Introducing The Book Of 1 John. EXPOSITION ON THE BOOK OF 1 JOHN study #1 (Various Scriptures)

Here we are again beginning another book of the Bible. With ended our last study with just a brief little letter we studied on in Jude and now we will now dive into a letter that we will spend several months on. I begin 1 John as I do most of the letters that I have exposited through in Bible. That will be with a look at the author and the reason for the writing. Most people place the timing of this writing between A.D. 85-95. There is nothing in this letter that gives to us any data concerning the timing or location that the letter was written.

We really have no Biblical proof of most of what we seek to understand in this introduction of this letter so we will look at some tradition to gather our information concerning these questions of who it is that wrote this letter and to whom it is written. With this brief opening on this study let’s dive into what we are going to look at in this letter.

1.Who wrote 1 John?
Unlike most New Testament books, 1 John does not open up with a name attached to this letter. In fact nowhere in this letter do we have the authors name, location or status. There is no Biblical text that says that this letter is written by John the Apostle but tradition early on places John the Apostle, the brother of James, the son of Zebedee as the author.

Not only does tradition give us that assumption but I believe within the opening of this letter we see something very important concerning the author. He says in 1 John 1:1-2 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life— ² and the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us.

This writer was no doubt a close companion and eye witness to the life of Jesus. The author expresses not only visible proof of what he saw but the fact that he touched with his hands the Lord Jesus. This was not someone that just came across Jesus but someone that was intimately involved in the ministry of Jesus. Peter spoke in a very similar way when he said in 2 Peter 1:16-18 that says For we did not make known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, following cleverly devised myths, but being eyewitnesses of His majesty. ¹⁷ For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory, “This is My beloved Son with whom I am well-pleased”— ¹⁸ and we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.

So along with tradition I do hold to the fact that John the Apostle is this eye witness that was closely involved in the Lord Jesus’ ministry.

We know that John began to follow Christ early on in the public ministry of Jesus. In fact many people believe John to be one of the two disciples of John the Baptist in John 1 where John the Baptist tells them that Jesus is the Lamb of God and they begin to follow Jesus. It says in John 1:35-37 On the next day, John again was standing with two of his disciples, ³⁶ and he looked at Jesus as He walked, and *said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” ³⁷ And the two disciples heard him speak and followed Jesus.

We can’t be dogmatic about this being the Apostle John in John 1 but we do know for sure that John, his brother James, Peter and Andrew were the first of the 12 Apostles to be called by Jesus. We see this in Matthew 4:18-22 that says Now as Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon who was called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. ¹⁹ And He *said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” ²⁰ And immediately they left their nets and followed Him. ²¹ And going on from there He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and He called them. ²² And immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed Him.

With this information we know that John not only was one of the 12 but was also considered to be in the inner circle of that group of 12. He would be on the mountain with Jesus, Peter and James when Jesus was transfigured, he would be called to go with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, he would be called to go into Jairus’ house when Jesus raised Jairus’ daughter back to life and he would be one of the first disciples to go to the empty tomb after the resurrection of Jesus.

All of this shows to us a closeness to Jesus, a dedication to teach the Word of God properly and the care of the people that he ministered to in his lifetime. There is so much we could speak on concerning John, like his writing of the 4th Gospel, the other two letters we know as 2 and 3 John, then the writing of Revelation, his exile, his persecution and death. But for now we will withhold from speaking of those things and look at our next point for this study.

2.Who is 1 John written to?
Just like our first point we do not have a single text that points to the recipients of this letter. But what we do know is that John was very close to his audience. Most likely the leader of this group of Christians because 7 times throughout this letter he calls them “little children“. You can find those references in 1 John 2:1, 12, 28; 3:7, 18; 4:4; 5:21.

Also 6 times he calls them “beloved” which is a word of affection and love to his readers. Those can be found in 1 John 2:7; 3:2,21; 4:1,7,11.

Some commentators suggest that this familiarity with his audience is the reason why he does not give his name in this letter. They knew who it was that was writing to them for the purpose of helping them to recognize false teachers and to know how they were to live in spite of the opposition that the false teachers were bringing into the congregation. I think it is important to notice that many of the epistles from the New Testament were written to churches warning them of false teachers and leading their audiences to understand the true Gospel more. Whether it was Paul, Peter James or John this was the focus of these letters and we must take this as something that we too must focus on.

John really sums up his writing in showing that not only is his audience close people to him and children in the faith but they are the redeemed of God. He says in 1 John 5:13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.

In this verse we see the recipients are those that believe in the name of the Son of God which is not a reference to some intellectual knowledge of who Jesus is but an intimate relationship with Jesus. This means his audience are those that know that Jesus is the Lord and Savior and they are His slaves.

He also gives a reason for this letter in the second part of this verse that we will expound on a little further in our next point. He says that this letter was written to them so that you may know that you have eternal life.

This brings us to the place where we will look at the purpose of the writing. This will be very evident within this letter as we will see in our last point for this study.

3.What is the purpose of 1 John?
It is always good to look at the overall reason that the writer writes what they write. If we just blindly look at this writing we may catch some challenging words, we may also find some of the things said to be offensive or out of place so we look at the reason for why this letter was written. In some books of the Bible it may be a little more difficult than others to know the true motivation of the original author but 1 John does not give to us any real challenge.

We finished the last point with a brief look at 1 John 5:13 that says These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.

This really serves as a summation to the entire letter. He writes to these beloved people that he refers to as his little children to encourage them in knowing that they truly have eternal life. So many false teachings had already crept into the church which made many doubt what they heard and knew at first. The 1st century believers did not have the Bible as we do to line up what they heard from others against Scripture. They depended on memory or letters like this one to give to them truths. Of course having these truth come from Apostles and those connected with the Apostles was highly important.

John gives us some other things within this letter that falls under this category of encouragement in the faith that we will notice as we exposit through this letter. We see these throughout the letter as we will see here.

1 John 1:4 says And these things we are writing, so that our joy may be made complete.

1 John 2:1-2 says My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; ² and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.

1 John 2:12-14 says I am writing to you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven you for His name’s sake. ¹³ I am writing to you, fathers, because you have known Him who has been from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I have written to you, children, because you have known the Father. ¹⁴ I have written to you, fathers, because you have known Him who has been from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

1 John 2:21 says I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth.

1 John 2:26-27 says These things I have written to you about those who are trying to deceive you. ²⁷ And as for you, the anointing whom you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you. But as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as He has taught you, abide in Him.

All of these verses show to us that John is writing to bring us joy that only comes from God, to help us in not sinning, in knowing we have Jesus as our Advocate, in knowing that Jesus is our propitiation for our sins, in knowing the truth about God through His Word and in how to know that what we know is true by His anointing or in other words His Spirit that lives within us.

Much of what we will see is that John along with all the writers of the New Testament had the challenge of making sure that their audience knew that what they had been teaching was truly from God. Many false teachers were spreading a false Gospel so they wrote often to their people about the truth and the error that was surrounding them. This is what we will point out often as we will look at the contents of this letter starting in our next study.