AS DIVISIVE AS the world can be — indeed, as divisive as congregations can be! — it would be nice if we could learn to have more civil conversations. I would listen to your point of view as carefully and compassionately as I could, withholding judgment, until you’ve confirmed that I understand your point of view. I don’t have to agree with it, but I have to try my best to understand. In turn, I would want you to listen just as carefully to me.
In the process, one of us may begin to shift our perspective, maybe even change our mind. But not all at once, and often not at all. And that’s okay, when the goal of the conversation is mutual understanding instead of agreement. Sometimes, the best we can do for the moment is to agree to disagree, because we’re committed to preserving a mutually respectful and loving relationship.
Conflicts can erupt or churches split over just about anything. To an outsider, some fights may seem silly on the surface — What? The church split over the color of the new carpet? — but to an insider it may feel like something fundamental is at stake. Even what seems like a superficial matter may symbolize something more important. Who is honored in this church and who is not? Who has a voice and who doesn’t? Who has power over whom? The presumed answers to such questions can evoke strong emotions that make it hard for people to hear anything, no matter how reasonable.
And there are some disagreements for which, ultimately, “agree to disagree” is not an option — as when the gospel itself is at stake.
AGAIN, WE CAN’T be certain of the details of what was happening in John’s community that prompted him to write his letters. The people who received his letters already knew the situation, so the letters themselves are short on specifics, and John often speaks in generalities. Some members of the community apparently held some odd beliefs and were trying to persuade others to their point of view. And it’s not until late in chapter 2 that John explicitly mentions that people have left the fellowship:
They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us. (1 John 2:19, NIV)
John is trying to reassure the people who have been left confused and anxious by the split. His logic is a bit circular: Yes, they left. That’s because they didn’t really belong to us; they weren’t truly part of the fellowship. How do we know they weren’t part of us? Because they left! But he’s not trying to make an argument as much as give reassurance. It’s something on the order of, Now that we see where they really stand, this was bound to happen.
He then assures his readers that, in contrast to those who left, they know the truth:
But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. (vss. 20-21)
“The Holy One” probably refers to the Holy Spirit. And significantly, he refers to them as having an “anointing,” using the Greek word chrisma, which is closely related to Christ, which in turn stands in for the Hebrew notion of the Messiah, the anointed one. Like Jesus himself, his readers are anointed, and they know the truth about him.
John already said in chapter 1 that those who claim to be sinless don’t have the truth in them and are in essence calling God a liar (vss. 8, 10). Here, when he says that “no lie comes from the truth,” he falls just short of calling those who left liars, implying that those who lie can’t really fellowship with those who know the truth as his readers do. In the next couple of verses, though, his language becomes more pointed:
Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also. (vss. 22-23)
Liar, liar! In John’s black and white way of putting the matter, anyone who doesn’t have the truth about Christ is lying. Presumably, he’s describing the people who left — scholars often call them schismatics — and their beliefs. Somehow, they have denied that Jesus is the Christ, earning themselves the label of antichrist, or the opponent or enemy of Christ. Some scholars read John as pointing to Jews who have left the community because they refuse to acknowledge Jesus as their Messiah. If so, John has a stern word for them: You think that by denying Jesus you can claim to be loyal to the Father? Guess again. You can’t have one without the other.
But it’s possible that John is referring to some other aberrant belief, something important enough to draw a clear line between who belongs and who doesn’t. Is that an inherently unloving thing for the Apostle of Love to do? Only if he draws a line the way we might, by being quick to judge in anger and slow to listen (that is, exactly the opposite of the wise words of James 1:19).
Nor does love mean anything goes. He has tenderly called his readers his “dear children.” But what parent lets their children think and do whatever they please? That’s not love, that’s neglect.
So what might these aberrant beliefs be? How were the schismatics denying Christ? Again, we can’t know for sure, but a sneak peek at chapter 4 raises some interesting possibilities.