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2:1-2: If we do sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus
Christ. He is propitiation not only for our sins but for those of the whole world. We gather that His suffering atones for all sins of all men, for its value is infinite. Jesus is called the <propitiatory>, as in Romans 3:24-26: "We are justified gratuitously through the redemption in Jesus Christ, whom God set up as the propitiatory through faith in His blood, to show His righteousness because of the passing over of previous sins, in the patience of God to show His righteousness at the present time, so that He is righteous and makes righteous the one who depends on faith in Christ Jesus." The old propitiatory was the golden plate with cherubim on it, on the top of the ark of the covenant. Once a year (Lev 16:2-13) the High Priest, on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, would sprinkle the blood of a sacrificed animal on that propitiatory to make atonement for Israel's sins of the previous year --There was no other rite for the remission of sins committed <be yad ramah>, "with a high hand", in contrast to things done in inadvertence, <sheggegah>, for which Lev. 4 prescribed sacrifices once the sinner became aware of his previously not noted sin. It is imperative to understand God's <righteousness as His concern> for objective righteousness (and not as many would have it, His salvific activity"- cf. Wm. Most, <The Thought of St. Paul,> appendix on <sedaqah>). If we took it that way then the shedding of the blood of Jesus would be merely a liturgical ceremony, excessively painful. Really His blood was a balancing of the objective order, called for by God's holiness. But taking righteousness in this sense, the meaning will be that Christ's blood really rebalanced the objective order which had been put out of line by sin, but which the Holiness of God wanted to have righted. Thus atonement means to make up. Rabbi Simeon ben Eleazar c 170 (<Tosefta, Kiddushin>. 1:14) gives a helpful comparison: "He [anyone] has committed a transgression. Woe to him! He has tipped the scales to the side of <debt> for himself and for the world." The sinner takes from one pan what he has no right to have. It is the <Holiness> of God that wants the scales rebalanced. Jesus gave up, and endured more than all sins of all times - so He atoned for all. (On the concept of sin as debt cf. Wm. Most, appendix to <The Thought of St. Paul>). To get in on His atonement we must be His members and like Him: Rom 8:17: "We are heirs of God, fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him so we may also be glorified with Him." He calls us heirs of the Father since we have not <earned> our inheritance, we get it from the kindness of our Father. though we could earn to lose it. He wants "all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth", that is, to formally enter the Church. But if through no fault one fails to find the Church, but yet follows what the Spirit writes on His heart (Rom 2:15) he will be a Christian, even if he does not know it (cf. St. Justin Martyr, <Apology> 1. 46; 2. 10 and <Lumen gentium> #16). We do not earn it, Jesus earned it for us -- provided we do not forfeit it by sin. Cf. also Paul VI, <Indulgentiarum doctrina>, Jan. 1967. There are two phases: 1) the once-for-all atonement made on the cross, which established an infinite title or claim to all forgiveness and grace; 2) the giving out of that which was once- for-all (cf. Heb. 10:10) earned. In the Mass, Jesus of course does not suffer or die again. But a sacrifice includes an outward sign and interior dispositions. The outward sign on Holy Thursday was the seeming separation of body and blood, in the separate species; on Friday it was the physical separation in His dying; in the Mass the sign is again that of Holy Thursday. But in all there is the interior disposition of obedience to the will of the Father, which is constant, and so not strictly repeated in the Mass: it is always present. The outward sign in many Masses is multiplied; the interior disposition is, as we said, not repeated, but continually present. Death makes permanent the interior attitude with which the soul leaves this world. vv. 3-6: The way we know that we know Him is if we keep His commandments. Hebrew <yada> which is often translated <know> is really much broader: it means not just mental knowledge, but adherence of will in obedience, and even conformity in feelings. Hence if we know Him, we also obey, and are in accord with his commandments. to obey God is to love Him. <To love anyone else is to will good to him for his own sake; but we cannot will good to God who is infinite. Yet we can will that He have the satisfaction of giving to us and to our neighbor if we are open to His commandments.> Our obedience of course does Him no good, but it makes us open to receive what He so generously wants to give. St. Irenaeus wrote (<Against Heresies> 4. 14. 1) that God created Adam not that He needed anything, but to have someone to receive His gifts. Recall again comments above on 1:5. 2:3-6: If anyone claims to know Him, but does not keep His commandments, He is a liar and the truth is not in him. - The thought is the same as in 2:4 above and 2 John 6: "And this is love [namely] that we walk according to His commandments." The Pelagians said this meant only that we need to be humble. But that idea was condemned by II Council of Milan, approved by Pope Zosimus in 418. Many Gnostics -- whose ideas were probably around this early (cf. the opponents of Paul in Colossians) said they were automatically saved, no matter how they lived. But the worst case of error here is in Martin Luther, who in his <Epistle to Melanchthon> of Aug 1, 1521 (<American Edition, Works> 48. 282) wrote: "No sin will separate us from the Lamb even if we commit murder and fornication 1000 times a day." (Yet in his <Bondage of the Will, the Masterwork of the Great Reformer>, tr. Packer & Johnston, Revell. , Old Tappan, N J, 1957, pp. 103-04) he says we have no free will - our will is like a beast: - either God or devil rides, and so we do good or evil and go to heaven or hell, but we have nothing to say about which rider we get, so that those who go to hell are "undeserving" ( p. 314) and God "saves so few and damns so many" (p, 101). And so he even says at times he wishes he had never been made a man (p. 217). 2:7-8: The commandment of love is both old and new (Jn 14:34). But to love as I have loved you (Jn 15:12) is extending the old. He died for us when we were still sinners: Rom 5:8. There was a commandment of love of God in the OT (Dt. 6:3) But the commandment of love of neighbor was in Lev. 19:18. where the wording is like that in the Gospel, but the Jews of that time took it to mean only other Jews are neighbor. Jesus of course properly extended the meaning. 2:12-14: John says he writes to his little children since their sins are forgiven --to fathers since they have known the One who is from the beginning-- to young men since they have conquered the evil one. And so on through a largely repetitive set. The language is odd. It is simply stylized: they know God and do not sin, they cannot sin (to be a son of God <as such> brings only good, it cannot bring any evil). To make it vivid he uses the several words for the recipients, but the general sense is the same. 2:15-17: Do not love the world or the things in it. The world here means the attraction of creatures, or of evil men. If we consider the world merely as God's creation, we would not speak the same way. Vatican II, <On the Lay Apostolate> #7 teaches that all creatures are good: God made them all good in Genesis 1; they have added dignity, being destined for men, the peak of visible creation; they have very high dignity <because> Jesus in the Incarnation took on a created nature and used created things. It used to be <concupiscence of the eyes> common to speak of despising the world, and not loving it. And in Phil 3:7-8 St. Paul says he has gladly taken the loss of all things for Christ, and considers them as dung (<skybala>), to gain Christ. Paul is speaking there like 1 John. And beautifully in Wisdom of Solomon 9:15 we read that the magic spell of paltry things corrupts the soul and weighs it down. Pagan Socrates many times said the same thing: in <Phaedo> 82-83 Plato reports Socrates said that each pleasure and pain seems to nail the soul to the body and makes it bodily, so that the soul thinks things are true if the body say so. Therefore Socrates concludes that the soul that seeks the truth should have as little as possible to do with the things of the body. (Cf. <Republic> 519). But here is no contradiction with what our Epistle says: there are two scales on which we weigh the two. Compared to the things of eternity the things of this world seem nothing or worse than nothing. 1 John then urges us to avoid the three chief things that take us away from God. First, the <concupiscence of the flesh>. This means not just the disorderly use of feelings and passions: it includes the attraction of earthly things, such as we have just seen above. Secondly comes <concupiscence of the eyes>, which desire to see things that arouse lust, and even idle curiosity. In the day of 1 John there was also the desire to see the cruel gladiator fights. Thirdly, he warns against <the pride of life>. This means not just deficiencies in humility, but every unrestrained desire of honors, or power. The saying is so true: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is a stronger pull on one than even sex. In fact, pride is the root of absolutely every sin. We think of Eve in the garden: the tempter told her the forbidden fruit was good, that she would be like God, able to determine for herself what was good or bad. She looked at the fruit, and as it were said to herself: "God may know what is right many times --but right now, I know better." Pride can mimic humility: wanting to be praised for what seems to be humility. How can kings and others with absolute power swallow some of the silly flattery they receive? Before we put a man in space, a preliminary experiment put him in a sealed capsule with no light or any other sensation. In a relatively short time all got hallucinations. In normal circumstances if a foolish thought comes, we readily compare it with reality about us, and see it is silly. But the man in the capsule has no points of reference, and so loses perspective. Similarly a king - or for that matter anyone with power such that all around him fear to tell him anything he might not like loses his points of reference, and can believe truly vain things. Not only kings but powerful ecclesiastics, judges, doctors, and many others suffer from this danger. The world and its desires are passing: to ignore its pulls so as to adhere to God makes one share in His eternal perspective. 2:18-21: This is the last hour of God's dealings with our race. The first was the time of the Old Testament. It is now completed and fulfilled by leading into the last period of God's dealings with us: the New Testament. John does not mean that the end of the world is just around the corner. In 1 Cor 7:29 Paul says the time has grown short. In 2 Thes 2:7 Paul says the mystery of iniquity is already at work: the forces of evil are at work. This includes the lesser antichrists. But there is still to come the great Antichrist, who will even sit in the temple proclaiming himself God. (When we recall the description of the future restored Jerusalem Temple, in Ezek 40-48, perhaps here that will be the time and place for the chief Antichrist to sit proclaiming himself God. Jesus warned in Mt 24:24 that the great Antichrist would work signs and wonders so as to deceive if possible even the elect. He will not be satan incarnate - the devil does not have such a capability. But the devil will put all his power at the disposal of the Antichrist. Will Antichrist be able to work a wonder and present it as the authentication of himself? In Exodus the magicians of Pharaoh turned rods into snakes; but the snake from the rod of Moses devoured the other snakes. So God in some way or other will always provide the means of recognizing the deception of the Antichrist. The mere fact that Jesus thus warns us is enough. And when Jesus Himself really comes, He will not be in some out of the way place: His coming will be as clear as lightning flashing from one end of the sky to another. Further, the period of the Antichrist is often given as 3 1/2 years in Revelation/Apocalypse. that is apt to be a symbolic number: but it surely means that that period will be relatively short. Also, Jesus warns in Luke 18:8: "When the Son of Man comes, do you think He will find faith on the earth." And 2 Thes 2:3 gives the same warning. Similarly Mt 24:12 says that the love of most people will grow cold since sin will reach its peak, "filling up its measure". Cf. also 2 Timothy 3:1 ff on the characteristics of men near the end. Now it is true that St. Paul three times teaches that the grace of final perseverance will be offered to all: 1 Thes 4:23-24; 1 Cor 1:8-9; Phil 1:6. Yet one could resist even that grace. However there is a final protection. Pius XI wrote in <Explorata res,> AAS 15. 104, Feb. 2, 1932: "Nor would he incur eternal death whom the most Blessed Virgin assists especially at his last hour. This view of the Doctors of the Church, in accord with the feelings of the Christian people and supported by the experience of all times, depends especially on this reason: the fact that the Sorrowful Virgin shared in the work of redemption with Jesus Christ. . ." There are similar teachings of Benedict XV and Pius XII. Benedict XV also called her "omnipotentia supplex" - whatever God can do by His own inherent power, she can obtain by asking Him. 22-25: The liar and antichrist is the one who denies the divinity of the Son. Such a one has neither the Son nor the Father. 26-29: I have written these things to you. But you have the anointing from Him, and do not need anyone to teach you. Vatican II in LG 12. wrote: "The entire body of the faithful, anointed as they are by the Holy One, cannot err in matters of belief." This is often called passive infallibility: if the whole Church, people and authorities has believed -- accepted as revealed -- anything, that belief cannot be in error. This of course would not apply to remote and recondite points of theology, but it does apply to most truths. It does not mean that the Magisterium should be merely the echo of the people: LH adds that the people do this "under the lead of the sacred magisterium, which they faithfully follow." A truth once guaranteed by this universal belief cannot be changed or reversed if at a later time the people fall away from it--as is the case today when most Catholics reject the teaching on contraception. This covers so many things: e.g. today many deny the existence of angels, though the whole Church has long believed in them. and John urges them to do this, so that when He appears, they may not be ashamed, but may be able to stand before Him with confidence. |