire episode on this called Beware of Biblicism. Go find that.

But biblicism is not a good thing. It's a bad thing. It's where we will focus in on one particular section of scripture and we'll ignore the rest of scripture and even really the history of how it's been interpreted.

And that's dangerous. So a lot of what happens with 1 John in these passages where we read them, it says, well, if you don't obey God, then you can't have assurance. And if you're doing sin, then you're not saved.

There's a lot of confusion here. So Justin, I'm gonna hand this over to you. I know you've got a lot of talking to do. So I'm gonna let you go ahead and just set this up and even giving your own first initial thoughts before jumping in.

Sure.

One thing to add to what you just said before I give some background of the book, I think that we in our modern day tend to read 1 John through the lens of pietism as well. This tendency to always point things back in on ourselves.

And our performance,.

The kind of prove yourself theology that we've discussed many times on this show. Those lenses are often on when modern scholars and modern pastors and modern Christians read 1 John. So that has to be acknowledged as well.

And it is interesting that many of the individuals who we would say have mishandled 1 John and have missed the point and missed the tone of the letter are the same people that beat the table and beat the desk for authorial intent.

And so that's where we're gonna start here. Why did John write this letter? Really important question to ask, right? Important question to try to answer because if we don't understand the whole and if we don't understand the purpose for which the letter was written, we're gonna do terrible things with the parts of the letter.

That's right.

That's true with any book of scripture. It's true with the entirety of the Bible. You don't understand the whole, you're gonna do terrible things with the parts.

Well, here's a great example. If you only heard or read me communicate to my son, if you don't listen to me, you're gonna die. Well, you could conclude a lot from that, right? What I might be saying is if you don't listen to me back off that cliff or get out of the middle of the road, you're gonna die.

There's a context behind that versus John threatens his kid was death if they don't obey him. No, that's not what I said.

Right.

So first, John, why was it written? It's written in the first century. It's written to a church. It's written to Christians. And these Christians have been bombarded by some things. They have been bombarded in particular by false teaching and by apostasy, by people abandoning the faith and abandoning them.

So that's really important. The false teaching that's going on, two prongs to this. The first is what we would refer to as proto -gnosticism. So gnosticism is a heresy that became a full orbed system of thought in the second century.

So what John is dealing with here is proto -gnosticism. It's not fully baked yet, but it still is there. Some things you need to know about proto-gnostic thought. There is a kind of a platonic dualism thing going on here.

Two planes, there's the spiritual plane, there's the physical plane. The spiritual is inherently good. The physical is inherently corrupt and wicked. All that really matters, all that's really of value is the spiritual.

What happens in the flesh is of no real consequence, right? So you can see how that's definitely in John's mind when he begins to talk about how sins that we commit in the body matter, how we live really matters.

Contrary to people who are saying that all that matters is this inner knowledge and this inner enlightenment and some kind of arrival to a higher spiritual plane and what you do in the body and how you live in the body doesn't really matter.

So that's a significant thing. Another prong of the false teaching that's going on in the first century is what we would refer to as docetism, from the Greek word doceo, to seem or to think. And this is a teaching where in the first century, many people struggled not with the divinity of Jesus, but with the humanity of Jesus.

They taught that he only appeared to be physical, that he only seemed to be physical. So they were denying that God the Son came in the flesh. And so that's gonna be really clear too throughout the letter where John will emphasize that we've seen him, we've touched him, we've heard these things, we confess that Jesus came in the flesh.

So he's gonna really reiterate that at multiple points. So these Christians that John's writing to have been bombarded by false teaching, proto -Gnosticism, docetism. The second thing though, that they have been bombarded by is apostasy.

They have had people abandon the faith and abandon them. And we would understand from the context that these are people who have bought into this false teaching, who don't understand that how they live matters.

They're not concerned with righteousness. They're not concerned with loving the brethren. And they depart and abandon these saints to whom John is writing. And these Christians to whom the apostle is writing have been hurt by these things.

No doubt, right? So what do we conclude from all of this? It's that John is writing not to smoke out the fakers, but to actually comfort the saints. He is writing, right. He is writing to people who are genuine and to assure them by pointing out the fact that the people who have abandoned them and hurt them are those who have bought into this false teaching and have thereby punted the faith and have hurt their fellow church members, right?

And that is critical for our understanding of the letter. John is not in angry prophet mode. He's not in drop the hammer mode. He's not in a threatening mode at all. He actually writes with a very tender, gentle, pastoral, reassuring tone.

And that becomes very clear when you survey the letter from 30 ,000 feet and you're not just isolating verses here and there like you referred to in your introduction.

Well, unlike James, we have a little bit of James in the book of Acts. We know a little bit of his character and who he is, but we will learn most about James from his writings in his one book. And even in that is a great example is that he's not doing the same thing.

He's not trying to smoke out the nominal. He's not trying to call into question people's faith. James, like nine times within the first two chapters says, my brothers, my brothers, my brothers. Well, 1 John does the same thing.

And I can't wait for the section where we're gonna get in there to the comfort sections of 1 John. But if you do not do your homework and you look at the greater context, what is going on? Why is he writing this?

What is he truly fighting? You can misinterpret what he says, which has happened a lot. And we're gonna work through that. But it is important to do this kind of work because the writer had a point he was trying to make.

And it is our job as the reader to make sure we get that point.

The Tone of 1 John: Assurance for Believers

Yeah, and we're gonna try to convey in this episode and the one that follows what John's tone was and what his clear emphasis was. Last comment before I maybe start reading an avalanche of verses to demonstrate John's tone and intent is this.

The way that 1 John is often presented in our modern day, and this has been true for decades, is that it is a litmus test of salvation. John is giving that. He's giving the church a litmus test and the standard, measure yourself against these things to determine whether or not you're legit.

You're probably not. There's a lot of fakers out there. And what you need to do is assess yourself and see whether you meet the test or not. And our understanding of the letter is different than that.

That John is writing actually to strengthen the assurance of the redeemed. And he's writing to protect them from the things that they have experienced and gone through. He's writing to comfort them. I think the sermon series title for when I preached through it was A Letter of Comfort and Joy, or something like that.

It's kind of playing off of the.

Tidings of comfort and joy, right? Yeah, because typically it's a threatening, scary letter, like James, which you can preach through. So let me do this, John. I'm on the one sense apologetic. On the other hand, I'm not at all.

It's really good for us to do what we're about to do. What is the tone of 1 John? We're saying that he's writing in a very pastoral, tender, gentle, reassuring tone to the saints. Just listen to this.

Here we go. Chapter one, verses eight through chapter two, verse two. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins. Chapter two, verses 12 to 14. I am writing to you little children because your sins are forgiven for his namesake.

I am writing to you fathers because you know him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you young men because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you children because you know the father. I write to you fathers because you know him who is from the beginning.

I write to you young men because you are strong and the word of God abides in you and you have overcome the evil one. Chapter two, verses 18 to 21. Children, it is the last hour and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come.

Therefore, we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, 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.

But you have been anointed by the holy one and you all have knowledge. I write to you not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it and because no lie is of the truth. Chapter three, verses one and two.

See what kind of love the father has given to us, that we should be called children of God. And so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now and what we will be has not yet appeared.

But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is. Chapter three, verses 19 and 20. By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him.

For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and he knows everything. Chapter four and verse four. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

Chapter four, verses nine and 10. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Chapter four, verses 13 to 19. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us because he has given us his spirit. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the son of God, God abides in him and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.

God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

We love because he first loved us. Chapter five and verse one. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. Chapter five, 19 to 20. We know that we are from God and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.

And we know that the son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true in his son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

Now that's an avalanche of evidence. And then I haven't even read, I have not even read like the purpose statement verse, which is where we're going in just a minute. Thoughts, comments, brother, let's just go on.

It is, it's so important. You know, people saying, well, you're leaving out all the other passages. We're not, we're gonna get to them, but you have to understand the absolute breadth. There's a whole boat he's floating you in.

Cause he basically, John is creating two, two groups of people, right? You've got us who are in Christ, the propitiation of our sins upon Christ. I mean, it's, I love this. No fear because what casts it out, not your obedience, not the test, not your faithfulness, the love of God for you casts out fear.

We have to hear this.

Perfect love casts out fear. Well, whose love is perfect? God's love for us.

Yeah.

For those in Christ, these are the benefits. And how do we know? How have we come to know? It's for those who believe. That's what he says. It's for those who believe.

So he wrote it many times.

Yeah, go ahead.

I'm so sorry, dude. Like, but I read verses from every chapter. So we're getting an overview here. And like you said, I love your language, the boat that he floats us in. That's a great way to frame it.

Cause like this is the tone and tenor, the warp and the woof and the tincture, to use an old word of the whole letter. And how many times does he say to his audience, we are in Christ. We are children of God.

You know, I mean, he's just saying it over and over and over and over to them. And you're gonna tell me that the purpose of this letter is to try to unsettle everybody?

Well, and the thing is, Justin and I, I'm gonna say this and he agrees. John is trying to unsettle some people, but it's not these people.

Right.

It's not these people. And that's the thing about it. It's like James does this and John does this. Well, and Jesus does this. If you do not agree with God about your sin and his gospel, you should be afraid.

That is what John is saying.

Yeah, he is trying to unsettle people. He's trying to unsettle people who do not confess that Jesus came in the flesh. He's trying to unsettle people who deny that they have sin. He's trying to unsettle people who don't agree with God's word about the severity of their sin and the depth of their corruption.

He's trying to unsettle people who don't give a rip about God's word and God's law. He's trying to unsettle people who do not care at all about loving their brothers and sisters.

That's right.

If that's true of you, you should be very unsettled, but he's writing to people who are trusting in the Lord Jesus, who are loving each other and who are pursuing righteousness sincerely, albeit imperfectly.

That's right.

I mean, this is why 1 John 2 .19 is so important, which we'll get to again later on, but I'm going to reference it now. They went out from us because they were not of us. And the point of it is there are two categories of people.

And John's like, listen, I need you to hear. Here's category one. This is you, okay? You heard Jesus. You've received this message. In him, you are safe. You are secure. The propitiation of your sins, you have been imputed with this righteousness.

Your sin has been imputed on him. And it's just glorious. I want you to know this. I write these things. Please trust this. Please know this. Now, these people among you or who have left you, you need to hear about their fate because they don't think they've sinned, but they have sinned.

If you're new to Theocast, we have a free ebook available for you called Faith Versus Faithfulness, A Primer on Rest. And if you've struggled with legalism, a lack of assurance, or simply want to know what it means to live by faith alone, we wrote this little book to provide a simple answer from a Reformed confessional perspective.

You can get your free copy at theocast .org slash primer.

And you need to understand the shipwreck that their false teaching, and the false teaching they have bought into, you need to understand the shipwreck that will make of your life. Should you go astray in this way and not hold to what he contends for in the very opening verses of the letter, right?

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. What's he talking about? The mystery of God in Christ. He's talking about Jesus.

Concerning the word of life, the life was made manifest and we've seen it. We testify to it. We proclaim to you eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us. That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us, the apostles, right?

And indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son, Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. What a remarkable opening. That's why he's writing. And he's helping them understand, like these things are primary.

These things that we heard and have come to understand from the Lord, that all centered around Jesus, don't depart from this.

That's right.

In terms of what you believe and confess.

Right.

It's important to understand the arrow of fear is pointed towards a particular person.

Exactly.

But not the believer.

No.

And we do this though, Justin. I mean, how many times have you heard 1 John used and it was pointed right at the believer? And I'm like, no, that is not who that arrow is pointed at.

I know.

You need to pull it out of your bow. It's not meant for the believer.

That's right.

Now listen, that doesn't, and John does rebuke and he does prod and encourage. He says, listen, we need to be pursuing love.

If you're not just this.

Right.

He says, keep his commandments. Well, we learn what those commandments are, which is to love God and to love neighbor.

And to demonstrate your love of God through your love.

Right.

And what he means there to be clear, because this is not perfectionism from John. That's another whole nother world we're not going to get into. But what John means is you agree with God on the purpose of your life.

You agree with God that I am a sinner and I've been redeemed by his blood. And I have been imputed with the righteousness of Christ. I've been declared righteous, not infused, but declared righteous.

That's right.

And because of that, yes, it matters. It matters a lot. Because of that, I agree with God that I need to forsake my sin and love Christ and love others. That is the purpose of my life. I agree with him on that.

And John is saying, there's people in your midst who do not agree with you.

Right.

They very much need to understand their salvation is at stake.

Many of them have already left you.

That's right.

And there may be others of them who are still in your midst, like you said. And this is their faith.

That's right.

But I want to comfort you. You've been through some stuff. You've been bombarded by some things, but I want to comfort you that you know the truth and you know the Father and you're in Christ and you're a child of God.

You know?

And so let me read now chapter five and verse 13, which I understand to be a purpose statement of the letter. So John is beginning his concluding argument.

I was like, just in case you didn't hear this.

Well, how, right. But you do, we do this in teaching, right, John? I mean, even in preaching sermons, you know, we, the conclusion is far more important than the introduction because it's what you want to leave people with.

That's right.

And how does John do that? Let's look to it. Chapter five and verse 13. Again, I think a purpose statement for the letter. Quote, 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.

Just really quick. Let's just break that down. Who's he writing to? He's writing to those who believe in Jesus. Why is he writing? So that they may know, the believers may know that they have eternal life.

That's pretty strong. Now, let me, if we need any more ammunition, here we go. Let's read John Calvin's commentary on 1 John 5, 13. It's good that we would cite other theologians through history. We quoted a lot of Bible today.

We're going to quote a trustworthy and reputable man who came before us, John Calvin. Here's what he says. 1 John 5, 13 from his commentary on the book. Quote, as there ought to be a daily progress in faith, so he says, talking about the apostle, that he wrote to those who had already believed so that they might believe more firmly and with greater certainty and thus enjoy a fuller confidence as to eternal life.

Then the use of doctrine is not only to initiate the ignorant in the knowledge of Christ, but also to confirm those more and more who have already been taught. For there are still in us many remnants of unbelief.

And so weak is our faith that we need a fuller confirmation. But we ought to observe the way in which faith is confirmed by having the office and power of Christ explained to us. It is therefore the duty of a godly teacher in order to confirm disciples in the faith to extol as much as possible the grace of Christ so that being satisfied with that, we may seek nothing else.

Close quote. So good.

Beautiful stuff, man. So much, we could talk about this for a whole episode. But I love a lot of it. He's saying he's writing to those who believe so that they might be more assured.

That's right.

That's huge. So that's how Calvin understood the letter.

Not to remove the assurance, but to add to the assurance.

To bolster it.

And not their works of obedience, but Christ's works for them. I mean, I'm just gonna go, John says this in two books. So first John, and then John says it in his gospel.

John chapter 20.

That's right. In his gospel, he says, verse John 20, 31, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name. So again, what does John document?

He documents the Christ, right?

For us.

What he accomplished. The person and the work.

That's right.

What he accomplished for us. He goes, this is the person, and if you believe in him, you have life. Well, then after that gospel is written, all kinds of things get thrown all over the place. And so John writes additional to this gospel, these epistles.

And he does the same thing, and he's contrasting it. And the whole church, if you listen to most of the churches, you know, people always say, I really love to live in the first century church. It would be a nightmare.

It'd be a nightmare to live in those churches because you got

It was not a golden age.

No.

Paul is writing

Have you read the New Testament epistles, right?

Right.

There is so many false teachers. There's so much bad doctrine.

In other words, John, it's like today.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Pretty close to it, absolutely. But the point of it is, is that almost every New Testament epistle that is written, here's the truth, and here's what we're fighting against, right? Here's the bad doctrine that we're fighting against.

What we get confused is, Justin, is we take those warnings against false teachers or bad doctrine, and we use them, like I've said before, we aim it at the believer.

I know.

You need to be examining yourself. You need to be And it's like, there's no way the believer can ever have assurance. And if you offer it to them, you're an antinomian.

Oh my gosh. Yeah, sure.

What do you mean you're an antinomian? It's either God has the power to save or you have the power to save yourself. And I'm pretty sure the gospel doesn't say that.

Well, so many of the New Testament epistles, what are the apostles doing? They're trying to give the saints a clear vision of the person and work of Christ, because they understand that that is the only antidote against false teaching and false practice.

That's right.

I mean, take Galatians, take Colossians, take 1 John. I mean, you pick your letter. That's so much of what the apostles are doing. They're defending the clarity of the gospel because that is the only thing that will guard people from false teaching and from erroneous practice, therefore.

And yeah, we mishandle these things often. If I can, let's just talk a little bit more about some of the stuff Calvin wrote, and then maybe in the Semper Verumonde episode, we could even unpack some of what he wrote even more, because I think there's a lot to say.

I love how he says that notice that one of the purposes of doctrine or the purpose of doctrine is not only to educate the ignorant, like to tell people who don't know anything about Jesus about Jesus, but it's actually to confirm those more and more, he says, who have already been taught.