1 John 3:1-7
In Year B of the Revised Common Lectionary, the epistle reading through Easter season is 1 John. On the Third Sunday of Easter, we have 1 John 3:1-7 — we’ve skipped most of chapter 2, alas. (I wrote on this week’s Gospel, Luke 24:36b-48, a while back. Find it by clicking here.)
But skipping a bit of 1 John is not like skipping a bit of one of Paul’s epistles. Paul tends to sustain an argument, making a point over a period of chapters.
1 John is less a sustained argument than a patchwork quilt of interrelated aphorisms and images. Skip a bit here and you’ll probably cover the same territory another week.
(I’m not saying the lectionary doesn’t skip bits of Paul. It does, but at a different cost.)
That said, in any given chunk of 1 John there is a lot going on. And quite often, John writes in a confusing way. That is, he puts his thoughts in strong declarations, statements that sound quite absolute — until you read another bit of the same letter and find him saying the opposite just as absolutely.
Does this mean John contradicts himself? Well, yes, I guess it does. On the surface he is saying opposite things. And he’s so very sincere. He clearly means both points with passion.
Seeing the contradictions leads to better understanding than denying them.
Sometimes people make their points based on this letter without reference to, or even awareness of where the author made the opposite point. If we do that, we end up baking up a strong and rigid theology that accounts for precisely half of the evidence.
- You could say the result is “half-baked” theology.
- Or you could imagine a loaf that leaves out half the ingredients—fully baked, but completely inedible.
Remembering both sides of this author’s statements is an application of an important “rule” of biblical interpretation: you have to interpret Scripture with Scripture.
You can’t take one biblical statement and say you know God’s revealed will on the topic. You have to weigh it against other statements on the same subject, by the same writer and by other writers. You have to let the whole of Scripture speak before clarity emerges.
That is important in 1 John 3:1-7.
Sin
The case in point within this passage is John’s seemingly absolute statements about sin.
It starts in verses 4 and 5, but is strongest in verse 6:
No one who abides in him sins;
no one who sins has either seen him or known him.1 John 3:6 NRSV
Sounds perfectly clear, right?
And it sounds like an absolute policy statement.
But if it’s an absolute statement of divine policy, you and I are in a world of hurt.
John has other statements that sound quite similar. It doesn’t sound like “Three strikes, you’re out.” It sounds like “One strike, that’s it.”
Here’s the thing: John also says the opposite. It was in last week’s section of the letter. For example,
If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.1 John 1:8 NRSV
I like to think about these seeming absolutes as descriptions of the trend of your life, your chosen direction.
If we jump whole hog into sin, choosing that as our life’s direction, then we are facing the wrong way, unable to see Christ.
Or you can say that they provide a kind of test of the truth of the faith we proclaim. If we’ve really encountered Christ it changes our life. That’s real faith.
If we’re living a life aimed toward sin, it sort of says we didn’t have a life-changing encounter with Christ.
It’s like we haven’t seen him or known him.
Regardless of these tensions, these seeming paradoxes, there is a bunch of wonderful imagery here about the direction and meaning of our life in Christ.
He gives us a fascinating list of things we should be putting our attention on along the way.
Adoption
First is the gorgeous opening statement:
See what love the Father has given us,
that we should be called children of God;
and that is what we are.1 John 3:1 NRSV
John is speaking of the people who belong to Christ by faith. These are the ones who have this gift of love. It is Christians who get to be called “children of God.”
John is using a theme that is quite explicit in Paul’s letters to the Romans, Galatians, and Ephesians. Paul describes the nature of our relationship to God as “adoption.”
Jesus assumes the same idea when he tells his disciples to pray “OUR Father in heaven…”
He knew that he himself was God’s only begotten son. The rest of us, coming to salvation by faith, are adopted as God’s children.
This idea is actually in pretty stark contrast to the common assumption that all people are God’s children, and can equally claim God as their father. That was a point of classical liberalism, but is not traditional Christianity.
I’m not saying that God doesn’t love people outside the household of faith. Far from it.
I’m saying that the New Testament use of this terminology is a way of describing salvation. It’s one of the wonderful things that happens when we come to God in faith and love. We find God is no longer our judge but instead has become our loving adoptive Father.
We are much more comfortable thinking of our new relation to God in terms like “atonement” and “forgiveness.” John (and Paul and Jesus) tell us that we should cherish salvation as adoption into God’s family.
Becoming Like Him
John delves briefly into eschatology in this passage. Though his words on the topic are few, I find them both evocative and helpful.
…what we will be has not yet been revealed.
What we do know is this:
when he is revealed, we will be like him,
for we will see him as he is.1 John 3:2 NRSV
When eschatology is the topic, most in our culture ask very different questions. We want to know when Jesus is coming back, and what the signs will be, and what the events will look like. Whole shelves of popular literature try to lay out the narrative in excruciating and scary detail.
John asks instead, “What will we be? What will we become when Jesus comes again?”
I have to say, I really like that. I think it is a much more helpful focus.
The usual focus on matching up biblical apocalyptic images to things in the news tends toward the same kind of fatal pridefulness as current political conspiracies. People suffering from lack of power become puffed up with the conviction that they are the insiders to Big Secrets.
John is certainly aware that this age will draw to a close, Jesus will return, there will be a new heaven and a new earth. But he wants us to focus our attention on what matters: our own journey to the fulness of salvation.
We don’t know just what we’ll be.
We do know that we’ll be like Jesus.
That’s very like what Paul says about the purpose of God’s action in our lives, remaking us in the image of Jesus. John points us to this journey taking great leaps forward after this life.
(If you want to read a serious and fascinating theological exploration of this journey of transformation, pick up St. Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses. And if you want a guide as you read it, I did a four video series on it over on my Patreon page. It’s all still there if you want to join up at the “Education” level.)
Seeing
I’m quite fascinated by what 1 John 3:1-7 portrays as the reason, or the evidence for this transformation.
Here’s the core of the claim:
…we will be like him,
for we will see him as he is.1 John 3:2 NRSV
We are prone to say “Seeing is believing.”
John is saying “Seeing is becoming.”
I’ve long been fascinated by the idea of contemplation in Christian spiritual life. The word “contemplate” means “to gaze” or “to look” at something.
In contemplative prayer, one turns one’s spiritual “eyes” toward God, giving God your attention. You look, and you wait. In Jesus’ phrase, you “keep watch.” This includes watching for the answers to prayers. More directly it is about watching for God who is ever coming into our lives.
I’m currently re-re-rereading the great 14th century English book on contemplation, The Cloud of Unknowing, which is all about that gaze. In The Cloud, the contemplative gaze is a metaphor for giving the loving attention of our hearts and souls and minds to God.
Physically we see nothing, so it’s not a literal gaze. But gazing, looking, trying to see, is a fantastic metaphor for the attention we pay to God, pouring out our our love on him in fulfillment of the Great Commandment.
John is telling us that when Jesus comes again, at the dawning of the new heaven and new earth, we will finally see. And having spend our lives looking in love toward Jesus, seeing clearly we will at last become like the one we love.
Hoping
This, says John, is what it means to have hope within us.
Paul gave us the triad of lasting things, faith hope and love. Traditionally these have been called the “theological virtues,” of far greater importance than the virtues we exercise with more simple effort. Really they come as gifts of grace, as part of our ongoing transformation in Christ’s image.
Faith makes sense, and so does love.
But hope is kind of vague.
This is where John is really helpful. After saying that
…we will be like him,
for we will see him as he is1 John 3:2 NRSV
John goes on to describe this as hope:
And all who have this hope in him
purify themselves, just as he is pure.1 John 3:3 NRSV
Wonder what hope is? 1 John 3:1-7 gives something like a definition. Hope is gazing toward God, waiting for the transforming revelation of Jesus’ return.
Wonder how to nurture hope, as you’ve already been learning to trust in faith and love God and neighbor? Nurture hope by turning your gaze toward God, waiting for the transforming revelation of Jesus’ return.
This kind of hoping has an active transforming effect in itself. John says it purifies us, just as Jesus is pure.
Which is quite a promise.
Abiding
And then you stay there in that hopeful contemplative place, standing with your inner gaze attending to God. You remain, or “abide” there.
You remember Jesus’ wonderful meditation on abiding like a branch on the vine, back in John 15.
Here again 1 John 3:1-7 is talking about abiding, building on what he’s taught about contemplation being transformative and hope purifying us. He tells us
No one who abides in him sins;
1 John 3:6 NRSV
That’s the very hopeful thought John provides, sandwiched between the scary things he said about sin.
So just stay there, remaining, abiding, gazing toward God in hope.
Clearly it’s good for you.
Doing
1 John 3:1-7 closes with a little statement to comfort us that we’re following true Christian counsel in this. Despite all the potentially worrisome bits about sin, we should rest assured:
Everyone who does what is right is righteous,
just as he is righteous.1 John 3:7 NRSV
Should we read this as a reference to some kind of legal behavioral perfection? Obey all the rules and you’ll be as righteous as Jesus?
Well no, of course not. That wasn’t what Jesus seemed to emphasize in his living or most of his teaching.
And we need to read it in the context of this letter, particular in the context of this very passage.
How do you be someone “who does what is right”?
Celebrate being adopted by God.
Turn your heart’s loving gaze toward Jesus.
Nurture hope by abiding in that stance.
That’s what leads to transformation.
For now just keep doing it. You’ll see it much more clearly when Jesus comes.
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