1 John

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1 John
Start here 1 John 47-21 Beloved, let us love
one another, because love is from God everyone
who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever
does not love does not know God, for God is love.
Gods love was revealed among us in this way God
sent his only Son into the world so that we might
live through him. In this is love, not that we
loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son
to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also
ought to love one another. No one has ever seen
God if we love one another, God lives in us, and
his love is perfected in us. By this we know that
we abide in him and he in us, because he has
given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do
testify that the Father has sent his Son as the
Savior of the world. God abides in those who
confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they
abide in God. So we have known and believe the
love that God has for us. God is love, and those
who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in
them. Love has been perfected among us in this
that we may have boldness on the day of judgment,
because as he is, so are we in this world. There
is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out
fear for fear has to do with punishment, and
whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.
We love because he first loved us. Those who say,
I love God, and hate their brothers or sisters,
are liars for those who do not love a brother or
sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom
they have not seen. The commandment we have from
him is this those who love God must love their
brothers and sisters also.

• God is love.
• God is embodied loveembodied in Jesus, embodied
  in the community.
• God cannot be seen, but God can be known when God
  is lived.
• Loving God and loving others are inseparable.

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Now back up to the immediately preceding
passage 1 John 41-6 Beloved, do not believe
every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether
they are from God for many false prophets have
gone out into the world. By this you know the
Spirit of God every spirit that confesses that
Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is
not from God. And this is the spirit of the
antichrist, of which you have heard that it is
coming and now it is already in the world.
Little children, you are from God, and have
conquered them for the one who is in you is
greater than the one who is in the world. They
are from the world therefore what they say is
from the world, and the world listens to them. We
are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us,
and whoever is not from God does not listen to
us. From this we know the spirit of truth and the
spirit of error.

• John (who never identifies himself, but well
  call him John) seems to be responding to a group
  of people who are
• a) denying that Jesus Christ has come in the
  flesh,
• b) denying Johns authority and
• c) separating the love of God from the love of
  other people.
• John calls these people antichrists.

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More about antichrists 1 John 218-22 Children,
it is the last hour! As you have heard that
antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists
have come. From this we know that it is the last
hour. They went out from us, but they did not
belong to us for if they had belonged to us,
they would have remained with us. But by going
out they made it plain that none of them belongs
to us. But you have been anointed by the Holy
One, and all of you have knowledge. I write to
you, not because you do not know the truth, but
because you know it, and you know that no lie
comes from the truth. Who is the liar but the one
who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the
antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the
Son.

• 1 2 John are the only biblical passages where
  the term antichrist appears. It does NOT appear
  in Revelation.
• For John, antichrist is not some supernatural
  evil person (like in The Omen and its sequels,
  or Left Behind).
• Antichrist is a role people can play.
• These antichrists were apparently once part of
  the community John is addressing, but now they
  have left.
• John finds their behavior unloving.
• John apparently sees a connection between their
  unloving behavior and their denial that Jesus
  Christ has come in the flesh.
• For John, the God who is love is embodied in
  Jesus and in ones neighbor.
• When people deny this, they stop trying to live
  in community (and vice versa).
• Maybe they claim to be spiritual but not
  religious.
• Puzzle If God is embodied love, and if God is
  known only in loving others, how do you respond
  to people who deny this in a way that loves them?
• If people honestly disagree, and keep
  disagreeing, can they abide in love in the same
  community?

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The following is an evangelistic tract
developed by Grace Unlimited. Can you see the
extent to which it is shaped by 1 John and the
Gospel of John?
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Grace UnlimitedKeeping The Good News Good
God is love, and those who dwell in love dwell in
God, and God dwells in them1 John 416b Christ
is the Logos of whom all people were partakers
and those who lived reasonably i.e., by the
Logos are Christians, even though they have been
thought atheists.Justin Martyr, First Apology,
46, ca. 150 CE

• Christian faith is fundamentally good news.
• But some popular versions dont sound like good
  news.
• They sound as if youre bound for Hell unless you
  pray the right kind of prayer or believe the
  right kinds of things.
• But there are older and deeper strands of
  Christian faith that arent so narrow, where the
  news they offer is every bit as good as it
  sounds.
• Heres a brief summary

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1. God loves us and all creation into being, so
that everyone may share in Gods common life.

• Were here because God loves us and wants us to
  live in love with God, our friends, our enemies,
  and the entire world.
• Gods love is unconditionaltheres nothing you
  can do, nothing about who you are, that can make
  God stop loving you.
• And the common life God aims to share with us is
  a life that makes each of us unique and different
  even as it makes us members of one another
  (Eph. 425).

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2. The world is a mess, and so are we, because we
choose to reject Gods love.

• Because God made us for love, God also made us
  free to reject it.
• The reason we find it so hard to get along with
  ourselves and others is that weve been born into
  a world thats been rejecting love for as far
  back as we can trace.
• So we have to be honest about that and stop
  playing games.
• We need to admit that we need Gods healing
  presence in our lives.
• And we need to keep realizing that Gods love for
  us doesnt depend on how good we are.

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3. In Christ God loves us and everybody else even
in our rejection.

• Gods love is too stubborn to let our rejection
  get in the way.
• As Christians we celebrate how Gods love keeps
  breaking into history to draw us back.
• We especially remember the story of Gods
  promises in calling Israel to be Gods people.
• Those promises were never revoked The gifts and
  the calling of God are irrevocable (Romans 1129
• We find all of those promises offered to the
  whole world in a startlingly new way in the life,
  death, and risen life of Jesus of Nazareth.
• Thats a story worth sharing with everybody.
• But its a promise, not a threat, and it doesnt
  mean that everybody has to become a Christian to
  know Gods reconciliation.
• The Gospel of John presents Jesus Christ, not as
  the only way, but as the inescapable way (John
  146), because Christ embodies the true light,
  which enlightens everyone (John 19).
• Christ is the expressiveness (the logos) of a God
  who is present everywhere, and no one comes to
  God except through God.
• Yes, God calls everyone to wake up and share
  actively in Gods common, reconciling life, and
  that will inevitably involve sharing in some way
  in the Churchs celebration of the communion of
  Gods Spirit in Jesus Christ.
• But all who dwell in love are already sharing
  in that life in some way, and they are now
  summoned mainly to be less haphazard about it.
• It would also be nice if everybody could agree on
  how to name, celebrate and promote that life, but
  thats a goal, not a prerequisite.
• Christians may have as much to learn as to teach
  about dwelling in love from conversation with
  other traditions.

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4. Were all invited to find our lives by letting
them go into Gods common life with us.

• We believe that in Jesus God let go of Gods very
  own life in the world, and that Gods Spirit is
  drawing each of us to live out the shape of that
  life in our own different ways, in a community
  that celebrates and promotes Gods unfailing
  generosity.
• Its a messy and threatening prospect, but God
  promises to be with us and to keep drawing us
  into love no matter how often we mess up.
• So the question for all of us to wrestle with is
  Are we going to let this happen in our lives?
• Are we ready to let God open us up to share our
  lives with the world God loves?
• Whether were ready for that or not, the good
  news is, and always will be, that God is always
  ready for us.