Is First John Written to Strengthen the Saints’Assurance of Salvation or to Promote Self-doubt?

Understanding both the background and the authorial intent are vital in understanding how one interprets a book. This principle holds true especially when coming to books of the Bible. In no Bible book is this principle more important than how one handles First John. Because John’s writings do not have the tight argumentation as do the epistles of Paul, it can be difficult to trace his logic unless one knows the historical, and cultural context in what John was dealing with when he wrote the book. It should not surprise us that there are two camps of interpretation with respect to why First John was written and not surprisingly they are contradictory. On the one hand we have commentators and pastors who see the purpose of First John to be ‘tests of the Genuineness of One’s Faith.’ John sees heresy infiltrating the church in the late first century and he wants to challenge the faith of the church members by giving them standards by which they can measure the validity of their faith. In other words, John’s method is to cause people to look within to see if there be any wicked way in them. Depending on the teacher, there are three, four or more such tests that the professor of Christ should use to determine whether he or she is real or not. Taking these tests, say some of the proponents, will strengthen one’s assurance of faith. The result of this approach is to cause the reader to look within his or her heart to see if they harbor in their hearts any wicked way. This pathway to assurance rests on very subjective standards. What is normally presented as objective tests of assurance, are, in fact, very subjective ones. We will expand on this in a moment. One such scheme lists three tests that a Christian must pass in order to know if he or she is a true believer. They are Test 1: a test of one’s orthodox belief about the incarnation of Jesus Christ; “Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God” (1 John 4:2) . Test 2: a test of obedience to the commands of God, “Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments” (1 John 2:3). And Test 3: a test of whether or not one has true love for the brethren, “We know we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren” (1 John 3:14). Though at first they seem like surefire objective standards they are anything but. For anyone who reads them will instantly raise the question, “What is the passing mark for each test? To what depth must I love the brethren? How perfectly must I keep the commandment?” Applying these tests to oneself leads inevitably to self-doubt because the line of acceptability is unknowable. In other words to teach that First John is a book about tests of salvation produces the very doubt that the proponents of this paradigm try to guard against. Rather than bolstering one’s faith, the method of looking within to find evidences only serves to deconstruct it.

Now before we go any farther let us turn to the verse that John himself gives that expresses his purpose for writing this book. It is found in 5:13, “These things we have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know you have eternal life.”

Now it should be apparent to the reader that John is writing this book not to cause the saints to doubt their salvation, he writes to those who already believe which assures them they are saved. This is not a test, but a statement of fact. It is as if John said, “We apostles know who you are, we know you have believed, and we know you are on the right track so we write to you to comfort you despite all the upheaval caused by the many of the aberrant groups that have departed.”

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. How do we know this was the context in which the book was written? The text itself gives us all the clues we need.

The book itself makes it clear that John thinks there are two groups to address as he writes the book. First, John speaks to those still in the church who have continued on in the apostolic doctrine. To these John is a tender father, constantly assuring them that their faith is real and that they are holding on to that which is true. In chapter two, verses 12-14, he addresses three specific groups in the church and with all of them he is absolutely confident of their salvation.

He write to the young believers, the children, and confidently notes, “Your sins are forgiven.” Next he writes to the older saints, the fathers. To them he says, “You have known Him who is from the beginning.” Lastly he writes to the young men and to them is the promise, “You have overcome the wicked one.” To none of these three groups does John offer a shred of doubt that they are saved.

But there is a second group who John talks about writes and their destiny is equally clear. This faction John labels as antichrists, meaning they either stood against the Christ of the Apostles or they had erected another Christ in the place of the true one. In either case these men had long since abandoned the true apostolic doctrine and had left the church. History tells us that in the latter part of the first century the church was besieged by its first big theological struggle. Many Greeks who had professed Christianity had integrated their Christian faith with Greek Philosophy and Platonic categories. They had denied the importance and necessity of material elements which included the incarnation, the efficacy of Christ’s blood, baptism and the communion table. They even had challenged the need of the written word and had taught that fellowship with God consisted of a spiritual, unmediated experience. Because sin was something committed in the flesh, these heretics did not countenance it either, saying that in their spirit they were perfectly pure. This had prompted John to state that to deny sin is basically to deny the faith (1:8, 10). John also noted that though sin is very much real, so too is the remedy for sin, the blood of Christ (1:9), something this faction denied. Their ‘superior’ form of Christianity was a spiritual experience only which looked upon the material world as essentially evil and promoted the idea that the soul was good and that it alone could sail unhindered into the port of direct contact with the divine. This movement, the first real theological challenge to the church, we call Gnosticism. John notes that they had left the visible, apostolic church and he wants the saints to understand this kind of violent reaction to apostolic doctrine will characterize the last days. He says,

“Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us” (2:18-19).

As we meander through this book we shall see that it always has these two groups in mind. John is ever comforting the true saints who have clung to apostolic truth and condemning those who have drifted into this heretical Gnosticism. Seeing the book this way we summarize First John as John’s desire to give comfort to the saints who have remained true to the apostolic faith with a goal of fortifying their assurance. At the same time John denounces with unflinching severity those who have departed from the apostolic witness into a Gnostic spiritualism.

Many who assert that this book is a threefold test to determine if one’s faith is sure, do so on the basis of such verses as 1 John 2:4, which says, “He who says, ‘I know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments is a liar and the truth is not in Him.” So we ask, is John really going after the faith of his audience? If we understand what John means by ‘not keeping the commandments’ we can discern what John means. The commandments that John has in mind are the old line of teaching they had heard ‘from the beginning.’ And those old apostolic truths have led up to that ‘new commandment’ which he mentions in vs 8, the command to love the brethren. John makes it clear that those who were not loving their brothers were the same ones who walked in darkness, that is, those who had departed from the visible, apostolic community (verse 9). In this section he uses the exact same phraseology found in 1:6-7 where John is clearly referring to the Gnostics who walked in darkness. Far from trying to undermine the faith of his audience, John is trying to encourage the saints by contrasting their secure faith with the false piety of the Gnostics. Yet, many expositors and preachers view this section as John doubting the genuine faith of his audience. But again, is this how John feels about his audience? We have already demonstrated that in verses 12-14 of chapter two John firmly believes they are real.

But we must not stop here. Let us proceed forward in the book so as to demonstrate without doubt that John writes to encourage weary, harried saints.

Having pointed out the gnostic faction that departed from the apostolic congregation (2:19), John then affirms that the saints to whom he writes have very Holy Spirit residing in them. We see this in verse 20, “But you have an anointing from the Holy One and you know all things.” The implication is clear, those who left had spoken boastfully about their personal ‘spiritual’ connection to God. But in reality they did not possess the one Spirit that was really necessary. At the same time the orthodox group was safe and secure because they did have the Spirit of God and by Him truly knew God. There is no hint that all of this is to make the saints doubt. John continues with the contrast several verses later. In 2:26 John warns the saints about these false teachers, “These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you.” But they need not fear this splinter group because they are true believers who have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them. On this basis John lets them know that they need not heed the voice of ‘teachers’ who are trying to influence them (2:27). It is as if John is saying, “Hold on! beloved saints; you are on the right track. These false teachers have nothing good to tell you. Don’t listen to them but listen to the Holy Spirit.”

In 3:1 John comforts them again by stating unequivocally that they are “children of God.” What better to strengthen their assurance then to remind them of their sonship.

In 3:4-6 John again deals with the matter of sin. The sins of those who confess their sins will be washed away (3:5; see 1:9). But those who have moved outside the apostolic community live in a continual state of unforgiven sin for they are under the sway of the devil himself (3:8).

In 4:1 there is another great contrast between the apostolic community and the heretics. The heretics are false prophets who go around deceiving true believers. This John calls this the spirit of antichrist (4:3). But the believers in the church have, according to John, overcome the machinations of the wicked heretics because they are filled with the Spirit of God (4:4). And while the heretical Gnostics persecute believers because they do not hear the voice of God, the Christians, on the other hand, are proclaiming the word of God and all who hear them belong to God. Hearing or not hearing the word of God is another great separation point between the Christians and the Gnostics (4:6).

Most of the rest of First John in chapters 4 and 5 centers around the love of God which indwells every believer. John does not question the love of the saints but affirms it. They love because God loved them first. The Gnostics, on the other hand, are filled with the hatred of Cain (3:12) and have shown no love to the Christian community (3:17). John closes the book by contrasting those who have the witness of Christ in them, “He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself,” and those who do not bear the witness of Jesus Christ and make Him a liar (5:10). This leads to the final destiny of the two groups. Those who have remained under the truth of the apostles ‘will stand in the judgment’ (4:17, see psalm 1:6). As a contrast, those who stand outside the community are those who have no spiritual life (5:12).

We could say more but the evidence is compelling. First John is a book to encourage those Christians who have stuck fast to the apostolic teaching. They are sinners like everyone else but they are forgiven sinners. And John the apostle desires to encourage their faith by comforting them in the gospel.

So we must ask, “Why do so many pastors try to shake up the confidence of the sheep when the apostle in this book makes it a point to encourage them?”

There is no one answer to that question. Perhaps we live in a Christian cultural, evangelical, climate which lends itself to using heavy law and threats to move the saints to action. Perhaps many believe this approach is the only way to curb the rising worldliness that exists in the American church. The bottom line is that the gospel, though known by many, is not the all-encompassing paradigm in which the American church operates; it is not the very air in which it breathes. Perhaps history will place over the entire American evangelical experiment this banner, THE GOSPEL DIDN’T WORK SO WE TRIED SOMETHING ELSE. Whatever the cause, the entire evangelical movement has lost interest in the preaching the gospel of free grace to sinners and has become enamored with pragmatism, experience and morality. It is time for church leaders to lead the troops to recover this sacred message. And this will start by encouraging the saints in their faith with the gospel of God’s complete acceptance of those who believe which alone will make them a holy, zealous people of God. Preaching First John correctly would be a good place to begin.