| 1 JOHN |
| Explanatory Footnotes |
| 2:12 A Friendly Interruption John begins his book with a stern warning against false ideas. But this lyrical paragraph interrupts the flow with a warm greeting to true believers in the church. Many commentators believe that John intended the three categories (dear children, young men, fathers) to represent three different stages in his readers' spiritual lives. 3:11 Love vs. Hate Very often John defines words in relation to their opposites: light vs. darkness, truth vs. falsehood, life vs. death. In this paragraph, he begins with a command to "love one another," then goes on to illustrate the life of hate before coming back to define love. Many of 1 John's themes are developed in this "curcular" method. 5:7 Water, Blood, and Spirit The apostle John relied heavily on symbolic language in his Gospel account of Jesus' life. Here, too, he uses symbols in giving proofs of Jesus. Water may refer to Jesus' baptism, blood to his death on the cross, and the Spirit to the Holy Spirit who descended on Jesus. John refers to these three as a "testimony" from God about his Son. |