A Basic Battle - Looking at 1 John

One cannot deny the centrality of the deity of Christ in John's Gospel.  So I find it very encouraging to read through this apostle's epistles to watch him put his Christology into action.   In general, where the Gospels are foundational, the epistles are instructional, having accepted the Gospel message. 

I the first chapter of 1 John, John goes to great length to defend the pre-incarnate Christ.  When he says "we have seen with our own eyes", the point is made that they knew God existed, and that His Son would be divine, and therefore God.  They actually got to witness God take the form of human flesh for a short time.  He does not explain how, he simply states what he knows to be true. 

Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning, God..."
John 1:1, "In the beginning was the Word..."
1 John 1:1, "What was from the beginning..."

In the second paragraph of this chapter, John describes fellowship, using light and darkness metaphors.  It would be very easy to mis-apply verse seven ("...if we walk in the Light...we have fellowship with one another...") to mean when we sin we fall out of fellowship with other believers.  This is not the case here, nor is it the point John is making.

John was dealing with people who wanted to call themselves Christians, but who were denying Christ's deity and sole source of salvation.  So while John was in fellowship with God, as a believer, others were not.  By accepting Christ, one would thus join in fellowship with "us", that being John, God, and other believers. 

The person who denies that Jesus, that man who is also God, who was incarnate in flesh, is God, is self-deceived.  Likewise, the person who says he has no sin is just as self-deceived.  Thus, if we do confess those sins, God is faithful and forgiving.

The point is this...It takes a complete denial of self to accept salvation.  There is absolutely no other way to the Father but by accepting Christ as Savior, Christ as God, and John touched on that too in John 14:6.  It also takes a complete denial of self to confess sin, to actually state what God states about that which He calls sin.  When someone believes in another way of salvation, he is a liar.  When someone says he has not sinned, he is just as equally a liar.

It is with this tone that John continues his epistles, and he'll begin to delve into love of God vs love of...

Holding Fast to the Name of the Creator