Who abides?

The Apostle John's first epistle is much less linear than any of Paul's epistles. John presents his material in a circular fashion that makes it harder to connect the dots. He'll state an argument one way and then later state it in a slightly different way. A book like 1 John defies proof-texting. With Paul you can usually pick out a verse and say this is the summary statement that Paul's argument has been leading up to. John seems to be making one summary statement after another.

What's fascinating is that the more you read 1 John as a whole -- the way it's meant to be read -- the more you begin to see connections and parallels that eluded you earlier. It's like watching a movie with a convoluted plot. The more times you watch it the more you pick up on plot details you might have missed before. An example.

1 John 2:17 - And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

Now here is a very important statement and a careful reader will ask, "What exactly is the will of God?" Doing the "will of God" is, on reflection, a quite non-specific imperative linked to a supremely important indicative -- abiding forever -- which here is presented as the alternative to passing away along with the world and its desires. We're talking here the difference between ultimate life and ultimate death! Fast forward to chapter 3.

1 John 3:24 - Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him.

So if we assume that abiding in God, and he in us, is parallel to the abiding forever spoken of in 2:17, then keeping God's commandments is connected to doing the will of God. Yes, the imperative to keep God's commandments is more specific than the imperative of doing the will of God, but can we get even more specific? Yes we can because John has just given us a beautiful summary description of God's commandment(s) one verse previous.

1 John 3:23 - And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another. . .

Now we have an answer from John to our original question, "What exactly is the will of God?" Answer: It is to "believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another." An expanded translation of 2:17 might then read:

1 John 2:17 - And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God [believes in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and loves one another] abides forever.

If none of that made sense then blame the guy pictured above.