NOTES for Jo1 2:1-17

The catholic epistle of the apostle and evangelist John the Theologian, written in the 90s of the first century, contains in concise form the very foundations of apostolic teaching. In it we hear the authentic testimony of the one who reclined on the Teacher's breast at the Last Supper and stood with the Most Holy Virgin at the foot of the Cross. As in the Gospel, the apostle John speaks in today's passage of the light that enlightens every person coming into the world. Here the apostle draws a kind of practical conclusion from this testimony. The light of God reaching the human heart enables us, he writes, not to lie to ourselves and to God. This is expressed first of all in repentance, in the confession of sins. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.

The apostle then writes of the most beautiful thing in the Gospel call to repentance: forgiveness. Our confession, in the precise sense of acknowledging our sins, leads not to humiliation and condemnation. God does not scold us as we scold children who admit their misdeeds, but through Christ's intercession grants us His forgiveness. Confession therefore becomes for us a path into new life. The radical difference of this new life is that in it a person keeps Christ's word, because God's love is brought to fulfilment in him.

The wish not to sin, and if one should fall into sin, to turn to Christ, whose sacrifice is the propitiation for sins of all the living, appears simple enough. We are given hope for forgiveness; nevertheless, the discussion of forgiveness begins with the call not to sin. Fulfilling such a call is difficult, and often it appears impossible, and yet it is not worth speaking of forgiveness if we constantly indulge ourselves and do not even try to resist sin. The concepts of what is due remain unshakable, no matter how often we depart from them; following them is the criterion of the truth of faith. Therefore knowledge of the commandments is not theory, for knowledge of a craft also consists not in memorizing technical norms, but in the ability to work.

There are two false images of God: one says that God is a stern overseer, judge, and executioner all at once; the other that He is a good-natured grandfather who watches our "pranks" with a smile. Clearly, both are lies. God is not indifferent to our sins; He is offended by them and is angry. But He does not wish to be an executioner, He does not want to punish us for our sins, He seeks an opportunity to have mercy on us. At the same time, sin inevitably brings retribution: death.

And so God finds the only possible way for our salvation: His Son becomes the sacrifice of propitiation, that is, He accepts death, paying for human sins, the sins of all people, by which justice is satisfied and the way is opened for God's mercy. Thus in Christ all people are offered the possibility of receiving God's pardon, and those who believe in Him receive it.

Let us understand the word “brother” literally. Then every person we meet will be a close relative to us. We did not choose that person, and we cannot simply part ways. We are bound together by one family. In this situation we must always move toward one another and constantly renew our reserves of goodwill. The Lord has bound us all with bonds of brotherhood, and this means that our principal task is to live in peace and help one another.

“I have written to you, young men, because you are strong...” Let us listen today to these words of the apostle. For we very often like to quote the words the Lord spoke to the apostle Paul: My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12:9). This somehow comforts us in our own weakness; we feel better at the thought that even a man such as Paul was weak, so what can be said about us? We use this to excuse ourselves and say that if we leave something unfinished, it is because of our weakness; the Lord simply did not wish His power to be manifested in us on that occasion. But are we right to think this way? Are we always right in such a situation? It seems that we are not always right. “I have written to you, young men, because you are strong...” We must not merely rely on God’s power; we must also train the strength within ourselves. In this connection we recall a poem by Nikolay Gumilev, or more precisely a fragment from it (“Vision,” 1916):
He lay exhausted on a bed of sickness
(What is more bitter, more grievous than a bed of sickness?),
And suddenly his weary eyes caught fire;
He sees, he hears in sacred rapture—
Emerging from the gloom, emerging from the night,
Saint Panteleimon and George the warrior.
<...>
And following his friend comes George
(Like trumpets of victory, George proclaims):
“Renouncing battles, you thirsted for salvation,
But the tears of the strong are not right before God,
And God did not hear your renunciation;
Tomorrow you will rise, and rise for glory.”
<...>
In fact, even on a bed of serious illness we can be strong enough not to renounce God by acknowledging our weakness.

The apostle and evangelist John has already told us that knowing God must necessarily be expressed in keeping the commandments. In the one who keeps God's word, the love of God has been completed, that is, has become fully perfect. Continuing his thought, in today's passage the apostle speaks about exactly which commandments he has in mind. After all, a Jew might understand his words as a call to keep secondary commandments, such as hygienic prescriptions or regulations about fasting.

The apostle's word sounds with complete definiteness and clarity. He emphasizes that he is giving not a new commandment, but the one that from the beginning was the meaning even of the Old Testament. At the same time, this commandment is new, because Christ's light makes it clear and, most importantly, possible to fulfill. And here we must listen to his words. According to the apostle, the absence of stumbling and life in the light are determined by only one thing: love for one's brother.

It is significant that in this case what is meant is not a close relative or a brother in faith, but anyone who shares our human nature. This is sufficiently clear from the words Christ speaks at the end of the fifth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. Everyone who is angry with his brother, the Lord says, is liable to judgment. The apostle John expresses the same thought in these words: whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Therefore, when we act while moved by a lack of love, our hatred for our brothers testifies to us that we ourselves are in darkness.

How should these words be understood? Is the world really worthy only of rejection? It seems that the issue is not literal lack of love for the world, created beautiful by God, but the rejection of the fallen state of the world, of the sin that permeates the world. By taking sinfulness as an inseparable property of the world and using it to justify our own sinful inclinations, we really do turn away from the love of the Father.

The words of John's letter seem paradoxical at first glance. On the one hand, he states that as Christians we must not be involved in sin, because the blood of Christ cleanses us from every sin (1 John 1:6-7). On the other hand, according to his own words, we are by no means sinless, and we had better not deceive ourselves about this (1 John 1:8).

Meanwhile, this paradox, or rather this antinomy, describes the phenomenon of biblical righteousness, known even in pre-Christian times. Sober-minded people who sought genuine spiritual life and, accordingly, firm relations with God never considered themselves perfect or sinless. And biblical righteousness was never equated with sinlessness. There is no darkness in God; in Him there is only light (1 John 1:5). This truth was known to believing Jews in every age. Righteousness is not light emitted by a person, but God's light reflected by him. Such is human righteousness, and this is exactly how the authors of the Old Testament books describe it.

In this respect nothing has changed: after the coming of Christ, the human being remained what he had been. Neither before nor now is anyone born into the world free from sin. But with the coming of the Messiah, something did change. New possibilities opened up. Formerly the Kingdom was beside the world. The prophets of Israel sometimes saw it as if through a transparent but insurmountable barrier. Many, not only among the Jewish people but throughout the world, sensed its breath.

But for the transformation of the world, for a complete and qualitative change in its nature, for its final liberation from the power of sin and death, this was not enough. The Kingdom had to enter into the world in all its fullness, inevitably colliding in doing so with the evil in which, according to the word of the Gospel, the fallen world lies. This collision, its first and chief blow, was taken upon Himself by the One who brought the Kingdom into the world, the Savior Himself. It was His blood that opened the road into the Kingdom for us. But not only that: it also opened the road for the Kingdom into our hearts. Formerly those who sought the path of righteousness strove to become a perfect reflection of God's light, in spite of their sinfulness, which remained unconquered to the end. Now those who seek the path of the Kingdom can become an open door through which the breath of the Kingdom enters the world being transformed. This happens in spite of their own sinfulness, which, however, has become conquerable thanks to what the Savior has done for us. And now the path of the Kingdom, beginning in our world that has not yet been transformed, is completed in the fullness of that Kingdom. In the fullness that will be revealed to the world on the day of the Savior's return. His return in glory.