Download discussion questions: 1 John 2:23-3:3
Table Talk: What are things that concern you about the future? What stirs in you when you think about the future? What is your reaction to conversations about the future? Are you hopeful? Angry? Frightened? Indifferent? Something Else?
[“Table Talk” is an opening question or topic for discussion at the beginning of our time together. The intent is to help group members (around tables, with four to six at each table) build connections with each other, as well as to guide thinking in a direction related to the passage.]
In this passage John makes repeated references to events – some in the past, some in the present (for John and his readers), some in the future. We began our discussion by organizing his comments into those three categories on a whiteboard, similar to the table below:
| Past | Present | Future |
| 23 Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; | ||
| the one who confesses the Son has the Father also. | ||
| 24 As for you, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. | ||
| If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, | you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. | |
| 25 This is the promise which He Himself made to us: | eternal life. | |
| 26 These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you. | ||
| 27 As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, | and you have no need for anyone to teach you; | |
| but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, | ||
| and just as it has taught you, | you abide in Him. | |
| 28 Now, little children, abide in Him, | so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming. | |
| 29 If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him. | ||
| 3:1 See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, | that we would be called children of God; and such we are. | |
| For this reason the world does not know us, | ||
| because it did not know Him. | 2 Beloved, now we are children of God, | |
| and it has not appeared as yet | what we will be. | |
| We know | that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. | |
| 3 And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. |
Then we considered each of the categories. What was the focus of John’s thinking in each one? The members of our group had several ideas:
- The past (“what you have heard” and “the promise” and “the Father’s love bestowed”) suggested the incarnation, the Gospel, God’s promises. John’s intention seems to be to remind his readers (including us) about what God has already done for us.
- The present (“denying and confessing” and “those trying to deceive you” and “the world does not know you”) presents a warning about problems but also an exhortation to perseverance (“His anointing teaches you” and “abide in Him”).
- The future (“eternal life” and “His appearing”) points to the return of Jesus.
Our “Table Talk” discussion at the beginning of our group had been about the future, and responses included topics such as making a living or health issues or supporting a family. One person in the group pointed out how the variations in thoughts or concerns about the future seemed to follow the very different stages of life we are in. (The group ranges in age from twenties to sixties.) In this passage John provides reminders about the past and exhortations about the present. He reminds us of the ultimate climax of history, the return of the Lord and our eternal life with Him. But he doesn’t address what we usually think of as “the future.”
One member of the group suggested that the phrase “it has not appeared as yet what we shall be” in 1 John 3:2 is a reference to our future condition, how our lives will go, what we will be like between now and when Jesus returns. The idea there is that no matter what happens to us or in us, we have a confident assurance of how the story ends, with our conforming to Christ, “we will be like Him.” The alternate understanding of “it has not appeared as yet what we shall be” is that we don’t know exactly what our future condition will be. Being “like Him” when He appears, as one person said, is incomprehensible. We often don’t think of the magnitude of that statement because we don’t take Charles Colson’s words seriously: “We are all really more like Adolf Hitler than like Jesus Christ.”[1] When we think in those terms, John is reminding us of an incredible promise, to become like the glorified Christ.
With that glorious day in mind, John still continues to focus on the present with his exhortations to abide and his affirmation of “everyone who practices righteousness” (v. 29). He doesn’t say anything more about that intermediate time between now and Jesus’ return, what one member of the group described as a “transition.” Perhaps John was reflecting the mindset of Jesus: “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:33-34). John is concerned for his “beloved children” who are surrounded by the world and its temptations (1 John 2:15-16). They are lured by those who are actively trying to lead them away from the genuine Gospel (v. 26). He desires that they will not be distracted or deceived from the life of abiding in the Son and the Father.
John describes the ultimate effect of that abiding as having confidence when Jesus appears (v. 28), of not being ashamed when He comes. That concern seems to be behind the closing verse of this passage: “And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure” (1 John 3:3). We discussed what “This hope” refers to, and it seems to point to being like Him, of seeing Him at His coming, of experiencing what it means to be children of God (v. 1) in the Father’s great love. If that is the hope we are fixed or focused on, how could we be ashamed when we meet Him? One suggestion was the feeling when you walk into a party and realize everyone else is dressed up, and you are not. Even if they don’t care and accept you, there is a lack of confidence and a bit of shame. Perhaps that is John’s intention when he describes how the hope we have motivates us to purity. The concern is not that the Father and the Son will not accept us. Because of the Son’s work, They see us as pure. The problem is with us. The more self-conscious we are about our appearance at the party, the less we will be able to enjoy ourselves. Similarly, remaining impurity in our lives now will limit our ability to see Him clearly. Our relationship with Him and the joy of that relationship will be restricted. “If a man’s self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred— like the Moon seen through a dirty telescope.”[2]
A poem from the fourteenth century, Dante’s Divine Comedy, captures this idea in the second canticle, “Purgatory.” Protestants usually don’t have much interest in the Roman Catholic idea of Purgatory, but Dante himself said that the Divine Comedy was about this present life – “the seriousness of sin and its inevitable eternal consequences, the means by which we can be freed from being enamored by sin, and the glorious eternal destiny awaiting all who are liberated.”[3] Like the Beloved Disciple, Dante Alighieri saw that sin prevents us from knowing God as deeply as He desires. As Dante the pilgrim is about to begin the journey up Mount Purgatory to be purified of the results of sin, he hesitates. An angel prompts him to urgency: “Why all this dawdling, why this negligence? Run to the mountain, slough away the filth that will not let you see God’s countenance.” (Purgatorio, II.121-123)[4]
May our hope be so strong that we are prompted with greater urgency to purify ourselves, even as He is pure, in anticipation of seeing Him just as He is.
[1] Charles Colson and Ellen Vaughn, Being the Body (Nelson, 2003), 190-191.
http://www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations/2008/september/2092208.html accessed October 17, 2016.
[2] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers, 2000), 165)
[3] Rolland Hein, Christian Mythmakers (Chicago: Cornerstone Press, 2002), 20.
[4] Dorothy Sayers, translator, The Divine Comedy II: Purgatory (London: Penguin Books, 1955), 84).