God is truth. So watch out for false gods.

1 John 5.18-21.

The way John’s first letter often wraps up—both in English translations, and some Greek New Testaments—is there’s a paragraph where John discusses the stuff οἴδαμεν/ídamen, “we knew,” “we have known,” or “we already know”; three verses, 18-20, which all start with ídamen. Then the last verse, 21, is a made a whole separate paragraph: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.” 1Jn 5.21 KJV

Someone in my college Greek class pointed out this makes it sound like John was about to go into a whole new discussion, beginning with verse 21… and then he just stopped. Fell asleep while dictating, got interrupted by a young Christian with a question, had to duck out of the house because the Romans had come a-persecuting, or a page was torn off the original papyrus 1 John was written on. It looks like this was an unfinished letter.

True, it kinda does look unfinished. Most letters end with some form of farewell; usually “Everybody says hi; I look forward to seeing you again; God bless you; amen.” 1 John does not, and maybe it is an unfinished letter.

Then again, maybe John occasionally dropped things when he was done. Like he did in his gospel. It doesn’t end with “Then they preached the gospel everywhere, the Lord being with them; amen” like the Long Ending of Mark kinda does. It’s just, “Jesus did many other things, and if they were all written down the world couldn’t hold all the books.” Jn 21.25 And he’s done. There’s not even an Amen at the end, although later Christians added one, ’cause they figured it just doesn’t look right without an Amen. They did the very same thing to 1 John.

Anyway, I’m not sure John was beginning a new idea with verse 21. I think it fits just fine with the ideas in this paragraph. We already know this and that; God wants us to know the truth; now stay away from what’s false.

Or as John puts it:

1 John 5.18-21 KWL

18We already know everyone who was begotten by God

doesn’t sin.

Instead one who’s begotten by God

keeps one’s own,

and evil doesn’t touch them.¹

19We already know we’re from God,

and the whole world lies down for evil.

20We already know God’s son is present,

and gave us understanding

so we might know the truth,

and we’re in the truth,

in his son Christ Jesus.

This is the true God,

and life in the age to come.

21Children, guard yourselves²

from false gods. {Amen.}

To sum it all up.

The end of 1 John is kind of a summary of the ideas which came before it:

• God is light, and sin has nothing to do with him. 1Jn 1.5
• Those of us who follow God, who are from him, don’t live in sin. 1Jn 1.7
• In contrast, the world—human society—has nothing to do with him. 1Jn 2.15-17
• God wants us to know the truth. 1Jn 2.24
• God wants us to watch out for fakery. 1Jn 4.2-3
• God wants us to have eternal life. 1Jn 2.24-25

The ultimate summation of all these ideas then follows: “Guard yourselves from false gods.”

I translated εἰδώλων/eidólon, “idols,” as “false gods” because Christians regularly overlook the fact an idol is anything which we might wrongly make a priority over God. We tend to think of an idol as nothing more than a meaningless religious statue. Like one of those fat Buddhas decorating a Chinese restaurant, and when you talk to the restaurant’s owners you find out they’re not even Buddhist; they’re Christian, atheist, Falun Gong, or what have you. They keep the statue around because customers expect to see one. Or it used to belong to Grandma, and it’s supposedly good luck. An idol isn’t a relevant worry. Heck, aren’t our Jesus statues, paintings, crucifixes, and ikons kinda idols?

But false gods are most definitely a worry. And are, in fact, a major theme of this letter. Learn who the actual, true God is. Learn who God’s son, Christ Jesus, actually is. Keep away from people who are trying to invent and sell you a fake version of God or Jesus. Keep away from their selfishness and avarice.

Idolatry begins with a person’s false idea of God, and grows when this false God is taught as if God actually thinks and behaves this way. Sometimes the false God actually is a false god, like Baal. More often it’s decorated in all the trappings of the true God—like the false god of partisans and Mammonists. They try their darnedest to make it sound like God believes the very same way they do; that he shares their values, and therefore you should share their values. Unfortunately their values are godless, and so are they.

All the things John shows a concern about in this letter—tolerance of sin, embrace of society, uncritically accepting false teachers—are different starting paths down the slippery slope of idolatry. Once we embrace false ideas about the true God, it’s not long before we’re embracing a false god.

So “Guard yourselves from false gods” is a very good conclusion to this letter, because it’s largely the point of this letter. And thanks to the rest of 1 John, we now have some practical advice as to how to do this, and some understanding about what it takes to stay in the light of the One True God.