I have been studying the letter of First John throughout the month of February, going through a few verses each day as I push forward in the race that God has put before me. (I have found the free online Enduring Word commentary to be a revelation, and cannot recommend it enough.)
Ironically enough, with Valentine’s Day just a week behind us, the book has a great deal to say about love.
The Letter of First John was altogether wonderful as I read much of it for the first time in my life. For one thing, I have always been drawn to the Apostle John in the Bible and found his faith extraordinarily compelling. Throughout First John, he encourages the believers and church to love the Lord and love one another. He speaks with sweet joy about the relationship he has with Christ and the fellowship in the church. There’s a tenderness in John’s writing that is both unique to John’s life and universal to the life extended to us all.
What’s particularly fascinating about the Apostle John is that for all of his writings of love and his emphasis against quarrels, the Apostle John was not a lifelong pacifist or 'hippie.' In fact, he was quite the opposite in temperament, as he and his brother, James, were known around their community as the ‘Sons of Thunder.’
The same John who writes that ‘we love Him because He first loved us’ was known for his violent and booming temper. In the Gospel of Luke (9:54), John asks Jesus if He would ‘like them to command fire down from heaven and consume them,’ them being a village that had expressed little interest in hearing from Jesus and his disciples.
As a young man, John wore his heart on his sleeve (and his tongue.) But the man we see as the author of the Gospel of John and First, Second and Third John is far from that same man who first decided to follow Jesus.
When one decides to follow Jesus, their life will change. But that doesn’t mean that they will live a perfect or sinless life from henceforth, rather it means that they are beginning a transformation towards that perfect glory found in Christ. Through sanctification, a life will be remade and remolded; the old man torn off like an old disguise and the new man put on, a step towards the person God intends for you to be.
In his Gospel, written several decades after the cross and the resurrection, John refers to himself several times as ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved.’ In fact, he never mentions himself by name at all. Six times when John appears in his Gospel narrative, he cloaks his identity in the love of Christ.
No other author of books in the Bible refers to John with this title. It is not something exclusive to John either; Christ loved all of his disciples and followers with such a passion that they too could dress themselves up in the perfect love of God and be unrecognizable.
John, a ‘son of thunder,’ was so transformed by Christ’s love that he found the best way to identify himself was simply as being loved by Jesus. A life transformed by perfect and righteous love, a new man reflecting the holy love poured out onto him onto countless people, like the moon reflects the sun’s rays. Be the moon, reflect the Son.
Yes, John was transformed by the love of Jesus, and he wanted the rest of the world to be transformed too. But John is quick to point out that love is only half of the equation to life; anything that paints ‘love’ as the end-all-be-all to a utopian world is mistaken.
He writes, “Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother” (3:10). It is evident here that righteousness and love are not opposite forces on the ends of a spectrum but rather two interlocked characteristics of a believer. To be righteous without love is to not be righteous at all; to love without righteousness is an empty kindness. John himself advises us, “let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth” (3:18).
Righteousness, living a life set apart in obedience to the Lord’s commands and opposing evil and sin, without loving others is to hoard within oneself the limitless magnitude of the love poured out for us on the cross, when Christ died for everyone’s sins– because He loves us and wants us to be with him.
To understand the infinite sacrifice of love made for us necessitates that it be reflected in every aspect of our finite lives. One may love only because He first loved us, and one may walk in righteousness only because of the righteous blood that was shed on the cross. Love transforms us into righteousness, which leads to loving others.
Together, because of the cross, we can all be children of God, made perfect in His glory and enjoy eternal life.
May the love of Christ transform you today into a person of righteousness and love.
