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JOHN, LETTERS OF

Three NT letters traditionally bearing the name of John. Although they are included among the “Catholic” or “General” Epistles, all three seem to be addressed to specific situations. While the first letter is anonymous, the two smaller letters give their author as “the Elder.” It is doubtful that this term could be a title for the Apostle John; and though 1 John is closely related to the Fourth Gospel, it is not certain that it has the same author (whether or not the Gospel itself was written by the apostle). The situation and authorship of each of these letters thus need to be discussed.

1 John

The similarity in literary style and theology that sets the Gospel and Letters of John apart from all other NT writings is a strong argument that they were written by the same person, and this is especially true for 1 John and the Gospel. Yet there are differences between these two as well, in small details of linguistic habit; in literary quality (the Gospel uses irony and multiple meanings, while 1 John is often simply unclear); and in theology (1 John lays more stress on Jesus’ atoning death and less on his mediation between God and the believer). Scholars are divided over whether these differences are natural in works written by the same author at different times, or are serious enough to suggest two different authors. The increasingly common idea of a Johannine “school” implies a group of tradition-bearers and teachers rather than single authority behind all the Johannine writings. The author of 1 John is probably also the “Elder” responsible for 2 and 3 John; at any rate, the latter are too brief to furnish enough evidence to establish a difference in authorship.

1 John lacks the typical characteristics that marked a letter in the ancient world, and it is now usually classified as an essay or sermon or the like. It has many characteristics of the rhetoric of persuasion or exhortation, e.g., repetition and the use of fixed formulations and examples to be imitated. No definite literary structure has been established for 1 John, nor is there any obvious development of thought in its repetition of important themes. Some have suggested that 1 John results from the editing of a source, but this is unlikely.

1 John is evidently a response to a crisis in the Johannine Christian community. The author speaks of certain people who “went out” from the community, whom he calls antichrists, deceivers, and false prophets, who failed to confess that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God, or to confess “Jesus Christ having come in flesh” (2:18-27; 4:1-6). These opponents may also be in view when the author speaks about people who claim to have no sin, or to be children of God even though they do sin (1:5–2:2; 2:28–3:10; cf. 5:16-18); who lack mutual love (2:3-11; 3:10-18; cf. 4:7-20); and who lay claim to the Spirit (4:1-6; cf. 5:6-8). The opponents are usually considered to represent an early form of Docetism, and/or to be related to the early gnostic teacher Cerinthus.

Such identifications may be too precise to be sustained by the hints of 1 John, but the opponents do seem to have devalued the physical, human reality of Jesus Christ in some way. They may have distinguished the human nature of Jesus from the divine Christ, stressing the revelation of the Christ as more meaningful for salvation than the crucifixion of the man Jesus. They may have believed that faith in the heavenly Christ and possession of the Spirit gave them not only eternal life and an intimate relationship with God, but a divine nature incapable of sin. Feeling no need for the human Jesus, either as an atoning sacrifice or as a model for sacrificial love, they correspondingly saw no spiritual value in concrete acts of human care on their own part. They may have convinced many in the Johannine Christian community to follow them into a separate fellowship.

This reinterpretation of Johannine tradition probably rose some time after the Fourth Gospel was substantially completed, when new circumstances had transplanted the Gospel’s exalted claims about Jesus into the context of a more radical dualism. In this situation, the author of 1 John on the one hand reached back into the tradition. He stresses adherence to what has been essential “from the beginning”: the confession of Jesus as Christ “in the flesh,” i.e., in all his humanity; and the commandment to love one another within the community that makes this confession (1:1-3; 2:7-11, 22-24; 3:11-24; 4:1-16; 4:19–5:5). On the other hand, the author reached out to other forms of developing Christianity. He emphasizes more strongly than the Gospel of John themes common elsewhere in the NT: the atoning death of Jesus, the problem of sin for believers, and Jesus’ future return (1:5–2:2; 2:28–3:10; 4:10, 17-18; 5:16-18).

The essential message of 1 John is that relationship with God requires both belief in incarnational christology and mutual love; and that these two are inseparably united. No new revelation can supersede the incarnation, in which the God who is love was made known in the humanity of Jesus Christ. Christian love can arise only from faith in this revelation; but faith is faith in Jesus Christ only as believers act out their love for one another.

2 John

2 John seems to derive from the same general situation as 1 John (esp. vv. 5-9). However, 2 John 10-11 proposes a more drastic solution to the problem of the opponents: refusal of hospitality to traveling teachers who do not adhere to the traditional Johannine Christology. It is possible that 2 John was addressed to a community to which the opponents’ teaching had not yet come, and was meant to prevent its taking root there.

Unlike 1 John, 2 John does have the form of an ordinary letter. However, this form has been adapted to give 2 John a kind of official authority, as in the Pauline Letters. Note, e.g., the theologically expanded greeting in vv. 1-3. The “elect lady” mentioned there is probably a Christian congregation, a “sister” congregation to the author’s own (vv. 1, 13). The unusual designation of the sender of the letter as “the Elder” also suggests someone in a position of respect and authority in the Johannine community, an impression confirmed by the tone of all three letters. Yet this designation, without a proper name and not as part of a body of elders, has no parallel in early Christian literature. No further facts are known about this “Elder.”

3 John

The same “Elder” appears as the sender of 3 John, which, although closely similar to 2 John at the beginning and end, follows the conventions of ancient letter format more closely than 2 John or any other NT letter. In part, 3 John is a letter of recommendation for a Christian named Demetrius, and in part it is an exhortation to its recipient, Gaius, to follow good examples and avoid bad ones. However, it also treats a specific conflict.

3 John shows that, whoever “the Elder” may have been, his authority was not unchallenged. Someone named Diotrephes has refused to receive a letter from the Elder, and has refused hospitality to its bearers; moreover, he is expelling those who do show hospitality from the congregation. Though it seems natural to assume that this controversy is related to the one in 1 and 2 John, 3 John makes no reference to the themes of those letters. Rather, the conflict over hospitality may be related to developing structures of office and authority in the Church, or to issues of personal power and honor. The Elder’s solution to the problem is to threaten a confrontation with Diotrephes in person, and to seek from Gaius the hospitality and support for traveling missionaries that Diotrephes had refused.

Dates and Location

1 and 2 John must have been written about the same time; 3 John could be a few years earlier or later. Beyond this, dates can be proposed only in relation to the Fourth Gospel, which 1 John evidently presupposes. The date of the Gospel itself is uncertain, however, and the length of time between the two is unknown. Perhaps no more than 10 to 20 years need be allowed. The tradition of the Church has always placed the Johannine writings in Ephesus. Nothing in the letters themselves positively confirms or contradicts this; one may note that Christian writers in Asia Minor are the first to show knowledge of them.

Bibliography. R. E. Brown, The Epistles of John. AB 30 (Garden City, 1982); J. M. Lieu, The Second and Third Epistles of John (Edinburgh, 1986); The Theology of the Johannine Epistles (Cambridge, 1991); D. Rensberger, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John. Abingdon New Testament Commentaries (Nashville, 1997); R. Schnackenburg, The Johannine Epistles (New York, 1992); S. S. Smalley, 1, 2, 3 John. WBC 51 (Waco, 1984).

David Rensberger

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

JOHN, LETTERS OF

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)