Fellowship Baptist Church
6-28-20 Intro to 1 John
teachingnotes
All Scripture is from CSB (Christian Standard Bible) unless otherwise noted.
THE AUTHOR OF THIS WRITING
Of all the New Testament letters (not including the gospels), only 1, 2, 3 John & Hebrews have no author’s name attached to the writing in their salutations (2 & 3 John simply have “elder”).
Internal Evidence - what is found IN THE TEXT - is super similar in writing style and terms to the gospel we attribute to the apostle John.
External Evidence - Early Christians consistently ascribe the authorship of what we call the Gospel of John & 1 John, to the apostle John.
If this is the case, then we are about to read from one of the men who spent hours and hours with Jesus, hearing Him teach, watching Him heal, hearing Him pray, watching Him die, and seeing Him risen from the dead and ascend into the clouds.
If John the apostle is the author of Revelation, it is noteworthy that Revelation was sent to 7 churches in Asia Minor, including Ephesus.
False teaching was seeping into the church, and some who affirmed this false teaching had already abandoned the church (1 John 2:19).
1 John 2:19 They went out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. However, they went out so that it might be made clear that none of them belongs to us.
What was this false teaching? All these deceiving doctrines misidentified who Jesus was, either overemphasizing the HUMANITY of Jesus or overemphasizing the DEITY of Jesus.
Look how John comes out swinging against this false teaching that Jesus was just a man or some sort of ghost.
What is the word of life…the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us? This is Jesus. John had used the same idea to open up his gospel, writing “In the beginning was the word.” (Jn 1:1) Later John clarifies who “the Word” is.
John 1:14 The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
The word of life, the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us
is not, as Cerinthus claimed, just a man who was empowered by the spirit of Messiah. Jesus IS the Messiah - the eternal one - God the Son.
Neither was Jesus some sort of ghost like the Docetists claimed. John and the first followers of Jesus had heard, seen, & touched Jesus.
Had John come face to face with these false teachers he might have asked, “Were you every actually in the presence of Jesus? Because I WAS! Were you THERE when Jesus appeared to many - physically resurrected from the dead? Because I WAS!! I went to the tomb where His VERY REAL BODY had been buried. But on that Sunday morning, it wasn’t there anymore! And then…HE APPEARED. And He told us…
Jesus was no “ghost” or spirit who simply ‘seemed’ to have a physical body. Jesus had a real, resurrected body. * Side note: Jehovah’s Witness are taught that Jesus resurrected as a “spirit creature”
David Allen writes that in this short prologue “The ‘Son of Thunder,’ as Jesus once called him, summarizes God’s revelation of Christ and in so doing takes on the world of philosophy in his day and wrestles it to the mat.”
Jesus was fully human, but He was also fully divine.
WHY he’s writing WHAT he’s writing:
In all of John’s writings (1,2,3 John & his Gospel), this term - fellowship - is only found 4 times - all in 1 John (1:3, 6, 7).
This Greek term is koinonia, meaning a spiritual partnership between those who have the same Spirit living in them.
John MacArthur says fellowship “is the mutual life and love of those who are one in spirit (1 Cor. 6:17; cf. Eph. 5:30–32).”
Those who have fellowship with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ are part of the same spiritual family.
John is writing this letter as 1) some are falling to false teaching and 2) others don’t love their brothers. John wants them to return to their spiritual partnership, which brings fulfillment/completion and great joy.
Who are the most joyful believers you know?
