Chapter 1
1 John 1:1-4
1 John 1:1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—
Almost as abrupt as James was in the opening of the his epistle, John wastes no time and goes directly into the subject without any introduction or welcome. The first verse of the epistle sounds very similar to the first verse in the Bible and John’s gospel account (see Genesis 1:1 and 1 John 2:13-14). John takes his readers all the way back to the beginning. It seems that one of the battles today in comparing philosophies and religion is about how all things began (creation vs. evolution, worldwide flood vs. long periods of time, catastrophism vs. uniformitarianism, etc.) John by saying, “That which was from the beginning” also tells us that Jesus is God (since he is referring to Jesus and only God can live that long) and that His story and His promise of salvation will never change.
John uses a similar tactic that Peter used by calling the attention of his readers by saying that he was actually there when Jesus taught, died, and rose again. He first notes that they heard Jesus (see Acts 4:19-20) and saw with their eyes (see John 1:14; 19:35; 1 John 4:13-16 and 2 Peter 1:16-20, note what Peter added fulfillment of prophecy to further validate beyond the witnessing). He then referred to touching Jesus (see Luke 24:39 and John 20:27). John says he heard, saw, and touched Jesus (that leaves smelling and tasting, but we do see tasting God and His Word is indeed referenced elsewhere in the New Testament, see Hebrews 6:4-5 and 1 Peter 2:3 for examples). As a reader we should ask ourselves, how many senses do we need to convince us of something being the truth? If you are thinking about the truth of our salvation, that question becomes a trick question, as we first need to start with the Holy Spirit to open our hearts!
The last part of verse one tells us who John is talking about, “concerning the Word of Life.” Namely Jesus! Jesus is real, He is God, He is man, He is…“the Word of Life.” This is appropriate in several ways since the Bible combines life and the Word together on a number of occasions (see John 1:4; 11:25; 14:6 for examples in just the gospel of John alone), after all God did speak all life into existence. In the first chapter of the first book of the Bible God speaks several times (see Genesis 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26, 28, 29), three of those times life is created (verses 20, 24, and 26). With a Word from God all life began, He spoke life into existence, now that’s truly “the Word of Life!”
However, it didn’t take long for things to become corrupt. The serpent approached Eve and asked her, “did God really say…?” A ploy that the serpent, the devil (see Revelation 12:9; 20:2), still uses today! Endlessly pestering people to question the validity of the Word of God. Shortly afterwards, the fall of all mankind occurred, and death of all that lives was introduced (see Genesis 3). So much for life! That could have been the end of the story about life, but it wasn’t. John in his gospel tells us that, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1, ESV). Later in verse four he adds that, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4, ESV). What is John saying about life? He is saying that God is now offering life again through His Son, Jesus. He is and always will be, life! The Word of Life is offering eternal life through grace (receiving something we do not deserve), hallelujah!
John is claiming that Jesus is divine (pointed out by saying that He has been around since the beginning) and just like His Word, He never changes. By referring to the fact that they heard, saw, and touched Jesus (1 John 1:1), John is saying that Jesus is indeed a real person. Jesus is not someone who will need a magic decoder ring to decipher (okay that probably aged me), a hidden message to figure out, some mystical understanding, or a special encounter to know. John wants all of his readers to know that you can know Jesus and that you can know and understand the Word of God as well.
1 John 1:2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— 3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
The Word of Life, was made manifest (or made known). Paul actually gives us a good outline to make it easier to understand what this statement means. In Paul’s first letter to his protégé Timothy, he said that Jesus was manifested in the flesh (a human being seen and heard), was vindicated or justified by the Holy Spirit (through miracles and other divine acts), seen by the angels, proclaimed among nations, believed on in the world and was taken up (see 1 Timothy 3:14-16). In these verses we also can see how we can continue the work of Jesus by proclaiming the truth of His gospel message, so that people of this world can continue to believe today!
John returns to that fact that he and his group of apostles had seen Jesus and can attest to the truth of His message. The word that is translated here as ‘testify’ is the Greek word ‘martreō’ meaning to “bear witness” or to be a witness offering a truthful report (the word later would become the root word for the English word ‘martyr’ which adds the willingness to die for that truth which the early Christians were willing to do). John says they were willing to proclaim or make known openly the gospel message. When you read something like that, we have to ask ourselves, are we willing to witness for Jesus? What does your testimony include? A testimony is something we should consider or think about before we need to give it. You might encounter someone who might have some presuppositions against the Bible, but they cannot refute what God has done in your life.
John continues to tell us that the life that was made manifest, again referring to Jesus, was with the Father who chose to reveal His Son to the world and to us. John next explains what we call the apostolic movement or process. They heard the message from Jesus and they are relaying the message to us. So that we can tell it to others and they tell it to others and so on (without any personal elaboration). John then adds that we believers can have fellowship with them and with God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. As discussed in the first chapter, the word for ‘fellowship’ (Greek word ‘koinonia’) refers to having things in common, joint participation and contribution, community, intimacy, working together, partnership, etc. This is a reminder that Christianity is not some form of religion that requires protocol or procedure; Christianity is best defined as a relationship, a fellowship with Jesus and other believers. Paul also wrote about the need for fellowship (see 1 Corinthians 1:4-9 and 2 Corinthians 13:14 as examples). Now after reading this we should be asking ourselves another question, are we working together with God and for God? If so, are we listening to Him and following His desires?
1 John 1:4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
In verse four we see the first of several statements in this book as to why John wrote this epistle. Here he says something remarkable. He is writing these things so that our (his and his fellow apostle’s) joy may be complete (some versions use the word ‘your’ instead of ‘our’ but I do not see any support for that variation, the context is fairly clear). John has written about the concept of joy several times (see examples in John 15:11; 16-23-24) this gives us a tremendous view into the heart of John, his love and concern for others can be read and felt in all of his writings. He is saying that his joy will be made full when people hear or read about Jesus that leads them to accept His gracious gift of eternal life.
We know that joy is the state of a heart that knows and loves God. We can encounter or perhaps be in the midst of difficult and often unspeakable misery in our lives, but joy comes from knowing that God is in control and that we will one day be with Him after this life is through. We should note that John adds one more dimension to joy; he is saying we can find joy in being active in helping others find Jesus! The Great Commission has called each one of us into evangelism (that means we cannot pay someone else to do this). Remember we can evangelize in many ways, but our loudest and greatest influence is simply how we live for Jesus. What is your life demonstrating?
Some of the other reasons John wrote the epistle include: so that we will not sin (1 John 2:1); to let us know that our sins are forgiven (1 John 2:12); so that we can know Him, overcome the evil one and that the Word abides in us (1 John 2:13-14); because we do not know the truth (1 John 2:21); to tell us about those who are trying to deceive us (1 John 2:26) and so that we may know that we have eternal life (1 John 5:13). When John wrote the gospel of John he made a similar claim, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:30-31, ESV) This again is powerful evidence to understand the heart of John; his joy was in serving God and helping others find Jesus, what brings joy to you?