A Note on 1 John 1 - Against Dualism

The words which open this First Epistle of St. John — an appeal to three of the five senses in proof of the reality of Christ's body — show that it turns upon the Person of the Son of God incarnate. But why was the reality of Christ's humanity so stoutly denied? It was necessary in order to meet the demands of the false philosophy which some Christians had adopted in order to harmonize that doctrine with the sinlessness of the man Jesus Christ. 

Dualism asserts the existence of two gods or two original principles, one good and the other evil, one spirit and the other matter; spirit being perfectly holy, and matter incorrigibly evil, only evil and that continually and forever. Spirit can never become unholy because there can be no real contact, no mixture with matter. The spirits of sensual, gluttonous, licentious and drunken men are perfectly free from moral evil which can exist in the body only. Hence there is no need of an atonement for the real self, the spirit in man. The moral leprosy touched only the body, the envelope of the spirit. A golden jewel may be encompassed for years in the filth of a pigsty without the least defilement from its environment. It would still be pure good. This was the favorite illustration of this philosophy. The moral effect of such teaching may be easily imagined when professing Christians could consort with harlots and claim fellowship with God, have their bodies filled with the spirit of wine and their souls filled with the Spirit Divine. The ethics of the Gospel would have been totally subverted if this pernicious teaching had prevailed. John realized the greatness of the impending ruin and assailed it in this pastoral address.

When the heresy arose that sin exists only in the material organism, and the spirit which acts through it is perfectly pure and always must be, the orthodox disciples under the leadership of John opposed this false doctrine imported from the pagan Orient. One of their arguments was that it denied the sinlessness of Jesus Christ who had a material body. His sinfulness must follow if matter is always evil. The Dualists, who are also called Gnostics, evaded this necessary inference by denying the reality of Christ's body. They boldly asserted that he was a phantom, like the various theophanies, or appearances of God, in human form in the Old Testament. In other words, the incarnation was a sham This removes the corner stone of Christian theology, Christ's mediatorship, for He was in no sense human; His atonement in His own blood was an illusion, since He had only the appearance of death; and His resurrection must be unreal, if He died only in appearance. Hence the whole controversy of John with the Dualists was centred in the question, was the body of Jesus real flesh and bones? 

This accounts for the emphasis John so often in this Epistle puts upon believing on "Christ come in the flesh." This accounts for the very first words of the Epistle which contain the theme which John proposes to amplify, namely, the real humanity of his divine Master, just as he states the proposition to be proved by his Gospel, namely, the Supreme Divinity of the Son of God, the Logos, who was with God, and thus distinct in personality, and who was God, being one in nature. We have one dogmatic Gospel and one polemic Epistle, both by the same author, and both announcing their subject in the first sentence of their treatises.

To put the purpose of each in an epigrammatic form the theme of the Gospel is, Jesus is the Christ; i.e., very God; the theme of the Epistle is, the Christ is Jesus; i.e., very Man.