If the Truth Be Told

See how great a love the Father has given us, that we would be called children of God; and in fact we are. For this reason the world does not know us: because it did not know Him. 1 John 3:1  NASB

For this reason – Does this statement seem odd to you?  It does to me.  First, I find it curious that John would be surprised to discover we are called “children of God.”  What else would he expect?  The Jews have been called the children of God for millennia.  Why does John think this is unusual?  Secondly, how can it be that the world doesn’t know who we are because we are His children?  Don’t Christians proclaim this every Sunday?  And finally, what can John possibly mean by claiming that the world did not know God?  God is all over the place.  Religions everywhere speak of God.  Why does John think He is unknown, particularly because the world doesn’t recognize us?

If the truth be told, John isn’t writing to Jews.  That answers our first question.  He’s writing to Gentile believers in the Messianic community.  They haven’t been children of God for thousands of years.  In fact, they are probably first-generation believers in the Jewish Messiah and the Jewish God.  So, it is miraculous that they are called God’s children. They don’t have any birthright to that claim.  They are children by adoption, not by being proselytes.  Who would have expected the Gentiles to be invited into God’s Jewish kingdom?  No one.  It is a miracle, and it demonstrates just how amazing God’s love really is.  Why would a Jewish God extend any concern to Gentiles?  What John tells us is that we should be just as amazed because He included those who weren’t from Abraham’s tribe.  You will notice, of course, that John includes himself in this group.  But John is Jewish.  Why would he do this?  Perhaps we can answer that question by noting that John isn’t writing to just any kind of Gentile.  He’s writing to Gentiles who follow the Messiah, just as he does, and for that reason, he, a Jew, is also amazed.  The traditional barrier between Gentile and Jew is gone.  Hallelujah!

Now the second question.  The reason the world doesn’t know “us” is simple.  No one in the first-century world expected a Messianic movement that included Gentiles who were not proselytes.  Conversion to Judaism?  Yes.  Acceptance without conversion?  No, impossible.  As Paula Fredriksen points out, this left these Gentiles in a “no-man’s land,” no longer part of their ethnic, traditional, civic religion and not Jewish by birth or conversion.  No wonder the world doesn’t know what to do with them.  They are non-persons as far as the Mediterranean cultures are concerned.  Not Gentiles because they have abandoned all the identifiers of their past, and not Jewish because they are not proselytes or native born.

This answers our last question.  There is only one God, the God of Israel, the God of Yeshua, the God of the kingdom of the Messiah.  Every other claimant is false.  The gods that the world worships don’t fit the bill, and for this reason, the true God isn’t known to those who also don’t know His children, the in-between ones.  Like you.  But God knows you, doesn’t He?  And that’s enough.

Topical Index:  Gentiles, Jews, proselytes, 1 John 3:1