Download discussion questions: 1 John 3:23-5:1
John’s letter continued to warn against deceivers and those who would misrepresent who Jesus is. Since one of the functions of the Creed is to provide a framework for understanding the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, 1 John provides a good starting point for this study.
John mentioned “Jesus” or “Christ” or “Son” a dozen times in this passage, plus “Savior” and “propitiation.” Clearly this section has a lot to say about the Second Person of the Trinity. Members of our discussion group pointed out that the passage also has a lot to say about love (mentioned over thirty times!) and about evidence of truth (such as “we know…” several times). The richness and depth of Scripture usually provides more than an hour’s discussion can encompass. Those other valuable themes must wait for another study. Our focus this week was how John’s writing clarifies Christ for us.
After noting the numerous references to Jesus, we began to list the facts that John associates with Him:
- “Lynchpin” of belief (4:3)
- Son of God (3:23)
- Sent by God (4:9)
- Begotten by God (4:9)
- Came in the flesh (4:2)
- Gave commandments (3:23b, 4:21)
- Propitiation for sin (4:10)
- Savior of the world (4:14)
- Christ, Messiah (5:1)
- Part of judgment (4:17)
It is possible that John wrote his letter in a vacuum, putting down random thoughts arbitrarily. However, it is much more likely that the Apostle was very intentional, responding to specific concerns or misunderstandings. Earlier he had repeatedly mentioned deceivers (2:26, 3:7) and antichrists (2:18, 22). In the present passage he reminded his readers of the danger of false prophets (4:1) and deceitful spirits of antichrist (4:3). John had been careful to clarify the marks of authentic life and teaching (3:24; 4:2-3, 6, 13, 16). Understanding John’s positive teaching about Jesus is important. It might also be helpful to think about the negative teaching he was refuting. Understanding what John was facing in 90AD can help us recognize those same deceptions today.
Reverse Exegesis
“Reverse engineering” is looking at a result and speculating how that result was accomplished. “Reverse exegesis” might be a name for speculating about the opposition based on what John said. Remember, the churches reading John’s letters were most likely a combination of believers from different backgrounds. Converted Jews would have no trouble believing Jesus was a good rabbi, but would find it difficult to believe He was God. Converted pagans would be comfortable adding Jesus to their long list of gods and idols, but would find it hard to imagine any god would contaminate himself with corruptible matter.
We used the list of assertions John made about Jesus as a starting point for our effort at reverse exegesis. Our group had several suggestions about what the deceivers and antichrists might have been teaching:
|
John about Jesus |
Deceivers |
| Lynchpin” of belief (4:3) | doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you are sincere |
| Son of God (3:23) | a good man, great teacher, fine example |
| Sent by God (4:9) | grew up with an increasing desire to serve God |
| Begotten by God (4:9) | created, like a highest angel; not really God, maybe a god |
| Came in the flesh (4:2) | pure spirit, a phantom, an apparition that seemed human |
| Gave commandments (3:23b, 4:21) | all about love, not really concerned with rules or commands; |
| Propitiation for sin (4:10) | died as a model of self-sacrifice that we can imitate to please God |
| Savior of the world (4:14) | self-improving human nature doesn’t really need a savior |
| Christ, anointed, Messiah (5:1) | particularly gifted and well-trained rabbi who died too young |
| Part of judgment (4:17) | “no worries;” really is no judgment since God is love |
The Apostles’ Creed
Studying the book of 1 John is particularly appropriate in conjunction with the Apostles’ Creed. The reason is that many of the distortions facing the church in 90AD were not resolved quickly. The growing church continued to struggle with misguided teaching, either because of sincere misunderstandings or due to deliberate deception.
Looking at the Apostles’ Creed and our “reverse exegesis” list, our group saw a number of connections:
|
John about Jesus |
Deceivers |
Apostles’ Creed |
| Lynchpin” of belief (4:3) | doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you are sincere | I believe in Jesus Christ |
| Son of God (3:23) | a good man, great teacher, fine example | His only Son |
| Sent by God (4:9) | grew up with an increasing desire to serve God | conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit |
| Begotten by God (4:9) | created, like a highest angel; not really God, maybe a god | |
| Came in the flesh (4:2) | pure spirit, a phantom, an apparition that seemed human | born of the virgin Mary |
| Gave commandments (3:23b, 4:21) | all about love, not really concerned with rules or commands; | our Lord |
| Propitiation for sin (4:10) | died as a model of self-sacrifice that we can imitate to please God | suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried |
| Savior of the world (4:14) | self-improving human nature doesn’t really need a savior | |
| Christ, anointed, Messiah (5:1) | particularly gifted and well-trained rabbi who died too young | He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father |
| Part of judgment (4:17) | “no worries;” really is no judgment since God is love | will come again to judge the living and the dead |
Many of the assertions about Christ that John made were affirmed and organized within a hundred years or so in the Creed. Whether our group’s “reverse exegesis” was accurate or not, the second-century church shared John’s early concerns.
Unfortunately, then (as now) the deceivers, false teachers, and antichrists did not give up. They continued to find possible loopholes or areas where they could continue their aberrant teaching in spite of the Creed.
Approximate Timeline of the Creeds
The exact dates of some of the early writings of the church are not known with 21st-century precision. However, we can see where the Creeds fit into the sequence of the beginning history of the ancient church:
33 AD Resurrection of Jesus
50-65 AD Paul’s Letters
90s AD The Revelation to the Apostle John
Written to record his visions of the glorified Christ.
Some opinions date this document before 70AD.
90s AD The Gospel According to the Apostle John
Written to provide a narrative of his experience with the incarnate Christ and show Him to be fully man and fully God.
90s AD The Letters of the Apostle John
Written to one or more churches in present day Turkey to further clarify the human/divine nature of Jesus and the implications for a life of following Him.
~180 AD The “Rule of Faith” or “Old Roman Symbol”
A shorter preliminary form of the Apostles’ Creed, mentioned by Irenaeus, disciple of Polycarp, a disciple of John.
~200 AD The Apostles’ Creed
~215 AD Sabellius
Taught that Father, Son, and Spirit are different “modes” or “masks” of one God, not three distinct Persons.
~300 AD Arius
Taught that Jesus was a created being. If the Father begat the Son, “There was a time when the Son was not.”
325 AD The Council at Nicaea
Provided clarifications about Christ.
381 AD The Council at Constantinople
Provided clarifications about the Holy Spirit;
what we know today as the Nicene Creed
Nicene Expansion
Sabellius, Arius, and others may have professed agreement with the Creed, but only by twisting meanings to suit their eccentric ideas. Possible misunderstandings or intentional distortions led to the Nicene Creed in 325 and its further refinement at Constantinople in 381. The most extensive elaboration on the Apostles’ Creed reflect the heresies rampant at the time:
| Apostles’ Creed | Nicene Creed |
| I believe in Jesus Christ, | I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, |
| His only Son,
our Lord. |
the only-begotten Son of God,
begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; Through Him all things were made. |
The Fathers at Nicaea made it clear:
- He was begotten, not made, not created.
- He was before all creation and indeed He was an active agent in creation.
- He is God out of God (perhaps another way of saying begotten).
- He is as much God (“very God”) as God can be.
- He is as indistinguishable from God as the light shining from a lamp is from the light in the lamp.
- He is of one “substance” with God:
“Jesus shares the same essence as God the Father. He is comprised of the same ‘stuff’ or ‘being’ as it were (Greek ousia and Latin substantia). [This language] is the standard philosophical language of the day.” [1]
Philosophy or Bible?
One reason some people and even some churches object to the use of Creeds is that they are “too philosophical.” Why not just quote the Bible to refute false teaching? The problem is that the false teachers (like Sabellius and Arius and modern-day cults) also quote the Bible:
faced with the slippery way the Arians cited and interpreted the Scriptures, the fathers of Nicaea subjected passage after passage from the Scriptures, from the Old Testament as well as the New, to careful comparative scrutiny, with strict attention to the scope, time, place, person and matter in question, and the distinctive biblical way of speaking, in order to elucidate their true and right sense and to collect from them as honestly as possible the exact meaning of what was being conveyed.[2]
The “slippery way” Biblical language was being used necessitated the use of even more precise terms. If your opponent is using philosophical or scholarly language, you may need to use the same kind of language to express Biblical truth:
[The Nicene Fathers] found themselves reluctantly compelled to have recourse to non-biblical terms and phrases … in order to express more decisively the religious force … and meaning … of biblical statements about the indivisible unity of Jesus Christ with the Father.[3]
In order to clarify as much as possible the Biblical truth of the Son being fully God, just as the Father is fully God, the leaders who met at Nicaea further elaborated on the affirmation in the Apostles’ Creed, using philosophical terms like “substance”:
|
John about Jesus |
Deceivers |
Apostles’ Creed |
| Lynchpin” of belief (4:3) | doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you are sincere | I believe in Jesus Christ |
| Son of God (3:23) | a good man, great teacher, fine example | His only Son [only-begotten Son][being of one substance with the Father] |
| Sent by God (4:9) | grew up with an increasing desire to serve God | conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit |
| Begotten by God (4:9) | created, like a highest angel; not really God, maybe a god | [begotten not made] |
| Came in the flesh (4:2) | pure spirit, a phantom, an apparition that seemed human | born of the virgin Mary |
| Gave commandments (3:23b, 4:21) | all about love, not really concerned with rules or commands; | our Lord |
| Propitiation for sin (4:10) | died as a model of self-sacrifice that we can imitate to please God | suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried |
| Savior of the world (4:14) | self-improving human nature doesn’t really need a savior | [Who for us, for our salvation] |
| Christ, anointed, Messiah (5:1) | particularly gifted and well-trained rabbi who died too young | He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father |
| Part of judgment (4:17) | “no worries;” really is no judgment since God is love | will come again to judge the living and the dead |
The council at Nicaea pressed the fact that Jesus was not just similar to God or like God, but His “substance” or “essence” or “stuff” that made the Father God was exactly what made Jesus God. As Athanasius (c. 366) said, “the Son is everything that the Father is, except ‘Father.’”[4]
Our group focused on the section about Jesus the Son in the Nicene Creed. The repetition of the word “begotten” stands out: “the only begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds… begotten, not made.” The quality of being begotten was central to the equality of the Son with the Father. This Nicene emphasis on the “begottenness” of Jesus perhaps is more obvious in the illustrations of C. S. Lewis:
When you beget, you beget something of the same kind as yourself. A man begets human babies, a beaver begets little beavers and a bird begets eggs which turn into little birds. But when you make, you make something of a different kind from yourself. A bird makes a nest, a beaver builds a dam, a man makes a wireless set— or he may make something more like himself than a wireless set: say, a statue. If he is a clever enough carver he may make a statue which is very like a man indeed. But, of course, it is not a real man; it only looks like one. It cannot breathe or think. It is not alive. Now that is the first thing to get clear. What God begets is God; just as what man begets is man. What God creates is not God; just as what man makes is not man.[5]
Because He is the begotten Son (cf. Hebrews 1:1-8), He can communicate exactly what the Father is like:
7 If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.” 8 Philip *said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 9 Jesus *said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; – John 14:7-9
In Jesus, the only Son, we have personal, inside information:
Strictly speaking, as Irenaeus pointed out, only God can know himself so that it is only through God that God may be known…. This sharing in the knowledge that God has of himself was made possible through the incarnation of God’s Son and his mediation of the Spirit of the Father and the Son. In the incarnation God communicated himself to us in Jesus Christ his beloved Son, not something about himself, but his very Self.[6]
The longer we have been believers and the more the gospel becomes familiar and unremarkable to us, the more likely we are to lose the awe of that truth. God did not merely tell us about Himself in the Incarnation. He didn’t show us only an illustration of what He is like. He communicated Himself to us. The Creeds provide a brief, powerful reminder that should stir that awe within us.
[1] Michael F. Bird, What Christians Ought to Believe (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2016), 17; Kindle Edition location 1248.
[2] Thomas F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith: Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church (London: T&T Clark Cornerstones, 2016), Kindle Edition, location 3096.
[3] Thomas F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith: Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church (London: T&T Clark Cornerstones, 2016), Kindle Edition, location 3101; Some of the technical terms from the original quotation have been replaced with ellipses to avoid distraction.
[4] Athanasius quoted in Thomas F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith: Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church (London: T&T Clark Cornerstones, 2016), Kindle Edition, location 3026.
[5] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperCollins, 2000), 157-158; Kindle Edition location 1978.
[6] Thomas F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith: Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church (London: T&T Clark Cornerstones, 2016), Kindle Edition, location 1608, emphasis in the original.