02/08/2025 – Prologue – I will be short. Before beginning this lesson, I watched Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ.
[1 John 4:7-21] – God’s Love – If we could theologically understand and then faithfully apply these 15 verses, we could eliminate nearly all of the Bible that was not history. A strong statement, but John’s writings are stronger. We begin by counting the number of times he uses the word ‘love’. (27) That is what is on his mind! This is the rich soil out of which grows our Christian faith: the belief that Jesus the Messiah, the one true God, has revealed Himself to be – love incarnate. That is the badge that identifies our God and us.
We see God’s love revealed in sending Jesus. Therein we find the fundamentals to it all. [v. 7-10] Jesus would be the sacrifice that would atone for our sins. Periodically, we need to step back and contemplate Christ’s passion on the cross – its power and promises. This is the force that changed the world and is capable of more changes of greater significance. If that is how God loved us, ought we to love others in the same way? [v. 11] But [v. 12] goes even deeper – if we love one another God abides in us and His love is completed in us. We did not truly know God (No one had ever seen God), but then they were able to look at Jesus. From that we may correctly say: People do not really know who God is – until we see it revealed in the life of Christians. Jesus unveiled God before a surprised and uncertain world – so must we. That is the importance of love!
Love comes about because of the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit allows us to see what the Father has done sending His Son. From that fact we are to witness to this act and our witness is not only in word, but also in deed. [John 3:18] John doubles back here with the observation that if we say we love God, but do not love our brother or sister (members of our Christian community) we are simply telling lies. The door that opens to let out our love for God is the same door that opens to love our neighbor. Without doing the latter we are not able to do the former. Precisely what does that do for us? [v. 17-18] We shall have boldness and confidence on Judgement day; This is not a matter of trust it is God’s all promising love. John is saying God turned His love into flesh and blood and thus revealed Himself. Our peace is in God’s all-encompassing love acted out on the cross. We are capable of completing God’s love only because what will happen through us will be the true love of the true God. Then, there is no need to fear any longer.
As we learn to give ourselves to others as God gave Himself to us there is no more fear, we are completing the circle of love. John is able to make me wonder if I am ever able to attain that level of simplicity of faith and life. Here is a moment for self-examination. Do we expect that dwelling with God was going to be easy, half-hearted or approached as a hobby? [v. 16] Flash! God takes us seriously! N. B. We see again that little word – abide – meaning ‘dwell’, ‘remain’, or ‘make’s one's home’. It is truly profound going straight to the heart of Christian faith. This is the meaning of fellowship with the Father and the Son and to all those who belong to the Son and who confess that Jesus is God’s Son. [v. 15] That may be easy to say but challenging to execute and perhaps more so to maintain daily as we are tugged at by the world. Only powerful love keeps us upright and that love is found as we gaze at the cross. [v. 9-11]
[1 John 5:1-12] – Faith Wins the Victory – By now we may have discovered that John presents variations and variations on variations. Do not struggle with this. This caused me to wonder if that style was not the result of John’s unusually close relationship with Jesus – ‘John the one that Jesus loved.’ Was John writing the way that Jesus was speaking? It seems a certainty that Jesus repeatedly talked about love, for example, and never with exactly the same words. Yes, John repeats, but he introduces us to a new element in [v. 4]: “everything fathered by God conquers the world.” What!? Why can we not just resist the blandishments of the world? I may be up for resisting, but I am not certain if I can be a conqueror, in light of Jesus’ statement, “I have overcome the world”. Why does he say ‘everything’? John is referring not only to human beings ‘fathered’ by God, [v. 1] but that also includes their life and their work – the people and the things they do.
What is this conquest? Turn to the Gospel of John [12:31]. Jesus speaks of ‘the world’s ruler’ being thrown out. In [14:30] Jesus declares, ‘the ruler of this world has nothing to do with me.’ Then cheery news [16:33] Jesus, warns the disciples they will face persecu-tion in the world, (so will we) and concludes, ‘But cheer up, I have conquered the world!’ In the Book of John read [18 – 19] – we will find Jesus, Pontius Pilate and the chief priests. Jesus and Pilate argue about the themes of the kingdom: truth and power. Then the chief priests manipulate Pilate to crucify Jesus. At Jesus’ death as ‘king of the Jews’, it is also the very moment when and the means by which Jesus conquered ‘the world’. All who watched, thought at that moment, ‘the world’ had conquered Jesus. We visualize this physically and read in John who writes, as death came when the Centurion’s spear pierced Jesus, water and blood came forth. [19:34] John was a personal witness. Link [19:34] with [1 John 5:4-9] The victory that conquers the world is the saving death of Jesus. And we who, by faith, cling to the God who is made known in Jesus, and who died on the cross – share that victory, that conquest of ‘the world’.
‘The world’ is not just a source of distraction and temptation. It holds positive power for evil, who resents the arrival of ‘the world’s own creator to claim His rightful lordship. (“He was in the world,’ said John in the gospel, ‘and ‘the world’ was made through him, and ‘the world’ did not know Him’.) Evil, AKA ‘the world’, will fight back. This fight came to a head when Jesus (God’s kingdom) faced Pilate (Caesar’s kingdom) at the time as the supreme power in the world. N.B. God’s kingdom is one, ‘the world’ has many! The death of Jesus, with the water and the blood already separated, shows that death was real: confirming who He said He was; He really died; and He was fully human, in the flesh. Blood signifies death, suffering and forgive-ness of sin [Heb. 9:22] and represents the eucharist. Water signifies life, atonement, cleansing, new life and represents baptism.
John returns to the issue of the ‘Anti-messianic’ teachers who deny Jesus had come in the ‘flesh’. They agree to John the Baptist/Baptism, but cannot accept Jesus’ death. John is credible and the Holy Spirit bears witness through John’s narrative. No other god, no other power, no other being loves like this, gives like this and dies like this. None! All others win by fighting, Jesus by suffering. All others exercise power by killing, Jesus by dying. The last two verses [v. 11-12] are clear: Anyone who has the Son has life. Anyone who does not have the Son of God does not have life. Stark, unambiguous plain speaking – there are times when that form matters – this is one of them. AMEN
Love, hank
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