Week 10 - Chapter 10 - The Epistles of John

This topic is following the order of the chapters in our text, not the order of the class lectures . . . I am fighting an insecure feeling that I’m getting the order of the material wrong. (I hope that’s not the case!) Or that I may be blogging a week ahead of the schedule in the syllabus. (That wouldn't be so bad, I guess.)

There are three “epistles,” designated 1 John, 2 John and 3 John, relatively short pieces which, according to de Silva, form sequels to the Gospel of John in somewhat the same way that Acts forms a sequel to Luke’s Gospel.

The major difference is that Acts forms a sort of apologia for Paul, in particular, while the Epistles of John were written in response to a split, or schism, in the Johannine community, in which a group of “secessionists” (as de Silva refers to them) broke off from the parent church. Although they were not properly Gnostics (which arose later), de Silva indicates that it appears (from what can be inferred from the Epistles) that they minimized the human nature of Christ and also that they substituted the Baptism of Christ for the death of Christ on the cross as the crucial “salvific act” (again, de Silva’s term). Though not Gnostics per se, de Silva indicates that these beliefs formed another stage on the path that led to Gnosticism in the second century.

There are three Epistles of John, logically designated 1 John, 2 John, and 3 John. Their authorship is uncertain; some ascribe all three to the author of the Gospel of John. De Silva discusses the various options and concludes that it is likely that all three Epistles were written by the same person (who refers to himself in 2 and 3 John only as “the Elder”), but that it is most likely that that was not the same person who was the author(s) of the Gospel of John. All three Epistles are believed to have been composed about the same time, likely after the writing of the Gospel – although de Silva does indicate that the final redactor of the Gospel may have been aware of 1 John. (In other words, it is acknowledged that the Gospel was composed in stages and that 1 John at least may have been written before the Gospel was put into its final form.)

All three are referred to as Epistles, although 1 John does not take the form of a classical Epistle, as 2 and 3 John do. De Silva indicates that 1 John may actually be a tract, or homily, or handbook. As de Silva notes, it does not purport to be a fair and dispassionate view of the secessionists but rather adopts a polemical tone and denounces them, promoting what the author espouses as true beliefs while disclosing as little as possible of exactly what the secessionists’ beliefs were. De Silva states that this tract was written for the authors’ closest associates/community, and he states that it seeks to purge secessionist influences, provide a prophylaxis (protection against the spread) of secessionist influence, and help in healing the rift caused by the secessionists.

2 and 3 John do follow the form of ancient Epistles. De Silva notes that they start off as “friendly” letters, then 2 John morphs into the “advisory” type, while 3 John morphs into the “praising” type and finally closes with a “vituperative” form. According to de Silva, these letters were addressed to a church or a number of churches further afield than the community addressed in 1 John.
The author of the Epistles emphasized God’s love for his people, and as evidence of that love, the fact that he sent his Son to die for us, to be an atoning sacrifice, in order to save us from our sins. The death of Jesus was the supreme revelation of God in the world, and believers were to “walk in the light” in imitation of the example provided by Jesus. He seems to have had a complex view of sin, as he proposed on the one hand that those who are walking in the light should be without sin as proof that they are born of God, but on the other hand, to accept that even those who are born again may sin in the future and that Jesus’ sacrifice can save us from our future sins as well as from past sins.

According to de Silva, it was the Fourth Gospel that contained in itself the seeds that would lead to the development of Gnosicism in the second century. These Epistles give us evidence of some of the first attempts to deal with/quash the heretical impulse of minimizing Christ's humanity which recurred throughout the early centuries of Christianity.