Introduction to 1 John

Background and Setting:

Though John was quite old when he wrote this epistle, he was still actively ministering to churches. He was the sole apostolic survivor who had intimate, eyewitness association with Jesus throughout His early ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension. As the last remaining apostle, John’s testimony was highly authoritative among the churches

Ephesus lay within the intellectual center of Asia Minor. As predicted years before by the Apostle Paul (Acts 20:28-31), false teachers arising from within the church’s own ranks, saturated with the prevailing climate of philosophical trends, began infecting the church with false doctrine, perverting fundamental apostolic teaching. These false teachers advocated new ideas which eventually became known as “Gnosticism” (from the Greek word “knowledge”). After the Pauline battle for freedom from the law, Gnosticism was the most dangerous heresy that threatened the early church during the first 3 centuries. Most likely, John was combatting the beginnings of this heresy.

Gnosticism, influenced by such philosophers as Plato, advocated a dualism asserting that matter was inherently evil and spirit was good. As a result of this presupposition, the false teachers, although attributing some form of deity to Christ, denied his true humanity to preserve him from evil. It also claimed elevated knowledge, a higher truth known only to those in on the deep things. Only the initiated had the mystical knowledge of truth that was higher even than Scripture.

Instead of divine revelation standing as judge over man’s ideas, man’s ideas judged God’s revelation. The heresy featured two basic forms. First, some asserted that Jesus’ physical body was not real but only “seemed” to be physical; remember this when reading verses 1:1-4; 4:2,3. According to early tradition, another form of this heresy which John may have attacked was led by a man named Cerinthus, who contended that Christ’s “spirit” descended on the human Jesus at his baptism but left him just before his crucifixion. John wrote that Jesus who was baptized at the beginning of His ministry was the same person who was crucified on the cross (see verse 5:6).

Such heretical views destroys not only the true humanity of Jesus, but also the atonement, for Jesus must not only have been truly God, but also the truly human (and physically real) man who actually suffered and died upon the cross in order to be the acceptable substitutionary sacrifice for sin. The Biblical view of Jesus affirms His complete humanity as well as His full deity. Responding to this crisis, the aged apostle wrote to reassure those remaining faithful to combat this grave threat to the church. Since the heresy was so acutely dangerous and the time period was so critical for the church in danger of being overwhelmed, John gently, lovingly, but with unquestionable apostolic authority, sent this letter to churches in his sphere of influence to stem this spreading plague of false doctrine.

Historical and Theological Themes:

In light of the circumstances of the epistle, the overall theme of 1 John is “a recall to the fundamentals of the faith” or “back to the basics of Christianity.” The apostle deals with certainties, not opinions or conjecture. He expresses the absolute character of Christianity in very simple terms; terms that are clear and unmistakable, leaving no doubt as to the fundamental nature of those truths. A warm, conversational, and above all, loving tone occurs, like a father having a tender, intimate conversation with his children.

1 John is also pastoral, written from the heart of a pastor who has concern for his people.

The book’s viewpoint, however, is not only pastoral, but polemical; not only positive, but also negative. John refutes the defectors from sound doctrine, exhibiting no tolerance for those who pervert divine truth. He pointedly identifies the ultimate source of all such defection from sound doctrine as demonic.

The constant repetition of 3 sub-themes reinforces the overall theme regarding faithfulness to the basics of Christianity: happiness (1:4), holiness (2:1), and security (5:13). By faithfulness to the basics, his readers will experience these 3 results continually in their lives. These 3 factors also reveal the key cycle of true spirituality in 1 John: a proper belief in Jesus produces obedience to His commands; obedience issues in love for God and fellow believers (such as 3:23,24). When these 3 (sound faith, obedience, love) operate in concert together, they result in happiness, holiness, and assurance. They constitute the litmus test, of a true Christian.

— Various excerpts and rephrasings from the John MacArthur Study Bible.