Tag Archives: apostle John

Bible Interpretation, Books of the Bible, Faith and Works, Strong Calvinism

Who Were the Original Readers of 1 John?

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Post Author: Bill Pratt 

The letter of 1 John in the New Testament contains numerous tests for its readers. However, the tests cannot be interpreted correctly unless we know to whom the letter was originally addressed.

Advocates of the Reformed doctrine of perseverance argue that the writer of 1 John is addressing a group of professing Christians.  By their understanding, some professing Christians are false Christians who are not truly saved. The letter is therefore written to a mixed group, some who are truly going to heaven and some who are not.

Given this starting point, these Reformed thinkers then argue that the tests in 1 John are there so that professing Christians can know if they are truly born again or not. If a professing Christian passes these tests in 1 John, then she can have assurance of her salvation. Otherwise, she is a false Christian who is not going to heaven.

There are other possible interpretations of the intended audience of this letter. Joseph Dillow, in his book  The Reign of the Servant Kings, offers what I consider to be a far more plausible explanation of the audience of 1 John. Dillow believes that the text clearly indicates that the apostle John is writing to people who he considers to be true Christians, not just professing Christians.

[John] says of his readers that they are “little children” whose “sins are forgiven for His name’s sake” (1 Jn. 2:12). He calls them “fathers” who “have known Him from the beginning,” and he writes to the young men who “have overcome the evil one” and in whom “the word of God abides” (1 Jn. 2:13-14). They are specifically contrasted with the non-Christian Gnostic antichrists who departed from them.

Furthermore, these people have received an “anointing,” the Holy Spirit (1 Jn. 2:20). This anointing, he says, “abides in you and you have no need for anyone to teach you,” because His anointing teaches them (1 Jn. 2:27).

Dillow presents even more evidence that John considers his readers to be true believers in Christ.

In the clearest possible terms the apostle affirms the regenerate state of his readers when he says, “I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it.” He is confident that the truth is presently “abiding” in them, and he wants it to continue to abide in them (1 Jn. 2:24). He specifically affirms of them “that we should be called children of God; and such we are” (1 Jn. 3:1).

Furthermore, they are now “children of God,” and when Christ returns, he affirms of his readers that they “shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is” (1 Jn. 3:2). They are, he says, “from God” and have overcome antichrists, because “greater is He that is in you than he who is in the world” (1 Jn. 4:4).

In contrast to his regenerate readers, the next verse refers to those who are “from the world.” His understanding of the saved state of his readers is further clarified when he says of them, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God” (1 Jn. 5:13). For John, when a person has believed on the name of the Son of God, he is born again (Jn. 3:15-16). In fact, one who has believed in the Son of God has “overcome the world” (1 Jn. 5:5).

Finally, while the world “lies in the power of the evil one,” we know that “we are of God” (1 Jn. 5:18). Throughout the epistle he uses the term “we” and includes himself in the same spiritual state and facing the same spiritual dangers as his readers.

Dillow concludes from this analysis that there is little doubt that the apostle John was writing to people whom he considered to be true Christians who were going to heaven because of their faith in Christ. For Dillow, “Any system of interpretation which ignores these plain statements in the interests of fitting into a theological scheme must ask, ‘How else could John say it?’ If he wanted to assert that his readers were in fact born again in contrast to the world, how could he make it clearer?”

If the intended readers of the letter are born again Christians, then the tests cannot be methods of assessing whether the readers are born again. The tests must be for assessing something else. More on that “something else” in the next blog post.

Books of the Bible, Church History, Textual Criticism

Who Wrote the Fourth Gospel? Part 2

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

In part 1 of this series, we looked at a blog post written by Timothy McGrew where he presents external and internal evidence for the authorship of the fourth Gospel.  Part 1 summarized the external evidence, and part 2 will summarize the internal evidence.

McGrew starts off the presentation of the internal evidence with the following:

Here, we can close in on the question with a series of concentric arguments, starting further out (with facts that limit the authorship somewhat, but not too specifically) and then tightening the description until only John is left.  This method of solving the problem was made famous by B. F. Westcott, and I will make use both of his outline and of many of his examples as we zero in on John the son of Zebedee.

McGrew’s outline consists of 5 steps (he provides a lot of evidence to back each of these up in the blog post):

  1. The author was a Jew.  He is intimately familiar with Jewish opinions and customs.
  2. He was a native of Palestine.  He give us an unerring portrait of the distinct role that the hierarchical class (the Sadducees, whom he never calls by their name) played in the religious life and legal deliberations of Judaism. He also shows effortless precision in his knowledge of places and topography.
  3. He was an eyewitness of many episodes that he records.
  4. He was one of the “inner circle” among Jesus’ disciples.
  5. He was John, the son of Zebedee.

Here are some of the details McGrew presents in support of outline item 5:

Throughout the Gospel, we read of one disciple who goes unnamed (e.g. 1:35, 37, 40) but is later described simply as “the beloved disciple.”  At the very end (21:24), we are told outright that he was the author.  And going back over the places where he is recorded as being present, we find that they are the particular places where the scenes are recorded with particular vividness and detail—the conversation at the last supper, for example, or the scene by the fire at night in the hall at Caiaphas’s house.  There is no reason to doubt that this identification of the beloved disciple with the author of the fourth Gospel is correct.  But who was the beloved disciple?

From the lists of those present in some of the scenes (1:35 ff; 21:2), including cross references with the Synoptic Gospels, he must have been either Andrew, Peter, James, or John.  He cannot be Andrew, since Andrew appears with him in the opening chapter.  He cannot be Peter, since he appears with Peter in the closing chapter.  James was martyred too early to have written the Gospel (Acts 12:1).  By process of elimination, we arrive at the conclusion that he was John.

Again, remember that all of the internal evidence is gathered from the text of the fourth Gospel.  We are looking for clues from the text that would indicate who the author is, and McGrew has done a nice job compiling some of the highlights.  He ends the blog post by reiterating,

The evidence, internal and external, is really quite overwhelming. To use a phrase of Paul’s from the book of Acts, “God has not left Himself without witness”—he has provided plenty of evidence!

And with him, I wholeheartedly agree.

Books of the Bible, Church History, Textual Criticism

Who Wrote the Fourth Gospel? Part 1

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

There is much hay made in skeptical circles of the fact that none of the four Gospels were signed by an author, that if we reconstruct the original texts from the copies we have, there are no sentences in the texts that explicitly say something like, “This Gospel was written by John, son of Zebedee.” 

Yet church tradition does claim that the four authors were Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – all of them apostles or companions of apostles of Jesus.  I have written previously on the authorship of the first Gospel, but today I want to quote from an outstanding blog post written by Timothy McGrew which makes a compelling case that the author of the fourth Gospel is indeed the disciple John.

If you want the full treatment, go to McGrew’s post.  What I will do is summarize some key points from his post below.  McGrew starts with the following:

I am persuaded that the fourth Gospel was written by John, the brother of James and son of Zebedee. There are quite a number of reasons for thinking this, and that means that this is going to be a rather long note.

So here’s the short answer:

1. Every scrap of evidence we have from the writings of the early church indicates that the fourth Gospel had always been known to be written by John. And we have lots.

2. A careful examination of the Gospel itself shows that it must have been written by a Jew who was a native of Palestine and an eyewitness of numerous events, including many where only Jesus and the disciples were present. From internal clues, we can pretty safely narrow it down to John.

The first group of evidence is called the external evidence, as it consists of evidence external to the Gospel text itself.  McGrew lists several early, ancient authors and documents that mention John as the author of the fourth Gospel and/or quote passages only found in the fourth Gospel (this second line of evidence is important because it establishes that the fourth Gospel was considered apostolic very early, and thus more likely to be written by an apostle such as John).  In his post, McGrew provides background information on each of these sources, but I will only list the sources themselves.

  1. Eusebius (~AD 325)
  2. Origen (~AD 220)
  3. Tertullian (~AD 200)
  4. The Muratorian fragment (~AD 180)
  5. Irenaeus (~AD 180)
  6. Tatian (~AD 160)
  7. Justin Martyr (~AD 145)
  8. Anti-Marcionite Prologue quoting from a work of Papias (~AD 125)
  9. The Apology of Aristides (AD 117 – 138)
  10. Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, book 7, quoting early second century heretic Basilides
  11. Ignatius (~AD 107)

McGrew finishes up this section of external evidence with the following summary:

These are the primary pieces of early external testimony to the authorship of John, though I could easily double the size of the list by pulling out more obscure quotations from the so-called Second Epistle of Clement, Hermas, Hegisippus, Athenagoras, Polycrates, etc.  But they make the point sufficiently clear.

There is no other tradition of authorship for the fourth gospel.  There is no record of any uncertainty about it at any time; we have one brief mention of some gnostics (not even named) who claimed it was written by Cerinthus, the founder of their heretical sect—but they are mentioned only to be dismissed.  It does not appear that any Christian group ever had the slightest doubt about this work.

 In part 2 of this series, we will look at the internal evidence that McGrew presents.

Historical Christ, Resurrection

How Did the Apostles Die?

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William Hole's interpretation of the Beloved D...
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Post Author: Bill Pratt

One of the most compelling apologetic arguments for the truth of the resurrection of Jesus is the fact that most of his closest followers were martyred for their beliefs.  Since these followers would have had first-hand knowledge of whether he actually did come back from the dead, their willingness to be persecuted and eventually die for this belief is hard to explain if the resurrection never did occur.

One of the challenges with making this argument is that the quality of the historical evidence for these martyr deaths varies greatly.  C. Michael Patton, of the Parchment and Pen blog, attempted to sort out the historical evidence for the deaths of 12 apostles in this blog post.  In his post, he grades the quality of the historical sources based on his own research.  He assigns a grade of “A” to the deaths with the best historical evidence (highest probability) all the way down to a grade of “D” for deaths where he considers the historical evidence to be weak (lowest probability).

For reference, here are each of the disciples along with their alleged year of martyrdom and the grade Patton assigned to their martyrdom accounts:

The Apostle James: year of death – 44-45 A.D.; grade of A

The Apostle Peter: year of death – 64 A.D.; grade of A

The Apostle Andrew: year of death – 70 A.D.; grade of B

The Apostle Thomas: year of death – 70 A.D.; grade of B

The Apostle Philip: year of death – 54 A.D.; grade of C

The Apostle Matthew: year of death – 60-70 A.D.; grade of B

The Apostle Nathaneal: year of death – 70 A.D.; grade of C

James the Brother of Jesus: year of death – 63 A.D.; grade of B

The Apostle Simon the Zealot: year of death – 74 A.D.; grade of B

The Apostle Judas Thaddeus: year of death – 72 A.D.; grade of C

The Apostle Matthias: year of death – 70 A.D.; grade of D

The Apostle Paul: year of death – 67 A.D.; grade of A

Out of the 12 martyrdom accounts he grades, 3 merited an “A,” 5 merited a “B,” 3 merited a “C,” and 1 merited a “D.”  In my opinion, the three accounts that garnered “A”s are enough evidence to uphold the apologetic argument.  What Patton demonstrates is that there is even more evidence than just these three.

Historical research can be very tricky, and these kinds of analyses are somewhat subjective.  I’m sure skeptics of Christianity might grade harder than Patton did, but I commend him for his attempt.  Please read the rest of his blog post if you want to know more of the details surrounding the deaths.

Archaeology, Church History

Oldest Known Images of the Apostles Andrew and John Found

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

Archaeologists reported on June 22, 2010 that they found images of the apostles Andrew and John that date to the 4th century.  Here is an excerpt from the article at CNN.com.

The oldest known image of the apostles Andrew and John have been discovered in catacombs under the city of Rome, dating back to the 4th century AD, archaeologists announced Tuesday.

The paintings were found in the same location where the oldest known painting of St. Paul was discovered last year, the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archeology said Tuesday.

They are part of a group of paintings around an image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd on the ceiling of what is thought to have been a Roman noblewoman’s tomb, experts said.

A painting of St. Peter makes up the fourth member of the group, but older images of him are thought to exist, Vatican experts said.

Be sure you read the brief article to see the images themselves.  They are remarkably well preserved.

Morality, Sin, Theology

Are All Sins Equal? Part 1

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

In a sense, yes, but in another sense, no.  Evangelicals often point out that all sins will send you to hell, that God demands moral perfection, so whether you steal a stick of chewing gum or murder your spouse, both sins will equally damn you.  This is really just a way of explaining that all mankind sins, and thus all mankind is in need of a savior from that sin.  It is, in other words, an evangelistic appeal more than anything else.

But when we talk about sin, we’re not always evangelizing.  Sometimes we’re admonishing Christians who are already saved, and other times we’re debating public morality in the context of legislation.  In these cases, stating that all sins are the same is hardly helpful.

Leaving the issue of evangelization aside, we all intuitively know that some sins are worse than others.  Look at our legal system.  The punishment for stealing a stick of gum is quite different from the punishment for killing your spouse.  There is a wide range of punishments, from a $100 fine to the death penalty, all depending on how serious your crime is.

When we punish our children, the same rule applies.  Little Johnny may be grounded for several weeks if he makes an “F” on his report card, but he may only be sent to his room for an hour for swatting his sister on the back of the head.  Again, Mom and Dad know that all sins are not the same.

But what about the Bible?  Is there support for the view that all sins are not equal in Holy Scripture?  Yes, actually there is.

Let’s look at the words of Jesus.  In Matt. 23:23, Jesus scolds the Pharisees for neglecting “the more important matters of the law.”  If there are more important matters of the law, than there are less important matters of the law, and thus a moral law hierarchy.

In Matt. 5:19 Jesus refers to breaking the  “least of these commandments,” again indicating a hierarchy.

In Matt. 22:34-40, an expert in the law asks Jesus about the greatest commandment.  Jesus’ response isn’t, “Silly man!  All of the laws are equal!”  No, he tells him that the greatest command is to love God and the second greatest command is to love your neighbor.  Clearly the man who loves his neighbor but does not love God is committing the greater sin.  God comes first.

In John 19:11, Jesus tells Pilate that “the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.”  If there is a greater sin, then there must be lesser sins.

What about the apostle Paul?  He says in 1 Cor. 13:13 that the greatest virtue is love.  If there is a greatest virtue, then there must be lesser virtues.  Paul also tells Timothy in 1 Tim. 1:15 that Paul is the worst sinner.  But if all sins are equal, then there can be no worst sinner.

In 1 John, the apostle John informs us that there is sin that leads to death, and other sins that do not lead to death.  Clearly some sins are worse than others.

In part 2 of this post, we’ll look at the practical consequences of some moral laws being greater than others.

New Testament Reliability

Did the New Testament Writers Record Fact or Fiction? Part 4

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Post Author: Bill Pratt

Based on the previous post, we know that the NT documents were written soon enough after the events of Jesus’ life to prevent anyone claiming that they are largely tainted by myth or legend.  This fact was very important to establish, but we are still left with a nagging question.  Just because it was written soon after the events doesn’t mean that the writers didn’t make it all up.

Maybe the followers of Jesus fabricated this story about him dying and rising from the dead right after Jesus died, so that Jesus couldn’t correct them.  How can we trust them?  After all, don’t people start religions to gain power and wealth?  We certainly see many modern-day religious figures becoming quite wealthy.

One newspaper story from several years ago featured a man in Miami, Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda, who claimed to be the reincarnated Jesus himself!  He owns armored Lexus’ and BMW’s as well as several diamond-encrusted Rolex watches; he wields tremendous influence over his thousands of followers – everything a charlatan could dream of.  Maybe the disciples, the writers of the NT, were just like de Jesus Miranda.  Let’s find out.

We are going to ask questions of the NT writers that any court of law would ask of witness testimony.  It’s interesting to note that many famous attorneys who have studied the evidence of the NT became Christians because they understood how compelling the evidence is.  So let’s pose some of the questions that would be asked of a witness.

Question 1: Do the witnesses claim to be eyewitnesses or claim to have received their information directly from eyewitnesses?  This question is obvious since eyewitness testimony will always be more accurate.  With respect to the NT writers, all of them implicitly claim to be eyewitnesses of the events surrounding Jesus’ life.  They write as if they were there and they heard Jesus’ words themselves.

However, we have several instances in the NT where the writers explicitly claim to have eyewitness testimony.  They go out of their way to prove this point.  For example, Luke claims to have “carefully investigated” the accounts “handed down . . . [by] eyewitnesses” (Luke 1:1-4).  In 1 John 1:1-3, the apostle John makes it clear that he is writing about what he himself heard, saw, and touched.

In fact, in the span of three verses, he claims eyewitness credentials 8 times!  Here is a person that wants you to know he was there.  Not to be outdone by John or Luke, Peter reminds his readers in 2 Pet. 1:16-18 that “we were eyewitnesses of [Jesus’] majesty.”  Time and again, the writers of the NT claim to be presenting eyewitness testimony, so question 1 is answered with a resounding “yes.”

We will continue with additional questions in the next post.