1 John
Like the epistle to the Hebrews, 1 John does not exhibit any of the formal characteristics that are normally associated with the openings of letters written in Greek in the first century. Nevertheless, the personal references, the common ties the author shares with his readers, and the explicit historical referents (e.g., 1 John 2:19) make it clear that this writing was not intended to be an abstract paper, a mere brochure, or a tractate for all Christians everywhere: it was meant to be read as a pastoral letter to a congregation, or to a number of congregations. There is something to be said for the view that its atypical form is a reflection of its author’s intention to send it to several congregations along with an accompanying note personalizing each delivery: 2 John could be one such note (3 John does not qualify nearly so well) and may be the only one that has come down to us.
The structure of 1 John is disputed, largely because John takes up a number of themes and keeps returning to them in slightly different connections. The best survey of structure is by Marshall, though his own proposal—that no structure is believable because John probably connects his various sections by virtue of mere associations of ideas—sounds more haphazard than the flow of the epistle will allow. Although most see between the prologue (1 John 1:1-4) and the conclusion (5:14-21) two large sections (1:5-2:29; 3:1-5:13) broken down in various ways, Schnackenburg’s suggestion of three divisions has much to commend it: the first treats fellowship with God as walking in the light (1:5-2:17), the second deals directly with the present situation of the church or churches to which John addresses himself (2:18-3:24), and the third divides those who belong to God from the “world” by the tests laid out in the epistle (4:1-5:12).
Virtually all sides agree that John lays down three tests: (1) true believers must believe that Jesus truly is the Christ come in the flesh, and this belief must work itself out in (2) righteousness and (3) love.
2 and 3 John
It is widely agreed that these two short epistles bear the form of letters. Ostensibly written to “the chosen lady and her children,” 2 John is directed to another congregation—whether to a house-church within the same city or to the church of another city is unclear—to warn against the dangers inherent in traveling preachers, some of whom are “deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh” (7). But even here, John insists that true believers walk not only in the truth but in transparent love for one another, in line with the command “you have heard from the beginning” (6). This message occupies the central section (2 John 4-11) between the introduction (2 John 1-3) and the conclusion (2 John 12-13).
By contrast with 2 John, which mentions no one by name except Jesus Christ, 3 John is addressed to Gaius about the activities of Diotrephes, who not only “loves to be first” (3 John 9) but has become so powerful that he is even refusing the emissaries of the writer, ejecting from the church those who take a softer line. John encourages Gaius (who may have belonged to the church where Diotrephes held court) to follow instead the example of Demetrius and warns that he is coming to expose Diotrephes.
The Contribution of the Johannine Epistles
Taken together, the epistles of John stand as a poised demonstration of the critical importance of testing all attempts to rearticulate the gospel by the immutables of the gospel revelation. Doubtless John’s opponents saw themselves as being on the leading edge of Christian reflection (2 John 9); by contrast, John reverts to what was “from the beginning,” to the testimony of the first eyewitnesses, to incontrovertible Christological givens, to the perennial newness of the “old” command to love one another, to the irrefragable connection between genuine faith and obedience. This stance has a bearing on what teaching a church will listen to (2 John). At the practical level, whether heresy stands behind 3 John or not, this holistic vision insists that there is no place for petty gurus in the church who will not bow to apostolic admonition and authority.
The Johannine Epistles make an important contribution to the doctrine of assurance (see 1 John 5:13). If other New Testament writings make it clear that the objective grounds of our confidence before God are in Christ and his death and resurrection on our behalf, such that Christian assurance is not much more than a concomitant of genuine faith, these epistles insist that a distinction must be made between genuine and spurious faith. Spurious faith does not have the right to assurance before God; genuine faith can be authenticated not only by the correctness of its object (in this case, the belief that Jesus is Christ come in the flesh) but also by the transformation it effects in the individual: genuine Christians learn to love one another and obey the truth. Christian assurance is not, for John, an abstract good; it is intimately tied to a continuing and transforming relationship with the covenant God, who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ.
The Johannine Epistles open an unrivaled window onto at least one part of the New Testament church toward the end of the apostolic age. They afford us the opportunity to draw some lines, however hesitantly, between the church as reflected in the earliest documents of the New Testament and the church at the end of the first century.