Light and Darkness

1 John 1

First John and Hebrews are the only 2 new testament epistles that do not identify their authors. But ever since the days of the early church John has been identified as the author of this epistle by early church fathers.

Clement of Rome in his first and second letters yo the Corinthians, the Didache, the epistle of Barnabus, the epistle to Diognetus, Justin Martyr’s Apologies and Dialogue with Trypho, Polycarp’s epistle to the Philippians and other writings of Polycarp all name John as the writer.

Although John does not name himself there is very strong evidence to support the testimony of the early church that John did indeed write this letter.

From the grammatical styles,to the stark contrasts we see between light and darkness, life and death, love and hate, truth and lies,love of the father and love of the world; children of God and children of the devil; being in the world but not of the world;to kmow God and to not know God we can see the either/or narratives with no third way present. And the grammatical styles are Very similar. Also the Gospel of John and the epistles contain many words and phrases structured in a way that are the same and are found nowhere else in the New Testament. And the same theologial themes pervade both books.

The author of first John also claims to have been an eyewitness to the events in Jesus life. and that means the writer had to have been someone who walked closely with Jesus during his ministry. Of which, we know there were only 12. and John was one of the 12.

John Macarthur in his commentary on 1 John writes,

There is nothing tentative or apologetic about what he writes. He does not hesitate to call certain classes of people liars, deceivers or antichrists. He supplies tests by which everybody can be sorted into one or other of two categories. According to their relation to his tests they either have God or have not, know God or do not, have been born of God or have not, have life or abide in death, walk in the darkness or in the light, are children of God or children of the devil. This dogmatic authority of the writer is seen particularly in his statements and in his commands.

And he clearly expected his readers to obey his commands. Only an Apostle, known and respected by those whom he addressed could have written such an authoritative letter and not given his name.

But although there is this much and more evidence that John is the author, there are still some that perversely insist on attributing it to someone else despite the unanimous testimony of the early church.

Along with James and Peter, John was part of the inner circle of the 12.

After the ascension , John became one of the leaders of the Jerusalem as attested to in Acts 1,3,4,8 and Galatians 2. According to tradition John spent the later decades of his life overseeing the church at Ephesus and the surrounding region. And finally at the end of his life he was exiled by emperor Trajan to the island of Patmos where he recieved the visions described in Revelation.

Despite his reputation as the Apostle of Love,John had a fiery temperament. Jesus named John and James “Sons of Thunder”{Mark 3:17}. One example of this temperament is given in the book of Luke when James and John became so indignant when a samaritan village refused to receive Jesus and the disciples, and overestimating their apostolic power they eagerly asked the Lord,”Do you want us to call down fire from heaven and consume them? and though he mellowed toward people over time he never lost his passion for the truth.

Verse 1-4

John’s Gospel starts with In the Beginning. In this instance though hes not talking about the beginning of creation as he was alluding Genesis in the 1st sentence of his Gospel. In the Beginning in this case is referring to the beginning of Jesus earthly ministry when he was gathering the men who would be his disciples.So now as he goes on through verse 4 he is making a point. That having been with Christ during the time of Christs ministry he is assuring his readers that he was there. He was one who bore witness to the teachings of Jesus. He was one who witnessed most of the miracles thats are recorded in scripture. The use of the word WE is to show that not just him alone but, there were 11 others who followed Christ and learned directly from him.

From the very beginning of the church which the apostles founded, there were false teachers who came proclaiming a different gospel than what was preached by Peter,John James, the other 8 and Paul. Already lies were being told in order to sway people away from the teachings of the church. The Gnostics were among the very first of these false teachers. The greek word for knowledge is gnosis and these pretenders claimed special knowledge saying things like Jesus didn’t really die and come back and that his body had been stolen from the grave.

So in the very beginning of this epistle which was written to the churches at Ephesus John was telling the people” Do not listen to these peop;e! They were not there. i saw with my own eyes and i know what happened. The Apostle Paul was also a witness to many things in Christ. Foremost when he appeared to Paul and the roman officers on the Damascus road. Paul did not receive his knowledge of Christ and all things related to the gospel from men but from Christ himself and he tells us as much in Galatians 1:11–12 “For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.”

So Paul too was as much a witness as any other apostle.

Back on January 20 th 2021 there was the incident at the US capitol where some over zealous folk got worked up by agitators in the crowd and went past the barricades police had put up to keep people out. Now this isnt a perfect illustration but im going to use it anyway. Its not perfect because what the folks who pushed past the barricades and entered the capitol building did was illegal.

But thats where the bad part ended.

After the situation died down there were all kinds of people who were not there. Saying that the folks who entered the capitol were violent. Saying they attacked police officers and destroyed things inside the building. Listen to us they said, we know what happened. we have the truth!

They could not have been more wrong. People who were there that didn’t have an agenda said none of that stuff actually happened inside the building. We were there. We know what the truth is. And the false narrative pushed by those with an agenda is wrong!.

This is pretty much where John is coming from. He’s telling the church that what the Judaizers and Gnostics are trying to teach is a lie!

Some believed the false teachers just as some believed the lie that was being pushed about the capitol.

John was more like many of us than we realize many times.

Sadly now we live in an era where anyone who speaks with certainty about almost anything is looked upon with suspicions. People have been taught that there are no absolutes and this leads to falling prey to and giving merit to any almost any kind of ridiculous viewpoint. And you know this just by filling out forms at a doctors office. i have a routine colonoscopy coming up in August and the paperwork that i filled out has two questions on it that medical personnel should know better than to even entertain. those questions were what gender were you assigned at birth, and what is your gender identity.

Through the study i’ve done for today i feel like ive gotten to know John better that i ever did before. The more we study the the apostles the more we can see that they were regular people just like us. Remember John and James were called sons of thunder by Jesus. John wanted to call down fire from heaven to consume those who simply wouldn’t receive Jesus and the disciples. Who among us hasn’t had moments of anger and frustration similar to that?

The gospel is unchanging. From the beginning of its proclamation its been the same. those who preach the true gospel have always cammanded faith and repentance. Declared the kindom of God is at hand, announced the merciful and gracious message of divine forgiveness. and urged sinners to be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. When John wrote this epistle Gnosticism was already threatening the true message of Christ. But God will build his church.

With this opening statement John establishes that the Word of Life is unchanging and unalterable.

Then once we get to verse 5 John shifts into an affirmation of sins reality. Verses 1-4 Show us the first test of true fellowship with the church and that is , believing the word as it was given by those who were the ttrue witnesses to christ. The second test is believing on the importance of acknowledging our sin and turning away from our sin. Those who deny the reality of and destructiveness of sin demonstrate a lack of genuine salvation.

i know i am disheartened when i go and watch different preachers and churches who post their Sunday services online and while sin may not be a large part of the message week in and week out, there are many who ive never seen either mention sin or if they do its just in a fleeting manner. I’m making this point about sin because so many times i see pastors and preachers that only want to preach the happy,touchy ,feely side of the truth. But we are called even commanded to preach teach and learn the full counsel of the truth. That includes God’s justice and wrath.

When John says ‘we’ have heard from him in verse 5 he is referring to himself and the other Apostles. Those who were specifically called by Jesus himself and given authority by Jesus himself to preach, teach and on occasions when it was needed at the establishment of of the church to perform works such as speaking tongues and healing. And let me make this point. Those gifts that were given to the Apostlesin the early days of the church are no longer given to men. There are no modern day apostles.

Those gifts were given at a time to certain men for a definitive reason. And that was to demonstrate the power and authority given by God at a time when there was no written word for men to study and become convicted by.

Today those gifts are no longer needed to bring men to the knowledge and belief in the truth.

We now have the written word for that. And this is Not to say that God does not perform miraculous healings. He does. But it does not happen by men but directly from God who is always watching and working all things to his own glory.

Can you imagine, the way the world loves to make idols of men and women who can sing really well ,or dance or play a sport really well that if one could truly perform miracles how the world would give the glory to that person rather than God? That would be totally contrary to Soli Deo Gloria or Glory to God alone.

God is light. John is reaffirming a theme that runs throughout the entirety of the the bible. That God is light and in him there is no darkness.

Intellectually light also refers to biblical truth while darkness refers to error of falsehood.

Morally, light refers to holiness or purity while darkness refersto sin or wrongdoing.

There is a great summation of this point in Romans 13:11–14 “Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”

In our current cultural context the heretics will try to make you believe that to love someone means to give them affirmation in almost anything they do. That by being tolerant of any of of their lifestyle choices that we are loving them. This is a lie. Light cannot love darkness. Truth cannot love a lie.

These heretics claim they are the ones who are truly enlightened because they do not recognise or acknowledge sin. You cant be enlightened by darkness.

And finally If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves. If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Christ came down to walk among men and shed his blood on a tree on that fateful day. he did this so that by the will of the father he would pay the price for the sins of all who believe on him. We must confess our sins and turn away from them not making sin a habit. We must be strident and watchful. Recognizing our sin< greiving over our sin. Crying out to God in genuine repentance to forgive us our sins. And then living as one chosen by God to be adopted into his family and to share in the inheritance of his glorious son, our savior, our Lord, and our brother Jesus Christ the righteous.

Let me leave you with this final warning from John in verse 10. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. Let us not think of ourselves more highly than we should. But let us acknowledge and confess our sins so that we may abide in him.