JOHN IS KEENLY AWARE of and deeply inspired by Jesus’ character and nature. He was the youngest of Jesus’ apostles, having become a disciple when he was a young teenager—most commentators see him as 13-16 years old when he started his journey with Jesus. In his gospel he addresses himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” (John 13:23) In his letters, he calls himself “The elder.” (2 John 1:1) We wonder if these are reasons for the depth of John’s own character development—his youth at the beginning, his love of and by Jesus, and his apparently long life.
Unlike the others who would be named apostles, John had less to unlearn about the formation of his spiritual identity. He had not yet been exposed deeply to the culture around him, and was not formed as a rough working-class man such as Peter, who at one point “fell at Jesus’ knees and said, ‘Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!’” (Luke 5:8) John follows Jesus throughout his ministry, and is the only one of the apostles who follows Jesus to Golgotha, and there sees his death on the cross. “But when they came to Jesus, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. The man who saw knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe.” (John 19:33-35)
John follows Jesus for the rest of his life—follows his beckoning call, follows his teaching, follows him in applied ministry. John is the only one of the apostles to live a long life and—anecdotally—to die of natural causes. The first of his three letters, all written near the end of his life, is more didactic than the second and third. He is a man at this time very mature and very comfortable in a hard-earned faith, and these letters are part of his legacy.
In scripture, one of the symbolic meanings of the word ‘light’ is *‘purity.’ John states here, “God is light.” Oppositely, the word ‘darkness’ is symbolic of sin, so John continues, “In him there is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5) God is completely pure, and eternally untouched by sin. John has used these terms metaphorically before, in the opening of his gospel. There, he opens in a way clearly dependent on the first chapter of Genesis, and he speaks of Jesus in these terms: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.” (John 1:1-5)
Jesus, being God in the flesh, was completely pure in motivation and action, but God the Father allows him to be not just touched, but overwhelmed by sin at the cross; it is not his own sin, however, but ours that so grievously wounds him. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” (1 Pet. 2:24)
Just as we vicariously experience righteousness through Jesus’ death, so the Father experienced sin through his own shared essence, Jesus, but not in his own person, for he is God. God, in a very mysterious alternate-reality way that comes before human experience, seems to have always known of evil. “In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” (Gen. 2:9)
Paul tells us that, “The wages of sin is death.” (Rom. 6:23) In Jesus’ death on the cross, he tasted of the wages of sin, as we have. This is the pain, above all physical pain, that seems unbearable for him, at least momentarily, and he cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46) This is at the heart of his sacrifice—his greatest treasure has been cut off.
John has set the standard for fellowship with God very high. “If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:7-8) But he also unlocks the door of awareness to the redemptive mercy of God. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)
This has an intellectually satisfying rational theological truth as well as a deeply emotional and spiritual sense of the character of God’s love. It fits with Jesus’ teaching: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” (Matt. 4:17) And, it is in keeping with the forgiving character of God throughout all scripture—here displayed in the ancient Psalms: “He will not always accuse. He does not treat us as our sins deserve. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” (Psa. 103:9-12)
John’s motivation is not to instill fear, but trust. John has been tender, yet honest with us, about the deadly consequences of sin. He has also been careful not to overly grieve our own spirits in acknowledgment of our sins. Instead he assures us that there is hope, and provides us very clearly the way in which hope is restored. He continues in this same way. “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin.” (1 John 2:1a) And he both reminds and makes clear that, “If anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.” (1 John 2:1b)
Critically, he centers our attention on this inescapable theological fact: “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” (1 John 2:2) John’s friend and mentor, Peter, states it this way much earlier in John’s life, and with John standing by his side in front of the Sanhedrin: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)
In John’s life-long-life-forever view, Jesus saves from sin eternally. He saves from the corruption of the sin nature that is both dead and that consistently leads to death. He saves from the consequences of sins of volition and omission, and he is ever-present to save from the sins of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. An informed lay definition of personal theological soteriological conviction is simply this: “We are saved, we are being saved, and we shall be saved.” John finishes with this thought. “But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.” (1 John 2:5-6)
Q . Is my stride in my faith-life hesitant, or bold and intentional?
*Strong’s 5457.
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