sacrifice which once again puts us at one with God. So, through what Jesus was and did, the relationship between God and all people, broken by sin, is restored. Jesus does not only plead the case of sinners; he sets them at one with God. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin (1:7).
(6) As a result of all this, through Jesus Christ, all who believe have life (4:9, 5:11–12). This is true in a double sense. Believers have life in the sense that they are saved from death; and they have life in the sense that living has ceased to be mere existence and has become life in its fullest sense.
(7) All this may be summed up by saying that Jesus is the Saviour of the world (4:14). Here, we have something which has to be set out in full. ‘The Father has sent his Son as the Saviour of the world’ (4:14). We have already talked of Jesus as pleading our case before God. If we were to leave that without addition, it might be argued that God wished to condemn human beings and was deflected from his dire purpose by the self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ. But that is not so, because, for John, as for every writer in the New Testament, the whole initiative lay with God. It was God who sent his Son to be the Saviour of men and women.
Within the short span of this letter, the wonder and the glory and the grace of Christ are most fully set out.
The Spirit
In this letter, John has less to say about the Spirit; for his highest teaching about the Spirit, we must turn back to the Fourth Gospel. It may be said that, in 1 John, the function of the Spirit is in some sense to be the liaison between God and his people. It is the Spirit who makes us conscious that there is within us the abiding presence of God through Jesus Christ (3:24, 4:13). We may say that it is the Spirit who enables us to grasp the precious fellowship with God which is being offered to us.
The World
The world within which Christians live is hostile; it is a world without God. It does not know Christians, because it did not know Christ (3:1). It hates Christians, just as it hated Christ (3:13). The false teachers are from the world and not from God, and it is because they speak its language that the world is ready to hear them and accept them (4:4–5). In a sweeping statement, John says that the whole world is in the power of the evil one (5:19). It is for that reason that Christians have to overcome it, and their weapon in the struggle with the world is faith (5:4).
Hostile as the world is, it is doomed. The world and all its desires are passing away (2:17). That, indeed, is why it is folly to give one’s heart to the world; the world is coming to an end. Although Christians live in a hostile world which is passing away, there is no need for despair and fear. The darkness is past; the true light now shines (2:8). God in Christ has broken into time; the new age has come. It is not yet fully brought to fruition, but the consummation is sure.
Christians live in an evil and a hostile world, but they possess the means to overcome it; and, when the destined end of the world comes, they will be safe, because they already possess that which makes them members of the new community in the new age.
The Fellowship of the Church
John does more than move in the high realms of theology; he has certain most practical things to say about the Christian Church and the Christian life. No New Testament writer stresses more consistently or more strenuously the necessity of Christian fellowship. Christians, John was convinced, are not only bound to God; they are also bound to each other. When we walk in the light, we have fellowship with each other (1:7). Those who claim to walk in the light but who hate their brothers and sisters are in reality walking in darkness; those who love their brothers and sisters are the ones who are in the light (2:9–11). The proof that people have passed from darkness to light is the fact that they love one another. To hate a fellow human being is in essence to be a murderer, as Cain was. If we are able out of our own wealth to help another’s poverty and do not do so, it is ridiculous for us to claim that the love of God dwells in us. The essence of religion is to believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and to love one another (3:11–17, 3:23). God is love; and, therefore, those who love are kin to God. God has loved us, and that is the best reason for loving each other (4:7–12). If we say that we love God and at the same time hate another person, we are liars. The command is that all who love God must love others too (4:20–1).
It was John’s conviction that the only way in which anyone can prove love for God is by loving other people, and that that love must be not only a sentimental emotion but also a dynamic towards practical help.
Christian Righteousness
No New Testament writer makes a stronger ethical demand than John, or more strongly condemns a so-called religion which fails to produce ethical action. God is righteous, and the life of everyone who knows him must reflect his righteousness (2:29). Whoever abides in Christ, and is born of God, does not sin; whoever does not do right is not of God (3:3–10); and the characteristic of this righteousness is that it translates into love for other people (3:10–11). We show our love to God and to others by keeping God’s commandments (5:2). Whoever is born of God does not sin (5:18).
For John, knowledge of God and obedience to him must always go hand in hand. It is by keeping his commandments that we prove that we really do know God. Those who say that they know him and who do not keep his commandments are liars (2:3–5).
It is, in fact, this obedience which is the basis of effective prayer. We receive what we ask from God because we keep his commandments and do what is pleasing in his sight (3:22).
The two marks which characterize genuine Christianity are love for one another and obedience to the revealed commandments of God.
The Destination of the Letter
There are certain baffling problems with regard to the letter’s destination. The letter itself gives us no clue as to where it was sent. Tradition strongly connects it with Asia Minor, and especially with Ephesus, where, according to tradition, John lived for many years. But there are certain other odd facts which somehow have to be explained.
The sixth-century Roman historian Cassiodorus says that the First Letter of John was titled Ad Parthos, ‘To the Parthians’; and St Augustine has a series of ten tractates written on the Epistle of John ad Parthos. One Geneva manuscript complicates the matter still further by titling the letter Ad Sparthos. There is no such word as Sparthos. There are two possible explanations of this impossible title. (1) Just possibly, what is meant is Ad Sparsos, which would mean ‘to the Christians scattered abroad’. (2) In Greek, Ad Parthos would be Pros Parthous. Now, in the early manuscripts, there was no space between the words, and they were all written in capital letters, so that the title would run PROSPARTHOUS. A scribe writing to dictation could quite easily put that down as PROSSPARTHOUS, especially if he did not know what the title meant. Ad Sparthos can be eliminated as a mere mistake.
But where did ‘To the Parthians’ come from? There is one possible explanation. The Second Letter of John does tell us of its destination; it is written to The elect lady and her children (2 John 1). Let us turn to the end of 1 Peter. The Authorized Version has: ‘The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you’ (1 Peter 5:13). The phrase the church that is is printed in the Authorized Version in italics. This, of course, means that it has no equivalent in the Greek, which has, in fact, no actual mention of a church at all. This the Revised Standard Version accurately indicates: ‘She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen [elect], sends you greetings.’ As far as the Greek goes, it would be perfectly possible, and indeed natural, to take that as referring not to a church but to a lady. That is precisely what certain of the scholars in the very early Church did. Now, we find the elect lady again in 2 John. It was easy to identify the two elect ladies and to assume that 2 John was also written to Babylon. The natural title for the inhabitants of Babylon was Parthians, and hence we have the explanation of the title.
The process went even further. The Greek for the elect lady is hē elektē. We have already seen that the early manuscripts were written all in capital letters; and it would be just possible to take Elektē not as an adjective