1 John

Chapter 1:5-2:2

The format of the Lifeway quarterly I am following does not do 1 John justice. All 13 lessons should be devoted to this book. Here I try to cover all of chapter 2 in this and the next lesson. If you are going to teach the unit, I recommend you do likewise.

There is Sin, and there are sins. Sin with a capital S is what's in the blood, our blood that is. Sin is a direction of life. But sin with a little s refers to an act, a deed, a particular sin. Thus a Christian has been saved from his nature of Sin and has turned to a different direction. Yet he still struggles to learn how to avoid those individual sins that sneak up on us. (Or we love so much we seek 'em out – you know what I mean.)

John tells us not to kid ourselves. We do sin. Philip Yancey tells of a woman from his childhood who claimed she had not sinned in 12 years. The statement itself screams PRIDE, the first of what the church later came to call the 7 deadly sins. If you think about it, all – or almost all – our sins can be traced to pride, especially if you define pride as deciding you know better than God.

DETOUR – Hebrew logic. From our history and our language, we inherit a particular form of logical thinking. I studied two kinds of logic in college: Aristotelian and Mathematical. First century Jews used neither – at least not very much. They had a greater tolerance for paradox than we do. Paradox is tension created by apparent contradiction, and John is about to lay one on us.

First he seems to say if we are followers of Christ we are not sinners.

Immediately, he turns around and says if we claim not to sin we lie or are self-deceived.

Huh?

I can imagine showing John the first paragraph above and asking him if that's what he means. But I really think he might reluctantly nod his head as if to say yes, but then come out with, “Yeah, I guess, but I prefer to say we don't sin and we do sin and let you find truth in the tension.” Figure that one out, but you find other instances in the Bible.

Verse 9 is the verse I have used more than any other verse in pastoral counseling: If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to go on cleansing us from every unrighteousness. Contrary to popular opinion, pastoral counseling seldom involves telling people they are sinners. By the time they come to us, they know they have messed up big time. An incredible number cannot forgive themselves and don't believe that God can forgive them for messing up big time. This includes some of the strongest Christians I know, who would always reassure anyone else that they were forgiven.

I have a bit of homespun theology I give these people that might not stand academic scrutiny, but it works. I might tell a woman that sometimes I tell a little white lie if a woman asks if I like her new hairdo. That may or may not be a sin, since telling her it's atrocious is hurtful and a worse sin. But I go on to say I don't think my white lies put Jesus on the cross. I think He died for those big whopping sins, like the one you think he can't forgive you for. Remember doing that sin. Because it was right there the God forgives you.

When you buy that and let God heal that guilt you discover truth that has become truth for you.

Now let's back up a bit. John makes a whopping theological statement: God is light and in him is no darkness at all. What does that mean? God is light? Light universally stands for truth, clarity, and purity. Daily the media talk about shining light on the nefarious dealings of government and business. Light is clean. Modern physics has even found that photons are basic units that build matter and energy. (Or their first cousins, neutrinos.) Darkness represents evil, badness, lack of knowledge, and the inability to find one's way.

If then we claim to be Christians and know this God of light, but are instead walking in darkness, there is a huge disconnect. John says we know better and are lying. He goes further and says if we walk in the light, we have fellowship with each other and God is able to keep cleansing us of sin. Notice that walking in darkness is not a one-time sin, but a direction of life away from God, hiding from God. Walking in the light is following Christ, not perfectly, but forgiven.

John begins chapter 2 by stating his purpose in writing was so they would not sin, but that purpose also included forgiveness when they DO sin. If the police arrest us, we have the famous one phone call to a lawyer. When we sin, we don't need to call a lawyer, because we already have an advocate before the Lord. He is not only the advocate, He is the reason for our forgiveness.

2:2 The King James and Holman translations give the word “propitiation.” Fortunately, other recent translations use terms like “atonement” or “atoning sacrifice.” I say it's fortunate because the word “propitiation” created some lousy theology. I've actually heard the idea that Jesus sacrificed Himself to propitiate the wrath of an angry God. But John 3:16 speaks of God giving His Son out of love, NOT wrath. And Jesus and Paul both spoke of the love of one laying down his life for another.

This may be a personal reaction, but the word propitiate calls to my mind a group of savages at the foot of a volcano sacrificing a virgin to keep the mountain from erupting. That may not be your reaction, and some otherwise fine theologians don't have my problem.

Nevertheless, Jesus's sacrificial death covers our sins forever. That society was used to sacrificing animals to pay for sin. The rationale here is that Christ was our substitute. He vicariously died for us. In so doing He becomes the atonement for our sin. I've heard many explanations how this was possible, but all fall short. There is deep, eternal mystery here. The finite mind cannot grasp the infinite!

In The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis imagines what redemption would be like in a Fantasy-land. Christ is a Lion named Aslan. Because of the sin of a major character, he submits to being killed on a stone altar. One of the characters comments, “There's a deeper magic, you know.” And it was that magic that brought Aslan back and freed not just the visiting children, but the permanent winter began to experience spring. And to my mind, that's as good an explanation as you'll get! (No kids, I don't mean the cross was magic. That's only for Fantasy-land.)

Note the inclusion of the whole world! Not only for OUR sings. I once saw a conference advertised with “For the Whole World” as its theme, and this as its key verse.

COMMANDING LOVE!

John has a lot to say about how we can know we belong to God. That test always compares talk versus action. 2:3-6. Do we “walk the walk” as well as “talk the talk”? We can claim to be His follower, but our lives do not demonstrate it. Hypocrisy is out. For John and throughout the New Testament, obedience arises from faith. That's what James means when he says faith without works is dead. The pattern for our lives must imitate Jesus. He is our example, our mentor, our leader.

:7-11 The chief sin for John is lack of love, which equals hatred. Christ and hatred are incompatible. Jesus first gave the commandment in John 13:34. “Love one another as I have loved you!” Not just love each other, but demonstrate the self-giving love as found in Jesus's life.

John sees the darkness passing away. I believe his primary emphasis was individual. Wherever faith in Christ appeared, the darkness left in the light of the dawning transformation. The Kingdom of God is at hand. The true light shines from the believers.

The key to the Christian life is love. To “hate” or refuse to love your brother or sister is still stumbling in darkness. They've lost direction.

:12-14 – He then gives encouraging words as reasons for writing. He cycles twice through three age categories and “children,” which means the church in general. Incidentally, this raises the question of whether he possibly had a particular church in mind, but there's no other evidence of this. I would sum this up by noting he considers the church as a family, from the youngest to the oldest.

:15 – 17 – Don't love the world – don't become attached to it. Paul says at the beginning of Romans 12, “Don't be conformed to this world.” JB Phillips' translation says “Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold.” I really like that, because the world tries to make us conform. Current Political Correctness is becoming a school of ethics demanding all surrender. The big current example keeps knocking down any walls of sexual boundaries. So far only child abuse and outright rape are the only things they consider sin. Everything else you may want to do is ok, as long as the participants agree. Of course, underlying this is a deep resentment of morality that would stifle one's slightest whim. Both Paul and John command us to resist this. Indeed, you love either the world or God. You cannot love both. Note that “world” here refers to humans in rebellion against God, not planet Earth.

Compare verse 16 with Genesis 3:6:

the lust of the flesh – the fruit of the tree was good for food

the lust of the eyes, - pleasing to the eye

the pride of life – desirable for gaining wisdom

Almost certainly John had that comparison in mind. And not the results. “their eyes were opened.” And what was this new wisdom? They discovered they were naked! Like duh!

Likewise, the path of sin today still leads to major crashes. We've all been there. But the good news is that the sacrifice of the cross, brings redemption. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and go on cleansing us from every bit of unrighteousness!”

This world is temporal as is its political correctness. But the Kingdom of God is eternal. Our most important citizenship is in His Kingdom. So let's live as citizens of that Eternal Kingdom!