Saturday Series: 1 John 4:7-5:4 (continued)

1 John 4:7-5:4, continued

Last week, we explored the first two sections (4:7-16a) of this exposition on the theme of Christian love. We saw how the two sections were closely parallel to each other, in structure and thematic emphasis. In both instances love was defined and explained in terms of Christology—who Jesus is and what God has done (for us) through him. The next two sections, 4:16b-5:4, draw upon the same themes and points of emphasis, even reproducing much of the phrasing, but present the instruction in a very different way. I would outline this as follows:

• • 4:16b-19—Definition of Love: The essential identity of Believers, united with God the Father and Jesus the Son
    • Definition—Union of Believers with God (v. 16b)
    • Exposition/Instruction—Believers and the Judgment, in two statements (vv. 17-18)
      • Union of Believers with God the Father (through Jesus the Son) is the completion of God’s Love (v. 17)
      • This union has delivered us from Death and the Judgment, thus removing all Fear (v. 18)
    • Closing statement on Christian Love (v. 19)
  • 4:20-5:4—Manifestation of Love: The identity of Believers demonstrated through love, as obedience to the Great Command of God
    • Love as the mark of the true believer (4:20-21)
      • Love as the great command of God (v. 21)
    • Trust in Jesus as the mark of the true believer (5:1-2)
      • Trust in Jesus (together with Love) as the great command of God (v. 2)
    • Closing statement on the two-fold Great Command (vv. 3-4)

Determining the message (and theology) of a passage requires that careful attention is paid its structure—the form and style in which the material is presented to readers. This sort of critical analysis falls under the heading of literary criticism. Utilizing the outline above, let us examine each component in each of these two sections.

1 John 4:16b-19

Verse 16b

“God is love, and the (one) remaining [ménœn] in love remains [ménei] in God, and God remains [ménei] in him.”

As noted above, this statement is a definition of love (agáp¢), comprised of two parts: (1) the initial statement, and (2) a dual/reciprocal expository clause. The initial statement is, simply: “God is love” (ho theós agáp¢ estin), already stated previously in verse 8. Far more than an emotion or feeling, or even an attribute of God, love is identified as the person of God Himself (similarly identified with light in 1:5). This explains the clause which follows, defining love in terms of the believer’s union with God. The clause summarizes verses 12-15 of the previous section, expressed by the important Johannine verb ménœ (“remain, abide”), used with great frequency in both the Gospel and First Letter. The “remaining” is reciprocal—the believer in God and God in the believer.

Sometimes this Johannine language suggests a causal relationship—i.e. because we love, we come to abide in God; or, the reverse, because we abide/remain in God, we are able to love. While there is some truth in those formulations—the latter being closer to the Johannine emphasis—here we are actually dealing with a simple equation: God = Love. Thus, if a believer has love, it is the same as saying that he/she has God the Father. And, according to the theology of the Gospel and Letters (expressed in many passages), one is only able to see/know God the Father, and be united with Him, through the Son. This is also the point of the Christological declarations in vv. 9-10 and 13-14f.

Verse 17

“In this [en toútœ] love has been completed with us, (so) that [hína] we may hold outspokenness in the day of judgment—that [hóti], even as that (one) [i.e. Jesus] is, (so) also we are, in the world.”

The expression en toútœ (“in this”) was made use of, as a key point of syntax, in the previous sections. A similar mode of expression in English would be, “By this (we know that…)”. Sometimes the expression refers back to a preceding statement, other times ahead to what follows. When looking ahead, it usually refers to a hóti-clause, with the particle hóti rendered as “(in) that, because”, indicating the reason. The sentence here has both a hína– and a hóti-clause. The hína-clause, expressing result, is subordinate. The main statement may be isolated as follows: “Love has been completed with us in this: that even as that one [i.e. Jesus] is, so also we are, in the world”. Even while we (believers) are in the world, we are (esmen) just as Jesus is (estin). In each instance, the verb of being is emphatic (marked by italics).

The statement “love has been completed with us” is nearly identical to that in verse 12b, the only real difference being use of the preposition metá (“with”) instead of en (“in”). I do not see any fundamental difference in this change of prepositions—the statements are effectively the same. God’s love was shown primarily through the sending of His Son (Jesus), and the work done by him during his life on earth. However, this love is completed only after the Son’s work was completed (i.e. his death and resurrection, Jn 19:30, etc), upon which, at the Son’s return to the Father, the Spirit comes to dwell in and among believers. The Spirit represents the abiding union believers have with Father and Son, as indicated here in verse 13, as well as throughout the Johannine Writings. This union, through the Spirit, reveals the identity of believers as children of God—i.e. we are (Children) just as Jesus is (the Son). This is true even during the time we are living on earth, prior to the great Judgment.

Verse 18

“There is not (any) fear in love, but complete love casts out fear, (in) that [i.e. because] fear holds (in it the threat of) cutting [i.e. punishment], and the (one) fearing has not been completed in love.”

This is a roundabout way of saying that the believer, united with God the Father and Son, does not need to fear the coming Judgment (v. 17, see above). The author of First John clearly felt that he and his readers were living in the end times (“the last hour”, 2:18), and that the end-time Judgment (preceded by the return of Jesus) would soon take place. Believers have no need to fear the great Judgment, since they/we have already been saved from it, passing through it. This is a fundamental principle of the “realized” eschatology in the Johannine Writings (see especially John 3:18ff; 5:24). This statement builds upon the identification of believers as those in whom love has been “completed” (vb teleióœ).

Verse 19

“We love, (in) that [i.e. because] He first loved us.”

This basically restates the definition in verse 16b, along with the principal definitions in the prior sections (vv. 7-8, 10, 11). It does not indicate a temporal sequence as much as it does priority—our love is based on God’s love, i.e. His abiding presence in us which marks us as His children.

1 John 4:20-5:4

In this section, the emphasis shifts from the definition of love to the demonstration of it among believers.

Verse 20

“If one would say that ‘I love God’, and (yet) would hate his brother, he is false; for the (one) not loving his brother, whom he has seen, is not able to love God, whom he has not seen.”

The statement “I love God” summarizes the previous section, as a definition of love in terms of the believer’s identity. Here, however, it functions as a claim that is to be tested, through the person’s own attitude and conduct. The author throughout says very little about how Christian love is demonstrated, in a practical sense. The example of Cain and Abel was used in the earlier section on love (3:11ff), but only as an extreme illustration of the person who fails to love (i.e. hates) a fellow believer. It is quite unlikely that any of the ‘false’ believers—those who had separated from the Community—would have acted with violence, or even in a harsh or abusive manner, toward others. Closer to the mark is the emphasis on caring for the needs of fellow believers (3:16-17). As we shall see, when we come to a study of 2 and 3 John, the separatist/partisan divisions within the congregations were being manifest in an unwillingness to show hospitality (offering support, etc) toward other Christians.

To say that the would-be believer is “false”, means not only that he/she speaks falsely (by claiming to love), but that the person is, in fact, a false believer. Previously, this was described in terms of being a “false prophet” and “against the Anointed” (antíchristos), especially when dealing with the theme of trust in Jesus; the same applies when dealing with the theme of love, since trust and love are two sides of the same coin. Referring to a believer’s union with God as “seeing” (= knowing) Him, is part of the Johannine theological idiom, occurring throughout the Gospel and First Letter.

Verse 21

“And this is the entol¢¡  we hold from Him: that the (one) loving God should also love his brother.”

As previously discussed, the word entol¢¡  literally refers to a charge or duty placed on a person as something to complete. It is typically translated “command(ment)”, but this can be misleading, especially as used in the Johannine writings. There is, in fact, just one such “command” for believers, stated clearly and precisely in 3:23. As has been noted a number of times in these studies, it is a two-fold command, and its two components—trust in Jesus and love for fellow believers—form the very basis for the structure of 1 John, especially in the second half of the letter. The two themes alternate, with love being emphasized in 4:7-5:4. The true believer, claiming to love God, will obey the “command” to love other believers, in the manner that God the Father (and Jesus the Son) also shows love.

1 John 5:1

“Every (one) trusting that Yeshua is the Anointed (One) has come to be (born) out of God, and every (one) loving the (One) causing (him) to be (born) [also] loves the (one) having come to be (born) out of Him.”

As if on cue, the emphasis shifts from love to trust, combining the two themes together as a reflection of the two-fold command. Trust in Jesus was the focus in 4:1-6, and is again in the section that follows (5:5ff). Here it is included because of the reference to the two-fold command that concludes this section (parallel to that in 3:23-24). It also reflects the Christological aspect of love central to the instruction in 4:7-16. Note especially how the articular participle is utilized to express the believer’s essential identity— “the (one) trusting“, “the (one) loving“. Here the language is typically Johannine, especially with the repeated idiom of being born “out of” God (vb gennᜠ+ ek).

Verse 2

“In this [en toútœ] we know that we love the offspring of God: when we love God and do his entolaí.”

This is parallel to the statement on the two-fold “command” (entol¢¡) in 4:21, blending the emphasis on trust in Jesus back into the primary theme of love. It makes the same statement as 4:21, only in reverse:

• • We keep his command (and love God) = we love our fellow believer (4:21)
  • We love our follow believer (“offspring of God”) = we love God and keep his command (5:2)

The word tékna (“offspring”, i.e. “children”), literally something produced, effectively captures the sense of the Johannine idiom of believers being “born out of [ek]” God. It is the regular term in the Gospel and Letters for believers as sons/children of God.

Verses 3-4

“For this is the love of God: that we keep watch (over) His entolaí, and His entolaí are not heavy (to bear). (Indeed, it is) that every (thing) having come to be (born) out of God is victorious over the world, and this is the victory th(at is) being victorious over the world—our trust.”

This closing definition of love is framed entirely in terms of the two-fold “command” (entol¢¡) of God, in keeping with the prior statements in this section, and also the parallel in 3:23-24. At the same time, verse 4 prepares for the section which follows (verses 5ff), focusing on trust in Jesus. Both components of the two-fold command together bracket vv. 3-4:

• • “this is the love of God…” (mark of the believer)
    • “every (thing/one) having come to be born out of God” (essential identity of the believer)
  • “this is…our trust (in Jesus)” (mark of the believer)

The statement that the “command(s)” of God are “not heavy” is meant, I think, to convey the idea that both trust and love come naturally out of the believer’s own fundamental identity. In the case of love, it is God’s own love—indeed, His own presence and power, through the Spirit—at work, and not based on any specific attempt to demonstrate love through obedience of commands, etc. Though a contrast with the Old Testament Law (Torah) belongs to the Pauline writings rather than the Johannine, we find traces of a similar emphasis at numerous points in the Gospel (beginning with the Prologue, 1:16-18) and here in the First Letter as well. It is no longer the Torah, nor, indeed, even the specific teachings of Jesus (given during his time on earth) that are the primary guide for believers—rather, it is the living, abiding presence of God the Father and Son in the Spirit (Jn 14:26; 16:13; 1 Jn 2:27; 3:24; 4:2ff; 5:6).

Next week, we will turn our attention to the section which follows in 5:5-12, where the Spirit takes on greater prominence in the author’s instruction. It is also here that we finally will be able to gain a clearer sense of the historical situation in the letter, in terms of the specific Christological view, held by the ‘false’ believers, which the author is so concerned to warn his readers about. Thus, our focus will turn again to historical criticism, attempting to reconstruct, as far as possible, the background and setting of the letter’s message. There are also several key text-critical questions which will need to be addressed. I hope you will join me as we continue this study…next Saturday.