Preface

This is the third volume in a series of confessional Lutheran studies of the New Testament letters. The first took up the Epistle of James; the second took up the First Epistle of Peter; this one turns to the three Johannine letters: First, Second, and Third John. The voice in these letters is unmistakable. Tender, patient, repetitive in the way a grandfather is repetitive, circling back to the same truths because he wants to make sure they land. By the common witness of the ancient Church, these letters were written by the apostle John in his old age, the last surviving of the Twelve, addressing congregations he had loved into existence over decades of ministry.

The volume takes its title from the apostle’s own statement of purpose at the heart of the first letter. “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.” Assurance of salvation, the settled knowledge that the Christian truly possesses the eternal life Christ has won, is the pastoral aim of the whole letter. John writes not to make his readers anxious but to give them grounds for confidence. He writes so that the doubts that creep in will meet a firmer word. He writes so that the false teachers who whisper that the Christians are not really saved will be answered from the Scripture itself. “That you may know” is not an abstract slogan; it is the pastoral heart of these letters, and it is what they aim to produce in those who read them.

For the Lutheran Christian, these letters are deeply familiar terrain. The themes are the themes the Reformation recovered. The Word of life made manifest. The fellowship with the Father and the Son. The blood of Christ that goes on cleansing. The Advocate who pleads our case. The propitiation for the sins of the whole world. The new birth that produces a new pattern of life. The love of the brethren as the natural fruit of having been loved by God first. These are not strange notes for Lutheran ears. They are the same Gospel we have been hearing in catechesis, in preaching, and at the font and Table all our lives. Reading 1 John is, for the Lutheran, an experience of finding that the apostolic witness has been there all along, undergirding everything we have been taught.

This book is the fruit of teaching the Letters of John to ordinary congregations and small groups. Like the volumes on James and 1 Peter, it is written for adult Bible study classes, for small group settings, for Sunday school teachers preparing lessons, and for individuals who want to read these letters carefully with a confessional Lutheran guide at their elbow. It assumes nothing more than a willingness to open the Scriptures and to take their teaching seriously.

The ten sessions follow the letters in order. Sessions One through Nine work through the First Epistle of John passage by passage, attending to the three “tests of life” (obedience, love, and belief) that John weaves through the letter, and to the assurance that is the pastoral payoff of the whole. Session Ten takes up the Second and Third Epistles of John together, the brief notes that give us the aged apostle in ordinary pastoral correspondence, and uses that final session to look back across what the volume has given us.

Each session is built for use in a single class meeting of about an hour. The teaching content is followed by a “Gathering the Threads” synthesis and a set of discussion questions designed for group conversation but useful also for individual reflection. A “Looking Ahead” paragraph and a closing prayer round out each session. Group leaders may wish to read the session in advance, mark the passages they want to highlight, and select a subset of the discussion questions appropriate to the time available.

My hope is that those who use this book will come away from these letters with the assurance John was writing to produce: settled, confident, and free of the perpetual self-examination that mistakes anxiety for piety. The Christian who trusts in Christ has eternal life. John says this plainly, and he says it so that those who trust in Christ may know it. The volume’s title is, in the end, the volume’s prayer: that you may know that you have eternal life. To God alone be the glory.

Larry Herzog Jr.

April 2026