John wrote his first epistle to set forth objective standards by which those under his care could evaluate their spiritual experience. In a day when many were claiming to have subjective standards of spirituality, John sought to bolster his reader’s faith by providing factual criteria for charting one’s relationship with God. Near the end of 1 John he wrote, “I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). Though John never explicitly quoted the Old Testament in 1 John, he repeatedly linked his descriptions of God, Jesus, and Christian living to passages of Scripture that would have been familiar to his readers.
(1) In 1 John 1:1, John described the Word of life in reference to Gen 1:1. John’s phrase “what was from the beginning” (1 John 1:1) echoed the opening line of Genesis, “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” At the outset of John’s description of Jesus in 1 John, he identified Jesus with God. Later in 1 John 1:1, John referenced Jesus’ incarnation stating that he and others had touched the Word of life with their hands. Parallel to John 1:1-4, here John established the point that God came in the flesh in the person of Jesus Christ.
(2) In 1 John 1:1b-3, John portrayed the revelation of the Word of life in terms that recalled God’s revelatory acts in Psalm 19. The psalmist reflected on God’s revelation in the natural world (Ps 19:1-6) and in His word (Ps 19:7-14). The psalmist portrayed the heavens as living, communicative beings that speak of God’s glory as Creator. Since the heavens surround the globe, there is no habitation on earth hidden from God’s revelation of His glory in creation. As God has revealed His glory pervasively in creation, He has revealed His moral expectations to His people through His word so that humanity might walk uprightly before God, the Redeemer. John wrote that the Word of life was revealed and seen and proclaimed so that those who heard of the Word of life might have fellowship with God.
(3) In 1 John 1:5-6, John coordinated the metaphor of God being light with His requirement of moral uprightness, echoing a theological portrait of God in the Old Testament. Psalm 27:1 begins, “The LORD is my light and my salvation.” In Ps 18:28, the psalmist described God as the lamp that guided his feet in the darkness. In Ps 43:3, the psalmist said, “Send Your light and Your truth; let them lead me. Let them bring me to Your holy mountain, to Your dwelling place.” Isaiah prophesied that the Lord would be the everlasting light for His people after the Lord restored them from those whom He had sent to violently oppose them for their sin (Isa 60:17-22). John maintained the same theological understanding as the psalmists and Isaiah. Since God is light, those claiming to know God must walk in moral purity lest they be found false and fail to walk in the truth (1 John 1:5-6).
(4) In 1 John 1:7 and 2:2, John noted that Jesus’ blood provides cleansing for sins, recalling the connection between blood and cleansing in Israel’s sacrificial system. When the Lord instituted the Passover festival in Exodus 12, He told Moses that the blood on the doorposts and lintel of the homes where the Passover was eaten would distinguish His people from the Egyptians (Exod 12:7, 13). During the covenant ceremony in Exodus 24, Moses sprinkled blood on the people, saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you concerning all these words” (Exod 24:8). The blood of a bull or lamb sacrificed as the sin offering atoned for sins in Israel (Leviticus 4) and the blood of the bull and goat offered on the Day of Atonement annually atoned for Israel’s sin (Leviticus 16). John’s frame of thought in 1 John 1:7 and 2:2 portrayed Jesus’ blood as the realization of what Israel hoped to enjoy through the sacrificial system of the law.
(5) In 1 John 2:9-11, John described the importance of loving other believers, echoing Lev 19:17-18. In Leviticus 19, Moses recorded laws for community maintenance in Israel. As Israelites directly confronted one who sinned against them, avoided taking revenge, and loved their neighbors as themselves, they would reflect the Lord’s presence among them. Jesus said that love for neighbor accompanied love for God as the greatest commandment in the law (Matt 22:39//Mark 12:31//Luke 10:27b) and told His disciples that all would know they were in fact His disciples if they loved one another as He loved them (John 13:34-35). In Rom 13:9 and Gal 5:14, Paul said that all of the commandments of the law were summarized in love for neighbor as described in Lev 19:18. James called Lev 19:18 the “royal law” of Scripture (Jas 2:8). John wrote, “The one who says he is in the light but hates his brother is in the darkness until now” (1 John 2:9).
(6) In 1 John 2:20-27, John coordinated the concept of anointing with knowledge, reflecting Jeremiah’s description of the new covenant in Jer 31:31-34. Jeremiah prophesied that in the new covenant, the Lord would put His law in the hearts and minds of His people so that each could know Him in a personal way. John was concerned that some false teachers were persuading his audience and suggesting that to know God they needed further knowledge beyond the message of Christ. The audience had received this knowledge in their minds when God anointed them; they needed nothing else.
1 John 3-5
Of the New Testament writers, it may be that the apostle John would have the greatest claim to intimacy with Jesus (John 13:23; 21:20). Pastoral remorse may have filled John’s heart when some in his audience began denying that God had come in the flesh. With both warmth and warning, John wrote to affirm his readers—some of whom, because of the growing popularity of the heretical message, had begun to falter in their confession of faith. John’s message to them reflected his understanding of Scripture as a storyline that anticipated the incarnation and ministry of Jesus.
(1) In 1 John 3:8-10, John described the Devil’s role in human sin, echoing Genesis 3 and Job 1-2. The serpent in the Garden of Eden was more crafty than any other animal the Lord created. The serpent spoke to Eve, tempting her to doubt God’s word and take the fruit and eat of it so that she could be like God. In Gen 3:15, the Lord condemned the serpent and said that one of Eve’s offspring would crush his head. Satan slandered Job when he said that Job only feared God because God protected his property, family, and health. John wrote that Jesus was revealed to destroy the works of the Devil (1 John 3:8). Those in the congregation of John’s audience who continued to practice sinful lifestyles while claiming to be believers in Christ were actually of the Devil. John encouraged his audience that those who were truly born of God and believed in Jesus should manifest their spiritual state by practicing righteousness.
(2) In 1 John 4:12, John wrote that no one has ever seen God, recalling the Lord’s statement to Moses in Exod 33:20. Following Israel’s sin with the golden calf in Exodus 32, the Lord told Moses that He would yet lead Israel to the Promised Land. Moses asked the Lord to confirm His word by allowing him to see God’s glory (Exod 33:18). The Lord replied that He would allow Moses to see His goodness and that He would proclaim His name to Moses but told him, “You cannot see My face, for no one can see Me and live” (Exod 33:20). John affirmed God’s word to Moses but went on to say, “If we love one another, God remains in us and His love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:12). John’s statement mirrored Jesus’ words in John 13:34-35, when Jesus told the eleven that all would know that they were His disciples if they had love for one another. John’s readers could be assured that since the message of the historical Jesus would not change, a lifestyle of love would always be the mark of true conversion.
(3) In 1 John 5:3-5, John coordinated love for God with obedience to God’s commands, reflecting Moses’ logic in Deut 6:1-9; 30:1-11. After Moses restated the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5, he exhorted Israel in Deut 6:1-9 to obey God’s instructions that they might fear and love Him. Then just before Moses established Joshua as the new leader of Israel in Deuteronomy 31, Moses prophesied that the Lord would cast Israel from the land because of their disobedience (Deut 30:1-10). Moses urged Israel to obey what God had commanded them, saying, “This command that I give you today is certainly not too difficult or beyond your reach” (Deut 30:11). John wrote that God’s children are known by their obedience to God’s commands. Because of the new birth John’s audience had received, God’s commands were not a burden to them, not too difficult for them. They had conquered the world through their faith in Jesus (1 John 5:3-5).
(4) In 1 John 5:21, John commanded his readers to avoid idols, echoing the second commandment of the law. Moses commanded Israel not to make any object which they would worship as a god (Exod 20:4; Deut 5:8). Throughout the historical and prophetic books of the Old Testament, God’s people were warned against their tendency to bow to the idols of the nations around them—an error that first took place before Moses had even come down with the tablets of the covenant, when Israel bowed to the golden calf in Exodus 32. Israel’s failure to heed the second commandment was ultimately the cause for the exile (Deuteronomy 28-30; 2 Kings 17, 25). In the final sentence of 1 John, John addressed his audience, saying, “Little children, guard yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21). For John, one committed idolatry when they deviated from Christian doctrine and failed to worship Jesus, the One whom John called the true God and eternal life (1 John 5:20). In John’s understanding, one committed idolatry when they adopted false views about Jesus.
1 John Commentary New Testament