Reflections on 1 John 3:6-18

Reading from 1 John 3:6-10 today. 

It says, "Every person remaining in Him does not malfunction; every person who malfunctions has not seen Him neither has he known Him. Children, don't let anyone lead you astray; the person who does the righteousness is right, just as that One is right; The person who does the malfunction is the Outcast's, because the Outcast malfunctioned from the start. Every person who has been fathered by God does not malfunction, because His sperm remains within him, and he is not capable of malfunctioning, because he has been fathered by God. With this, the born children of God and the born children of the Outcast are apparent; every person not doing righteousness and not loving his brother is not God's." (my translation)

When I was younger, I tripped up on this verse theologically. A lot. Especially as Romans 3:23 was pretty clear that "All had sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." But at the time, like many, my understanding of salvation was limited to justification and whether or not someone was "saved" or not. As a result, these verses became confusing and contradictory.

John here isn't describing justification at all in any sense. What John has in mind here is what Jesus taught in John 15:4-8, and it is the same kind of dichotomy of behaviors which Paul describes in Galatians 5:16-25. In the Gospel of John passage, Jesus says "Remain in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit apart from the vine, neither can you unless you remain in Me." In the Galatians passage, Paul writes, "Walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh under any circumstances."

What John is saying in his first letter is that all those who are remaining in Jesus, as Jesus taught in John 15, cannot succumb to the hamartia malfunction when they are remaining in Him. It simply isn't possible because when they are remaining in Him it is Christ operating through them and they are functioning the way they are supposed to be functioning. This is what John means by "the person who does the righteousness is right," that is, if a person is operating correctly, producing the life of Jesus in his words and behaviors, then he is remaining in Christ and is "working correctly." If he is malfunctioning, that is, if he is displaying behaviors associated with the fight/flight/feeding/sexual responses in moralistic (positive or negative) or selfish ways (as Paul describes is Galatians 5), then he is not remaining in Christ and his behaviors are from his own malfunctioning psyche which is no different from the Outcast (Grk. diabolos, devil), reminding us that our malfunction started with the Outcast.

The thrust of John's first letter is, like much of Paul's writings, to teach us to remain in Christ, how to know when we're not, and what to do when we realize it.

1 John 3:11-18 -
"Because this is the news which you heard from the start, so that we would love one another, not like Cain was from the depraved one and slaughtered his brother; and for what reason did he slaughter him? because his actions were depraved and his brother's right. And don't be shocked, brothers, if the world hates you. We know that we have changed out of Death into Life, because we might love the brothers; the person not loving remains within Death. Every person who hates his brother is a manslayer, and you know that every manslayer does not have eternal life remaining within him. With this we knew love, because that One set down His psyche for us; and we are obligated to set down our psyches for the brothers. And whoever has the world's means of living and views his brother having a need and should close his compassion off from him, how does the love of God remain in him? Children, may we not love by word neither by tongue but by action and truth."

Continuing John's central thought from 6-10 (and similar to Paul's in Galatians 5:16-25), John is laying out again the dichotomy of behaviors and how to know when a person is remaining in Jesus Christ, and when he is not. If a person is remaining in Christ, then he is not capable of hating his brother. If a person hates another, then he is not remaining in Christ, and is functioning from the same source of behaviors as Cain was. Love (Grk. agape) and compassion belong to the eternal and immortal, and are indicators of remaining in Christ because it is Christ doing it through you. That love is flowing from him through you. Without remaining in Christ, you are cut off from this. Love and hate (Grk. agape and misos) are incapable of residing in the same space.

The word which I have translated as "psyche" is actually the same word in Greek. "psyche" is only a transliteration. It does not mean physical or animal life as it is frequently translated here. That would be "zoe" in Greek. Instead, it can be translated as the "soul" of a person. It is the person's "self" as made up of their experiences, biology, and choices. It is also the same word used when Jesus says, "anyone who seeks to save his life (psyche) will lose (destroy) it, anyone who loses (destroys) his life (psyche) will preserve it." Jesus didn't just surrender His physical life for us, He surrendered all of Himself for us, giving up His very psyche in who He was and how He lived culminating in the cross. Jesus's very life was crucified from day one. What John is saying here is that those who remain in Christ should be acting in the same manner because it is Christ acting through them. It is His eternal life passing into and through them like sap from the vine to the branch. As a result just as John says in 2:6, those who claim to remain in Him are obligated to walk just as He walked. It should be visible and apparent, and if Christ is not seen in the actions of the person, if love and compassion are not present, but this person acts with hatred toward another (or any one of the other "works of the flesh" which Paul writes of in Galatians 5), then he is lying to himself and to others and is functioning from the same malfunctioning source as Cain and the Outcast before him.

In the Didache, an ancient first century Christian teaching manual, it begins with, "There are two paths, the path of Life and the path of Death." Here, as with Paul, John is going into painstaking detail about what that looks like