Jensens survey of the old testament adam 598
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Refer to Chart 1, page 20, and observe
when John wrote his epistles. How many
years had elapsed between the writings of
Peter and John? Why do you think God
inspired John’s books to be written so long
after the other New Testament books? What
emphases might you expect to see in letters
written at this time? Why?
C. ADDRESSEES
The readers of 1 John were probably a
congregation or group of congregations of
Asia Minor closely associated with the
apostle. Read 2:7, 18, 20, 21, 24, 27; 3:11
for suggestions that the readers had been
believers for a long time. Various teachers
and preachers had ministered to the people
living in the vicinity of Ephesus long before
John wrote his books. (Among those who
ministered were Paul, Acts 18:19; 19:1-20;
Aquila and Priscilla, Acts 18:18-19, 24-26;
Trophimus, Acts 21:29; the family of
Onesiphorus, 2 Tim. 1:16-18; 4:19; and
Timothy, 1 Tim. 1:3.) That most of John’s
readers were converts from heathenism is
only intimated by the absence of Old
Testament quotations and by the warning
regarding idols in the last sentence of the
epistle (5:21).
Whoever the readers were, John knew
them intimately. Hence the very personal,
warm atmosphere of this letter to his
“children.”
D. OCCASION AND PURPOSE
John wrote this letter to Christians who
were falling prey to the deceptive devices of
Satan so common in our own day. Christians
were ghting each other, and John was
frank to declare that “the one who hates his
brother is in the darkness … and does not
know where he is going because the
darkness has blinded his eyes” (2:11).
Christians were beginning to love the evil
things of the world, and John wanted to
warn them of the tragic consequences.
And then there were the false teachers —
John calls them antichrists — who were
trying to seduce the believers by false
doctrine to draw them away from Christ.
John warned his readers about such false
teachers and encouraged them to stand true
to the message of the gospel and to abide in
Christ.
Also there were those who were doubting
their own salvation. So John wrote to instill
con dence, that such doubters might know
that they had eternal life (5:13). In his
gospel his purpose was to arouse a saving
faith (John 20:31); in 1 John his purpose
was to establish certainty regarding that
faith.
The false teaching that John was
especially trying to combat in his epistle was
a form of Gnosticism in its infant stage. The
basic tenet of the Gnostics was that matter
was evil and spirit was good. One of the
heresies that grew from this came to be
known as Docetism, which held that Jesus
did not have a real body (for then God
would be identi ed with evil matter, or
esh), but that he seemed (Greek dokeo) to
people to have a body. John makes it very
clear in this epistle that Jesus, the Son of
God, appeared to man in real, human esh.
Read 1:1 and 4:2-3 and observe how
