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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781414393742 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Tyndale House Publishers |
| Publication date: | 06/05/2018 |
| Series: | Swindoll's Living Insights New Testament Commentary , #14 |
| Pages: | 208 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.60(d) |
About the Author
Charles R. Swindoll has devoted his life to the clear, practical teaching and application of God's Word. He currently pastors Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco, Texas, and serves as the chancellor of Dallas Theological Seminary. His renowned Insight for Living radio program airs around the world. Chuck and Cynthia, his partner in life and ministry, have four grown children, ten grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
A JOYFUL LIFE (1 JOHN 1:1-10)
When I was just a little boy, our family was vacationing at a bay cottage in South Texas near the Gulf of Mexico. One night my father told me, "I'm going to get you up early, Son. We're going out where we've never fished before, but be ready to get up."
It felt like he woke me up just minutes after I had fallen asleep. It must have been two o'clock in the morning. He shook me awake in the pitch dark and said, "Come on, come on. Put your sneakers on, let's go."
I staggered after him through a chilly night to the boathouse. We climbed into a little fishing boat not even sixteen feet long. The 35-horsepower Evinrude motor sounded like a thunderclap as it broke the stillness of the morning, and within moments we were cutting through the slick, moonlit water. There wasn't a ripple on the surface except the shallow wake tailing behind our boat. We eased across the glassy bay and moved out toward the reef. He shut her down, and we slid up over the deep reef.
He slipped the anchor into the water and eased it down until it finally rested at the bottom. I peered across the shiny surface of the bay, which looked like a freshly tarred parking lot slicked with rain. I imagined I could walk on its surface or wade through it like a shallow pond. I dropped the line of my little cane pole into the water and, like the antsy boy that I was, I began to fidget.
My father looked over at me and said, "Sit still, Son. There's big stuff down in there."
I settled down for a minute or two. Maybe I'd catch something a little bigger than my hand. But a few minutes later I'd grown impatient bringing in my line and throwing it back out. As I scratched and shifted and spat in the water, my father just sat there, still as a statue. In the silence of the approaching dawn, he said to me again, "Sit still, Son. Be quiet. There's big stuff down in there."
All of a sudden, as if on cue, a huge Gulf tarpon jumped out of the water, flipped in the air, and splashed back down. It must have been bigger than me. I almost leaped out of the boat, but my dad never budged. Without turning, he muttered under his breath, "Told you there was big stuff down in there."
And right he was! By the end of that little excursion we had caught sixty-four speckled trout. (I've never forgotten that number, because Dad made sure I cleaned all of them!)
The apostle John's unassuming, five-chapter book is like that slick bay we fished on that cold, quiet morning. Judging by a glance across its surface, 1 John looks like it might only be as deep as it is wide — containing a few minnows of truth and a couple of pan-fish principles swimming in a pool of shallow theology. A leisurely boat ride, but not good fishing. But the surface conditions can be misjudged. Despite the simple language and short length of 1 John, there's big stuff down in there.
Ask any serious scholar of the Scriptures for their opinion on this letter and you'll hear that it's one of the most challenging of all the New Testament books. And unlike some books, like Romans, 1 Corinthians, or Hebrews, it doesn't have a few "problem passages" in an otherwise straightforward argument; 1 John is complicated from the very beginning. However, this must not stop us from dropping our lines in and pulling out some profound and practical insights.
John wrote this letter with a simple, overarching message in mind: Spirit-enabled fellowship with the Father and the Son produces a joyful life, a clean life, a discerning life, and a confident life. This first section (1:1-10) presents the principle that fellowship produces a joyful life. An intimate relationship with God through Jesus Christ will result in close relationships with fellow believers, leading to profound, inexplicable joy. This joy is based on the blessings that come through deep intimacy with the glorious God of the universe. These blessings include eternal life (1:2), right living in a wicked world (1:5-6), and cleansing from the penalty and power of sin (1:7-10).
The apostle John may have been an elderly fisherman-turned-fisher-of-men and may on the surface seem to have been a simplehearted follower of Jesus, but before long, we'll see that what he wrote with just a few dips into his inkwell is profound and deep.
After new seminary students finish sipping on baby Greek by learning the alphabet, memorizing simple vocabulary, and processing the rudiments of grammar, they often cut their teeth on actual translation exercises from the letter of 1 John. The vocabulary is pretty simple — "beginning," "word," "life," "light" — and quite repetitive, making it easy for the first-year Greek student to feel like a Greek scholar!
Then the professor asks the students a question that makes them feel like infants gumming teething rings: "Yeah, that's what it says. But what does it mean?"
By the time they get to the fifth or sixth easy-to-translate-but-hard-to-interpret verse in 1 John, they're about ready to throw up their hands and surrender. I've met lifelong Bible scholars who confess that they have so many unanswered questions about 1 John that they've avoided teaching or preaching on it for decades. Let me add my own confession to the pile: I've been preaching through books of the Bible virtually every Sunday since 1963, but not until 2009 did I build up enough confidence and courage to tackle 1 John in a verse-by-verse exposition.
Already in the first paragraph, we face great challenges for interpretation. In the following comments, I'll try to slowly troll through this profound prologue and see if we can't catch a few meaty principles for personal application. While Paul's letters move logically and orderly through distinct themes toward a clear goal like steps on a staircase, John's first letter feels more organic — like a dance in which a number of movements revolve around each other ... or like a symphony, which visits and revisits distinct themes and melodies. Several major themes appear already in the opening chapter of 1 John: life, light, and truth. We'll tackle the first of these in this section, which I have labeled God Is Life (1:1-4).
— 1:1-2 —
The Greek of 1:1-3 is a single sentence, and the main verb doesn't appear until verse 3 — "we proclaim." Four relative clauses comprise all of 1:1, each describing the same thing: the "Word of Life." First John 1:2 is a parenthetical statement, sometimes set off with dashes, describing how the Word of Life was able to be heard, seen, and touched. Rather than rearranging the sentence, let's stick with John's own presentation and begin by analyzing the four clauses in 1:1 that describe the main subject of the apostle's proclamation.
The phrase "the beginning" is prominent in two other books of the Bible, and I think John is intentionally trying to pull ideas together from both of them in the opening words of this letter. In Genesis 1:1, Moses refers to the beginning of Creation, when God brought light out of darkness, life out of nonlife: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." He formed and filled the formless and empty heavens and earth, bringing order out of chaos. Then, in the opening lines of the Gospel of John, the apostle writes, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1).
Each of these discussions of "the beginning" involves God's Word — speaking everything into existence in Genesis 1 and becoming incarnate in John 1 and 1 John 1. And each of these passages also discusses the theme of light versus darkness. The following chart shows these passages side by side for comparison.
When John refers to his subject as "what was from the beginning," he's making profound biblical and theological connections. The subject of his proclamation, "the Word of Life" (1 Jn. 1:1) is none other than the eternal, creative source of all things visible and invisible. He's the one through whom all things were made. He's the one who, with the Spirit of God, fashioned the heavens and the earth, made light shine in the darkness, and stepped into that creation when "the Word became flesh" (John 1:14).
The term "word" (logos [3056]) had a profound significance to both Greeks and Jews in the first century. In Greek philosophy, logos referred to the uncreated principle of reason that gave order and structure to the universe. In the Old Testament, the "word" was both God's means of revelation — His message to humanity — and, on occasion, a divine presence that took some kind of physical form, indistinguishable from God (Jer. 1:1-14). In the early first century ad, the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria seemed to merge these Greek and Jewish concepts. One author notes, "Philo of Alexandria puts a great deal of emphasis on the notion of logos, making it the mediating principle between God and the world." By the end of the first century ad, when the apostle John was writing, Christians had no doubt about who this one mediator between God and men was — not an immaterial logos, but the Word made flesh, "the man Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 2:5).
John's description of this logos is no mere discourse on secondhand information. The aged apostle isn't theologizing or speculating when he talks about the Word. He claims to have literally experienced, firsthand, the incarnate Word. The next three relative clauses, still referring to the same subject of his proclamation, emphasize this fact. John was among those few people still alive late in the first century who had heard and seen with their own ears and eyes the incarnate God-man, Jesus Christ. John made this same claim in his Gospel when he referred to events of the Crucifixion. Speaking of himself in the third person, he wrote, "And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe" (John 19:35).
It was vital for John that he had been an original earwitness of Christ's teachings and eyewitness of His life, miracles, death, and resurrection. In fact, when referring to the time he caught his first glimpse of the empty tomb, John wrote of himself (again in the third person), "So the other disciple who had first come to the tomb then also entered, and he saw and believed" (John 20:8).
John had also been present with the rest of the disciples when "doubting Thomas" obstinately declared, "Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe" (John 20:25). Eight days later, the resurrected Lord Jesus called that same doubter to put his finger in His hands and side and to feel for himself that He had indeed risen bodily from the dead (John 20:26-27). Because they were eyewitnesses, John and his fellow disciples could confidently confess to Jesus Christ, as Thomas had, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28).
With this background, the apostle John added in his letter that he and the other disciples had "looked at and touched" the incarnate God both during His earthly ministry and in His resurrected state (1 Jn. 1:1). Why does John say that he had "looked at" the Word of Life after he already said that he had seen Him with his eyes? The term "looked at" is the Greek word theaomai [2300], which conveys more attentiveness than mere observation. It means "to have an intent look" or to perceive "above and beyond what is merely seen with the eye." John also emphasized the fact that he and his companions had "touched" the Word of Life "with [their] hands" (1:1).
What a powerful testimony at a time when heretics were on the rise spreading a false doctrine of a fleshless, phantom Christ (4:2-3; 2 Jn. 1:7; see "The First Heretics' Fleshless Christ," page 25). One commentator sums up John's testimony well: "John's experience was both a mysterious perception of the living Lord and yet it was also very basic and down to earth. Jesus was no phantom of the spiritual realm but He was Jesus of Nazareth."
The brief parenthetical statement in 1 John 1:2 explains how it was that John could experience the "Word of Life" in the flesh. The life — the very wellspring of eternal life itself — "was manifested." This verb, phaneroo [5319], refers to the entire course of Jesus' earthly existence — His earthly ministry (John 1:31), His resurrection (John 21:1), and even His future coming to earth in glory (1 Jn. 2:28).
The life that was manifested wasn't the normal, everyday, earthbound life — what we may call "biological life" (Greek bios [979]). In John's usage, this life, zoe [2222], refers to eternal, heavenly, divine life, literally embodied in Jesus Christ. He is "the bread of life" (John 6:48), "the resurrection and the life" (John 11:25), and "the way, and the truth, and the life" (John 14:6). This is the life that was "with the Father and was manifested to us," which is why He was able to be seen (1 Jn. 1:2). When a person has seen the Word of Life manifested in the flesh, the only reasonable response is to "testify and proclaim" this eternal life.
— 1:3-4 —
After the parenthetical comment in 1:2, John picks up his original thought and finally arrives at the main verb: "What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also" (1:3). The verb "proclaim" (apangello [518]) is related to the word for "gospel" (euangelion [2098]), which refers to a message of good news. The content of John's proclamation is the good news concerning Jesus Christ, defined so well by the apostle Paul in the opening verses of Romans. It is
the gospel of God, which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord. (Rom. 1:1-4)
This proclamation of good news is "the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes" (Rom. 1:16).
Those who hear and believe the message concerning Jesus Christ, whom John personally saw, heard, touched, and experienced, will be ushered into a permanent relationship with God through Him. John unpacks this profound truth when he states the twofold purpose of his proclamation of the Word of Life in 1 John 1:3-4.
First, John's proclamation concerning the Word of Life is to result in true communion (1:3). Though most translations use the word "fellowship" here, I believe the word "fellowship" has been weakened in the minds of most Christians who use the word when they don't know what else to say. Too often "fellowship" means "coffee time" or "gabbing in the hall" or "going out with friends." None of those things come even close to the kind of relationship John had in mind.
The word koinonia [2842], as used by first-century Christians, conveys an intimate, mutual participation in a life shared with one another. Let's call it communion. It's the outworking of a deep, spiritual union between God and the believer as well as between brothers and sisters in Christ (1 Cor. 1:9; 1 Jn. 1:3). As believers have this intimate communion "with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ," they will have the same kind of deep communion with one another through the work of the Holy Spirit. John proclaimed the Word of Life so his readers could have this kind of fellowship.
Second, John's proclamation concerning the Word of Life is to result in full joy (1:4). Just as the word "fellowship" has suffered from flippancy, so has "joy." When we hear the word "joy" we immediately begin to think of the emotion we feel when we find out we're getting money back on our tax return ... or when we pass a big exam ... or when the person we've fallen for says, "I love you." That's joy, right? Wrong! Martyn Lloyd-Jones proposes this definition of biblical joy —
Joy is something very deep and profound, something that affects the whole and entire personality. ... It comes to this; there is only one thing that can give true joy and that is a contemplation of the Lord Jesus Christ. He satisfies my mind; He satisfies my emotions; He satisfies my every desire. He and His great salvation include the whole personality and nothing less, and in Him I am complete. Joy, in other words, is the response and the reaction of the soul to a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In 1:3-4, the purposes of true fellowship and full joy are closely related. In order for the apostle's joy to be full, he needs to have a true, intimate relationship with his fellow believers based on their mutual relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Authentic, lasting joy is inseparably linked to the Word of Life whom we worship and adore. In this joy, shared by those who have fellowship with God and with one another, we are fully accepted as we grow together in the Word of Life. Let me help us begin to ponder its truths by putting these four verses into a loose paraphrase that I hope catches the essence of the passage:
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Swindoll's Living Insights New Testament Commentary 1, 2 & 3 John, Jude"
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Copyright © 2018 Charles R. Swindoll, Inc..
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Table of Contents
Author's Preface v
The Strong's Numbering System vii
Introduction: 1, 2 & 3 John 3
A joyful Life (1 John 1:1-10) 18
God Is Life (1 John 1:1-4) 20
God's Light and Our Blight (1 John 1:5-10) 28
A Clean Life (1 John 2:1-17) 37
Wise Words from a Family Meeting (1 John 2:1-11) 39
Strong Warnings about the World (1 John 2:12-17) 49
A Discerning Life (1 John 2:18-4:6) 59
Dealing with Deceivers (1 John 2:18-27) 60
Living in the Light of the Lord's Return (1 John 2:28-3:3) 72
Discerning the Works of the Devil (1 John 3:4-10) 79
Not like Cain, but like Christ! (1 John 3:11-24) 88
Distinguishing Truth from Error (1 John 4:1-6) 98
A Confident Life (1 John 4:7-5:21) 109
The Supremacy of Love (1 John 4:7-21) 110
Believers, Overcomers, Witnesses (1 John 5:1-12) 118
Absolute Assurance (1 John 5:13-21) 128
Balancing Love and Truth (2 John 1:1-13) 137
Balancing Truth and Love (3 John 1:1-15) 148
Introduction: Jude 161
A Manual for Survival (Jude 1:1-25) 169
The Acts of the Apostates (Jude 1:1-16) 169
Get Your Act Together! (Jude 1:17-25) 185
Endnotes 195
List of Features and Images
Timeline of 1, 2 & 3 John 2
Map of Western Asia Minor 2
The Book of 1 John at a Glance 4
The Book of 2 John at a Glance 4
The Book of 3 John at a Glance 4
Authorship of John's Gospel and Letters 7
Domitian Bust 9
Quick Facts on 1 John 10
Quick Facts on 2 John 14
Quick Facts on 3 John 15
We Proclaim 24
The First Heretics' Fleshless Christ 25
Things in the World 56
Excursus: The Original Counterfeit - Still in Business 63
The Baths in Ephesus 65
Historic Heresies 66
Six Benefits of Truth 67
Excursus: Why Is the Incarnation So Important? 69
Gnostic Hedonism 84
Cain and Abel 92
Present and Future Antichrists 104
Excursus: Are There Apostles and Prophets Today? 105
Work of the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Believer 115
Three Who Bear Witness in Heaven? 125
A First - Century Handbook on Discernment 142
From Pioneers to Settlers 153
Timeline of Jude 160
Map of the Roman World in the Time of the Apostles 160
The Book of Jude at a Glance 162
The Six "Judes" in the New Testament 164
Quick Facts on Jude 166
Excursus: Apostates - Defectors from What? 177
Excursus: Angelic Apostates 181
What Was the "Love Feast"? 182
Waterless Cloud and Rootless Tree 183
Triplets in Jude 191