[This post continues a series of posts on the notion of Christian unity and the place where division should be allowed to occur rather than attempting to maintain some false, communal unity despite fundamental differences. Four posts in this series are focussed on First John (see 53a for the first post on this epistle).]
(2) The Reception of God’s Love in Jesus Christ
Just
how does one receive God’s love? The
Gospel of Jesus Christ is not some truth and reconciliation commission that
settles for uncovering what happened and then seeks social reconciliation by
laying down any hostilities and moving forward with plans to rebuild a
nation. The Gospel adds something
central and essential to this: restitution through suffering. God’s love is an emptying love, a sacrificial
love, a self-denying love. It entails
Jesus’ sacrificial payment for our sins.
God’s love is bloody, painful, shameful, sacrificial. It is a love that hangs in agony on a cross
until the Son of God is dead, pierced with a sword, and buried. It is not an abstraction from the cross of
Jesus, the Son of God, such as a value (‘love’ in the abstract) or a virtue (‘reconciliation’)
or a principle (‘forgive others as they forgive you’): it is only these because
of Jesus Christ crucified for our sins.
Twice
in this epistle John speaks of Jesus’ atoning sacrifice for our sins:
1 John 2:2 and he is the atoning sacrifice
for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.
1 John 4:10 In this is love, not that we
loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for
our sins.
Thus, Jesus’ death is to be understood with
reference to the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16, when the sacrificial blood
was sprinkled on the mercy seat in the holy place of the temple. The offering was a sin offering, and it was
offered once a year for all the sins of all the people. John extends this to speak of Jesus’ offering
for the sins of the whole world. In
saying so, he affirms, first, that all have sinned and have need of this
sacrifice and, second, that Jesus’ death was a sacrifice once for all for
sin. As Peter writes,
1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also suffered for sins
once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God.[1]
So,
to understand who Jesus is, one has to come to a self-awareness. One simply cannot claim to know Jesus while
denying any need for the atoning sacrifice that he came to give to save sinners
from their sins. As John says,
1 John 3:5 You know that he was revealed to take
away sins, and in him there is no sin.
The ‘blood of Jesus
cleanses us from all sin’ (1 John 1.3; cf. v. 7). The notion of a sacrifice is that of
exchange, not just of one in the place of another but also of a pure and
righteous one in place of a sinner. As
John writes, Jesus Christ the atoning sacrifice for our sins is ‘the righteous
one’ (1 John 2.1).
Believing in Jesus means
believing that he is the one who came to remove sin. To believe that Jesus is the Son of God is
not, for John, an abstract theological tenet (1 John 4.15; 5.1, 5). It is to claim that God has offered his
salvation in Jesus Christ and through none other. This, in turn, is a belief that one needed
God’s offering of salvation because one was sinful. Therefore, as we see so clearly in 1 John, there
is a direct connection between one’s understanding of Jesus as the Son of God, of
sin as the human plight, and of righteousness—not just forgiveness—as the goal
of Jesus’ work. To do what is right is a
sign that one has been born of Jesus, for he is righteous (1 John 2.29; cf.
2.1). Our righteousness is not our own
as it comes from the one who is righteous—but this does not mean that we continue
in sin. Jesus not only forgives us our
sins but also cleanses us from unrighteousness itself (1 John 1.9). To ‘abide in him’ means to walk as he walked
(1 John 2.6). With this language of
participation in Christ, John emphasises that the work of Christ is not only
forgiving but also transformative, and it is not our own work but the work of
Christ in us.
All this cuts to the
heart of the problem in the church. The
heretical group that has left the church denied (1) their sinfulness and (2)
their need for a Saviour. John writes,
1 John 4:14 And we have seen and do testify
that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world.
This is precisely what the false
group has denied. When some group
downplays sin, whether by denying that some behaviour is a sin or by denying that
sin itself is the human plight, the group typically also focuses more on
understanding Jesus as a great example of love rather than seeing how God’s
love is revealed in Him as Saviour of a sinful world. The cross tells us of the extent to which God
will go in loving us: an extreme suffering and sacrifice even for an extremely
unworthy and sinful people.
With this rejection of Jesus’
atoning sacrifice for sin and of the accusation that they were sinners needing
God’s sent Son to deal with their sins, the heretical group also rejected the
orthodox group in the church. For John,
this was a schism in the church that could not be repaired—one should not pray
that God would give life to such sinners (1 John 4.16). This is obvious, since they are denying the
very need for forgiveness and the very cleansing and atonement of Christ. There can be no unity with such a group that has
denied the very truth of Jesus’ work and the essential understanding of what it
means to be a people abiding in him.
[1] Cf. Romans 6:10: ‘The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the
life he lives, he lives to God.’ Hebrews
also understands Jesus’ death in terms of the atoning sacrifice: (1) Hebrews
9:12 ‘He entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of
goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption;’
(2) Hebrews 9:26 But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end
of the age to remove sin by the sacrifice of himself’; (3) Hebrews 10:10 And it is by God's will that we have been
sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all’ (cf.
Hebrews 7.27; 10.2).