Smoodock's Blog

With all the confusion going on due to the chaos created by the false teachers, some believers in the first century AD might have wondered, do I really know Jesus at all, and, if I do, how could I know for certain? Well, John answered that question in 1John 2:3. One is able to know whether or not he knows Jesus by keeping Jesus’ commandments. That’s fairly logical, if anyone wishes to understand, if this or that person is a disciple of a particular teacher, all that needs to be known is: is that person following the teacher, doing as the teacher said, doing as he did etc.? Therefore, if anyone claims to be Jesus’ disciple, he would say what Jesus said and do what Jesus did. In other words, he would obey Jesus.

Jesus had but two commandments: to love God and to love one’s neighbor (Matthew 22:37-40; John 13:334), and, if those commandments were obeyed, one would abide in him (John 15:4, 7, 10, 12), meaning, we would be his disciples. It was impossible to fulfill the first commandment, if one didn’t fulfill the second, because no one could ever love God, whom he couldn’t see, unless he loved his brother, whom he was able to see (1John 4:11-12, 16, 20-21).

In the first chapter of his epistle, John unfolded three erroneous hypotheses for his readers (John 1:6, 8, 10) that were being peddled by the false teachers of that day, namely the preachers of Judaism. John exposed the fallacy of their argument through the perspective that God is Light (1John 1:5). In the second chapter of his epistle, John repeats those same false beliefs (1John 2:4, 9, 11) but uses different wording to expose the false teachers’ yarn. Instead of the God is Light perspective, John addresses the same false beliefs from a God is Love (1John 4:8) perspective, as can be seen in the chart below:

Notice that John equates ‘fellowship with him’ in 1John 1:6 with ‘know him’ in 1John 2:4, but he is obviously speaking of the same thing, for ‘walk in darkness’ is the same thing as saying ‘keeps not his commandments.’ The false teacher’s second argument in which they claimed, because they had the perfect word of God (perfect knowledge) in the Mosaic Covenant, they weren’t sinning, when they persecuted their brethren who believed in the New Covenant, offered through Christ (1John 1:8). In the second chapter this became ‘he that says he’s in the light but hates his brother… (1John 2:9). Finally, the Jews’ argument[1] that they could be blameless in obeying the Mosaic Law showed they didn’t need Christ’s forgiveness, was stated to show the Law was sufficient (1John 1:10). John expressed this same idea in 1John 2:11 from a perspective of God’s love by saying, if one hates his brother, he is still in darkness, and his rebellion against God hadn’t ceased.[2]

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[1] See my study in the first chapter of John’s epistle: John’s Three Arguments. There I present the case that the doctrine of the false teachers was the basis of Judaism in the first century AD. They could know God and reject Christ; they had perfect knowledge in the Mosaic Covenant and needed nothing else; the Mosaic Law provided for forgiveness of sin, so the blood of Jesus wasn’t needed. Therefore, they are not in rebellion against God.

[2] I’ll elaborate on these things in my next few studies, but, in essence, this is John’s argument.