38 Hansjörg Schmid Christ, the reader himself or herself has to become active and 1John guides him or her to do so. Thus, the two texts refer to each other: the christological allusions often consisting of short confessional phrases in 1 John (e.g. 2,22.23; 3,23; 4,2.3.15; 5,1.5.20) refer to the compre- hensive christological discussions in John (especially in John 1–12), whereas the reflections in 1 John develop the ethical allusions made in the farewell discourse of the Gospel. The strategy of the ethical exhortation in 1 John is the following: the text of 1 John can be regarded as a linear reading-process with blanks (53) leading the reader through the main ethical theme of 1 John. It is dominated by general reflection on ethics, but becomes concrete in 3,17. In the reading-process, the reader proceeds from an introduction of the love commandment (2,3-11) to its christological (3,16) and theological basis (4,11), then through a complex and partly contradictory structure with regard to sin (1,8 compared with 3,6.9; 5,18), which produces a conflict in the reader. The climax is represented by the “sin unto death” (5,16.17), which must not be seen as referring to the opponents but as a blank (54). It follows the pragmatic strategy of marking a limit of God’s forgiveness, initiating the reader’s critical self-reflection about her or his own standpoint and making the reader ask if he or she might commit or have committed such a sin. The role played by the opponents with regard to this self-reflection has to be examined next. As they are not mentioned in the passages about love and sin, the link cannot be a direct one. But, as we find both types of texts in the same one 1 John, there must be a kind of indirect link to be formed by the reader. 3. The Opponents as a Counter-Concept It may be concluded that the main function of the opponents interacting with the reader is to operate as a counter-concept to the community (55). The opponents are what the reader should never become, —————— within the Johannine Narrative”, What is John? (ed. F.F. SEGOVIA) (SBL Symposium Series, 7; Atlanta 1998) II, 43-65 (64). (53) W. ISER, The Act of Reading. A Theory of Aesthetic Response (London 1978). (54) Contrary to BROWN, Epistles, 617-618. For it is neither stated in the text who might commit such a sin, nor what action would constitute a “sin unto death”. As the text is not very concrete here, I speak of a blank and describe its pragmatic function. (55) Here and elsewhere in my concept, community is understood as the community of readers.