You belong to God / 1 John Bible Study (Part 4) / Chapter 2

John’s First Letter was probably written when he was already towards the end of his life and begins in much the same way as His Gospel, saying in wonderment: “We declare to you the One who was from the Beginning, whom we heard, whom we saw with our own eyes, and touched with our hands! We are witnesses that HE is the Eternal Life that was in the Father – HE appeared to us – and we declare HIM to you so that your joy may be full!” John saw and touched the Son of God when HE was in the flesh! It changed his life forever.

But Chapter Two of John’s letter begins with a sense of danger, John is troubled: “My little children, I WRITE TO YOU THAT YOU SIN NOT.” He’s possibly writing even as much as 100 years after the birth of Christ, so he’s an old man – which entitles him to address his readers as ‘little children’… But maybe here he’s also addressing some who are still ‘spiritually children’. What he says relates to anyone of us today, but in this case I am sensing John is writing particularly to Jewish people who had become followers of Christ; Jews, who when they believed, had accepted something that had been ‘hidden’ from them in their Jewish Law/Scriptures, something so completely new to them, they are  now finding it hard to fully accept, and that is: JESUS IS THE SON OF GOD, HIS SACRIFICIAL DEATH HAS PAID THE FULL PRICE OF SIN!