First John-Introduction-First John: The Opposition Described in First John
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Thursday February 23, 2017
First John: The Opposition Described in First John
Lesson # 12
The warnings contained in this epistle to avoid the false teaching that was propagated in Asia regarding the person of Christ are designed to aid the recipients of the letter in fulfilling the purpose of the letter, which is maintaining fellowship with God.
They are designed to prevent the recipients from being seduced by the lusts of the cosmic system of Satan (2:15), the present antichrists (2:18), false spirits and false prophets (3:22; 4:1-2).
The chief tenants of these false teachers can be deduced from the nature of these warnings.
They denied the following:
(1) that Jesus Christ was the Son of God (2:22, 5:1, 5)
(2) that the Son of God had become a human being (4:2)
(3) the authority to Jesus’ commands (2:4)
(4) their own possession of an old sin nature (1:8, 10)
(5) salvation through the work of Christ on the Cross (2:2)
(6) the mandate for believers to love one another (2:9),
(7) righteous conduct through obedience to the command to love one another as a requirement of fellowship with God (1:6; 2:29; 3:6, 10)
(8) the responsibility to live as Jesus had lived during His First Advent (2:4, 6; 3:7)
(9) the nature of the company of believers as a community of fellowship with the Father, the Son and with one another (1:3, 2:11)
(10) the authority of John as the proclaimer of the message that had originated from God in eternity past (1:5)
(11) that the members of the church who did not follow the false teachers were in the truth (2:20-21).
This false teaching the apostle John was seeking to protect the recipients of this epistle from, were propagating an “incipient” form of Gnosticism since it was not a full blown threat to orthodox Christianity in the mid to late part of the first century as it did become in the middle of the second century.
Gnosticism is a system of false teachings that existed during the early centuries of Christianity.
Its name came from the Greek word for knowledge, gnosis.
The Gnostics believed that knowledge was the way to salvation.
For this reason, several writers of the New Testament condemned this incipient form of Gnosticism as false and heretical.
Gnosticism was the product of the combination of Greek philosophy and Christianity.
Its central teaching was that spirit is entirely good and matter is entirely evil.
From this unbiblical dualism emerged five important errors:
(1) Man’s body, which is matter, is therefore evil.
It is to be contrasted with God, who is spirit and therefore good.
(2) Salvation is the escape from the body, achieved not by faith alone in Christ alone but by special knowledge (the Greek word gnosis, “knowledge,” hence Gnosticism).
(3) Christ’s true humanity was denied in two ways:
(a) Some taught that Christ only appeared to have a body, a view called Docetism, from the Greek dokeo, “to seem,” and
(b) Others taught that the deity of Christ joined the man Jesus at His baptism and left Him before He died, a view called Cerinthianism, after its most prominent spokesman, Cerinthus.
This view is the background of much of 1 John (see 1:1; 2:22; 4:2-3).
(4) Since the body was considered evil, it was to be treated harshly.
This ascetic form of Gnosticism is the background of part of the letter to the Colossians (2:21-23).
(5) Paradoxically, this dualism also led to licentiousness.
The reasoning was that, since matter-and not the breaking of God’s law (1 Jn. 3:4)-was considered evil, breaking this law is of no moral consequence.
Our knowledge of Gnosticism comes from several sources.
First, there are the Gnostic texts, which are known as the New Testament Apocrypha.
These texts are not recognized as Scripture because they contain teachings, which differ from those in the Bible.
Then, there are the refutations of the Gnostics by the early church fathers.
Some of the more important ones are Irenaeus, Against Heresies; Hippolytus, Refutations of All Heresies; Epiphanius, Panarion; and Tertullian, Against Marcion.
There were at least two types of Gnostic thought:
(1) Iranian: This branch developed in Mesopotamia and reflects a horizontal dualism associated with Zorastrian worship and is epitomized in its later Gnostic form of Manichaeism.
In this pattern light and darkness, the two primal principles or deities, are locked in a decisive struggle.
(2) Syrian: This type arose in the area of Syria, Palestine and Egypt and reflects a much more complex vertical dualism.
In this system the ultimate principle is good and the task of the Gnostic thinkers is to explain how evil emerged from the singular principle of good.
The method employed is the identification of some deficiency or error in the good.
The Gnostics accepted the Greek idea of a radical dualism between God (spirit) and the world (matter).
According to their worldview, the created order was evil, inferior, and opposed to the good.
God may have created the first order, but each successive order was the work of anti-gods, archons, or a demiurge (a subordinate deity).
The Gnostics believed that the earth is surrounded by a number of cosmic spheres (usually seven), which separate man from God.
These spheres are ruled by archons (spiritual principalities and powers) that guard their spheres by barring the souls who are seeking to ascend from the realm of darkness and captivity, which is below to the realm of light, which is above.
Another source about Gnosticism is the New Testament itself.
The writers of the New Testament condemn many Gnostic teachings.
Paul emphasized a wisdom and knowledge that comes from God and does not concern itself with idle speculations, fables, and moral laxity (Col 2:8-23; 1 Tim 1:4; 2 Tim 2:16-19; Titus 1:10-16).
John, both in his gospel and in the epistles, countered heretical teaching, which, in a broad sense, can be considered Gnostic.
The Gnosticism addressed in the New Testament was an early form of the heresy, which scholars call an “incipient” form of Gnosticism.
In the first century, it was not the intricately developed system of the second and third centuries.
In addition to that seen in Colossians and in John’s letters, acquaintance with early Gnosticism is reflected in 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, 2 Peter and perhaps 1 Corinthians.