1 John 2:3-6 - A test

2:3-6

We don’t earn salvation by what we do, but what we do shows whether or not we are saved, If Jesus comes into our lives things will start to change, we will start to change. Keeping His commands is a sign that we do actually know Him (see John 14:23). Conversely, if someone claims to know Jesus but does not obey Him, then they are a liar. We can ignore such a person. A sign that the love of God is complete in us is obedience to God. Obedience is the fruit of the gospel.Obedience to Christ is a test we should apply to all teachers.

1 John 2:1,2 - The perfect sacrifice

2:1,2

“My dear children”, John is writing to them with affection. The teaching on sin, and our attitude to it is vital. On the one hand there is a recognition that all of us do sin,  on the other hand the fruit of the gospel is that we become more and more christlike, i.e. we sin less. We should detest sin, especially in ourselves, but also in others. So what when we do sin. We need to repent, and we can be confident that God will forgive us, for we have an advocate with the Father. JHesus Christ speaks on our behalf, and He is the perfect atoning sacrifice. Our sins deserves God’s wrath, but Christ is a propitiatory sacrifice, He turns aside God’s wrath. Some people object to the propitiatory nature of Christ's sacrifice, but such people are fools, we should rejoice in the nature of Christ’s sacrifice, for it means we can come to God, and that anyone can be saved.

1 John 1:5-10 walking in the light

1:5

The gnostic types had their high falutin ideas, but the apostles had direct experience of Jesus and preached a simply effective message.  “God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all. This would counter some of the gnostic nonsense.  We need to remember that the glory of the gospel is that it works.

1:6

God is light, so if we claim to have fellowship with God then we too must live in the light. The lives of the gnostics were questionable, to say the least. If we live in darkness, yet claim to be representing God we are liars and know nothing of the truth.

1:7

Instead we must walk in the light as He is in the light. Then we have fellowship with one another. Two key aspects to being true disciples of Christ are (i) fellowship with Christ; (ii) fellowship with fellow believers. We are purified by the blood of Jesus,

1:8

Claiming perfection immediately identifies us as liars and know nothing of the truth. 

1:9,10

This verse always amazes me. “He is faithful and just” The gospel is a gospel of forgiveness, Jesus came to save sinners, not the righteousness. The cross is the perfect and complete answer to our sinfulness. But it is not just a matter of forgiveness, but of changing us as well, “purifying us of all unrighteousness”. If we think that because of forgiveness we can do what we want and be forgiven, then this only serves to demonstrate that we have a fundamental misunderstanding of the gospel, we have missed it. 

1 John 1:1-4 - the Word of Life

1:1

There are similarities in the introduction to the start of John’s gospel. He speaks about the Word, and stresses that the word was from the beginning, i.e.  the Word is eternal, also it is the Word of life. John also stresses his personal experience of the Word, i.e. that which we have seen, looked at and touched.

1:2

The Gnostics may have had grand sounding theories, but John, and others, had direct personal experience of the Word. The Word came from the Father, note how much stress is put on this in John’s gospel.

1:3.4

John and the apostles proclaimed what they had seen, and his hearers could have the same fellowship, they were not some special select group, their fellowship was with the Father and the Son. And they were delighted to share this good news. The gnostic types presented themselves as somehow set apart.

Epistles of John - Introduction

Introduction - Epistles of John

Th author is generally taken to be John the Apostle, the evidence for this comes from writings by several of the church fathers, inclusing Irenaeua, clement, trtullian and Origen. There are also several rsylistic similarities with John;s gospel.

The first letter may have been a tract circulated around the churches in the Ephesus region, warning against false teachings, and the other two shorter letters warn against false teachers. John is sometimes known as the “apostle of love”, and his letter warns of the importance of demonstrating love in practical ways. At the same time he also stresses the importance of doctrinal purity, so often we put the two in opposition to each other. The Bible does not do this.  One of the false teachings was nascent gnosticism, and was one of the earliest challenges to the gospel. The essence was that the spirit was good and matter was evil. From this flowed five key errors:

•  The human body is evil;

• Salvation is achieved by escape from the body;

• Christ’s true humanity was denied;

• The boidy was to be treated harshly;

• Conversely, it could lead to sexual sinfulness.

2 John was written to give advice on dealing with travelling false teachers. As christians there is a tendency for us to want to be “nice” and non-judgemental. John’s letters demonstrate the naivety of such an approach. The Bible, and John’s letters in particular, have a much more balanced approach. 

Matthew 28:11-20 - The gospel goes forward

28:11-15

Looking at Matthew there is a very high “apologetic” element to his account, and this section is directly apologetic. I.e. it seeks to defend the reality of the resurrection against those who say it didn’t happen. We have already noted a number of points as we have looked at earlier verses, this section is overtly apologetic. The guards went to the chief priests to explain what had happened, , no doubt doing this rather shame faced, wondering how on earth they were going to explain things. From the fact that the chief priests gave them “a large sum of money” it would seem likely that the guards initially told them the truth of what they had experienced, or something pretty close to it. The chief priests could never cope with the truth, so they bribed the guards and told them to say the disciples had stolen the body. If we look back over the account we will note that several points make it clear that this did not happen. Ordinarily the guards would have been in enormous trouble, possibly even facing death. The Chief priests promise to clear things for them.

28:16,17

The disciples went to Galilee, as the women had instructed them. There they met Jesus and worshipped Him, but some doubted. Other gospels give a much fuller account of the encounters, especially Luke and John. “but some doubted”. People sometimes say if only they had a direct encounter with God they would believe. Well maybe they would, and maybe they wouldn’t. Our capacity to refuse to see the truth is enormous.

28:18

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me”. This is one of the most important facts about Jesus. When we consider who Jesus is we absolutely must be aware of this. And its impact goes far deeper than expecting Jesus to heal or do other things for us or others. It must be fundamental to our whole worldview. Believing in Jesus is not just about seeking to be like Jesus, it is about knowing who He is.

28:19

The previous verse, the fact that Jesus has all authority, is the foundation for our going into the world to make disciples of all nations. Should we seek to convert Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Atheists? Of course we should. Not because of an idea, but because Jesus is the One with all power and authority, so all people are called to be disciples of Him. They are to be baptized into the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Our mission is a trinitarian mission.

28:20

“And teaching them to obey everything I have commanded them”. Obedience is central to the gospel, yet we so often forget this. We do not want to be “judgmental”. The Bible knows nothing of any “belief” that does not involve obedience. And Jesus will be with us to the very end of the age. We do not embark on this mission alone, Jesus is right there with us. And notice how the focus of 28:18-20 is all on Jesus. All too easily we will take these words and then subtly make them a man centred mission. This is a Christ centred, Christ driven mission.

Matthew 28::1-10 - Ressurrection

28:1-4

We now come to the resurrection. One thing to note is that the first witnesses are women. In the culture of the time a woman’s witness was considered to be worth less than that of  a man, so if the resurrection accounts were made up, surely the writers would have had men as the first witnesses. A stone had been placed across the tomb,  The presence of the angel is the explanation of how the stone was moved. The earthquake is something that everyone could have been aware of, so they knew something had happened. The angel is still there when the women arrive and tells them what has happened.  Verse 4 also makes clear that the guards were still there, so there was no chance of the body having been stolen.  As well as the spiritual lessons, Matthew seems to be making it clear that the empty tomb and the resurrection were real events. The guards became like dead men.

28:5

The angel told the women not to be afraid. This often happens with angelic appearances. It has often been pointed out that the fact the women were the first witnesses was highly significant. For in those days the evidence of women was less important than that of men. So if someone was making this up they would not have put women as the first witnesses. So this all lends to the authenticity of the accounts.

28:6

It is sometimes said the faith is believing things without any evidence, or even against the evidence. This is simply not true, and definitely not a Biblical view. So far we have evidence that Jesus is dead, and His tomb was sealed and guarded. Now the angel shows the women the empty tomb. The empty tomb is extremely important. If Jesus had not risen the Jewish authorities had a very simple answer to the rise of the church, pointing to the dead body. But they could not do this because there was nobody to point to.

28:7

The women were then told to go and tell the disciples, and to do this quickly. Note the importance given to women. This is an aside, but I consider the Biblical evidence for women not preaching to be rather weak. The message they were given was to announce that Jesus was risen from the dead. Remember that Jesus had told the disciples on several occasions that this would happen. Again, evidence would be provided! Jesus would go ahead of them to Galilee and there they would see the risen Jesus.

28:8

“So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy.” Contrary to some who deny the resurrection, the first century people in Israel were not gullible folk believing anything. We have already seen that when Jesus had spoken about the resurrection the disciples basically had no idea what He was talking about. The women maybe had more of an idea, and were overjoyed that it seemed to be true, but they were also filled with fear for this was an absolutely momentous event.

28:9

Jesus Himself then meets the women. So the women were the first to actually meet the risen Christ. Note that they did not just see Him, they met Him, they interacted with Him. Perhaps it is better to say Jesus interacted with the women. This was true of the other recorded appearances. They were all more than just appearances, certainly not a sight of a shadowy figure a long distance off, but a very real meeting. The women clasped His feet. This was an act of humility, but also one that would show that Jesus was real. This was no ghostly apparition. They also worshipped Jesus.

28:10

Jesus repeated the command not to be afraid. This was good news! And the command to go and tell “my brothers” to go to Galilee where they would see Him. There are two things to note here. The first is that the women would be absolutely certain of the truth of their message. If they had not seen Jesus and had just told the disciples that they had seen the empty tomb and the angel, then the disciples may have come up with all the arguments that sceptics come up with, e.g. someone stole the body, wrong tomb, etc. But now they had seen and touched Jesus. He truly was alive. The second thing is the use of the term “my brothers” by Jesus. See the closeness of the relationship.