Authorship
Unlike the Pastoral epistles (and some other epistles in the New Testament) whose Pauline authorship is questioned by many, and I have maintained in my writings that we cannot deny the truthfulness of the books’ claim that Paul wrote them (1 Tim 1:1; 2 Tim 1:1; and Titus 1:1) without diluting the authority of the rest of the books’ content,1 the three books traditionally called Epistles of John do not make mention of John at all.2 The first epistle goes directly to the message without a mention of who the author or the recipient are.3 The second and third epistles do better because they mention that the author is “the elder” (ho presbyteros) but without a name (2 John 1 and 3 John 1). Nevertheless I will, in this work, assume John the apostle to be the author. Apart from the defense of this traditional view in many books on New Testament introduction and other commentaries,4 there is a general view in the African context that when it comes to matters of history, information from the elders is more dependable than statements of later generations, unless good reason is provided for why the elders may have told lies.5
The traditional position on the authorship of 1 John is tied to the authorship of the Gospel of John, and the authorship of the Gospel of John is tied to the identity of the disciple of John 21:24 who is described in 21:20 as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” By implication, therefore, the internal evidence concerning the author is dependent on points that require to be argued out. The relationship between the Gospel and 1 John is primarily seen in the use of common language,6 and the identity of the disciple of John 21:24 is based on an argument of elimination of any other disciple until we are left with John the son of Zebedee.7
This internal evidence, though by deduction and not directly stated, is accompanied by statements by the early church fathers. These fathers include Polycarp,8 Papias,9 Irenaeus,10 and others.11 The closeness to first century dates of these witnesses (for example, Polycarp AD 110 and Papias AD 125) and listing in Muratorian Canon (AD 200) among other factors place the Gospel of John and 1 John early enough for the assumption that John wrote them to be a viable option. It cannot be dismissed without better evidence than what we have at the moment.12
Just as the similarity between the Gospel of John and 1 John implies the same authorship, so also 2 John in relation to 1 John. 2 John addresses the two issues (the matters of Jesus having come in the flesh and the practice of love among believers) at the center of 1 John’s teaching. This implies common authorship also. The vocabulary of 3 John (for example, “truth,” “children,” and “beloved”) also moves it toward 2 John, 1 John, and the Gospel of John. The argument would then be something like: Evidence that John wrote the Gospel (elimination of others and witness of church fathers) → Evidence that the author of the Gospel also wrote 1 John (similarity of content among other characteristics) → the writer of 1 John also wrote 2 John (same subject, and even use of “antichrist” in both) → the author of the Gospel, 1 and 2 John, also wrote 3 John (shared vocabulary and similar opening between 2 and 3 John).
It must, however, be mentioned that not everyone finds this convincing. Some have suggested that the similarities can be explained by the Gospel and the epistles sharing a common source, or guarding the same doctrinal interest, rather than one author.13 The mention of 1 John by the church fathers may also be viewed, by some, as better serving the point that the letter was in circulation early and not necessarily prove that apostle John was the author. Even with these challenges though, there is no better conclusive alternative to the view that John the apostle wrote all the four and that the church fathers were certain of their assertions. It is on the basis of where the weight lies that John will be assumed throughout this work.
Date and Place of Writing
Having adopted the position that John the apostle wrote both the Gospel of John and 1 John (and by extension 2 and 3 John also) the next question is, “Which of the two was written first, and what is the date for 1 John, and by implication also 2 and 3 John?” This question cannot be answered without working with some assumptions. A key assumption is that a full story needs to be told before those who deviate from it are rebuked. The Gospel tells the full story so as to show that “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (John 20:31) and in I John those who deny this truth are labelled “antichrist” (1 John 2:22). Working with this assumption, 1 John is to be dated after the date given to the Gospel, or about the same time, but not earlier.14
The date needs to be within John’s lifetime. Eusebius (Eccl. Hist. 3.23) quotes Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria as saying that John lived through the reign of Titus Flavius Domitian (emperor of Rome from AD 81 to 96) and into the reign of Trajan (emperor from AD 98 to 117). Given this information and the fact that John wrote in his fairly old age (his use of “children” for the believers implies this) the epistles (also the Gospel of John15) need to be dated in the late eighties or early nineties.16 Regarding from where John wrote, Yarbrough says, “Patristic sources plausibly affirm that in roughly 70–100 John was in Ephesus and ministered there.”17 These details (late eighties or early nineties date, and writing from Ephesus) will be assumed in this commentary.
The Historical Context
Within the content of the three epistles, there is in each one of them at least one detail that is helpful in providing a feel of what was happening when John wrote them.
In 1 John 2:19 John talks of those who “have gone out of us.” While this will be discussed in more detail in the commentary itself, what this implies is that John’s readers are believers whom he had shepherded and they knew his position in matters of essential doctrines and basic Christian living. When he was writing, however, some false teaching had set into the community he had taught the truth and some of the members had been deceived to the point of leaving the congregation of the faithful. Most scholars refer to them as secessionists. Their position on sin seems to be that it did not matter (implied in what John teaches in 1 John 1) and their position on who Jesus is was that he did not come in the flesh, a lie that John refutes to the point of calling those who deny Jesus’ humanity the “antichrists” (2:18, 22; 4:3). Their worldview on these matters also seems to have made them downplay the place of love among people of God, against Jesus’ teaching that we love one another—a matter to which John gives extensive and repeated attention in the epistle. Lieu suggests that the “us” John uses in 2:19 refers to him and other teachers (for example, the apostles) like him.18 In other words, the seceding was at the teachers’ level and not at the level of members of the congregation. While this is not an impossibility, John seems to be exhorting the entire congregation in a manner (see for example, the use of “if anyone . . .” in chapter 1 and elsewhere in the epistle) that he is establishing them not to follow those who have been led astray. The picture painted does not seem to be just one of potential danger as Lieu proposes, but an existing situation.19