Sermon Tone Analysis

The Beginning of Life

John’s First Epistle is like a family photograph album.

It describes those who are members of the family of God.

Just as children resemble their parents, so God’s children have His likeness too.

This Letter describes the similarities.

When a person becomes a child of God, he receives the life of God—eternal life.

All who have this life show it in very definite ways.

For instance, they acknowledge Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, they love God, they love the children of God, they obey His commandments, and they do not go on sinning.

These, then, are some of the hallmarks of eternal life.

John wrote this Epistle so that all who have these family traits may know that they have eternal life ().

Doubtless they knew each other well.

Another remarkable thing about this lovely book is that extremely deep spiritual truths are expressed in such short, simple sentences, with a vocabulary to match.

Who says that deep truth must be put into complex sentences?

We fear that what some people foolishly praise as “deep” preaching or writing is merely muddy or unclear.

[1] MacDonald, W. (1995).

Believer’s Bible Commentary: Old and New Testaments.

(A.

Farstad, Ed.) (p.

2307).

Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

Background and Theme

At the time John was writing, a false sect had arisen which became known as Gnosticism (Gk.

gnōsis = knowledge).

These Gnostics professed to be Christians but claimed to have additional knowledge, superior to what the apostles taught.

They claimed that a person could not be completely fulfilled until he had been initiated into their deeper “truths.”

Some taught that matter was evil, and that therefore the Man Jesus could not be God.

They made a distinction between Jesus and the Christ.

“The Christ” was a divine emanation which came upon Jesus at His baptism and left before His death, perhaps in the Garden of Gethsemane.

According to them, Jesus did die, but the Christ did not die.

They insisted, as Michael Green put it, that “the heavenly Christ was too holy and spiritual to be soiled by permanent contact with human flesh.”

In short, they denied the Incarnation, that Jesus is the Christ, and that Jesus Christ is both God and Man.

John realized that these people were not true Christians, and so he warned his readers against them by showing that the Gnostics did not have the marks of true children of God.

According to John, a person either is a child of God or he is not; there is no in-between ground.

That is why this Epistle is filled with such extreme opposites as light and darkness, love and hatred, truth and lie, death and life, God and the devil.

At the same time, it should be noted that the apostle likes to describe people by their habitual behavior.

In discerning between Christians and non-Christians, for instance, he does not base his conclusion on a single act of sin, but rather on what characterizes the person.

Even a broken clock tells the correct time twice in every twenty-four hours!

But a good clock tells the correct time regularly.

So the general, day-by-day behavior of a Christian is holy and righteous, and by this he is known as a child of God.

John uses the word “know” a great many times.

The Gnostics professed to know the truth, but John here sets forth the true facts of the Christian Faith, which can be known with certainty.

He describes God as light (1:5); love (4:8, 16); truth (5:6); and life (5:20).

This does not mean that God is not a Person, but rather that God is the source of these four blessings.

John also speaks of God as righteous (2:29; 3:7); pure (3:3); and sinless (3:5).

While John does use simple words, the thoughts he expresses are often deep, and sometimes difficult to understand.

As we study this book, therefore, we should pray that the Lord will help us to grasp the meaning of His word and to obey the truth as He reveals it to us.

Background and Theme

These Gnostics professed to be Christians but claimed to have additional knowledge, superior to what the apostles taught.

They claimed that a person could not be completely fulfilled until he had been initiated into their deeper “truths.”

Some taught that matter was evil, and that therefore the Man Jesus could not be God.

They made a distinction between Jesus and the Christ.

“The Christ” was a divine emanation which came upon Jesus at His baptism and left before His death, perhaps in the Garden of Gethsemane.

According to them, Jesus did die, but the Christ did not die.

They insisted, as Michael Green put it, that “the heavenly Christ was too holy and spiritual to be soiled by permanent contact with human flesh.”

According to John, a person either is a child of God or he is not; there is no in-between ground.

That is why this Epistle is filled with such extreme opposites as light and darkness, love and hatred, truth and lie, death and life, God and the devil.

At the same time, it should be noted that the apostle likes to describe people by their habitual behavior.

In discerning between Christians and non-Christians, for instance, he does not base his conclusion on a single act of sin, but rather on what characterizes the person.

Even a broken clock tells the correct time twice in every twenty-four hours!

But a good clock tells the correct time regularly.

So the general, day-by-day behavior of a Christian is holy and righteous, and by this he is known as a child of God.

While John does use simple words, the thoughts he expresses are often deep, and sometimes difficult to understand.

As we study this book, therefore, we should pray that the Lord will help us to grasp the meaning of His word and to obey the truth as He reveals it to us.[1]

[1] MacDonald, W. (1995).

Believer’s Bible Commentary: Old and New Testaments.

(A.

Farstad, Ed.) (p.

2308).

Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

I Seen Evidence (1:1)

a.

Some Tangible Evidence (1:1)

None knew better than John that Jesus of Nazareth, the living Christ of God, was the eternal, uncreated, self-existing Word made flesh.

He was certainly no phantom.

John had already put it all in writing in his gospel.

Indeed, the first three verses of this letter appear to be a capsule summary of that gospel.

But a basic difference can be found between John’s gospel and his first epistle: the major emphasis in the gospel is on the essential deity of the Lord Jesus Christ; the major emphasis in the epistle is on the essential humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He was God.

He was man.

He was both!

Just so with the Lord Jesus.

His deity and His humanity were perfectly proportioned and balanced.

He was “God manifest in flesh” to such an extent that we can tell neither where His deity ends and His humanity begins nor where His humanity ends and His deity begins.

As we trace His life on earth, as recorded in the four Gospels, we never note him acting now as God and now as man.

He always acted as God and He always acted as man.

See Him, for instance, as He sat by Jacob’s well near Samaria.

He was “wearied with his journey” (), revealing His humanity.

Along came a woman from the nearby town.

He asked for a drink because He was thirsty—further evidence of His humanity.

But within a few minutes He was telling this woman, a complete stranger, all about her guilty past.

Such supernatural insight is evidence of His deity.

Where does the one end and the other begin?

I was there saw it!

See Him in Simon Peter’s boat.

Again He was tired and went to sleep ()—evidence of His humanity.

Shortly afterward a storm threatened to sink the vessel, but He commanded the howling winds and the heaving waves to be still, producing a total, absolute calm—proof of His deity.

Where does the one end and the other begin?

See Him, next, in the stricken Bethany home.

His friend Lazarus had just died and been laid to rest.

His grieving sisters were inconsolable.

John tells us that “Jesus wept” () and that He “groaned in the spirit and was troubled”—evidence of His humanity.

A few minutes later He commanded dead Lazarus to come back to life—evidence of His deity.