NOTES for Jo1 2:29-3:6

The Apostle John draws a very clear analogy with our human infancy. When we are born, we are already “human young,” although we can do almost none of the things a human being can do. Nothing about us is clear yet: who shall we be, what shall we be like? All of this develops and is revealed gradually. Yet it is very important that, as we grow and mature, we meet and communicate with other people, for this is how we learn what it means to be human. If this does not happen, then our “human likeness” is not realized either, as all real rather than fictional stories of “Mowgli children” attest.

It is exactly the same in our Christian life. In Baptism we died and were born anew as children of God, and we are already alive, although we are still infants. We do not yet understand very well what we shall be like when we grow up, but trusting in God’s goodness we want to become like Him. To do so, we meet Him and communicate with Him, for now “through a glass, darkly,” yet we know that a moment will come when we shall meet “face to face.” If we continue steadily toward this meeting, we shall enter “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

It is astonishing to understand that we are purified from sin and lawlessness by hope in God alone. For it seems that hope is so little, so easy, while to love and to believe are much harder.

Hope is the awareness that God can make the world and ourselves completely new, can transform everything, outside and inside. Hope is the refusal to rely on the experience that something is impossible, that something "does not happen," for with God all things are possible; He is the "Lord of the impossible."

Such hope purifies, because understanding that God will transform us so much that we will "see Him as He is" and "be like Him" leads to the fear of the Lord and to trembling, to the desire to become obedient children of a loving Father, to avoid sin, and to await the Meeting.

It has historically been that the large majority sees Christianity as one of the world religions today. But is it really the case? Certainly, if Jesus had created Himself any new religion, Christianity would have been precisely one of religions, and could be nothing else. But He did nothing similar. He left on earth not a religious community, but a community of people living in the Kingdom.

And the church is this community of people living in the Kingdom. But later around this community and on its base were formed diverse Christian religions: Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Protestantism and others, smaller and that is why less known. The life of the Kingdom in itself does not depend on the religiosity of man, and does not define it.

But indeed, we can say the same about righteousness! Righteousness in all periods and in all the biblical books was connected not much with the religious tradition and religious canon, as with the keeping of commandments, which is unconceivable without constant daily opposition to sin penetrating into the fallen world.

And a complete righteousness is possible only in the Kingdom, in the world transformed by the breath of God, where there is no more place for sin. But if it is so, then every righteous man has a more direct and more immediate relation to the Kingdom. And thus, he has a direct and immediate relation with Christ, Who brought this Kingdom into the world.

The need for purification when approaching God was recognized before, but here we encounter an entirely new motive for purification: we are called to be like God, and He is pure. We have been granted a great calling, not yet revealed in all its fullness, but even the little that we can already comprehend is enough for us to build our daily life and our relationships with those around us differently. Let no one be troubled that against the background of His absolute purity, our relative purity will inevitably stand out as less than spotless. The Lord has the power to complete the efforts we have begun so that they become “as no launderer on earth can whiten” (Mk 9:3).

Sin is identified by the apostle with lawlessness. For people accustomed to biblical thinking, this idea is familiar and natural, but those who, as is customary in our culture, are used to distinguishing the legal approach from the moral one may object that not all sins violate the laws of the state. That is true, but there are also other laws established by the Creator in the universe and in the human heart. Unlike rules devised by people, violating them leads not to human punishment but to the spiritual self-destruction of the lawless person who turns away from God and His love.

The words of the apostle John in today's passage from his First Catholic Epistle largely continue the manner of thought and expression of God through the Old Testament prophets. Many of them said that ignorance of God was the principal cause of sin and lawlessness in people—not the absence of information about the requirements of the law, but the absence of knowledge of God. And now, after all the events of Christ's earthly life, death, and resurrection, the apostle says that the truth about God has been revealed to us. This truth is such that it enables us to abide in the Father and the Son. What does this mean? How should we understand these words about abiding in God?

The apostle himself explains this in the famous words: “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called and be children of God.” Returning once more to one of the Epistle's principal themes, he speaks of the distinguishing marks of God's children: practicing righteousness and loving one's brothers.

Although in this passage the apostle speaks only about the Father and the Son, his revelation nevertheless has a Trinitarian character. For the tone of astonishing purity, tenderness, and light clearly bears witness that he writes under the inspiration of the Spirit.