1 John Intro A Letter from a Friend of Jesus Part 1 of 6 Let Me Introduce You

Transcription

1 1 1 John Intro A Letter from a Friend of Jesus Part 1 of 6 Let Me Introduce You Churches often struggle. Even good churches. Of course they will. As long as churches are made up of people, there will be at least a modicum of tension. Sometimes what seems an ideal and harmonious situation on the surface may disguise a congregation wrestling at a profound level with questions of belief, leadership, and sadly sometimes outright conflict. The matter is compounded further when we misread the scriptures in a way that almost idolizes the early church as the pattern of perfection. We think, for instance, that their conflicts were only external as they fended off persecution. But they faced internal struggles as well, especially when Jewish Christians and Gentile Christ followers mixed and mingled together as one new people group under God, forgetting that each brought with them baggage from their former lives, whether cultural, ethical, or even theological. So as long as imperfect people inhabit our congregations there will be at least some level of conflict. And so St. John, once the youngest of the disciples, now the oldest living survivor, in his last days speaks to his people tenderly in a fatherly way as if each were his own child or grandchild. He has lived a long and eventful life first a disciple, then apostle, evangelist, a pastor, and now the Bishop of Ephesus. But its as pastor, mind you, he directs his words to a church that is anything but ideal. Some have been mislead by those heading down the path of extremism on one side and others in an opposite direction. In between most find themselves caught somewhere in the middle. It is in this setting of a polarized congregation that John addresses the Christians of Ephesus. Today we begin an intermittent series of six messages on the theme of A Letter from a Friend of Jesus. A letter since that is exactly what 1st John is a letter. And a friend of Jesus, because throughout the fourth Gospel named after him, John is often referred to as the beloved disciple, or the one Jesus loved, perhaps he is the closest thing Jesus had to a best friend this side of heaven. But before we tackle this vital letter of 1 st John, we need to see the big picture. For without understanding the situation, and background we cannot fully grasp the individual words. So let me introduce you to the congregation of the church of St. John, as if lifting off the roof, so to speak, so that we can peek in and see for ourselves the struggles they faced and learn from them. And while learning, listen also. Listen to what the Spirit might be saying to us about us in this diverse group of peoples we call Edmonton Chinese Alliance Church. I might wish I could give you a precise outline of the book as a whole, and there are many such, but to tell you the truth, when ever we do that we find ourselves placing an artificial grid over scripture that never quit fits and especially so here. For the letter reads more like a conversation than a sterile lecture. So read it and see the flow of 1 John as a whole, taking note of the fact that it builds around the repetition of three main themes: truth verses error, darkness verses light, and love versus hatred. These three strands weave in and out though the letter in such ways that they intermingle and intertwine with each other.

2 2 Truth verses error, darkness verses light, and love verses hatred are the three key concepts making up most of 1 John. The first of these, truth verses error is a theological issue. Darkness verses light is an ethical issue referring to those who continue to walk in the darkness of sin while thinking themselves enlighten. And the last, love verses hate is a social issue. I. Truth verses Error A Theological Issue Well of the three aspects, theological, ethical, and social, the one that most concerns John has to do with the theological issues that present themselves. That is the concern we will focus most on today, for everything else John will say in his letter flows from this. For truth matters - the truth about who Jesus is, and who we are to him. And John s church finds itself caught between two extremes in which he sees his role as that of bringing about balance. Some deny that Jesus is Son of God. Others deny that Jesus is God come in the flesh. Others still deny that Jesus is the Christ. Here we are dealing with what we call the Gnostic Heresy. Now even if you have not heard of the word Gnostic you do know its opposite agnostic. For the word, Gnostic has to do with knowledge. While an agnostic, as apposed to an atheist, is someone who simple says, I don t know. There may be a God, or there may not be, but I don t know. As for Greek Gnostics, the knowledge they spoke of referred not only to special knowledge but secret knowledge so that they believed it set themselves over and above others people. Dangerously, this Gnostic philosophy had now crept it s way into the fellowship of believers. We might ask ourselves the question: What does this have to do with anything? Yet this Gnostic heresy, a heresy that almost destroyed the early church, was at odds with the basic tenants of Christian faith. This is difficult to explain but hear me out. The basic belief of all Gnostic thought was that only spirit was good and matter was essentially evil. The Gnostic, therefore, inevitably despised the world since it was matter. In particular, they despised the human body since being made of matter it imprisoned the soul. Thus, they considered living within a body as a necessary evil. The only way of escaping this entrapment was by secret knowledge and elaborate rituals which only the true Gnostic could supply. Here was a tendency of thought written deep into the Greek psyche, which even to this day has not yet ceased to exist. The result of this thinking lead to a denial of Jesus incarnation. Incarnation means to make flesh. If you remember the prologue of John s Gospel, John contends against this Gnostic belief saying of Jesus entering the realm of humanity, And the word became flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1:14). So then, the Gnostic Christians did believe Jesus was the Son of God but flatly denied he was ever human, for if the spirit is good and matter is evil, how then could a good God become matter? The very thought of God becoming human was anathema to them if not blasphemy. This resulted in a very strange idea of a Phantom Christ. While he was among us, they said, Jesus only seemed to be human but was not. An aspect of this belief in its most radical form became known as Docetism which might be roughly translated as seemism. He only seemed to be human. For this reason, John rebuffs the false teachers among his people saying in no uncertain terms in 1 John 4:2-3, by this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not

3 3 of God. Then John makes an even more forceful claim: And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world. It is also along this line of thought that John begins his first letter with an affirmation of the physical nature Christ speaking of him in terms of That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life (1 John 1:1-2). You might be tempted to think, what difference does it make? To which the answer follows: if Jesus was not God come in flesh, then his death on the cross and his resurrection are robbed of their meaning. For the Gnostics reasoned that Jesus did not die on the cross as a human being but only appeared to do so. Likewise, they reasoned the resurrection had no meaning since Jesus had not died at all. The significance to us being that according to the Bible it was his death and resurrection that made our salvation possible. The culmination of Biblical teaching is that Jesus Christ was fully and properly God and fully and properly man, for only as a man could he die for the sins of human beings, and only as God could his sacrifice be so all encompassing enough to wash away the sin of the world. Well as we engage in spiritual reflection we ask ourselves, what might the Lord be saying to us about us? For one thing, it speaks to us about the danger of spiritual pride. Gnostic Christians believed themselves superior because they were the spiritual elite, who alone possessed special knowledge, secret knowledge, which set them apart and above lesser Christians below. It might look different for us today but are we not tempted to think of ourselves as somehow better than others? Beware of the holier than thou syndrome. Even when we speak to the most down and out person sleeping in the gutter we must remember as someone said, I am just as beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. And when it comes to one Christian thinking himself as more spiritual than another we must remember the command of Jesus: Do not judge lest you be judged. Neither should we think our denomination is better than others. Even the fact we think of ourselves as a Bible believing evangelical protestant church, gives us no right whatever to look down our noses at an another person who identifies with Christ with sincere faith what ever the name of her church. Be careful, the Bible warns, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall (1 Cor 10:12-13). II. Dark versus Light An Ethical Issue Well if the primary concern John deals with is in the realm Theology, it leads to another issue - Ethics. For right thinking leads to right living. We will delve deeper along these lines at another time, but for now allow me to the connection to Gnostic thinking with Ethical living. Some yet not all Gnostics contended a dangerous line of thinking: If the spirit alone is good and the body is altogether evil, then it does not matter what I do in the realm of the flesh. In other words they would reason, I can have a claim to spirituality and still engage myself with the vilest of sins. To this thinking, John counters by saying, God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth (1 John 1:5-6). Well we might pat ourselves on the back saying, at least I do not have any semblance to Gnostic ideology that says, I am spiritual thus I can indulge myself in

4 4 whatever sin I want. Yet sometimes we do act that way do we not? We take his forgiveness for granted, as we have been handed a gun with a license to sin. But not so. Paul in Romans 6:1 also addresses this issue of license saying What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may about? Certainly not! III. Love verses Hate - Social Issues Earlier we discovered three streams of thought flowing through John s first letter: truth verses error, darkness verses light, and now love verses hate. Truth verses error marks the theological issue. Darkness verses light results in an ethical issue, and love verses hate reveals itself as a social issue. That is why John insists all over his letter that the true test of Christianity is love for our brothers and sisters. A glance of Jesus teaching can be summed up in the following: If we really are walking in the light, we have fellowship with one another (1 John. 1:7). He who says he is in the light and hates his brother is in fact in darkness (1 John. 2:9-11). The proof that we have passed from dark to light is that we love the brethren (1 John. 3:14-17). The marks of Christianity are belief in Christ and love for the brethren (1 John. 3:23). God is love and he who does not love does not know God at all (1 John. 4:7-8). All of which is the antithesis, the direct opposite of Gnostic teaching. No wonder John fights against its influence over his people like a shepherd braving a lion to protect his sheep. Why? Because, the Gnostic heresy produced an inevitable result. It divided people into two classes: those who were capable of a real spiritual life and those who were not. The result was clear. The Gnostics produced a spiritual aristocracy who looked with contempt and even hatred on lesser people. Well let us not be too harsh on them, because we may not be so different. Our theology might be more straight, but there is something in all of us, including me, an overwhelming tendency to love some, tolerate others, and utterly distain a few, all the while thinking we are safe to do so. But hate taught Jesus is murder in disguise. So next time, you are tempted, next time I am tempted to dislike, or despise another, may God help you, may God help me, to love that person as God so loved us. And so there it is: darkness verses light, love versus hatred, and truth verses error the three strands that weave in and out though the letter in such as ways they intermingle and intertwine. Three issues, theological, ethical, and social. Now incase you haven t already noticed, the ethical issues of right living and the social issue of loving others, both flow out from the theological issue of who is Jesus. Right thinking leads to right living, and right living leads to right feelings toward others that we are called to love! I will close with this thought. The Rabbi s tell of a Jewish Legend. It reads as a parable of sorts, and though fiction there truth contained in it. In a time before time, when the world was young, two brothers shared a field and a mill, each night dividing the grain they had ground together during the day. One brother lived alone; the other had a wife and a large family. Now the single brother thought to himself one day, It isn t fair that we divide the grain evenly. I have only myself to care for, but my brother has children to feed. So each night he secretly took some of his grain to his brother s granary to see that he was never without.

5 But the married brother said to himself one day, It isn t really fair that we divide the grain evenly, because I have children to provide for me in my old age, but my brother has no one. What will he do when he is old? So every night he secretly took some of his grain to his brother s granary. As a result, both of them always found their supply of grain mysteriously replenished each morning. Then one night, they met each other halfway between their two houses. They suddenly realized what had been happening and embraced each other in love. The legend is that God witnessed their meeting and proclaimed, This is a holy place a place of love and here it is that my Temple shall be built. So it was. The First Temple is said to have been constructed on that very site. 5