As we read this section we detect what must be a further reference to the tendency of the Gnostic teachers to underestimate sin or excuse it. Perhaps the Gnostics excused sin as being essentially negative in nature; that is, as being connected with what is finite. Again, they may have related it only to their bodies and not to their minds, which they may well have said were above any dispositions to sin. But John will not have this. Sin is not merely negative. It is willful rebellion. Moreover, it involves the mind as that in which rebellion originates. It is only when we see this that we begin to abhor sin and turn from it to seek a Savior.
As we read this section we detect what must be a further reference to the tendency of the Gnostic teachers to underestimate sin or excuse it. Perhaps the Gnostics excused sin as being essentially negative in nature; that is, as being connected with what is finite. Again, they may have related it only to their bodies and not to their minds, which they may well have said were above any dispositions to sin. But John will not have this. Sin is not merely negative. It is willful rebellion. Moreover, it involves the mind as that in which rebellion originates. It is only when we see this that we begin to abhor sin and turn from it to seek a Savior.
To separate truth from error is one of the goals of 1 John, of course, as we have seen. Consequently, it is frequently the case that the letter’s affirmations and teachings are accompanied by strong repudiations and denials.
The Christ we are to imitate is the Christ of history. It is the Christ of the opening pages of the epistle, the Christ who was seen and heard and touched and indeed proclaimed from the beginning as the heart of the apostolic Gospel. That is the Christ who is coming back and to whom we must answer for how we have lived. He who truly hopes in Him will live for Him. He who has truly known Him will seek to be like Him.
God did not bring children into spiritual life to thereafter abandon them and let them go to hell, however. He brought them into life in order to make them completely like Jesus and take them with Him into heaven. Therefore, John cannot stop his rhapsody with the mere thought of what we are, but rather goes on to reflect on what we shall be when Christ shall appear and we shall be made like Him.
In the last words of chapter 2, John says that it is by doing righteousness that the one who is really born of God demonstrates that he is born of Him. The idea here is of inherited family traits. God is righteous. Consequently, everyone who is born of God must show traits of that righteousness.
All these texts testify to the prominence of the doctrine of the Lord’s return throughout the New Testament. But the unique aspect of the reference before us is that John refers to it here, not as a mere point of doctrine considered in itself, but rather as an incentive for living a righteous life. Righteousness, like purity of doctrine, is to come only by abiding in Christ. But we are encouraged to do that by knowledge of the fact that one day we will have to give an account before Him. This, then, is a very practical doctrine.
John has already spoken of righteousness and the need to be obedient to Christ earlier in chapter 2, and of the need to abide in Him just one verse before this. But although he repeats these ideas here, he nevertheless does so in a new context which is that of Christ’s return. John’s point is that those who are Christ’s ought to abide in Him and live righteous lives in order that they might have confidence and not be put to shame at Jesus’ return.
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