DeConick A.D

152
JOHN AND THE DARK COSMOS
This letter was written around 110 CE, about ten years after the fourth
Gospel took its final shape. The letter is written by a person who identifies
himself as one of the elders of a church that has just experienced a serious
split in its membership. Part of the congregation has left, unhappy about
the way this particular elder has been reading and interpreting the fourth
Gospel. The elder is writing to the remaining members of this church to
reassure them that his interpretation of the fourth Gospel is correct and
that the elders and the congregants who left never knew what they were
talking about.
As we will see, this elder’s point of view is Apostolic Catholic, whereas
the opinions of those who left the community are Gnostic. From the elder’s
letter, we can see the battle lines, the fight over the meaning of the
Gospel of John. At the top of the list was their fight over the identity of
the true God and his relationship to the devil. Next, they were quarrelling
over human nature and sin. Finally, they were debating Jesus’ nature and
his role in salvation.
The vortex of their disagreement whirled around John 8:44. The elder
maintains an Apostolic Catholic opinion about the verse. He insists that
the text refers to the devil as the father of sinners like the murderous Cain.
He does not read the text as a reference to a God who fathered the devil.
His opponents, however, do (1 John 3:11–12).
The elder asserts that those who have remained with him in his congregation
have known Jesus from the outset as the manifestation of eternal
life (1:4, 3:16, 36, 5:24, and other passages). They have known the Son
and the true God from the start (2:12–22, 5:18–20). The true God is righteous
and sinless. He is the Father God, a just God whose laws, including
his “love commandment,” must be obeyed (3:1, 4:7–8, 10–12, 16–17, 5:3).
Jesus came to teach people about God’s laws, the very laws by which they
will be judged. The greatest of these laws is love toward one’s sibling
(3:19–24, 4:7–19). The elder insists that the love commandment is really
not new but is already part of God’s older laws, which were imparted to
the Jews (2:7–11).
Obviously, the elder assumes that Jesus’ Father is the God of the Jewish
scriptures. He thinks that God’s laws are not “miserable,” and although
there will be a final judgment, the believer who perseveres in obedience
to God’s laws has nothing to fear (2:7–11, 4:17–21). The elder understands