1 John Overview
Theme
The believer’s close relationship with God through Jesus Christ and what that relationship can produce in the lives of believers.
Summary
Fellowship with God and believers is based on the person and work of Jesus Christ. He is true deity and true humanity and was judged in our place for the sins of the entire world. John uses the words love, know, abide, and sin often. Loving God, keeping God’s commands, loving believers, rejecting antichrist teaching, and believing God highlight this letter. He uses three terms to develop our relationship with God through Jesus Christ: fellowship with God, knowing God, and abiding in God. They identify three aspects of a believer’s right relationship with God. The believer in this right relationship with God may—and should—experience love for God, obedience to his commands, love for believers, victory over sin, victory over the world, assurance of eternal life, and confidence in prayer.
Please note: John uses three terms—fellowship, abiding, and knowing God. They are within the same circle of meaning. Each has a little different emphasis. Fellowship refers to a close friendship; abiding refers to staying close in space to someone and depending on that person; knowing God refers to experiential and intimate knowledge of a person. Abiding and loving God flow out of fellowship. In this letter they all take place in the Christian life—the sanctification phase, not justification.
2 John Overview
Revelation, godly love, and antichrist teachers
Tod Kennedy, August 28, 2019
Theme
Walking in God’s truth (revelation) and godly love is vital for every believer, and an important application of this is the ability to identify and turn away those who reject Jesus Christ as the God-Man. Those believers who do fall prey to the antichrist false doctrine negate the apostles’ ministry in their lives, reduce their own future rewards, and do not experience God in their lives.
Summary
The apostle John, the Elder (Presbuteros), probably based in Ephesus, the third largest city in the Roman empire at that time, wrote to a believing lady (elect lady) and her children, whom he and many others love with godly love that is grounded in their mutual knowledge of the truth, God’s revelation. He was very glad that he found that her children were walking in God’s truth just as God the Father had commanded.