First John

The grand theme of the first epistle is eternal life in the Son of God. In John’s Gospel we see that life everywhere displayed in the person of the Lord—“I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). Here we see the result in the believer as a partaker of that divine life.
This epistle is not expository, but rather the outpouring of the aged Apostle’s heart. Thirteen times John refers to that which he was writing or his purpose in writing. Repeated references are made to the things that we as believers know and to those things whereby we know the true from the false. Nine times he uses the expression “born” or “begotten of God,” showing what characterizes the new nature. We are members of a new family.
John writes, desiring that the believer’s joy may be full (1 John 1:4). This can only come by being in communion with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, as known and revealed by the apostles. He writes that believers should not sin; the advocacy of Christ restores communion when we do (1 John 2:1). In closing the epistle the Apostle declares, “These things have I written to you that ye may know that ye have eternal life who believe on the name of the Son of God” (1 John 5:13 JND).
In the second chapter, believers in different stages of maturity are addressed—the fathers, young men, and babes. While the young men and babes are warned of the dangers ahead, to the fathers he twice writes, “Because ye have known Him that is from the beginning” (1 John 2:13, 14). Desirous of nothing more and nothing new, Christ, who is from the beginning, is everything to them. Even the babes in Christ have an unction from the Holy One—the Holy Spirit—and “know all things” (1 John 2:20). They needed to possess nothing further; there was no new thing to know.
In the third chapter, the children of God are manifest, as are the children of the devil. In the fourth we have tests whereby we may distinguish false spirits from the true. We ought to love one another; it is characteristic of the divine nature. Such love is exercised in obedience and will not be at the expense of the truth. “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments” (1 John 5:2).
We know the true God, we possess eternal life, and anything outside this is an idol. “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21).