"Things to get straight in life" - love and God

Books for August – I, II, II John

THE MESSAGE (by Eugene Peterson)

The Message's introduction to these three little books of love, points out how love and God are one. He says that, “In Jesus, God and love are linked accurately, intricately, and indissolubly.” Christian Science would amend that a little, saying that Christ is the link, not the human Jesus, and giving Love a capital to declare it to be an actual name for God, the name including the nature of God.

Here's a little more from The Message's Introduction: 

The two most difficult things to get straight in life are love and God. More often than not, the mess people make of their lives can be traced to failure or stupidity or meanness in one or both of these areas...

John's three letters provide wonderfully explicit direction in how this works. Jesus, the Messiah, is the focus...But there are always people around who don't want to be pinned down to the God Jesus reveals, to the love Jesus reveals...John was pastor to a church (or churches) disrupted by some of these people...

REVISED STANDARD VERSION

Now I shall be quoting from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible.

LETTERS OR TREATISE? (CIRCA 90 A.D.)

Although all three books are classified as letters, I John does not contain the usual opening and closing "formulas" for letters. For instance, letters would normally begin with a salutation such as “Dear John” and end with “Yours faithfully,” or perhaps, “Yours in Christ.” (Haven't we all been confounded by computers using formulas for things we do not want?) II John begins, “The elder to the elect lady and her children....” And ends, “The children of your elect sister send you their greetings.” I John goes straight to The Word of Life (as the sub-heading declares), and we might be reminded of the opening of the Gospel of John. (This makes us think that I John is by the same author as John.) 

Scholars say I John may be considered to be a treatise rather than a letter.

These three short books of the Bible, and John's Gospel, are considered to have been written about the year 90 A.D. John must indeed been an elderly worker at that stage.

Now I need to know exactly what a treatise is. My New Webster College Edition has: A written formal composition on some subject, in which the principles of it are discussed or systematically explained.

In considering the “treatise” angle, I note that the "way of Christ" has never been without students who turn against or away from it, doubting that Jesus represented Christ and was the promised Messiah. John is handling that situation for his time. It is still being handled in Christianity and in Christian Science.

In chapter 1, John begins in the plural “we”; the writer/s of I and II John speak as “I.” How interesting is that! Is John perhaps speaking for his fellow apostles who had direct experience of Jesus life and works. But he turns to “I” and “My” in chapter 2, where he speaks as if he is writing a letter. (At this stage, I think I will vote for the book being classified as a letter!)

I JOHN 1:1 - 2:1

And so to I John 1:1. We are reminded of Genesis 1:1 and John's Gospel with its talk of beginning i.e.

Gen. 1:1: In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth....

John 1:1: In the beginning was the Word....

I John 1:1: We declare to you what was from the beginning....

This in turn reminds us of Science and Health's Chapter on Genesis, where Mary Baker Eddy writes after quoting Genesis 1:1: 

The infinite has no beginning. This word beginning is employed to signify the only, that is, the eternal verity and unity of God and man, including the universe (SH 502:24). We find that St. John had strong gleams of the Science of the Christ in his teaching.

What is this sin which John writes about so strongly in chapter 1? Christian Science teaches that the one great sin is belief that man is material, hence Mrs. Eddy's great antidote to that belief expressed in the scientific statement of being in her textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. (See SH 468:8-15.) It seems to me that this statement is the essence of Christian Science teaching.

“Man is not material, he is spiritual,” that statement of being concludes. This is the ultimate, but mortals need help in attaining this attitude of thought. The Christ as understood in Christian Science supplies that need. Christ Jesus is our advocate with the Father, as St. John tells us in

I John 2:1.

Joyce Voysey