Tool Beta
The Ancient World Behind the Text
Pick a passage anywhere in the New Testament. See the customs and ideas a first reader knew without being told.
1 John 1:5-2:17, God is light, an advocate, and a world passing away
God is light with no darkness in him, so to claim fellowship with him while walking in darkness is a lie; the blood of Jesus cleanses, and those who confess are forgiven. Anyone who sins has an advocate with the Father, the atoning sacrifice for the whole world. The old command of love is new, the darkness is passing, and the world is passing away.
1 John 1:5-2:17, in every translation this tool compares.
The writer's starting point is that God is light, so anyone claiming fellowship with God while living in darkness is lying. He refuses both extremes: believers must not deny that they sin, but when they confess, God forgives, and Jesus speaks for them as the sacrifice that deals with sin for the whole world. Knowing God shows in obeying him and loving fellow believers, and the readers must not love the world, which is already passing away. The Greek word behind atoning sacrifice is read in more than one way.
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/light-and-darkness\/","n":"Light and darkness","s":"Jewish writers, the Dead Sea Scrolls above all, divided people into children of light and children of darkness, and pictured the present age as darkness that the coming age of light would end. John, Paul and Jesus use the same contrast.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/day-of-atonement\/","n":"The Day of Atonement and the mercy seat","s":"Once a year the high priest went into the holy of holies with sacrificial blood, for his own sins and then the nation's. It was the one fast the law commanded, and the mercy seat on the ark was the place the blood was brought.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/witnesses-and-advocates\/","n":"Witnesses and advocates in court","s":"Jewish law convicted no one on a single witness: it demanded two or three, examined them closely and gave little weight to the word of women. Courts also had accusers and advocates, and Jewish pictures of God's heavenly court gave those roles to Satan and to defenders of Israel.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/following-a-teacher\/","n":"Following a teacher","s":"A disciple walked behind his teacher, lived with him, learned his ways and carried his reputation. Jesus chose his own, which only radical teachers did.","r":""}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/ancient-world-ideas\/family-first\/","n":"The family's name","s":"Families lived, worked and stood together. Walking out of the family business or putting kin second was a public offense.","r":""}
Whether the opponents claimed to be sinless or simply did not count their sins as sins is read both ways: Keener thinks the second likelier, while Carson, Moo and Morris and Wright and Bird read a claim that sin did not touch them at all. Advocate meant an intercessor or a defending attorney, and Jewish tradition made God's mercy or Israel's merit an advocate for Israel (Keener; the cultural backgrounds notes). The word behind atoning sacrifice is read in different ways. The ESV Study Bible takes it as propitiation, a sacrifice that turns God's wrath to favor; the Zondervan dictionary explains that propitiation is done with reference to a person, while "Expiation is done with reference to crimes or evil deeds", and that translations divide; the cultural backgrounds notes hear the Day of Atonement; Wright and Bird speak of the purifying power of Jesus' death. The Day of Atonement was for Israel alone, where this sacrifice is for the whole world (Keener; the cultural backgrounds notes); Wright's commentary hears a word to Jewish Christians who might have thought the Messiah's sacrifice was for them alone.
- Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, introduction to 1 John 1:5-10, and on 1 John 1:5, 1:6, 1:7, 1:8-10, 2:1, 2:2, 2:6, 2:7-8, 2:12-14 and 2:17
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, notes on 1 John 1:5, 1:6, 1:7, 1:10, 2:1, 2:2, 2:6, 2:7-8 and 2:17
- ESV Study Bible, study notes on 1 John 2:1, 2:2 and 2:8
- N. T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, The New Testament in Its World, ch. 33, The Argument of 1 John, sections 2 to 4
- J. D. Douglas and Merrill C. Tenney, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Dictionary, entry propitiation and expiation
- D. A. Carson, Douglas J. Moo and Leon Morris, An Introduction to the New Testament, ch. 21, 1, 2, 3 John, Purpose
- N. T. Wright, Early Christian Letters for Everyone, comment on 1 John 1:5-2:2
