Christians Walk in the Light
The apostle John makes a direct connection between Jesus as God manifest in the flesh and the fact that Jesus died to take away the guilt of our sins. But there were some, John says, “who went out from us, but who were not of us” and who were doing everything in their power to deny this essential connection (1 John 2:19). As John has set out in the opening chapters of this epistle, those who are Christ’s will live in the blessedness of the knowledge that their sins are forgiven. Those who are Christ’s have the benefit of knowing that Jesus Christ is presently in heaven interceding for them as their advocate before the Father. And those who are Christ’s, will not be characterized by sin–something John describes as “practicing sin.” Why? Because God’s people walk in the light. Those who walk in the light will wage war upon their sins as well as strive to mirror that righteousness which is found in Christ. The behavior of God’s children stands in sharp contrast to those whom John will now characterize as children of the Devil, who practice “sinning.”
The Second Section of the Letter
We now make our way into the third chapter of John’s first epistle, which includes the second main section of this letter.[1] Throughout this portion of his epistle, John will repeat–for the sake of emphasis–a number of themes he’s already set out in chapter two. In 1 John 2:28-3:10, John once again addresses the importance of obeying the commandments of the Lord. As John will put it, Christians are people who are characterized by the “practice of righteousness” and not by the “practice of sin.” Then, in verses 11-18, John reminds his readers of the necessity of loving their brothers and sisters in Christ, while in verses 19-24, John speaks of the assurance of our salvation in light of our own sinful hearts. And then in the first six verses of chapter 4, John returns to the theme of discerning truth from error. Although in many ways this section of 1 John is a repetition of the first section–something which was often done in letters of this period– John now tweaks each of these points to emphasize their importance in light of the challenges then facing the churches to which John is writing.
Throughout our time in these epistles, we have seen that historical context is everything. If we don’t understand why John writes these letters as well as have knowledge of the errors he is refuting, we’ll make a mess of things–as many have done, especially with the section we are currently covering. The apostle John writes these three epistles at some point toward the end of the first century. While at many points in these epistles John alludes to his gospel–likely written a short time earlier–John is writing to both state and defend the doctrine that Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh. The incarnation of Christ–that Jesus is fully God and fully man–is the very foundation of the Christian faith. To deny the incarnation is to deny Christianity. To deny the incarnation is to embrace the spirit of antichrist.
The Reality and Importance of the Incarnation
The critical importance of understanding that Jesus is the word of life manifest in the flesh can be seen when John opens this epistle by making an emphatic truth claim grounded in John’s own encounter with Jesus earlier in his life. John had seen Jesus perform miracles with his own eyes. John had heard Jesus preach with his own ears. John had even touched Jesus with his own hands. Therefore, Jesus is a flesh and blood Savior, and Christianity is necessarily grounded in history. As B. B. Warfield once pointed out, our most important doctrines are also historical facts. Either Jesus was God in the flesh, or he wasn’t. Since John saw Jesus, heard Jesus and touched Jesus, John sees Jesus as the truth incarnate, as well as that light of the world who has come to cast out the darkness of sin and false teaching.
The reason John must state and defend this basic point of Christian theology is that in and around the city of Ephesus (where John was living as an elderly man) a form of early Gnosticism had appeared in which it was held that reality consisted of a dualism between spirit (good) and matter (evil). According to this primitive Gnosticism, God was pure spirit, but since matter was evil, it was supposedly impossible for God to take to himself a true human nature, since matter was intrinsically evil. This meant the incarnation of Jesus Christ was an impossibility. But how then do we account for physical appearances of Jesus throughout the gospels? Well, these proto-Gnostics were arguing that while Jesus was fully God he only appeared (or took the form) of a man. Jesus was fully God, but took human form as a phantom or apparition. This is known as the heresy of docetism, which John directly associates with the spirit of antichrist. As we saw last time, John warns the churches that many of these docetic antichrists had already come. In fact, says John, anyone who denies that Jesus is God in human flesh has denied both the Father and the Son. This is no small error with no small consequences.
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