1 John
Author: John
Assurance of salvation, walking in the light, love as the mark of a true believer, and testing the spirits.
Summary of the Book of 1 John
Written: c. AD 85-95
Churches in John's orbit, traditionally around Ephesus late in the first century, had just been through a split. A group had gone out, denying that Jesus is the Christ come in the flesh, and their departure left the remaining believers shaken about who was right and whether they themselves truly belonged to God. First John, traditionally attributed to the apostle John and written in the same simple, absolute vocabulary as the Fourth Gospel, is pastoral triage: it is written, the author says plainly, so that you may know that you have eternal life.
Instead of a linear argument, the letter spirals repeatedly through three tests. The test of truth: confessing Jesus Christ come in the flesh, against the antichrists who deny the Son. The test of obedience: whoever says I know him but does not keep his commandments is a liar, yet if anyone sins, we have a Counselor with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, the atoning sacrifice for our sins. The test of love: whoever does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen; Cain is the counterexample, and God's sending of his Son is the definition, for God is love. Along the way come some of Scripture's most quoted assurances: God is light; if we confess our sins he is faithful and righteous to forgive; perfect love casts out fear.
In the Bible's storyline, 1 John distills the incarnation's consequences into tests a congregation can actually apply, holding together what later readers often separate: right doctrine about Christ, practical righteousness, and visible love as one inseparable evidence of birth from God.
To reassure believers unsettled by a secessionist group that they truly know God, using the tests of right confession, obedience, and love.