Teaching & 1 John, Pt.1: Fellowship with God

Introduction

I am a teacher. It is what I do: I work at a Christian university where I teach a Bible doctrine class, several Biblical Greek classes, and survey classes of both the Old and New Testament, among other things. It is also who I am: I believe that God has gifted me with natural talents that enable me to explain concepts to others, and I further believe that God has graciously granted me the Spiritual gift of teaching. When I am in conversations with people, I frequently find myself wanting to help facilitate communication and understanding. I teach because I believe God has led me to do so, and I have been doing so professionally for ten years now.

I teach because I believe God has led me to do so

I started teaching on the university level at twenty-two years old. As I have grown and matured during these years, my perspective and philosophy of teaching have been shaped not only by experience and training but also by Scripture. Over this last summer, I did research and translation work for a new class through the biblical books of First, Second, and Third John, and in studying these books, the Holy Spirit opened my eyes to how the timeless theological truths they contain apply to my occupation as a teacher. My plan is to expound these truths God has taught me in several blog posts. May they be a blessing to you.

Eyewitness Testimony of Jesus

The opening lines of First John are beautiful, poetic, and reverberate through the ages as the irrefutable testimony of a man who walked and talked with the Lord. Just as the Sanhedrin, assembled to command Peter and John not to speak of the Lord, “recognized that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13), so it is impossible to read John’s words in this epistle and miss his claim.

1 John 1:1-2 “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life — the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us …”

As I studied the first verses of this impassioned letter, I found myself again marveling at the fact that I was reading the supernaturally-preserved words of an eyewitness whose testimony is that of God himself in the wrappings of human personality. 

John knew Jesus, and Jesus loved him

The hands that penned these words had held the hands of Jesus. The head in which these thoughts were formed had leaned upon the Lord’s breast at the Last Supper (John 13:23). The eyes that saw the need for a reminder to the churches of the true nature of his Master had beheld Christ crucified (John 19:26-27, 34-35), then resurrected (John 20:8, 19-23), ascending into heaven (Acts 1:9), and finally resplendent in divine glory as he languished in exile (Rev. 1:12-20). John knew Jesus, and Jesus loved him (John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7, 20).

Invitation to Fellowship with God

Jesus commissioned John as his Apostle to proclaim the truth of his Lord’s life-giving death, burial, and resurrection to all who believe. It is on this basis that John states the next words in First John.

1 John 1:3 “that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.”

As I studied these verses, I at first found myself wondering whether John was ‘gatekeeping’ Jesus by saying that he had exclusive knowledge of him that everyone needed to accept. Then I remembered that this is the role Jesus gave to his chosen followers in his last words before he willingly laid down his life for sinners.

John 14:25-26  “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.”

John 15:15-16a “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide ...”

Jesus personally chose John and the others to be his Apostles – his ambassadors – to proclaim the good news of his Gospel to all peoples of all nations, and while all believers are entrusted with the Great Commission, we are not all Apostles. John can declare that we must believe in the Jesus he preaches because Jesus gave him the authority and empowerment to do so. He is not gatekeeping but guarding the truth.

Just as he did in his Gospel (John 20:30-31), John invites us to believe in the Jesus who chose him and loved him and gave his own life for him. But his vision is grand: he invites us not just to know Jesus through his testimony, but to fellowship with him in the Father and the Son. This is the goal of human existence: to know God, to fear him and keep his commandments, to glorify him and enjoy him forever. And that fellowship is only possible through faith in Jesus Christ.

My ultimate job as a teacher is to invite my students to know God

Yet John is writing not to unbelievers but to believers, those who already have faith in Jesus Christ and have fellowship with the Father and the Son by virtue of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Even so, he invites them further in. Why?

1 John 1:5 “And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.”

Here we see the goal of John’s letter, and here I found the goal I should set before myself as a teacher: the only way to complete joy in this life is through fellowship with the Father through His Son Jesus Christ, and the job of Christ’s followers is to invite others to share in our fellowship with God. My ultimate job as a teacher is to invite my students to know God as I have known him that their joy and mine might be fulfilled in that beatific fellowship.

Spiritual Formation and True Teachers

What I am speaking of here is often referred to as spiritual formation. The end goal of teaching from a Christian perspective is to produce mature disciples of Jesus Christ who will in turn produce other disciples of Jesus Christ. This is why John himself said:

3 John 4 “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.”

For John, the highest joy of his life was to see that his spiritual children persisted in believing on Jesus Christ and demonstrating that belief through righteous living. This is why he warns these same spiritual children in all his letters not to fall into wrong beliefs about Jesus Christ.

1 John 2:23-25 “No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he made to us — eternal life.”

1 John 4:1-3a “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.”

2 John 8-9 “Watch yourselves, so that you may not lose what we have worked for, but may win a full reward. Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God.”

The stakes are high. The blessed result of believing in the true testimony of Jesus Christ is nothing short of the greatest joy any human could ever experience: eternal life, consisting of knowing the Father and the Son (John 17:3). But the consequences of rejecting this truth for a lie could not be more dire: not having God, failing the one purpose for which we are created, enduring an eternity of judgment for which the price was already paid in full (1 John 2:1-2). Just as Moses in times past (Deut. 30:25), John sets before us life and death.

Am I a worthy teacher who evidences knowing God?

This is why John writes his letters. He urges his spiritual children to prove that they truly have been born - not of him but of God (cf. John 1:12-13) - by holding fast to the truth about who Jesus Christ is, as evidenced by their righteous character and love for fellow believers (1 John 2:29; 4:7; 5:1). These are also the tests that John establishes for his readers to use in discerning true and false teachers.

1 John 5:1-3 “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.”

By way of application, these are the tests that my students should apply to me to discern whether I am worthy of inviting them to fellowship with me in God. And these are the tests to which I must subject myself each time I stand before my class and invite them to know God as I have known him, to know the good life described in Psalm 1 as being a tree that is abundantly fruitful because it is planted by the flowing waters of God’s character contained in Scripture. Am I a worthy teacher who evidences knowing God such that I can invite others to fellowship with him?

Conclusion

John’s words both stir and chill my soul, for the calling of inviting others to know God as I know him is so high, and yet the danger of displaying him incorrectly is real and ever-present. I long for my students to experience the joy that comes from knowing God, but if I am to invite them to that joy I must first ensure that I truly know it myself, and that I am walking in the light of that truth even as I invite them to do likewise.

I pray I have managed to adequately convey the vision of Christian teaching that I have found in 1 John. In the next three posts, I intend to examine each of the three tests which John establishes for discerning true teachers, one per post: righteous character, love for fellow believers, and correct Christology. My prayer is that my fellow Christian teachers, instructors, and leaders would be both challenged and blessed as I was during my own study of John's letters to the end that our joy and that of those we seek to disciple may be full in fellowship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, our Anointing from the Holy One who teaches us all things (1 John 2:20, 27).

1 John 3 “Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son, in truth and love.”

Next Post: Righteous Character

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All Scripture verses come from the ESV.