1 John

An early undergraduate piece dealing with the extent to which theological language is metaphorical. This draws on concepts of divine transcendence and immanence, creation, the imago dei and the incarnation. Biblical materials used to illustrate the argument are the narratives of creation and the tower of Babel, Job, Ezekiel's merkabah vision and the Johannine call to brotherly love (1 John 4:7-12)

The  article  intends  to  contribute  to  the  discussion  concerning  the  typological reading of the Bible by offering an example of such a reading in the First Letter of John. The author of the Letter does not quote any Old Testament text. The only Old Testament character mentioned explicitly in his work is Cain. The way of describing this  character  reflects  imaginary  developments  of  his  story  in  Judaic  literature,  in which Cain becomes a synonym of evil. Rhetorical Biblical Analysis, applied in the study of the composition of the First Letter of John, shows that the reference to the wicked deed of Cain is placed at the very center of the Letter, in opposition to the deed of Christ,  who  «laid  down  his  life  for  us»  (1Jn  3,16), and in the context  of Christian  brotherhood.  The  centrality  and  the  uniqueness  of  the  antithetical relationship between Cain and Christ in the Letter point out the importance of the topic of brotherhood in the Letter and show how much this typological relationship is
relevant to understand the fundamental message of the whole Johannine Letter.

Disciples of Jesus wake up in a world awash in human suffering, racism, injustice, and poverty.  But the church faces an additional problem, namely the problem of our own often impoverished response. To put it bluntly: why are we are so often discouraged by the way we as the people of God respond to the pain of the world around us?

Perhaps part of the answer to that question lies in our failure to receive the gift and embrace the task of discipleship. For Christians, such a failure is akin to forgetting how to live the answers to the questions:
• who are we?
• where are we? and
• when are we?

In the midst of such failures, I want to suggest that the little letter we call 1 John offers us an invitation: to become the disciples Jesus has made and is making us to be, to receive the love of Jesus and become lovers ourselves, even in dangerous times. In this essay, I explore John’s depiction of the life of discipleship as both gift and task, before turning to consider what it might look like to respond to John’s invitation in relation to the racism and poverty confronting the church today.

The Johannine letters contain warnings against false teachers who deny that Jesus was the Christ come in the flesh, and who seem to have once been members of the author’s own group. According to the standard interpretation, these false teachers were proponents of a heterodox Christology that denied the reality of Christ’s incarnation and either considered Christ’s flesh a mere illusion (“docetism”) or made a distinction between the human Jesus and the divine Christ who descended into and benignly possessed Jesus at his baptism (separation or possession Christology).

Both views have been connected with “Gnosticism” in previous scholarship. What is more, the standard interpretation is ultimately based on a mere few polemical passages in 1 and 2 John that have often colored the interpretation of the letters in general. Misguided mirror-reading and over-interpretation are also at play in readings of the polemical passages themselves. Such methodological problems derive in part from a lack of understanding of ancient rhetorical conventions.

Once insights from ancient rhetoric are applied to the reading of the letters, a different picture of the opponents begins to emerge. This picture matches well with polemical scenes in the Fourth Gospel but poorly with Ignatius’ letters or Irenaeus’ heresy catalog. A small but growing number of scholars–including B. Olsson and D. Streett–argue that the Johannine opponents are simply members of the local Jewish community, some of who had once been Christ-believers, but had since become convinced that Jesus was not the promised messiah after all. There is no strong evidence that any of them had held a “Gnostic”-like Christology of any kind.

On the other hand, as Käsemann famously stated, the Johannine gospel itself is “naïvely docetic.” The divinity of Jesus pervades the gospel and, since there are no birth or infancy narratives, it is easy to understand why some Valentinians later understood the Word having become flesh only at Jesus’ baptism. Also, while one does not have to accept Bultmann’s thesis of a Gnostic (Mandean) background of the gospel prologue, it is interesting to note that the prologue contains a rare feature that during the first two centuries is mainly found within the Classic Gnostic tradition; namely, application of Jewish Wisdom traditions to Jesus’ baptism. It thus remains possible that what might in retrospect be called heterodox tendencies did play a role in the Johannine “schism,” but that it was the Johannine author himself whose views approached Gnostic ones.

This article intends to offer a concise presentation of Biblical Rhetorical Analysis, which is one of the «new methods of literary analysis» mentioned in the document of the  Pontifical  Biblical  Commission,  The  Interpretation  of  the  Bible  in  the  Church
(1993). This analysis is considered particularly useful to find out the composition and the  message  of  biblical  texts,  as  far  as  they  are  ruled  by  a  particular  rhetoric  — different from the classical one — which is characterized by «binarity», «parataxis»
and  concentric  constructions.  The  presentation  is  guided  by  three  questions  which deal  with the essence, the origin and the utility of Biblical Rhetorical Analysis. The last  part  of  the  article  is  dedicated  to  the  analysis  of  a  few  texts  which  belong  to different  levels  of  composition:  passage  (Mt  7,24-27,  and  1Jn 3,11-17),  sequence (1Jn 3,2-24) and book (1John).

This essay, refined and published later in Communities in Dispute: Current Scholarship on the Johannine Epistles, ECL 13; R. Alan Culpepper and Paul N. Anderson, eds. (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2014) 47-93, expands upon the strengths and weaknesses of Raymond Brown's theory of the Johannine "community"--as well as comparable theories by Martyn, Kaesemann, Borgen, Meeks, Reinhartz, Cassidy, and others, showing six or seven crises within the Johannine situation over seven decades--a longitudinal perspective.

This study seeks to explore the way of Christian salvation through its relation to life in the community. Salvation in the West is often understood in an individualistic way.  This dissertation is an attempt to look at the concept of salvation from a different perspective, which represents life in the community as the way of salvation. A similar approach was developed by the Eastern wing of the Church that “insists on the essential sociality of salvation.”  For this reason insights from Eastern theological thought will be used in this study.

This study analyzes the life and theology of Zane Hodges, particularly his distinctive Free Grace soteriological views. The study begins with a brief overview of Hodges's life and ministry, tracing his continuing legacy on the evangelical church today. Hodges's soteriological views can likely be traced back to significant influences at Dallas Theological Seminary, such as Chafer, Walvoord, and Ryrie, though Hodges clearly went further than his mentors. Hodges advocates a view of salvation that eliminates repentance and sees saving faith as a conviction that Jesus guarantees one eternal life. This saving faith does not necessarily lead to perseverance, though the believer is eternally secure even if he apostatizes. The impetus, then, for the believer to live a godly life is a robust doctrine of rewards that bifurcates sharply between those who inherit the kingdom and those who merely enter it. The study concludes with a brief response to Hodges's theology.

Do we need “docetism”? Conventional definitions and taxonomies of docetism struggle to account for the complex and contradictory ways in which “docetic” Christian teachers and texts describe how Christ seemed to be human in his bodily presence and passion. Docetism, like Gnosticism, is rhetorical and functions more to demarcate lines of orthodoxy and heresy than identify consistent systems of beliefs and practices of individuals and groups. Moreover, modern conceptions of docetism have even led scholars to misconstrue the teachings of ancient Christian teachers and texts. Through a re-examination of early Christian texts and figures that typically appear to flesh-out docetism (e.g., 1, 2 John, Ignatius, Basilides, Marcion, Valentinus, and the Gospel of Peter), this essay demonstrates how other categories (e.g., possessionist Christology, angelomorphology, polymorphy) can more precisely characterize the Christology of these texts and how such theological concerns connect with broader cultural conversations  and problems of their day.

Investigates the claim that Bishop Thaschus Cæcilius Cyprianus quoted The Comma Johanneum (1 John 5:7 as it appears in the KJV) and concludes he most probably did not. This tentative conclusion will need stronger evidence to overturn it; however, even if the author is wrong, it does not vindicate authenticity for the Comma.

An annotated bibliography on the General Epistles (also known as the Catholic Epistles), from Hebrews through Jude. It lists just five works for each epistle or group of epistles. Each list of five books is meant to provide a balanced set of resources, including at least one non-evangelical work, while keeping to the limit of five so that students will be sure to consult some of the most important reference works.

Scholars have long sought to determine the identity of the believers who “overcome” in Johannine literature and the nature of their overcoming. They have debated over whether the overcomers consist of the truly saved who attain to final salvation (rather than those who forfeit it), the truly saved who live spiritually (rather than those who live carnally), or all the truly saved, whose transformed lives prove the certainty of their final salvation. They also have debated over whether the outcome of overcoming is final salvation or particular rewards that supplement, rather than constitute, it. But scholars have not yet compared how each of the Johannine books portray, in their own historical and literary contexts, what it means for the believer to overcome. They have left unaddressed the extent to which the function of the overcoming theme in one book compares to, or differs from, that in the other. This study provides an inductive, biblical-theological analysis of how the use of νικάω ("to overcome") in First John and Revelation portrays what it means for the believer to overcome in the historical and literary contexts of each book individually. The study demonstrates that the use of νικάω in First John functions as a means of assurance, but the use of νικάω in Revelation functions as a means of admonishment. The use of νικάω in First John functions to portray present behaviors, beliefs, and a state of being that the truly saved already experience in their lives and serves as evidence of their salvation. In Revelation, however, it functions to portray a degree of repentance and faithfulness that they have not yet displayed but must to inherit eternal life.

What exactly did the Biblical writer mean when he wrote: “…the testimony of God is this: that He has borne witness concerning His Son” (1 John 5.9)?  He states that this “testimony” is greater than “the testimony of men” (i.e., the Apostles).  Could the Shroud of Turin be the answer to this puzzling passage with its perplexing questions?  Did the Heavenly Father leave behind a miraculous sign in the empty tomb testifying to the human Jesus being the Christ, His divine Son?  Is the Shroud’s incredible image the testimony of the Father down through the ages affirming the truth of the Gospel story?

To properly understand the apostle John's Epistles (in keeping, indeed, with many expressions of our Lord Jesus Himself as recorded in John's Gospel), it is essential that we grasp their particularly "abstract" nature. The First Epistle of John, especially, "is mainly abstract (i.e., deals with truth in its principles) and [as such] draws a sharp distinction between light and darkness and between the old nature and the new" (RAH), with no shades of gray in such expressions, and generally not stopping to address the mixed condition that believers often find in themselves, who possess both the divine life/new nature and the old lawless nature-with such abstract statements further serving to both encourage and admonish us, stirring us to enter into by faith and realize in daily practice the profound blessings of the new nature and position we have in Christ and to walk accordingly. "It is of great value to view things in this abstract way [that is, according their fundamental nature by which they are characterized before God, without introducing any qualifying clauses related to varying experiential condition], for thereby we are instructed in the true nature of things, and see things as God sees them. Moreover [in the case of the children of God] we are seeing things as they will be displayed in the day to come when God has finished His work with us [in our glorified state]." (FBH) "Needless to say, that when we look into daily conversation [daily walk], there is failure too often. But John is not occupied with the shortcoming as a general rule, but with the principle, and therefore he puts it in all its simplicity as he was entitled to do. .. 'In this are manifest the children of God and the children of the devil.' The apostle regarded the difference as plain enough. He looks as usual at broad, clear, and practical proofs." "John as a rule [with few exceptions] does not occupy himself with the details of fact [as to modifications in the believer's spiritual condition or lapses of unfaithfulness]. He looks at truth in its own proper abstract character apart from passing circumstances; and if you do not read John's writings thus, especially the epistle before us, I am afraid that there is little prospect that you will ever understand them." (WK) "The ascribing to a person what is true only of a nature [the nature by which he is viewed before God], runs through all John's epistle." (JND) Thus, with respect to the believer, while he still has the old nature, the flesh, in him (Rom. 7:18), he is no longer "in the flesh" as to his standing or what characterizes him before God (Rom. 7:5; 8:8-9; Eph. 2:11; Col. 2:11). He is viewed as such all through this First Epistle-according to the new nature which alone characterizes him before God (in contrast with the falsely professing unbeliever whose sole nature, the flesh, characterizes him before God).

For a sampling of such “abstract” expressions of our Lord in John’s Gospel as well, see: 5:28-29; 8:12, 31-32, 34, 36, 42, 47, 51; 10:4-5, 27; 12:25-26; 14:21, 23-24; 15:14; 17:6, 8; etc. Likewise with respect to His characterization of “him that overcomes” in Revelation 2-3 (the real believer, 1 John 5:4-5), also recorded by John. Such may be found, to a lesser extent, in our Lord’s words in each of the other Gospels too, e.g.: Matt. 5:3-11; 7:17-19; 10:32-33, 37-39; 16:24-25; Mark 8:34-38; Luke 6:43-45; 8:21; 9:23-26; 14:26-27. Nor is this type of expression absent elsewhere in the NT, key examples of which may be noted in this striking set of related passages: 1 Cor. 6:9-11; Gal. 5:19-21; Eph. 5:5-8; Col. 3:5-6; Rev. 21:8.

Appendix 1: Know” in First John:  The Occurrences of and Shade of Difference between Ginosko and Oida

Appendix 2: Personal Assurance

Appendix 3: Divine Preservation of Faith in His Own Contrasted with Apostasy of False Professors

In this article I assert that while "in the beginning" of John 1:1 is an intentional echo of Genesis 1:1, John's Gospel is about the New Beginning, the New Creation of God in the man Christ Jesus.

In the life and ministry of the human person Jesus the Messiah, God is beginning His promised New Creation. Jesus is the Beginning of God’s New Creation. The words and deeds of Jesus recorded by John provide evidence, but the ultimate evidence that Jesus is the beginning of God’s New Creation is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead (John 20). As John the Revelator records, Jesus is “the beginning of God’s creation” (Rev. 3:14). Paul as well calls Jesus “the beginning, the firstborn from among the dead ones” (Col. 1:18). The “beginning” in John 1:1 is a new beginning.

Since we in the last hour of Christ's coming and many antichrist are coming as the word of God says. As you read this brief thought it is my earnrt hope that you will receive fresh new insights, and full awareness of antichrist. May you be blessed as you read through.

Authorship and dates of John’s epistles.
Similarities between 1 John and the Gospel of John .
Attitudes and teachings characterize the spirit of antichrist.
John’s purpose in writing 2 and 3 John.
Features common to first century letters in 2 and 3 John.
2 John and describe the reality and requirements for fellowship.
Tests of fellowship according to 1 John 3:13-24.
Date, authorship, purpose, and canonicity of Jude
Similarities and explain the relationship between 2 Peter 2 and Jude.
How believers should respond concerning heresy

The First Letter of John is widely known  for its famous affirmations concerning Christian love. This article, thanks to the application of the method of biblical rhetorical analysis, seeks to deepen the theme of love by offering an exegesis of 1Jn 1-10 where, for the first time in the Epistle, the expression «God is love» appears. The analysis of the text reveals that these ten verses, often divided up by commentators, form a coherent textual unity, not only because of their internal composition, but also due to their meaning. Christian love, which finds its roots, its model and even its reason for being in the love of God revealed in his Son, is closely related to the faith and spiritual discernment which prevent us from being misled by «false prophets», especially those who deny the «carnality» of Jesus.

This chapter explores the influence of the Šemaʿ Yisraʾel on 1 John 5:7-8 and the interpolation thereto (the Johannine Comma), and the influence of the Johannine Comma in the Zohar, which polemically transforms the Johannine Comma's slogan "these three are one." Some numerical aspects of the Johannine Comma are also explored..

1 Jn deals in no way with the problem of Docetism. The same is valid for all Sarx Christi places of the well-known early Christian writings. Only Ignatius reacts to Docetism. But, his Christology of Incarnation precedes his Opposition to Docetism.  Docetism develops parallel to the beginnings of Angel Christology probably mainly from what I call “Angel Docetism”.

Conceptions of Incarnation probably develop from experiences of inspiration and ascension of Jesus himself. In this context Jesus or his disciples experience that he becomes talented with the Name of God (= Word of God).
The conception of Sarx Christi is designed similar to the metaphorical material of the changes of dresses which is very well known from Ascension experiences and Temple Cult practices.

The High Priest, talented with the Name of God (inscription on his turban), passes through the temple curtains on the day of reconciliation. In this moment he is dressed in the same materials like the veil, which represent the sky/cosmos - in the same way as in the natural world the ›flesh‹ is the material of the cosmos.

In this sense Jesus is a mystic person who in his return from an ascension or initial inspiration experience appears as an heavenly figure, as an ambassador, as an authorized person, a representative of the Father in highest power (Son of God, Son of Man, Messiah etc), dressed with flesh as his body dress.

Kostenberger and Patterson have provided biblical interpretation an excellent tool in their work, "The Hermeneutical Triad." This paper seeks to provide a brief treatment of the triad. After this foundation, an examination is provided of the triad in action.

Johannine corpus of writings, as it has been termed by scholars, is of a unique and diverse character in relation to the rest of Scripture. From the moment of its inception, the Christian tradition had varied opinions concerning the books he authored, yet they were almost universally recognized as inspired and authoritative. Each work, be it John’s Gospel, his epistles or the Apocalypses bears a distinct character and has a unique function. It is not the goal of this paper to study them all. In fact, most likely even a collection of such papers could not accommodate even a survey of their theological themes and motifs. The focus of this paper is on the practical issues John raises in his first epistle in light of its overarching theme and purpose.

It is important to note that this paper presupposes a literal historical-grammatical approach to interpreting Scripture. Little attention will be given to speculative theories and questionable methods propagated by liberal theologians and proponents of source, form and redaction criticism. While some interaction with such ideas is necessary and unavoidable in the contemporary scholarship, priority will be nonetheless given to reasonable and biblical conclusions. The author of this paper does not intend to present results based original research, rather the analysis will be conducted based on an variety of conservative Evangelical sources, such as books, commentaries and journal articles. The goal of this paper is to produce a practical source, based on sound scholarship that will practically assist teachers and expositors of God’s Word in their ministry of encouraging and building up the Body of Christ.

Published in Euriditio Ardescens, volume 1, issue 2 (Spring/Summer 2014).  The issue of assurance or confidence in knowing about eternal life is a constant theme in 1 John.  John consistently emphasizes the reality of salvation as coming through only one source—the incarnate Jesus, God in the flesh.  This relationship with the incarnate God creates confidence in the life of the believer to the degree that he or she has a reasonable expectation that God will hear and respond to the believer’s prayers. In chapter 5:13-21, however, John seems to raise an issue with this view by discussing a situation in which believers should not pray for others—when those others have committed the “sin unto death.”  John’s exclusive gospel seems challenged here if John is asking believers to avoid praying for other believers who have committed the “sin unto death.” A consideration of the context of John’s brief epistle may yield clues to understanding this topic in a way that keeps confidence intact while challenging the attitudes and actions of the false teachers mentioned in 1 John.

The pursuit of a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies is much more than the pursuit of academic knowledge. It is also about the pursuit of one's relationship with the living God. At least, that is the way it is for me. I approach every class as an opportunity to sharpen my mind and my heart. My institution believes the same and requires that each student-even at a doctoral level-take spiritual formation classes. One of my spiritual formation classes required me to write four brief papers on books of the Bible. I chose the following: You will not find many footnotes or an extensive bibliography. These are not meant to be scholarly presentations but observations of the text and reflections of the heart. I pass them to you for your edification in mind and spirit. Habakkuk-From Frustration to Faith It is, arguably, one of the most profound, yet overlooked verses in the OT. The prophet, commencing his final words, said in 3:2, "O LORD, I have heard the report about you, and I fear. O LORD, revive Your work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy." 1 To grasp their impact, one must understand the movement of the book. Habakkuk was a temple musician-prophet who lived during the reign of the last kings of Judah. 2 He lamented the dismal state into which the people of God had sunk. Like the psalmists of old, he asked, "How long, O Lord …?" and "Why do you …?" The book is dialogical containing the prophet's questions, God's responses, and a concluding psalm of trust. It presents issues of theodicy, "Why are those who are more wicked than your people the instruments of your judgment?" When one understands the frustration, the pain, and Habakkuk's incredulity 1 New American Standard Bible, The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, CA, 1995. 2 Boda and McConville, "Habakkuk," J.K. Bruckner, 294-295.

This paper seeks to harmonize the seeming tension between John's teaching sin in I 1 John chapters 1 and 3. It argues that in 3:6-9 John is speaking of future realities as though they were present in order to encourage Christians to live holy lives I keeping with their future, sinless identity.

The new birth arises as one of the major doctrines of Christian faith. In fact, it acts as a foundational doctrine that marks the difference between grace and merit, which this article will explore. These two differences act as stark contrasts relative to salvation from its beginning to the conclusion of one's life. That is, the new birth raises the issue of human initiative versus God's initiative or the combination of both at the inception of spiritual life. It influences the nature of salvation itself and related biblical doctrines. This new birth produces a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17) and pronounces the old gone. While sin remains and never becomes eradicated in this life, the new life increasingly expresses itself, as overcoming, through the grace of God.

Tema utama teks ini adalah "Marilah mengasihi satu sama lain." Penafsiran akan menggunakan metode analisis diskursus. Pemaparan makalah dimulai dengan penelitian naskah, relasi intratekstual, struktur komposisi, konsep teologis, dan rancangan khotbah.

[The Struggle for an Integral Christological Faith in the First Letter of John and the History of the Johannine Community]

The terminology of faith (pistis, pisteuo) in 1 John refers in one way or another to the problem of an orthodox Christology. 1 John appears to be a polemical writing, which aims at countering the ethical and Christological claims of the secessionist who at some point left the Johannine community. The present work leaves aside the attempts of previous exegetes to identify the secessionist with various ancient heterodox groups known from extra-biblical sources (e.g. Ebionites, Docetists, Gnostics etc.). Instead, the reading of the Johannine letters reveals that three main Christological claims – namely that Jesus is God, Jesus is Christ, and Jesus has come in the flesh – might be approached from pneumatological and anthropological angles. The secessionist believed that the role of Jesus was limited to announcing the outpouring of the Spirit, and that believers, having received the Spirit, possessed a status not much different from that of Jesus himself.

This paper will provide an introduction to the study of John’s First Epistle.  The purpose of the paper is to provide the necessary background; historical, theological, and thematic, to facilitate a thorough exegesis of the text itself.  There will be three main sections: The Historical Method -  Gnosticism, The Theological Method - Theological Presuppositions, and The Exegetical Method - Johannine Themes.  Gnosticism will discuss the historical issues related to the theology of “higher knowledge” that is attainable by some.  This section will include the origins of Gnosticism, its development, and the relationship between Gnosticism and the New Testament.  The section on Theological Presuppositions will be shorter and will discuss the implications and dangers that are inherent in bringing predisposed ideas and theologies to the Biblical text.  Lastly, Johannine Themes attempt to formulate a coherent plan to determine the thematic structure of the Epistle.