The First Letter of John

A split in the family. "They went out from us, but they did not belong to us" (2:19). This one line explains the letter. A group had left. They seem to have denied that "Jesus Christ has come in the flesh" (4:2), to have claimed to be without sin (1:8), to have boasted of knowing God while not caring for their fellow believers (2:4, 9; 4:20). Those who stayed were left hurt and unsure.

Early errors about Christ. The Catechism says that the first heresies denied Christ's true humanity more than his divinity, and it names Gnostic Docetism, the idea that he only seemed to have a body (465). St Irenaeus tells of Cerinthus at Ephesus, who taught that the divine Christ came upon the man Jesus after his baptism and left him before the Passion (Against Heresies 1.26). Many scholars think that the words "not with the water only but with the water and the blood" (5:6) answer some such idea, though the letter names no one. Irenaeus also tells the story that John ran out of a bath-house when he saw Cerinthus inside (3.3.4).

Ephesus. A great port and a centre of the cult of Artemis, with temples for the emperors. The letter's last line, "keep yourselves from idols" (5:21), had a real meaning there, although it may also point to any false image of God.

"The last hour". The writer calls his own day "the last hour" and the separated teachers "antichrists" (2:18 to 19, 22). He means that those who deny Christ are already at work in every age. He gives no date, and no one should find one here (Catechism 670, 672 to 675).

The Church's tradition. The writer does not give his name, yet he opens with what "we have heard ... seen with our eyes ... looked at and touched with our hands" (1:1). Tradition has always heard the Apostle John.

• St Polycarp, who according to Irenaeus had known John, writes early in the second century: "whosoever does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is antichrist" (Philippians 7; see 1 Jn 4:3), without naming the source.
• Papias, according to Eusebius, used "the first Epistle of John" (Church History 3.39).
• St Irenaeus quotes it as John's, the Lord's disciple (Against Heresies 3.16).
• Eusebius: it "has been accepted without dispute both now and in ancient times" (3.24).
• The Council of Trent (1546) lists "three of John the apostle".

Letter and Gospel. The two sound alike: light and darkness, truth and lie, life, abiding, "from the beginning" (compare 1:1 with Jn 1:1), the new commandment (2:7 to 8; Jn 13:34). Benedict XVI, on 9 August 2006, treats the Gospel and the Letters together under John's name, with love as their shared theme.

A scholarly note. Traditionally by John the Apostle. Many scholars now think that the letter comes from a disciple or elder within the circle formed by John, close to the Gospel, and speaking in the "we" of the eyewitness community. Papias speaks of a "John the elder" also (Eusebius 3.39), and scholars have debated whether he was a separate person, as the Catholic Encyclopedia discusses. The question does not touch the letter's inspiration or its place in the canon (Dei Verbum 11, 18 to 19).

The words that are not there: 1 John 5:7. Older Latin-based Bibles add words about "the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit" bearing witness in heaven, known as the Johannine Comma. The NRSV and the POC Bible do not print them, because they are missing from the ancient Greek manuscripts and from most early versions. The oldest manuscript with these words is from the 9th century, according to the New Catholic Encyclopedia. In 1897 the Holy Office cautioned against rashly denying them. In 1927 it declared that scholars could study the question and incline against them, subject to the Church's judgment. Our faith in the Trinity does not rest on this phrase; it rests on the whole of Scripture and Tradition.

The letter does not march in a straight line. It circles, returning to the same themes at a deeper level each time, as a good teacher does. This outline is one common way of following it.

• God is love. "God is love" (4:8, 16). The Catechism says that God's very being is love, and that God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit (221; see 733, 1604). This is not a vague feeling: the love is shown in the sending of the Son (4:9 to 10; Catechism 458, 604, 620).
• God loved first. "We love because he first loved us" (4:19; Catechism 604, 1828). Everything in the Christian life is an answer. Our loving does not earn his love.
• God is light. "God is light and in him there is no darkness at all" (1:5; Catechism 214). To walk in darkness and claim fellowship is a lie (1:6; Catechism 2470).
• Christ truly came in the flesh. True faith confesses this (4:2 to 3; 2 Jn 7; Catechism 423, 463, 465). No one can love an imaginary Christ who never had a body and never bled.
• All of us sin, and there is forgiveness. "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves" (1:8; Catechism 827, 1425, 1847). "If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us" (1:9). Jesus is our "advocate with the Father" and "the atoning sacrifice", and for the whole world (2:1 to 2; Catechism 519, 605, 606, 1460). The Catechism draws on these verses in its teaching on conversion and the Sacrament of Penance (1425, 1460).
• How can a Christian "not sin"? The letter also says that those born of God "cannot sin" (3:9; 5:18). This cannot deny 1:8. The Greek present tense suggests a settled way of life, and the writer is describing what God's life in us does and where it leads. We still fall, and we still have the advocate (2:1).
• Mortal and non-mortal sin. "There is sin that is mortal", and there is sin that is not (5:16 to 17). The Catechism sees the distinction between mortal and venial sin already here (1854). The writer does not forbid prayer for anyone. The Church prays for all sinners (see Catechism 1037).
• Children of God now. "See what love the Father has given us" (3:1; Catechism 1692). "We will be like him, for we will see him as he is" (3:2): this is the Church's great hope of the vision of God (Catechism 163, 1023, 2519, 2772).
• Love in deed. To refuse help to someone in need while having enough is to lack God's love (3:17; Catechism 2447). "Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action" (3:18). Whoever does not love abides in death (3:14 to 15; Catechism 1033), and we cannot love the unseen God while hating a brother we see (4:20; Catechism 2840).
• Faith and works, together. Belief and love are one commandment (3:23). Faith in Jesus brings new birth (5:1; Catechism 2780, 2790) and the commandments follow, "not burdensome" (5:3). This agrees with the Church's teaching that grace moves us both to believe and to love (Catechism 2001 to 2002).
• The world. "Do not love the world" (2:15) does not contradict God's love for the world (Jn 3:16; 1 Jn 2:2). It refers to what is closed against God: "the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches" (2:16; Catechism 377, 2514, 2534).
• The anointing. Believers have "been anointed by the Holy One" (2:20, 27). The Catechism takes this to mean the supernatural sense of faith of the whole People of God, always under the Church's teaching office (91 to 93). It does not mean that any person may ignore teachers (compare 4:1 and 4:6).
• Water and blood. "Not with the water only but with the water and the blood" (5:6). The Catechism links this to the water and blood from the side of Christ, types of Baptism and the Eucharist (1225; see 694).
• Confident prayer. God hears us when we ask according to his will (5:14; Catechism 2778, 2827).

Those who "went out". The severe words of this letter are about one painful crisis within the first community. They should not be turned against Christians of other churches today, who are born into their communities and are to be treated as brothers and sisters (Catechism 818). "Antichrist" here is not a label for our opponents; it is a warning for each of us.

• The word of life, touched. The opening is almost physical: heard, seen, touched (1:1 to 3; Catechism 425). The eternal life that was with the Father has been among us.
• Son of God and true man. "He is the true God and eternal life" (5:20; Catechism 217), and he "has come in the flesh" (4:2). The letter holds the two without letting either go.
• The advocate and the sacrifice. He pleads for us (2:1; Catechism 692, 2634) and takes away sin (3:5; Catechism 457), for the whole world (2:2).
• The destroyer of the devil's works. "The Son of God was revealed for this purpose" (3:8; Catechism 385, 394).
• The pattern. "He laid down his life for us" (3:16). Love has a shape, and that shape is his. Those who abide in him walk as he walked (2:6).
• The one who will be seen. He will be revealed, and we will see him as he is (2:28; 3:2).

The Catechism uses this letter often: God is love, 221, 733; the Incarnation, 423, 457 to 458, 463; forgiveness, 827, 1425, 1460, 1847; the vision of God, 163, 1023, 2519; charity, 1033, 1828, 2447, 2840; prayer, 2778, 2781, 2827, 2852.

Benedict XVI began his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est (2005), with 1 Jn 4:16. In his audience of 9 August 2006 on John the theologian he calls love the one characteristic topic of John's writings, and says that God has shown this love concretely in Jesus Christ, our advocate and the expiation for our sins.

The Fathers, in substance. St Augustine preached ten homilies on this letter. In the seventh he gives the famous rule: "Love, and do what you will" (Homily 7.8). He does not mean do as you please: he means that if the root of love is within, then even correction and silence will be good.

In the liturgy.

• Syro-Malabar. In the 2026 to 2027 calendar we examined, on weekdays: 1 Jn 5:1 to 5 and 5:13 to 21 in Denha, and 1 Jn 2:7 to 11 in the Great Fast.
• Syro-Malankara. In the same year, on Sundays: 1 Jn 3:1 to 10 on the Sunday of the Annunciation to Mary, Mother of God, 1 Jn 4:1 to 6 on the Sunday of the Birth of John the Baptist, and 1 Jn 3:19 to 24 on the Second Sunday after Yaldo.
• Latin. In Year B the second reading on the Sundays of Easter comes from it. 1 Jn 3:1 to 3 is read on All Saints, and 1 Jn 4:7 to 16 on the Sacred Heart in Year A. It is the weekday reading of the Christmas season from 27 December onward, through the days after the Epiphany, nearly the whole letter. The feast of St John is 27 December, with 1 Jn 1:1 to 4.

It takes about twenty minutes. Do not look for a tidy argument: let the words circle round you. Over a week:

• Day 1: 1:1 to 2:2. Make a real examination of conscience, then rest in 2:1.
• Day 2: 2:3 to 2:17. Where do I walk?
• Day 3: 2:18 to 3:10. Whose child am I?
• Day 4: 3:11 to 24. Think of one person in need. Dwell on 3:20 if your heart condemns you.
• Day 5: 4:1 to 6. What do I really believe of Jesus?
• Day 6: 4:7 to 21. Read it slowly, aloud.
• Day 7: chapter 5. Finish with the three "we know" lines (5:18 to 20).