The missing commandment (Part 2)

A while back I posted what I thought was one of my more controversial posts on the absence of the commandment to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength" in the letters of the NT. Surprisingly it got no comments!

I've continued to muse on this, and asked a number of people about it. As I've continued to read the NT with this in the back of my mind I continue to be struck that while we are often commanded to love our neighbour, we never seem to be commanded to love God. Today I came across 1 John 3:23. Like Jesus in Mark 13 he seems to group together two commandments in one "commandment" (singular).

this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ [vertical] and love one another [horizontal]

This seems a good summary of the NT ethic. Faith towards God, and love towards our neighbour. God's love for us is always the primary thing in our relationship towards him. Our love towards others is always the primary thing in our relationship towards them. It is the two-kinds of righteousness thing again. In one dimension we are passive, in the other active.

Serious challenge though: find me a commandment to love God, or Christ, post-Cross.

It is implicit in some places, and it is assumed that we will love God if we are Christians, but I am yet to find a place where we are commanded to do so. My bible knowledge is pretty thin though.

The Trinitarian structure of 1 John (Part 2)

1 John closes somewhat abruptly with the statement: "Little children, keep yourselves from idols."

This hasn't made much sense to me before because I have always been reading 1 John focused on humans loving one another when reading the book and racking my brains to deal with the seeming Christian Perfectionism. But reading it again today what has struck me is just how much God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) are mentioned. Instead it seems that theology is John's major concern. Of course loving one another is massively important but throughout this is seen as firmly founded on the nature of God himself.

The best way to demonstrate this is to encourage you to read the book beginning to end. Seeing that in God the Trinity is life, light, truth and love (some of John's favourite words).

As John says of his purpose in writing the letter it is "so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ" (1:3). More directly he was prompted to write because of false teachers whose false teaching seemed to centre on a denial that Jesus was from God (2:23; 4:2-3; 4:15; 4:14; 5:1; 5:5-6). John points out that while they may think they can deny the Son while worshipping the Father they are mistaken (1 John 2:22-23, a constant theme in the Gospel as well). Denying Jesus they are actually idolaters!

Not only are they idolaters but by denying the Trinitarian work of salvation they are losing love in the process. As John says:

• "By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers."
• "the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him."
• "this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us."
• "We love because he first loved us."

Incidentally this is yet another instance of where I am beginning to think that Judaizers are the main threat behind many NT letters, not proto-Gnostics or any other kind of Hellenized syncretists.

The Trinitarian structure of 1 John (Part 1)

Peter Dray prompted me to read 1 John today on my commute. It's a book that I have neglected to read for far too long. As I was reading it I guess I have been affected by recent blog conversations over the Trinity with Dan Hames and Glen Scrivener which I have learnt a lot from.

Anyway, reading 1 John today the Trinity seemed to purvey everything. Perhaps this short series of posts will show that I am shooting from left field, but I throw them out as things to test.

1 John 2:12-14 reads

I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name's sake. I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, children, because you know the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

The two statements about little children, fathers and young men clearly parallel each other. Perhaps even like this:

I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name's sake.	I write to you, children, because you know the Father.	Father
I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning.	I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning.	Son
I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one.	I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.	Holy Spirit

The first of pairs doesn't seem to fit my patten. Obviously the second of the two explicitly mentions the Father, but the first doesn't and seems to focus on the Son because of who's name we are forgiven. However, with a different pair of glasses you may focus on the one who does the forgiven, the one we can now know.

The second of the pairs mentions only knowing the one 'who is from the beginning'. John has already said that we know the Father, but the one who is from the beginning must surely refer to the Son of God considering 1 John 1:1 and John 1:1.

How then does the second pair concern the Holy Spirit? I think these quotes suggest that strength, the word of God abiding, and overcoming, are all closely linked to the Spirit in this letter.

by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us. (3:24)

By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. (4:2-6)

For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? [...] And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree. (5:4-7)

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. (5:13)

We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. (5:18 cf. John 3:1-14)

Quotable: Leithart on 1 John 4:8

[John] doesn't say, "The one who doesn't know love doesn't know God." He says, "The one who doesn't love doesn't know God." The test of knowing God is not "knowing love" but "loving." It's an active, pragmatic test, a test that has to do with practice.

(source)