THE FIRST LETTER OF SAINT JOHN
Holy Heavenly Father,
Thank You for the testimony of the writers of Sacred
Scripture who allowed God the Holy Spirit to guide them in writing down the
words You wanted to give Your people to increase and sustain their faith. The
purpose of St. John's first letter is as meaningful to Christians today as it
was when he wrote it to combat false teachings about Jesus and to deepen the
spiritual awareness of the Christian community. Please send Your Holy Spirit
to guide us in our study. We pray in the name of God the Father, the Son, and
the Holy Spirit. Amen.
+ + +
And therefore
while various points are taught in the different books of the Gospels, there is
no difference to the faith of believers; for in all of them, all things are spoken
under the one guiding Spirit, whether concerning the nativity, the passion, the
resurrection, conversation with His disciples, or His two advents, the first of
which was in the humiliation of rejection and is already past, and the second in
the glory of royal power, which is yet to be. It is no wonder, then, that John
constantly returns to these things even in his Epistles, saying of himself,
"What we have seen with our eyes and have heard with our ears and what our
hands have touched, these things have we written to you."
The Muratorian Fragment, c. AD 155 (quoting from 1 John 1:1 and 3 in the last line)
The blessed
Apostle John wrote this letter about the perfection of faith and charity, praising
the faithfulness of those who were persevering in the unity of the Church.
St. Bede the Venerable, Commentary on the First Letter of St. John
Introduction
The Church traditionally attributes the Three Letters of St. John to John son of Zebedee, one of Jesus' Twelve Apostles and the brother of the Apostle James Zebedee. From when Jesus sent Peter and John to prepare the room for the Passover meal of the Last Supper (Lk 22:7-8), the two Apostles were continually together. Most scholars, ancient and modern, believe that John was "the disciple Jesus loved" who reclined at Jesus' side at the Last Supper (Jn 13:23-25), "the beloved disciple" at the Cross (Jn 19:26-27), and "the other disciple" who was the first to reach Jesus' empty tomb with Peter (Jn 20:310). In the Book of Acts, John is with Peter preaching in the Temple after the miracle at Pentecost (Acts 3:1, 11), and he accompanied Peter to Samaria to lay hands upon new converts to receive the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:14-17). St. Paul calls John one of the "pillars" of the Jerusalem church, along with Peter and James, the first Christian Bishop of Jerusalem (Gal 2:9).
| Matthew 10:2-4 | Mark 3:16-19 | Luke 6:14-16 | Acts 1:13 |
|
Simon-Peter Andrew James Zebedee John Zebedee Philip Bartholomew Thomas Matthew James of Alphaeus Thaddaeus Simon the Canaanite Judas Iscariot |
Simon-Peter James Zebedee John Zebedee Andrew Philip Bartholomew Matthew Thomas James of Alphaeus Thaddaeus Simon the Canaanite Judas Iscariot |
Simon-Peter Andrew James Zebedee John Zebedee Philip Bartholomew Matthew Thomas James of Alphaeus Simon the Zealot Judas of James Judas Iscariot |
Simon Peter John Zebedee James Zebedee Andrew Philip Thomas Bartholomew Matthew James of Alphaeus Simon the Zealot Judas of James |
There are similarities and differences in the four lists. Each list begins with Simon-Peter, and the three Gospel lists end with Judas Iscariot. Judas Iscariot was already dead by the time of the writing of Acts of Apostles. Each list divides the names into four groups of four except for the list in Acts. Peter, his brother Andrew, James and John Zebedee (the four fisherman in business together) are always in the first group but not always in that order. Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, and Matthew are in the second group in all four lists. In all four lists, Philip heads the second grouping of names and James of (probably son of) Alphaeus begins the third.
Matthew and Mark have the name Thaddaeus while Luke and Acts (written by Luke) has Judas of James. Some Biblical scholars suggest Judas may have been his original name and it was changed to Thaddaeus, meaning "warm-hearted," to avoid the stigma attached to the name of the traitor, Judas Iscariot. The names Simon the Canaanite (in Matthew and Mark) and Simon the Zealot (in Luke and Acts) represent the same man. "The Canaanite" is a transliteration which represents an Aramaic word meaning "zealot" or "revolutionary."
Eventually, St. John Zebedee left Jerusalem with the other Apostles to fulfill Jesus' command to carry the Gospel to the "ends of the earth" (Mt 28:19-20). According to tradition, he became the Bishop of Ephesus in Asia Minor and the other churches in the Roman province of Asia mentioned in Revelation Chapters 2-3. It was at Ephesus that early Church historians record John wrote the Fourth Gospel and the three Letters. When organized Roman persecution against Christians began in A.D. 64, the Roman authorities arrested John. They imprisoned him on the island of Patmos, where, according to the testimony of the early Church Fathers, he wrote the Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ to His Servant John.
Most Biblical scholars date John's Gospel and the three letters to the last part of the first century. However, the Fourth Gospel and none of the letters mention the period of intense Christian persecution begun by Roman Emperor Nero in A.D. 64. They also do not mention the Jews' revolt against the Romans that started in A.D. 66 or the fulfillment of Jesus' prophecies concerning those events. The Romans sent four legions to crush the rebellious Jews. They destroyed Jerusalem, the Temple, and enslaved over ninety-seven thousands of the survivors while the number that perished in the siege was eleven hundred thousand in A.D. 70 (Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 6.9.3). For the Jews of the Sinai Covenant, it was the end of the world they knew. Jesus predicted those events before His crucifixion and Resurrection during His last week in Jerusalem (Mt 23:33-24:25; Mk 13:1-23; Lk 19:41-44; 21:5-24). That the Fourth Gospel and John's three Letters do not mention the persecution of Christians by the Romans nor the fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple suggest John wrote his Gospel and the Letters before those significant events took place.
In the First Letter, like his Gospel, St. John never names himself as the writer, submerging his identity in his work. Perhaps this was because John did not want to take credit for what he knew were works inspired by the Holy Spirit. The similarities in the letters and the Fourth Gospel substantiate the testimony of many of the early Church Fathers that John was the inspired writer. St. Clement of Alexandria (150-214) wrote a commentary on the First Letter of John (only fragments survive) and frequently quoted it in his other works, giving credit to the Apostle John Zebedee (c.f., Stromata 2.15, 66; 3.4, 32; 5.44; 6.45). St. Polycarp Bishop of Smyrna (69-155), a disciple of St. John, identified John as the writer of the Fourth Gospel and the First Letter, and St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons (135-202), a disciple of Polycarp who grew up in Bishop Polycarp's Smyrna church (one of the seven churches in Revelation), quoted from New Testament texts in his book, Against Heresies, including a series of quotations from the Fourth Gospel and 1 John (e.g., 1 Jn 2:18, 19, 21; 4:1-3, 5). Other early Church Fathers who identified John as the inspired writer were Origen (185-254), head of the School of Catechesis at Alexandria, Egypt, and Tertullian, a Roman lawyer turned Catholic priest and apologist (d. 222). They wrote that St. John the Apostle wrote the Fourth Gospel and the First Letter of John (c.f., Eusebius, Church History, 6.25.8-10). All the earliest lists of the Holy Spirit inspired New Testament books named the Apostle John Zebedee as the author of the First Letter of John, including the famous Muratorian Fragment composed in Rome c. 155. See the quote from 1 John in that document in the first part of the lesson.
The three letters of St. John share many distinctively Johannine phrases and vocabulary with frequent contrasts of opposites as well as expressions and themes common to the Letters, John's Gospel, and the Book of Revelation. For example, John is the only New Testament writer to refer to Jesus as God's "only begotten Son" (1 Jn 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18; and 1 Jn 4:9). Like the Second Letter of St. Peter and the Letter of St. Jude, the Letter of First John has a negative and positive emphasis. It refutes false doctrines and encourages Christians to walk in the Light of Christ and the knowledge of Truth. The contrasting theme to avoid false teachers who deny the reality of the Incarnation by saying that Jesus only appeared to have a human body. John affirms and defends that Jesus was not only fully God the Son, but He took to Himself a complete and genuine human nature (1 Jn 4:2-30). A major theme is love and fellowship with God with the assurance of the indwelling of God through an abiding relationship with Him. The word love appears 46 times in 105 verses.
There are four main theological themes in 1 John:
| Themes in the First Letter of John | Themes in the Gospel According to John |
|
The theme of "the Word": 1:1-2 ~ What was from the beginning ... concerns the Word of life, for the life was made visible ... |
The theme of "the Word": 1:1 ~ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. 1:9 ~The Word was the real light |
|
The theme of "Light": 1:5, 7 ~ God is light ... 7 But if we walk in the light as he is in the light... 2:8-10 ~ The true light is already shining. Whoever says he is in the light, yet hates his brother, is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother remains in the light... |
The theme of "Light": 1:4, 5, 7, 9 ~ 4 and this life was the light of men; 5 and light shines in the darkness, and darkness could not overpower it... 7 He came as a witness, to bear witness to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 3:19 ~ And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world... 8:12 and 9:5 ~ I am the light of the world... 12:46 ~ I came into the world as light, so that everyone who believes in me might not remain in darkness. |
|
The theme contrasting the "Light" of Christ with the "Darkness" of sin: 1:5 ~ in him there is no darkness at all. 2:10-11 ~ Whoever loves his brother remains in the light ... Whoever hates his brother is in darkness |
The theme contrasting the "Light" of Christ with the "Darkness of sin: 1:5 ~ The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it. 3:19 ~ And this is the verdict, that the light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light... 8:12 ~ I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. Also see 12:25; 12:35-36 and 12:46. |
|
The theme of "Love"/"Fellowship": 4:9 ~ In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only [monogenes = only begotten] Son into the world so that we might have life through him. 4:11-12 ~ My dear friends, if God loved us so much, we too should love each other. No one has ever seen God, but as long as we love each other, God remains in us, and his love comes to its perfection in us. 12 No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us. 3:16 ~ This is the proof of love, that he laid down his life for us, and we too ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. The word "love/loved/loves" appears about 37 times in 5 chapters. |
The theme of "Love"/Fellowship: 3:16 ~ For God so loved the world that he gave his only [monogenes = only begotten] Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. 15:9-17 ~ 9 As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. 10 If you keep the commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love... 12 This is my commandment: love one another as I love you ... 17 This I command you: love one another. 15:13-14 ~ No one has greater love than this, to lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. The word "love/loved/loves" appears about 54 times in 21 chapters. |
| Similar Vocabulary and Concepts | |
| The First Letter of John | The Gospel of John |
| 1:1 ~ What was from the beginning | 1:1 ~ In the beginning |
|
1:1 ~ what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we looked upon 1:3 ~ what we have seen and heard |
3:11 ~ Amen, amen, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and we
testify to what we have seen 3:32 ~ He testifies to what he has seen and heard |
| 1:4 ~ We are writing this to you so that our joy may be complete. | 16:24 ~ Until now you have not asked anything in my name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy will be complete. |
| 2:9-11 ~ Whoever says he is in the light, yet hates his brother, is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother remains in the light ... Whoever hates his brother is in darkness and is walking about in darkness not knowing where he is going, because darkness has blinded him. | 12:35-36 ~ The light will be among you only a little while. Walk while you have the light, so that darkness may not overcome you. Whoever walks in the dark does not know where he is going. While you have the light, believe in the light so that you may become children of the light. |
| 2:15 ~ Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone does love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. | 15:18-19 ~ If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you. |
| 2:17 ~ And the world, with all its disordered desires, is passing away. But whoever does the will of God remains (lives/abides = mene) forever. | 6:56 ~ Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains (abides = mene) in me and I (remain=mene) in him. |
| 5:20 ~ and has given us discernment to know the One who is true. And we are in the One who is true, in his Son, Jesus Christ. | 8:46b-47 ~ If I am telling the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever belongs to God hears the words of God; for this reason, you do not listen because you do not belong to God. |
| 3:8 ~ Whoever lives sinfully belongs to the devil, since the devil has been a sinner from the beginning. This is the purpose of the appearing of the Son of God, to undo the work of the devil. | 8:44a ~ You belong to your father the devil, and you willingly carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and doe not stand in truth, because there is no truth in him. |
| 3:13 ~ Do not be surprised, brothers, if the world hates you. | 15:18 ~ If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. |
| 3:14 ~ We are well aware that we have passed over from death to life because we love our brothers. Whoever does not love remains in death. | 5:24 ~ Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes in the One who sent me has eternal life and will not come to condemnation, but has passed from death to life. |
| 4:6 ~ Whoever recognizes God listens to us; anyone who is not from God refuses to listen to us. This is how we can distinguish the spirit of truth from the spirit of falsehood. | 8:47 ~ Whoever belongs to God hears the words of God; for this reason, you do not listen, because you do not belong to God. |
| 2:12 ~ I am writing to you, children, because your sins have been forgiven for his name's sake. | 16:23 ~ Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give to you. |
| 4:9 ~ In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only [monogenes = only begotten] Son into the world so that we might have life through him. |
1:18 ~ No one has ever seen God. The only [monogenes = only begotten]
Son, God, who is at the Father's side, has revealed him. 3:16 ~ For God so loved the world that he gave his only [monogenes = only begotten] Son so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. Also, see 1:14 and 3:18. |
As mentioned above, the description of Jesus using the words "the only begotten Son" only appears in John's Gospel and his First Letter and nowhere else in the New Testament. Look for some of the titles in the chart in the First Letter of John. For example, the title "Son of God" appears 10 times in the Gospel of John (1:34, 49; 3:18; 5:25; 9:35; 10:36; 11:4, 27; 19:7; 20:31) and 7 times in 1 John (3:8; 4:15; 5:5, 10, 12, 13, and 20), but the First Letter of John identifies Jesus as God's Son 21 times (1:3, 7; 2:22, 23 twice; 3:8, 23; 4:9, 10, 14, 15; 5:5, 9, 10 twice, 11, 12 twice, 13 twice, and 20).
| Name or Title | Significance |
| Last/second Adam | Christ's mission is to undo the work of sin introduced by Adam |
| Alpha and Omega/First and Last | The beginning and end of all things |
| Bread of Life | Christ is the one essential food of eternal life |
| Cornerstone | Jesus is the foundation of the New and Eternal Covenant |
| Firstborn from the Dead | By His Resurrection, Jesus is the first to lead us to eternal life |
| Good Shepherd | He is the one caretaker to guide us to eternal salvation |
| Great Shepherd of the Sheep | Trustworthy guide for the flock of the New Covenant Church |
| High Priest | He offers Himself as the perfect sacrifice for humanity's sins |
| Holy One of God | Sinless in His human nature |
| Emmanuel (God-with-us) | He stands with us in all of life's circumstances |
| King of kings and Lord of lords | Jesus is above all earthly rulers and is the heir of the Davidic Covenant |
| Lamb of God | He gave His life as a sin sacrifice for the sins of humanity |
| Light of the World | He brings the life of hope amid the darkness of sin |
| Lord of Glory | Jesus is the power and presence of the Living God |
| Mediator between God and Humankind | He brings us into God's presence and acts as our divine Advocate |
| Only Begotten Son | He is not a created being, but He is begotten of the God the Father |
| Prophet | Jesus is the faithful proclaimer of the truths of God |
| Savior | He delivers us from sin and eternal death |
| Seed of Abraham | A descendant of Abraham in His humanity |
| Son of God | Jesus is the only Son of the Divine Father |
| Son of Man | Jesus is fully human, but the term also identifies Him as Daniel's Divine Messiah |
| The Word | Jesus was present with God at Creation |
It is noteworthy that, in the canon of New Testament Scripture, only the First and Second Letters of John mention the evil entity who is the enemy of Jesus and His Church, calling him the antichrist and those influenced by him "antichrists." See 1 Jn 2:18 (antichrist and antichrists); 2:22 (antichrist); 4:3 (spirit of antichrist), and 2 John 7 (antichrist).
The letter divides into four parts:
| BIBLICAL PERIOD | # 12 The Kingdom of the Church | |||
| FOCUS | The nature of God | The nature of Christians | ||
| COVENANT | New and Eternal Covenant | |||
| SCRIPTURE | 1:1---------------1:5------------------------3:11-----------------5:13--------------------5:21 | |||
| DIVISION | Prologue | God as light | Love one another | Epilogue |
| TOPIC | Abiding in God's light | Abiding in God's love | ||
| The meaning of Christian fellowship | The manifestations of Christian fellowship | |||
| LOCATION | Ephesus, the second most important city in the Roman Empire located on the western coast of Asia Minor | |||
| TIME | It was probably written in the mid-first-century A.D. after John wrote his Gospel but before the great Roman persecution that began in A.D. 64. The persecution resulted in John's imprisonment on Patmos, before the Jewish Revolt of 66 that led to the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and the end of the world as the Jews knew it in A.D. 70. The letter mentions none of those terrible events predicted by Jesus. | |||
Arguments opposed to John as the writer of both the Fourth Gospel and the Letters based on the linguistical and stylized differences fail to take into account particular circumstances. For example, any small differences in style between Revelation and the Fourth Gospel and Epistles can be ascribed to the lack of literary assistance during his incarceration on Patmos while writing of the Book of Revelation. However, John's "poor Greek grammar" is usually very good Christian theology (i.e., referring to the neuter noun "Spirit" as "he" for God the Holy Spirit). We should also take into account the influence of different secretaries who wrote down Bishop John's correspondence. Most of St. Paul's letters were dictated to secretaries with Paul himself often adding a postscript in his own hand at the end (Rom 16:22; 1Cor 16:21-24; Col 4:18; 2 Thess 3:17). Both Silvanus (Silas) in 1 Peter 5:12 and John Mark (author of the Second Gospel) were secretaries to St. Peter. In any event, the style and linguistic similarities between the works attributed to John's authorship are far more similar than they are different. Nowhere else in the New Testament do you find Christ defined in terms of the "Word of God," the "Lamb of God," the "Light of the world," and the "only begotten Son" except in those writings attributed to the Apostle John Zebedee.
The Canon of Sacred Scripture includes these letters among the seven Catholic Epistles of the New Testament along with the Letter of St. James, the two Letters of St. Peter, and the Letter of St Jude. In this lesson, the designation CCC is an abbreviation for Catechism of the Catholic Church.
THE FIRST LETTER OF SAINT JOHN
Lesson 1: Chapter 1
PART I: The Prologue
1 John 1:1-4 ~ The Word of Life
1 What
was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what
we looked upon and touched with our hands concerns the Word of life,
2 for the
life was made visible; we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you
the eternal life that was with the Father and was made visible to us.
3 What
we have seen and heard we proclaim now to you so that you too may have fellowship
with us; for our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
4 We
are writing this so that our joy may be complete.
Uniquely among the three letters attributed to St. John, the first one does not have an opening salutation. Instead, it begins very much like the Fourth Gospel, something that most Church Fathers wrote confirmed their belief that the Apostle John was the author of both documents and the beginning of the Book of Genesis. In verses 1-10, notice that John writes that the testimony he gives is not only his, using the pronouns "we," "our," and "us" repeatedly. He does not begin using the first person singular until 2:1.
The Prologue of the First Letter of John summarizes important dogmatic truths about Jesus, the Son of God, like the Prologue of his Gospel (Jn 1:1ff). The first theological theme in 1 John is the Incarnation of God the Son (1 Jn 1:1-3). In verse 1, John refers to "the beginning" and to Jesus by the title "the Word of life." The "beginning refers to when the disciples and Apostles first heard Jesus' message of salvation. However, there is also a connection to John's Gospel Prologue that refers to the Creation event when God brought all things into being through His divine Son (Jn 1:1-3; c.f., 1 Jn 2:13-14, 3:8; Gen 1:1; Col 1:16).
John refers to Jesus as "the Word of Life" that is the good news of the Gospel of salvation. "The Word" is the same title he used for Jesus in the first verse of his Gospel Prologue: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (Jn 1:1). You will recall that in the Creation event when God spoke, Creation began.
2 for
the life was made visible; we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to
you the eternal life that was with the Father and was made visible to us.
Question: What does John mean by referring to Jesus
as "the eternal life that was with the Father" in verse 2?
Answer: He means that Jesus existed before His Incarnation
and was always One with the Father.
Christ is Himself true God (Jn 1:1; 1 Jn 5:20), and He embodies the eternal life that He shares with the Father and the Holy Spirit in His divinity (1 Jn 5:26). Jesus reveals to those who belong to Him the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity's inner life. These verses proclaim the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word of God who existed from all eternity who became man so that men and women might have a share of divine life in fellowship/communion with the Father and Son. Establishing the truth of the Incarnation of God the Son is an important theme in this letter as John refutes false teachers who deny this truth.
3 What we have seen and heard we proclaim now to
you so that you too may have fellowship with us; for our fellowship is with the
Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
For the first time in the letter, John refers to Jesus as
God's Son. He will also use the title "Son of God." In the First Letter, John
will identify Jesus as God's Son 21 times in 1:3, 7; 2:22, 23 twice; 24;
3:8, 23; 4:9, 10, 14, 15; 5:5, 9, 10 twice, 11, 12 twice, 13 twice, and 20. Included
in those references are the titles "Son of God" (3:8; 4:15; 5:5, 10, 12, 13
twice, 20) and "only begotten Son" (4:9; c.f., Jn 1:18; 3:16, 18). See the list
of Jesus' titles in the New Testament above.
so that you too may have fellowship with us; for our
fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
The basis of the fellowship that believers have with God
and one another is a unity of participation in the divine life of the Most Holy
Trinity. That unity establishes us as children in the family of God, our divine
Father as the heirs of God the Son. Jesus gave John and the other Apostles and
disciples the mission of extending that gift to others through their preaching
and sacramental ministry (1 Cor 10:16-17; CCC 425).
Notice that John continually uses plural pronouns in Chapter
1 verses 1-10. He will not use the first person singular until 2:1.
Question: To who is John probably referring to using
the plural pronouns in these verses?
Answer: He is probably referring to the other
Apostles and disciples who experienced, as eyewitnesses like him, the ministry
of Jesus and His glorious Resurrection.
Question: How have they experienced Christ?
Answer: They have seen, heard, and touched the living Jesus
Christ during His earthly ministry before His crucifixion and after His Resurrection.
4 We are writing this so that our joy may be complete.
Notice John refers to "we are writing" the letter, showing
that 1 John was not a homily delivered to a particular community and then sent
out to other faith communities. John is composing the written message on behalf
of himself and the apostolic leaders of the Universal Church. The "complete joy"
he mentions is the result of the fellowship of communion with God. Most manuscripts
have "our joy," but others, including Jerome's Vulgate, have "your joy." There
is no significant difference. "Our joy" involves the apostles, and "your joy" the
faithful who join in the mutual fellowship (c.f., Jn 15:11; 17:13). The present
"joy," however, will reach its fulness in the next life.
Like the prologue of the Gospel of John, this letter's prologue has a certain rhythm and expresses many of the same ideas. As St. Bede pointed out in his commentary, "from the very start of the epistle, we are being taught the divinity and, at the same time, the humanity of our God and Lord Jesus Christ" (In 1 Epist. S. Ioannis).
PART II: God is Light
1 John 1:5-10 ~ God is Light, and in Him, There is no Darkness
5 Now
this is the message that we have heard from him and proclaim to you: God is light,
and in him, there is no darkness at all.
6 If we say, "We have fellowship with
him," while we continue to walk in darkness, we lie and do not act in truth.
7 But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, then we have fellowship
with one another, and the blood of his Son Jesus cleanses us from all sin.
8 If we say, "We are without sin," we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9 If we acknowledge our sins, he is faithful and just and will
forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrongdoing.
10 If we say, "We have
not sinned," we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
5 Now
this is the message that we have heard from him and proclaim to you: God is light,
and in him, there is no darkness at all.
John uses the word "light" as a metaphor in 1:5, 7 twice;
2:8, 9 and 10. It is also a metaphor that appears repeatedly in his Gospel,
beginning in the prologue (Jn 1:4, 57, 8 twice, 9; 3:19 twice, 20 twice,
21; 5:35 twice; 8:12 twice; 9:5; 11:9, 10; 12:35 twice, 36 twice, 46;
underlining indicates verses spoken by Jesus). John testifies that everything
in his message is what he heard from Christ, and he contrasts the light of truth
and love of God with the darkness of sin.
Question: These verses are the first appearances
of the contrast between light and darkness in 1 John. In the Bible, where does
this contrast appear first? See Gen 1:3-4.
Answer: The contrast between light and darkness first
appears in the Creation event recorded in Genesis chapter 1.
Unlike the description of the Creation, in 1 John, the metaphor of light and darkness describes two different ways of life. This kind of ethical contrast occurs only a few times in the Old Testament, for example:
However, the New Testament has many instances of the light/darkness metaphor to contrast two different ways of living. For example, both Jesus and St. Paul use the contrasting metaphors to describe moral character and right action:
6 If
we say, "We have fellowship with him," while we continue to walk in darkness,
we lie and do not act in truth. 7 But if we walk in the light as he is in
the light, then we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of his Son
Jesus cleanses us from all sin.
In verses 6-10, John gives a series of conditional sentences
using the word "if" to distinguish the path of "light" as opposed to the way of
"darkness." "To walk" is a Biblical expression for living a righteous life in
fellowship with God (c.f., Gen 17:1; 24:40; 48:15; Ex 16:4; Lev 26:3; 1 Kng 2:4; 3:14; Is 2:3, 5; etc.).
7 But if we walk in the light as he is in the
light, then we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of his Son Jesus
cleanses us from all sin.
The Spirit of God lives in Baptized Christians (1:3b) as the
principle of their "new life." John tells us that God is light (1:5), uprightness
(2:29), and love (4:8, 16), and those who live in union with Him must reflect
God's "light" in acts of virtue and love by keeping God's commandments, especially
the commandment to show God's love to the other members of the human family
(2:10, 11; 3:10; 4:8, 16). Demonstrations of faith and love,
therefore, are visible evidence of a true union with the Most Holy Trinity (1:6-7;
2:3, 6; 3:6, 10, 17, 24; 4:6, 8, 13, 16, 20).
Question: In these verses, St. John gives what two
conditions that are necessary to "walk in the light" of Jesus Christ (see 1 Jn 1:5-7).
Answer: We must avoid all forms of sin and remain
obedient to God's commandments that identifies what is sin for us.
The first condition is to break with sin (1 Jn 1:8-2:2). We can have confidence if we do commit a transgression, that Christ died for the forgiveness of our sins, and not only does He offer atonement for our sins but the sins of the whole world (1 Jn 2:2). The second condition for walking in the spiritual light of Christ is through obedience to the commandments (1 Jn 2:3-5). In living in obedience to the commandments, we can honestly say we know Christ (verse 3). Our knowledge of the commandments and our commitment to the teachings of Jesus Christ becomes an exercise of faith that not only directs us on the path to salvation but also gives us an intimate knowledge of Christ and perfects God's love in us as children in the family of God.
8 If we say, "We are without sin," we deceive
ourselves [we lie], and the truth is not in us. 9 If
we acknowledge our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse
us from every wrongdoing. 10 If
we say, "We have not sinned," we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
To lie is to speak falsely, but it is also the denial of truth.
In Father Raymond Brown's commentary on the First Letter of John, he observed that
John was not referring to a lie of self-deception but to a lie involving active
hostility to the truth (The Epistles of John, Doubleday, 1982, page 199).
In Romans 3:23, St. Paul wrote, all have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God. All humans are born under the stain of the original sin of our first parents (CCC 219, 390, 397-98, 404). In verses 8-10, John makes three "if" statements. Verse 9 is a summary worth memorizing. John restates verse 8 but with a variation. The false claim that we are without sin is now united to a promise in verse 9: If we acknowledge our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrongdoing.
Despite the fact that all humans have sinned, God has justified humanity by His grace. He did this through the saving work of Jesus' sacrifice on the altar of the Cross and the shedding of His blood. In Romans 3:24, Paul uses the Greek word charis to indicate a gift given freely and unearned. This is the sense in which the Greek term is most often used in the New Testament and especially in Paul's letters where he employs charis to describe the way God offers the gift of salvation through Jesus the Son:
| Jesus' Incarnation was an act of grace. |
1 John 1:14, 17; 2 Corinthians 8:9; Titus 2:11 |
| Jesus' self-sacrificial death was an act of grace and a gift of the Father. | Romans 8:32; 1 Corinthians 2:12; Ephesians 1:6ff; Hebrews 2:9 |
| Through grace, we are justified, receive salvation, and the right to eternal life without the ritual works of the Old Covenant Law. | Romans 3:24; 4:4ff; Ephesians 2:5, 8; Titus 3:7; Acts 15:11 |
| Jesus' Second Advent will be an act of grace, and it will be an act of grace when we receive everlasting glory. | 2 Thessalonians 1:12; 1 Peter 1:13 |
Question for reflection or discussion:
Question: Why does our denial of sin make God a liar?
Answer: Denying our sins demonstrates that we do
not believe God's word in Scripture and His commandments that define sin. We
are also denying the forgiveness He offers for repentance of our sins and
restoration of fellowship with Him through His Son.
Question: Where does confession and repentance
begin and where does it end? See CCC 1393, 1395, 1415, 1436, 1846.
Answer: It begins in the heart where we recognize our
sin and acknowledge it before God when we ask for His forgiveness in the Penitential
Rite of the Mass before receiving the Eucharist or in the Sacrament of
Reconciliation where mortal sins can be forgiven.
In the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Penance), we confess
our sin to Christ through His representative, the priest, and receive
forgiveness in the name of Jesus (CCC 1458).
Question: What happens if we commit or support a
sin identified by God's commandments? See verse 10. Can you think of an example?
Answer: We make God a liar and not only damage our
relationship with Him but endanger our eternal salvation. Those who deny that
abortion is a mortal sin or support in any way the sin of abortion is in this category.
Question: When we commit the error of redefining
what God identified as sinful, how are we denying God's truth and revisiting
humanity's first sin in the Garden Sanctuary of Eden? See Gen 2:15-17; 3:1-7. Who
was it who deceived our first parents? See Rev 12:9. What was the lie, and what
was the enticement?
Answer: God told Adam and Eve to obey His command
not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, or they would die (Gen 2:15-17). In Genesis 3:4-5, instead of believing God, they decided to believe Satan
in the form of a serpent (Rev 12:9), who told them they would not die and would
become gods themselves (Gen 3:4-5).
When we take upon ourselves God's prerogative in defining what is or is not sin, we are acting against the will of God for our lives. We are usurping an authority that is not ours, which is a form of self-deification as the serpent told Eve in Gen 3:5, "you will be like gods." We not only act in opposition to and in rebellion against God, but we also add to our transgressions by an action that encourages others to commit the same sin.
Additional Catechism references for 1 John Chapter 1
(*indicates Scripture quoted or paraphrased in the lesson):
1:1-4 (CCC 425);
1:3-7 (CCC 1108*);
1:3 (CCC 2781*;
1:5 (CCC 2140;
1:6 (CCC 2470);
1:7-10 (CCC 2631*);
1:8-10 (CCC 827*);
1:8-9 (CCC 1847);
1:8 (CCC 1425);
1:10 (CCC 2147*)
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