Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
1 John 1:1

Clarke's Commentary

THE FIRST GENERAL EPISTLE OF JOHN.

Chronological Notes relative to this Epistle.

-Year of the Constantinopolitan era of the world, or that used by the Byzantine historians, and other eastern Writers, 5577.

-Year of the Alexandrian era of the world, 5571.

-Year of the Antiochian era of the world, 5561.

-Year of the world, according to Archbishop Usher, 4073.

-Year of the world, according to Eusebius, in his Chronicon, 4297.

-Year of the minor Jewish era of the world, or that in common use, 3829.

-Year of the Greater Rabbinical era of the world, 4428.

-Year from the Flood, according to Archbishop Usher, and the English Bible, 2417.

-Year of the Cali yuga, or Indian era of the Deluge, 3171.

-Year of the era of Iphitus, or since the first commencement of the Olympic games, 1009.

-Year of the era of Nabonassar, king of Babylon, 818.

-Year of the CCXIIth Olympiad, 1.

-Year from the building of Rome, according to Fabius Pictor, 816.

-Year from the building of Rome, according to Frontinus, 820.

-Year from the building of Rome, according to the Fasti Capitolini, 821.

-Year from the building of Rome, according to Varro, which was that most generally used, 822.

-Year of the era of the Seleucidae, 381.

-Year of the Caesarean era of Antioch, 117.

-Year of the Julian era, 114.

-Year of the Spanish era, 107.

-Year from the birth of Jesus Christ, according to Archbishop Usher, 73.

-Year of the vulgar era of Christ's nativity, 69.

-Year of Vologesus, king of the Parthians, 20.

-Year of the Dionysian period, or Easter Cycle, 70.

-Year of the Grecian Cycle of nineteen years, or Common Golden Number, 13; or the fifth embolismic.

-Year of the Jewish Cycle of nineteen years, 10; or the year before the fourth embolismic.

-Year of the Solar Cycle, 22.

-Dominical Letter, it being the first year after the Bissextile, or Leap Year, A.

-Day of the Jewish Passover, the twenty-fourth of March, which happened in this year on the sixth day after the Jewish Sabbath.

-Easter Sunday, the twenty-sixth of March.

-Epact, or age of the moon on the 22d of March, (the day of the earliest Easter Sunday possible,) 12.

-Epact, according to the present mode of computation, or the moon's age on New Year's day, or the Calends of January, 20.

-Monthly Epacts, or age of the moon on the Calends of each month respectively, (beginning with January,) 20, 22, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 27, 28, 0, 0, 2, 2.

-Number of Direction, or the number of days from the twenty-first of March to the Jewish Passover, 3.

-In this year reigned four Roman emperors, viz., Galba, from Jan. 1 to Jan. 15, Otho ninety days, Vitellius eight months, and Vespasian for the remainder of the year.

-Roman Consuls, Servius Sulpicius Galba Augustus, the second time, and Titus Vinius Rufinus, from Jan. 1 to the death of Galba, Jan. 15; Salvius Otho Augustus, and L. Salvius Otho Titianus, from Jan. 15 to March 1; L. Virginius Rufus, and Vopiscus Pompeius Silvanus, from March 1 to May 1; Titus Arrius Antoninus and P. Marius Celsus, the second time, from May 1 to Sept. 1; C. Fabius Valens and Aulus Alienus Coecina, from Sept. 1, the former holding the Consulship to Nov. 1, the latter being succeeded by Roscius Regulus, on Oct. 31; Cn. Caecilius Simplex and C. Quintius Atticus, from Nov. 1, to the end of the year.

CHAPTER I.

The testimony of the apostle concerning the reality of the

person and doctrine of Christ; and the end for which he bears

this testimony, 1-4.

God is light, and none can have fellowship with him who do not

walk in the light; those who walk in the light are cleansed

from all unrighteousness by the blood of Christ, 5-7.

No man can say that he has not sinned; but God is faithful and

just to cleanse from all unrighteousness them who confess their

sins, 8-10.

NOTES ON CHAP. I.

Verse 1 John 1:1. That which was from the beginning — That glorious personage, JESUS CHRIST the LORD, who was from eternity; him, being manifested in the flesh, we have heard proclaim the doctrine of eternal life; with our own eyes have we seen him, not transiently, for we have looked upon him frequently; and our hands have handled-frequently touched, his person; and we have had every proof of the identity and reality of this glorious being that our senses of hearing, ὁ ακηκοαμεν, seeing, ὁ ἑωρακαμεν τοις οφθαλμοις ἡμων, and feeling, και αἱ χειρες ἡμων εψηλαφησαν could possibly require.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

1:1-2:17 LIVING IN THE LIGHT

Fellowship with God (1:1-2:6)

In the opening few words of his letter, John states clearly certain facts about Jesus Christ that are basic to Christianity. Jesus Christ is the eternal God and he became a real man whom John and his fellow apostles have seen, heard and touched (1:1-2). John’s joy will be complete if he knows that he and his readers share together in the eternal life that comes to them through Jesus Christ. This life unites them to one another as well as to the Father and the Son (3-4).
God is light, meaning that he is holy, true, pure and glorious. As darkness cannot exist with light, so sinful things can have no partnership with God (5). This means that although the life God gives believers is eternal, the fellowship that believers have with him can be broken because of sin. In three short sections John gives different advice to various people, to remind them of what is required if they are to have cleansing from sin and fellowship with God.
First, if people think they can sin as they please and still have fellowship with God, they are mistaken. But if they are careful to live righteously, they will enjoy unbroken fellowship with God and his people. God sees that they are living as he wants them to, and he graciously forgives those sins that they commit unknowingly (6-7).
Second, if people forget that they have a sinful nature and think that everything they do is right, they deceive themselves. But if, after honestly examining themselves, they become aware of their sins, they should confess those sins. God gives his assurance that he will forgive them and cleanse them (8-9).
Third, if people claim they never sin at all, they are really saying that God is a liar, because he has declared all people to be sinful. They must allow the light of God’s truth to shine into their hearts and show them what they really are (10).
John is not saying all this so that people might think that sinning is normal behaviour for Christians, as if it does not matter if they sin. On the contrary he wants them not to sin. But it is inevitable that they will sin sometimes, and he wants them to be assured that when that happens, cleansing is available because of the atoning blood of Christ. On the basis of his death, Christ can ask the Father to forgive the sinner (2:1-2).

Those who know God will obey his Word. These are the true Christians. Their obedience results in assurance of salvation, greater love for God, and lives that become increasingly like the life of Christ (3-6).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life;

It will be seen that this verse is not a complete sentence, the entire four verses of the prologue being "but one highly compressed and complicated sentence in the Greek."Leon Morris, The New Bible Commentary, Revised (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1970), p. 1260. This complexity has led to different opinions as to how it should be translated.

That which … This neuter pronoun seems opposed to the usual view that "Word of life" here is a reference to Jesus Christ; therefore some render it "word of life," meaning "the message"; however, "Word of life," meaning Jesus Christ, is far better. "John goes on to speak of hearing, seeing and even touching, which makes it necessary for us to think of Jesus."Ibid.

From the beginning … In the gospel (John 1:1), John wrote "in the beginning"; and based on the variation here, Macknight thought that the beginning of the gospel age is meant, rather than the beginning of all things.James Macknight, Macknight on the Epistles, Vol. VI (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, reprint, 1969), 1 John, p. 24. However, as Morris pointed out, the gospel did not begin with the Incarnation. "It was always in God's plan.Leon Morris, op. cit., p. 1261. Paul used such expressions as "from times eternal" and "before the world was" regarding the gospel; and these considerations as well as the thundering echoes of the gospel prologue with which this passage has close affinity convince us that Roberts' firm comment on this is correct:

John is referring to Christ and to his existence with the Father from eternity. In 1 John 2:13, he will speak of Christ as "one who was from the beginning." Compare John 1:1-2; John 1:14; John 17:5.J. W. Roberts, The Letters of John (Austin, Texas: R. B. Sweet Company, 1968), p. 20.

That which we have heard … Who are the "we" of this clause? The conviction here is that the apostolic eyewitnesses of Christ throughout his ministry and of his death, burial and resurrection are those meant.

Heard … seen … handled … Such terms designate the holy apostles and perhaps a few others who might have been eyewitnesses (Luke 1:2). Certainly it is the apostles who are primarily the ones meant here. "This refers to the companionship of John and the other disciples with Jesus on earth."James William Russell, Compact Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1964), p. 597. Wilder and other recent commentators have construed the "we" of this passage and in 1 John 1:3 as meaning "all believers, whether eyewitnesses or not … the church … through the generations";Amos N. Wilder, The Interpreter's Bible, Vol. XII (New York: Abingdon Press, 1956), p. 218. but such a view cannot possibly be right. "It is impossible to make good sense out of this if we think of `we' as meaning ewe Christians.' It must mean those believers who actually saw Jesus in the flesh."Leon Morris, op. cit., p. 1261. The great facts of the Christian gospel are founded upon historical events witnessed by people who saw and experienced the things they preached. "We Christians talking to each other" did not "develop" our holy religion; it was revealed, and conveyed to us by competent and authentic witnesses, the Incarnate God in Christ being the source of all of it.

That which we have seen with our eyes … Mere hearsay evidence formed no part of basic Christian teaching. The apostles recounted what they had heard, seen, beheld (more intensive investigation than merely seeing), and even handled. Was it not their hands that passed out bread and fishes for a vast multitude? Affirmations in these clauses forbid making "the message" the subject. Could the apostles have "handled" the message? Maybe they read by the Braille method! On the other hand, they did handle Christ. See the Saviour's invitation for them to do so in Luke 24:39, where again this very unusual word for "touch" is rendered "handle," a word occurring only three times in the whole New Testament.R. W. Orr, A New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1969), p. 609. Many have seen in this word an allusion to the resurrection of Christ.

Concerning the Word of life … Those intent on declaring the message of the gospel and not Christ himself as the subject of this prologue prefer the rendition "word of life," as in the ASV margin, the RSV and a number of other recent translations; but these should be rejected. The same considerations that required the capitalization of "Word" in the gospel also require the capitalization of "Word" here. It is the same word, the words "of life" not altering that fact. Many of the most dependable versions and translations attest this:

Word of life —- King James Version

Word of Life —- New Catholic Version, 1946

Logos of life —- James Moffatt

Word of Life —- Richard Francis Weymouth

WORD OF LIFE —- Emphatic Diaglott

Word of life —- John Wesley

Word of life —- Good News for Modern Man

Word of Life —- Amplified New Testament

Word of life himself —- J. B. Phillips

It is true, of course, that some great names among the scholars have insisted on making "message" the subject. Westcott, Dodd, Scott and White are among them, the most insistent being C. H. Dodd, who went so far as to translate the phrase "the gospel" instead of "Word of life." However, it should be noted that Scott was influenced by Dodd, and that Dodd had an axe to grind. He was anxious to sustain his theory of a different author for this epistle, one of his big points being that [Greek: logos] was used in a different sense in the epistle from that in the gospel. (See a discussion of this in the introduction.) What he actually did was to contrive a different meaning here and then offer his contrivance as a bona-fide argument against Johannine authorship of 1 John! Westcott, one of the most distinguished scholars in a thousand years, in this, made one of his rare mistakes. He also missed the proper translation of John 1:18, significantly, both passages dealing with the ascription of outright deity to Jesus Christ. He justified the error in the gospel on the basis that other New Testament passages fully cover the question anyway and that the additional testimony was unnecessary; and he could have justified the error here in the same way. In spite of the insistence of a few influential men, however, the old meaning should be preserved in this text.

But, is not the whole question `much ado about nothing'? In a sense, yes. Roberts pointed out that, "There is little difference between saying that John is proclaiming the personal Word ([Greek: logos]) … and saying that he is proclaiming the message about the life which is eternal." Our refutation of C. H. Dodd in the introduction was based, not upon the error of supposing a different use of [Greek: logos] in 1 John from that of the gospel prologue, but upon the fact that the idea is exactly the same. Christ is the gospel. Preaching Christ and preaching the gospel are synonymous terms and were so used by the apostle Paul and the Christians of all generations. The word of the gospel is in fact a "living word" (Hebrews 4:12). Despite this, however, the translations which have been accepted for centuries should not be presumptuously set aside, far too many of those doing so having in mind exactly the same kind of attack upon New Testament books that Dodd made. It is one thing to change a translation in the light of new manuscript evidence, and possibly other bona-fide reasons; but many of the proposed changes are indefensible, as is the one in view here. Morris summed up the case thus:

While this term (Word of life) might well describe the gospel, we must bear in mind that Jesus is called "the Word," and that in him was life, and the life was the light of men (John 1:1; John 1:4).Leon Morris, op. cit., p. 1261.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

That which was from the beginning - There can be no doubt that the reference here is to the Lord Jesus Christ, or the “Word” that was made flesh. See the notes at John 1:1. This is such language as John would use respecting him, and indeed the phrase “the beginning,” as applicable to the Lord Jesus, is unique to John in the writings of the New Testament: and the language here may be regarded as one proof that this Epistle was written by him, for it is just such an expression as “he” would use, but not such as one would be likely to adopt who should attempt to palm off his own writings as those of John. One who should have attempted that would have been likely to introduce the name “John” in the beginning of the Epistle, or in some way to have claimed his authority. The apostle, in speaking of “that which was from the beginning,” uses a word in the neuter gender instead of the masculine, (ὅ ho.) It is not to be supposed, I think, that he meant to apply this term “directly” to the Son of God, for if he had he would have used the masculine pronoun; but though he had the Son of God in view, and meant to make a strong affirmation respecting him, yet the particular thing here referred to was “whatever” there was respecting that incarnate Saviour that furnished testimony to any of the senses, or that pertained to his character and doctrine, he had borne witness to.

He was looking rather at the evidence that he was incarnate; the proofs that he was manifested; and he says that those proofs had been subjected to the trial of the senses, and he had borne witness to them, and now did it again. This is what is referred to, it seems to me, by the phrase “that which,” (ὅ ho.) The sense may be this: “Whatever there was respecting the Word of life, or him who is the living Word, the incarnate Son of God, from the very beginning, from the time when he was first manifested in the flesh; whatever there was respecting his exalted nature, his dignity, his character, that could be subjected to the testimony of the senses, to be the object of sight, or hearing, or touch, that I was permitted to see, and that I declare to you respecting him.” John claims to be a competent witness in reference to everything which occurred as a manifestation of what the Son of God was.

If this be the correct interpretation, then the phrase “from the beginning” (ἀπ ̓ ἀρχῆς ap' archēs does not here refer to his eternity, or his being in the beginning of all things, as the phrase “in the beginning” (ἐν ἀρχῇ en archē) does in John 1:1; but rather means from the very commencement of his manifestation as the Son of God, the very first indications on earth of what he was as the Messiah. When the writer says 1 John 1:3 that he “declares” this to them, it seems to me that he has not reference merely to what he would say in this Epistle, for he does not go extensively into it here, but that he supposes that they had his Gospel in their possession, and that he also means to refer to that, or presumes that they were familiar with the testimony which he had borne in that Gospel respecting the evidence that the “Word became flesh.” Many have indeed supposed that this Epistle accompanied the Gospel when it was published, and was either a part of it that became subsequently detached from it, or was a letter that accompanied it. See Hug, Introduction P. II. Section 68. There is, it seems to me, no certain evidence of that; but no one can doubt that he supposed that those to whom he wrote had access to that Gospel, and that he refers here to the testimony which he had borne in that respecting the incarnate Word.

Which we have heard - John was with the Saviour through the whole of his ministry, and he has recorded more that the Saviour said than either of the other evangelists. It is on what he said of himself that he grounds much of the evidence that he was the Son of God.

Which we have seen with our eyes - That is, pertaining to his person, and to what he did. “I have seen him; seen what he was as a man; how he appeared on earth; and I have seen whatever there was in his works to indicate his character and origin.” John professes here to have seen enough in this respect to furnish evidence that he was the Son of God. It is not hearsay on which he relies, but he had the testimony of his own eyes in the case. Compare the notes at 2 Peter 1:16.

Which we have looked upon - The word used here seems designed to be more emphatic or intensive than the one occurring before. He had just said that he had “seen him with his eyes,” but he evidently designs to include an idea in this word which would imply something more than mere beholding or seeing. The additional idea which is couched in this word seems to be that of desire or pleasure; that is, that he had looked on him with desire, or satisfaction, or with the pleasure with which one beholds a beloved object. Compare Matthew 11:7; Luke 7:24; John 1:14; John 11:45. See Robinson, Lexicon. There was an intense and earnest gaze, as when we behold one whom we have desired to see, or when one goes out purposely to look on an object. The evidences of the incarnation of the Son of God had been subjected to such an intense and earnest gaze.

And our hands have handled - That is, the evidence that he was a man was subjected to the sense of touch. It was not merely that he had been seen by the eye, for then it might be pretended that this was a mere appearance assumed without reality; or that what occurred might have been a mere optical illusion; but the evidence that he appeared in the flesh was subjected to more senses than one; to the fact that his voice was heard; that he was seen with the eyes; that the most intense scrutiny had been employed; and, lastly, that he had been actually touched and handled, showing that it could not have been a mere appearance, an assumed form, but that it was a reality. This kind of proof that the Son of God had appeared in the flesh, or that he was truly and properly a man, is repeatedly referred to in the New Testament. Luke 24:39; “behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have.” Compare John 20:25-27. There is evident allusion here to the opinion which early prevailed, which was held by the Docetes, that the Son of God did not truly and really become a man, but that there was only an appearance assumed, or that he seemed to be a man. See the Introduction, Section 3. It was evidently with reference to this opinion, which began early to prevail, that the apostle dwells on this point, and repeats the idea so much, and shows by a reference to all the senses which could take any cognizance in the case, that he was truly and properly a man. The amount of it is, that we have the same evidence that he was properly a man which we can have in the case of any other human being; the evidence on which we constantly act, and in which we cannot believe that our senses deceive us.

Of the Word of life - Respecting, or pertaining to, the Word of life. “That is, whatever there was pertaining to the Word of life, which was manifested from the beginning in his speech and actions, of which the senses could take cognizance, and which would furnish the evidence that he was truly incarnate, that we have declared unto you.’ The phrase “the Word of life,” means the Word in which life resided, or which was the source and fountain of life. See the notes at John 1:1, John 1:3. The reference is undoubtedly to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

He shows, first, that life has been exhibited to us in Christ; which, as it is an incomparable good, ought to rouse and inflame all our powers with a marvelous desire for it, and with the love of it. It is said, indeed, in a few and plain words, that life is manifested; but if we consider how miserable and horrible a condition death is, and also what is the kingdom and the glory of immortality, we shall perceive that there is something here more magnificent than what can be expressed in any words.

Then the Apostle’s object, in setting before us the vast good, yea, the chief and only true happiness which God has conferred on us, in his own Son, is to raise our thoughts above; but as the greatness of the subject requires that the truth should be certain, and fully proved, this is what is here much dwelt upon. For these words, What we have seen, what we have heard, what we have looked on, serve to strengthen our faith in the gospel. Nor does he, indeed, without reason, make so many asseverations; for since our salvation depends on the gospel, its certainty is in the highest degree necessary; and how difficult it is for us to believe, every one of us knows too well by his own experience. To believe is not lightly to form an opinion, or to assent only to what is said, but a firm, undoubting conviction, so that we may dare to subscribe to the truth as fully proved. It is for this reason that the Apostle heaps together so many things in confirmation of the gospel.

1That which was from the beginning As the passage is abrupt and involved, that the sense may be made clearer, the words may be thus arranged; “We announce to you the word of life, which was from the beginning and really testified to us in all manner of ways, that life has been manifested in him;” or, if you prefer, the meaning may be thus given, “What we announce to you respecting the word of life, has been from the beginning, and has been openly shewed to us, that life was manifested in him.” But the words, That which was from the beginning, refer doubtless to the divinity of Christ, for God manifested in the flesh was not from the beginning; but he who always was life and the eternal Word of God, appeared in the fullness of time as man. Again, what follows as to the looking on and the handling of the hands, refers to his human nature. But as the two natures constitute but one person, and Christ is one, because he came forth from the Father that he might put on our flesh, the Apostle rightly declares that he is the same, and had been invisible, and afterwards became visible. ⁽⁵⁹⁾

Hereby the senseless cavil of Servetus is disproved, that the nature and essence of Deity became one with the flesh, and that thus the Word was transformed into flesh, because the life-giving Word was seen in the flesh.

Let us then bear in mind, that this doctrine of the Gospel is here declared, that he who in the flesh really proved himself to be the Son of God, and was acknowledged to be the Son of God, was always God’s invisible Word, for he does not refer here to the beginning of the world, but ascends much higher.

Which we have heard, which we have seen. It was not the hearing of a report, to which little credit is usually given, but John means, that he had faithfully learnt from his Master those things which he taught, so that he alleged nothing thoughtlessly and rashly. And, doubtless, no one is a fit teacher in the Church, who has not been the disciple of the Son of God, and rightly instructed in his school, since his authority alone ought to prevail.

When he says, we have seen with our eyes, it is no redundancy, but a fuller expression for the sake of amplifying; nay, he was not satisfied with seeing only, but added, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled By these words he shews that he taught nothing but what had been really made known to him.

It may seem, however, that the evidence of the senses little availed on the present subject, for the power of Christ could not be perceived by the eyes nor felt by the hands. To this I answer, that the same thing is said here as in John 1:14 the Gospel of John, “We have seen his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father;” for he was not known as the Son of God by the external form of his body, but because he gave illustrious proofs of his Divine power, so that in him shone forth the majesty of the Father, as in a living and distinct image. As the words are in the plural number, and the subject equally applies to all the apostles, I am disposed to include them, especially as the authority of testimony is what is treated of.

But no less frivolous (as I have before said) than impudent is the wickedness of Servetus, who urges these words to prove that the Word of God became visible and capable of being handled; he either impiously destroys or mingles together the twofold nature of Christ. It is, therefore, a pure figment. Thus deifying the humanity of Christ, he wholly takes away the reality of his human nature, at the same time denying that Christ is for any other reason called the Son of God, except that he was conceived of his mother by the power of the Holy Spirit, and taking away his own subsistence in God. It hence follows that he was neither God nor man, though he seems to form a confused mass from both. But as the meaning of the Apostle is evident to us, let us pass by that unprincipled man.

Of the Word of life The genitive here is used for an adjective, vivifying, or life-giving; for in him, as it is said in the first chapter of John’s Gospel, was life. At the same time, this distinction belongs to the Son of God on two accounts, because he has infused life into all creatures, and because he now restores life to us, which had perished, having been extinguished by the sin of Adam. Moreover, the term Word may be explained in two ways, either of Christ, or of the doctrine of the Gospel, for even by this is salvation brought to us. But as its substance is Christ, and as it contains no other thing than that he, who had been always with the Father, was at length manifested to men, the first view appears to me the more simple and genuine. Moreover, it appears more fully from the Gospel that the wisdom which dwells in God is called the Word.

(59) It is more consistent with the passage to take “from the beginning” here as from the beginning of the Gospel, from the beginning of the ministry of our Savior, because what had been from the beginning was what the apostles had heard and seen. That another view has been taken of these words has been owing to an over-anxiety on the part of many, especially of the Fathers, to establish the divinity of our Savior; but this is what is sufficiently evident from the second verse. See 1 John 2:7. — Ed.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Shall we turn to 1 John.

Why did John write this epistle? In chapter one, verse four, he tells us, "These things write we unto that your joy may full." So that you might have the fullness of joy. Do you know that God wants your life to be filled with joy? Peter says that, "Though we haven't seen Jesus, still we love Him. And even though we haven't seen Him yet, yet we rejoice with joy unspeakable or indescribable and full of glory" ( 1 Peter 1:8 ). Jesus talked to His disciples about this fullness of joy, and He related the fullness of joy with their abiding in Him in chapter 15, "Abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you may ask what you will, and your joy may be full" ( John 15:7 , John 15:11 ).

In chapter 16 of the gospel of John, he relates the fullness of joy to our prayer life, "Henceforth you've asked nothing in My name: ask, that you may receive, that your joy may be full" ( John 16:23-24 ). Here, the fullness of joy is related to fellowship with God, a life of fellowship with God. Abiding in Christ is a life of fullness of joy.

Now, it is important that we make the distinction between joy and happiness, for joy is a quality of the spirit, whereas happiness is a quality of the emotion. So happiness is a variable, because it is related to the outward circumstances. Things are going great. I just got a new car. I'm so happy. I'm just whistling as you drive down the road. But I'm so preoccupied that I run into a tree, "Yikes." My happiness is gone. I'm miserable. I'm sad. I didn't have a chance to insure the thing yet. So, happiness is a variable; it can change very suddenly very dramatically.

You may come and say, "Oh, I'm just having a horrible time and I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm just loaded with debts and they are going to repossess all that I have. I don't know what I'm going to do." And so I sit down and write you out a check for ten thousand dollars and you say, "Oh, this is great." And it might make you so happy. Until you went and tried to cash the check, then you'd be sad again. So happiness is a variable related to the outward circumstances.

But joy is a thing of the heart, the spirit, and it isn't a variable. It doesn't change; it's a constant. Because it is a joy that is related to my relationship with God, which is a constant. That relationship doesn't change, things may go bad, they may be horrible, but my relationship with God is secure, therefore I have the fullness of joy.

John writes this epistle to bring you into that kind of a relationship with God, that you might have this fellowship with God. That your joy may be full.

The second reason why he wrote this epistle is in chapter 2, verse 1 John 1:1 . "These things write we unto you, that ye sin not." And so, the purpose of this epistle is to bring to you a life of victory over sin, to give you power over sin.

And then the third reason why he wrote the epistle is in chapter 5, verse 1Jo 1:13 . "These things have I written unto you that believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life." Written to believers for the purpose of bringing them assurance of their salvation, "That you may know that you have eternal life." So, to bring you fullness of joy, freedom from sin, and assurance of eternal life, those are the purposes for which John wrote this epistle.

Now in Isaiah 59 , Isaiah declares, not 59, 55, Isaiah declares, "As the rain comes down from heaven and the snow and returns not thither but waters the earth and makes it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so is My word that goes forth out of My mouth, saith the Lord. It shall not return unto Me void, but shall accomplish the purposes for which I have sent it" ( Isaiah 55:10-11 ). What is God saying? That when He sends His word with a purpose, the word isn't going to return void. There's power in the word of God, and it's going to accomplish the purposes for which God sent it.

Now that excites me, because I know that as we study this first epistle of John, God's word isn't going to return void. And by the time we have completed our study, you're going to be experiencing a greater joy in your walk with Jesus than you have ever known before. You're going to be receiving a new power over sin and you're going to be having assurance of your salvation because God's Word won't return void. It's going to accomplish that purposes for which God sent it. And John tells us very plainly these are the purposes for which he wrote this epistle. So, great times ahead as we study this epistle of John, as we develop our relationship with the Lord.

Now, man needs an example. You can tell me how to do something and I may get somewhat of a concept in my mind, but if I can see you do it, I can follow the example much easier than just a verbal command.

Jesus is our example and so he points to Jesus as our example. And, first of all, He is our example in our relationship with God. "For if we walk in the light as He is in the light, then we have fellowship with God and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, is cleansing us from all sin." So, He is our example in our walk, walking in the light as He is in the light. That is in chapter 1, verse 1 John 1:7 . Then in chapter 2, verse 1 John 1:6 , "He that says that he abides in Him ought himself also to walk even as He walked." So again, Christ our example in our walk, our walk with God, our relationship with God.

Then Christ is our example in our own personal spiritual life. In chapter 3, verse 1 John 1:2 , "Beloved now are we the sons of God, but it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." And so, as He is, we will be like Him, as we see Him as He is. So verse 1 John 1:3 , "Every man that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as He is pure." So my example in purity, Christ is the standard. I am pure even as He is pure. And then in verse 1 John 1:7 again, "I am righteous as He is righteous." So that inward purity, that righteousness, Christ my example, pure as He is pure, righteous as He is righteous.

Then in chapter 3, verse 1Jo 1:23 , "This is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another as He gave us commandment." So He is our example in our relationship with each other, as we are to love one another as He gave us the commandment.

And then the clincher of all is verse 1Jo 1:17 of chapter 4, "Herein is our love made perfect that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world." He is our example, "as He is so are we." He is to be the example that I follow. So Christ the example in my relationship with God, my own inner personal life, and then my relationship with others.

Now the Bible warns us about self-deception, "Be not deceived, God is not mocked." James said, "If any man seems to be religious and bridles not his own tongue, this man's religion is vain." John tells us that it is possible for us to deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. The way we deceive ourselves many times are in the claims that we make. But the claims that I make are not valid unless they are backed up by corresponding experience. So false professions, and as we look at 1 John, he tells us of many of these false professions that people make. In verse 1 John 1:6 of chapter 1, "If we say that we have fellowship with Him," and what a glorious profession to make, "Oh, I have fellowship with God. I have communion, or I'm one with God." It's a great thing to say, but if you say you have fellowship with God and you are walking in darkness, then you are deceiving yourself; you're lying and you are not telling the truth.

You cannot have fellowship with God and walk in darkness. Now, don't be deceived about this. Many people are deceived on this score; they think that they have fellowship with God but they are walking in darkness, and that is an impossibility.

Verse 1 John 1:8 , "If we say that we have no sin, then we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Now the word sin here in singular is a reference to the root nature of sin, and unfortunately there are a lot of people trying to deny the root nature of sin. You know, "Well, I don't have a sinful nature." Well, the Bible says you do. The Bible says, "Even by one man sin entered the world and death by sin, so that death passed unto all men, for all sinned." Not, "All have sinned," as it is translated in the King James, but just "All sinned." By one man's sin, we were all made sinners. So that as Paul said in Ephesians chapter 2, "And you were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." David said, "I was born in sin."

So the denial of this sinful nature is only to be self-deceived. And that is what John is referring to here, "If we say we have no sin (no sinful nature), we are deceiving ourselves." You see, the Bible teaches that basically I sin because I'm a sinner, and sinning doesn't make me a sinner, it only proves that I am a sinner. I have a sinful nature, therefore I sin. They liken it then to a horse thief. Stealing a horse does not make you a horse thief; it only proves that you are a horse thief. If you weren't a horse thief, you could never have stolen that horse. There's no way a man can steal a horse unless he is a horse thief. It's in your heart to do. You see, if it weren't in your heart to do, you couldn't do it. And so with sin, the sinful nature. So if I say or deny that, I'm just deceiving myself, and the truth isn't in me.

Then, if we say that we have not sinned, I'm saying that this root of sin has born any fruit, then I make God a liar, because God has said, "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." "There is none righteous, no not one. There is none that seeks after God." So God has declared that we are all sinners, and if I try to deny the fact my sinful root has never born any fruit, then I am denying the truth of God and making God a liar.

Now, "He that says," verse 1 John 1:4 of chapter 2, "I know Him," and that's a great thing to say, isn't it, "Oh, yes, I know Him." But, "He that says, 'I know Him' and keeps not His commandments is a liar." We will cover that a little more thoroughly as we go through tonight.

Verse 1 John 1:6 , "He who says he abides in Him," another glorious thing to say, "Oh yes, I abide in Him." A wonderful thing to say, but it's not just saying. If I truly abide in Him, then I will be walking as He walked; we become one.

And then finally, in chapter 4, verse 1Jo 1:20 , "If a man says, I love God, (and a lot of people make that claim, "I love God") and hates his brother, he is a liar." So it's not what I say that counts; what I say can be deceptive. I can even deceive myself. And to say that I love God is a glorious thing, but if I hate my brother, then that's a lie.

It's interesting how that there seems to be, so often, this inconsistency in people's lives. We say one thing and do another, or we do one thing and say another. We have one of these little girls, and I have dozens of them that I just adore, and they're always coming up to me and saying, "Hi Chuck," or whatever, and I just love these little girls and little fellows too. It's so neat and it's so cute, really the things and concepts in their little minds. And there's this one little girl, this morning, probably somewhere between two and three years old, and she told her mother, "I want to go the church and see the God Father." And she was talking about me, and she thought I was God's father, and she said, "Well, who is God's Father?" you know.

Another little girl that always has to say hi to me whenever comes to church and come up and give me a hug and a kiss. The other day the family was going off on Sunday and so they said, "Well, no, we can't go to church today because we are going to take a trip today, and we are not going to be able to go to church." And she put her hands on her hips and said, "Damn, I wanted to go to church." Inconsistencies, they show up early. It's not always what I say, it's what I am; it's what I'm doing.

Now I can know, in fact, God wants me to know, He wants me to be assured. Part of this epistle is to bring me assurance. "I have written these things unto you that believe that you may know that you have eternal life." How can we know, how do we know what we know? As we go through this epistle, we find there are many ways by which we can know certain truths.

Verse 1 John 1:3 , chapter 2, "And hereby we do know that we know Him." Now, if I say I know God and don't keep His commandments, I am a liar. But here's how I can know that I really know Him, if I keep His commandments.

Verse 1 John 1:5 , chapter 2, "But whoso keepeth His word in Him, verily is the love of God perfected and hereby we know that we are in Him." How can I know that I am in Him, because His love is being perfected in my life.

Now over in chapter 3 verse 1Jo 1:16 , "Hereby perceive we the love of God." How can I know that God loves me? Because He laid down His life for us. You know that the Bible only seeks to prove God's love at the cross. Whenever the Bible wants to declare or to prove to you that God loves, it always points to the cross, the fact that Jesus laid down . . . "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and gave His Son to be the propitiation for our sins" ( 1 John 4:10 ). It always points to the cross, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son" ( John 3:16 ). Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us and sent His Son to die. So, hereby we perceive the love of God. Now, verse 1Jo 1:19 , "And hereby we know that we are of the truth." How is that? Verse 1Jo 1:18 , "Little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and truth." When I am loving by my deeds, loving deeds, that's loving in truth, and by that I know that I am of the truth. Verse 1Jo 1:24 , "Hereby we know that we have abide, or that He abides in us by His Spirit that He has given us." How do I know that He is abiding in me? The Holy Spirit's indwelling my life. How can I know the truth? Verse 1 John 1:2 of chapter 4, "Hereby know we the Spirit of God." So many churches, so many religions, how can I know? "Every Spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God and every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God. This is the spirit of anti-Christ." Verse 1 John 1:6 of chapter 4, "We are of God and he that knoweth God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. And hereby know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error." Whether or not the person will listen to the truth. Verse 1Jo 1:13 of chapter 4, going back to verse 1Jo 1:12 , "No man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwells in us, and His love is perfected in us. And hereby know we that we dwell in Him." How? Because His love is perfected in me. Then finally in chapter 5, verse 1 John 1:2 , "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments." So, how do we know what we know? Interesting epistle, lets go back to chapter 1 and begin our study.

It's interesting to compare the first verse of this chapter with the first verse of the Bible and the first of John's gospel. The first verse of the Bible, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." You know, you have to have a starting point, might as well start at the beginning. In the beginning God. He was before the beginning; God has always existed, in the beginning God. How long ago was that? Well, our minds can't conceive or fathom that; you can go crazy trying to figure how long ago that was. But God was there, in the beginning God. Now in the gospel, "In the beginning was the Word (the Logos) and the Word was with God and the Word was God. And the same was in the beginning with God." Now as He begins his epistle he said,

That which [one who] was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon [That in the Greek is gazed, transfixed and steadfastly at, I mean, really studied, analyzed], and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) ( 1 John 1:1-2 )

So, in the beginning God, in the beginning was the Word, that which was from the beginning was manifested, we saw, we stared, we heard, we touched.

John came, as did the other disciples, to the awareness of who Jesus actually was. They realized that when they heard Jesus talking they were listening to God talk. When they were watching Jesus, they were actually seeing God. And when they touched Him, they were actually touching God. Imagine what that must have done to them to realize that when I put my hand on His shoulder I was actually touching God. When He put His hand on my shoulder or patted me on the back, God was touching me. We handled, we touched, we heard, we saw the one that was from the beginning.

You remember Micah's prophecy of the birthplace of Jesus, "And thou Bethlehem, though thou be little among the provinces of Judah, yet out of thee shall come He who is to rule my people Israel, whose going forth have been from old from everlasting." The eternal life always existed. In the beginning the Word with God, was God. "But the Word was made flesh and He dwelt among us and we beheld His glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth" ( John 1:14 ). Jesus, the eternal Word, Jesus the eternal God, became flesh and dwelt among men and John said, "We saw Him, we stared at Him, we heard Him and we touched Him. And that which we saw, and that which we heard we now bear witness to you." The eternal life that was with the Father and was manifested unto us. That eternal life, it's a, not just duration; it's a quality of life, as well as duration.

You remember one day a rich young ruler came to Jesus and fell at His feet and said, "Good master, what must I do to inherit this eternal life, or this age abiding life, this quality of life that I see that You have?" Men were attracted to that life of Jesus, that eternal life; it was manifested. John said, "We saw, we heard, and now we bear witness of it to you."

That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ ( 1 John 1:3 ).

This morning we talked to concerning this Greek word koinonia which is an abstract noun. And of the difficulty of translating it into the English language, in as much as we do not have any English or single English word that is an equivalent of this Greek word koinonia. And so, you find this word translated as partaker, communion, common, one, fellowship. They had all things in common (koinonia), that is they shared everything that they had.

The root noun from which this abstract noun comes is translated partaker or partner, or partnership. So the word can be translated friend, friendship, partnership, communion, common, one, partaker, and it's all of these things. Becoming one with God, coming into communion with God, having all things in common with God, having a partnership with God, having a friendship with God, and having fellowship with God.

Partnership means a mutual sharing of resources, mutual interest in each other. That's what God wants with you, and the purpose of the Gospel is to bring man into fellowship with God. The purpose of God creating man in the beginning was fellowship. I love that poem called God's Trombone, that one phrase where God said, "I'm lonely," so He created man that He might have fellowship with man, become one with His creation.

Now, within the church we should have a fellowship of koinonia with each other. In the early church they had this sharing of resources, anyone had a need they could come to the church; there was a sharing of the resources of the people. All things in community . . . and it didn't work out because they had some lazy bums that didn't want to work and just live off the others. Ideally, you know, if we had an ideal situation it would work beautifully. If everyone of us were industrious and all and had an ideal situation it could work, if it happen to be a real work of God's Spirit of love within our hearts and all. But everyone just really sharing and concerned and giving, it could be beautiful. But as long as we are in these bodies of flesh, we're going to have those that would spoil something that was beautiful. So, it didn't work in the early church; the church went bankrupt, actually. The Gentiles had to take up offerings for those in Jerusalem after the mishap, really, of this experiment in communism in the early church. Not communism as you know it today, a forced thing, a godless thing, but a communism that grew out of a common desire to benefit everyone within the fellowship, motivated by love and totally voluntary, with Christ at the center.

You are not going to find a perfect government, a perfect form of government as long as man is ruling. It's not going to happen until Jesus comes again and establishes God's kingdom, and then it will be right, and then it will be perfect. Then we will do away with commercialism. According to Isaiah 55 , money will be done away with; we will share together the fruit of the earth in God's glorious kingdom.

So,

And these things [John said,] write we unto you, that your joy may be full ( 1 John 1:4 ).

Relating this fullness of joy to the fellowship with God. And, of course, when you come into a partnership with God, a friendship, a communion, or fellowship with Him, what a joy it brings into our lives, fullness of joy.

This then is the message [John is saying,] which we have heard of [from] him, [that which we have heard] and declare unto you ( 1 John 1:5 ),

Now, this is basically the message that he told,

That God is light, [not God is a light, but God is light, this is the essence of His nature] and in Him is no darkness at all. [Therefore] if we say that we [are one with God] have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth [we're not telling the truth] ( 1 John 1:5-6 ):

You cannot have fellowship with God if you are walking in sin, walking in darkness.

Paul said, "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are [these]: adultery, fornication, lasciviousness, (and he goes on) drunkenness, riotings, seditions, heresies, and drug abuse and all," and he says, "and we know that they which do such things such things shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven" ( Galatians 5:19 ). You say you have fellowship with God, but if you are walking in darkness, you're only deceiving yourself, you're lying and you are not telling the truth. But in contrast,

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, [then] we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin ( 1 John 1:7 ).

And in the Greek it's present perfect tense, which should be translated, "Is continually cleansing us of all sin," and that to me is a glorious place to be walking. In the light as He is in the light, believing, trusting in Jesus, and as I do, the blood of Jesus Christ is continually cleansing me of all sin.

Now,

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth isn't in us ( 1 John 1:8 ).

But in contrast,

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness ( 1 John 1:9 ).

So, the way of cleansing doesn't come by denial, the way of forgiveness isn't by way of denial or by trying to hide it. There is a proverb that says, "Whoso seeks to cover his sin shall not prosper, but whoso confesses his sin shall be forgiven." So if you try to hide it, cover it, and deny it, you're only deceiving yourself. But if you will confess your sin unto Him, that's all, just confess it, He's faithful and He is just and He will forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Now, I love that word all in this particular place. It means that it doesn't matter what the past may be, how black or dark or miserable or mean, it cleanses me from all unrighteousness. The blood of Jesus Christ God's Son cleanses me from all sin.

Doctor Finney was holding a meeting in one of the major cities in the eastern part of the United States, and if you've read of church history and of Finney's revivals, they were really spectacular as far the changes that were brought to a community. In one city in the East, one of the major cities where he had one of his revival meetings, when he left, they closed every bar in town for lack of patrons. So powerfully was the city stirred with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And in one of these meetings, as he was walking up the church steps, a man stopped him, and he said, "I want to talk to you after church tonight, may I?" And Doctor Finney said, "Yes, I'll be glad to meet you after church and talk with you." So as he came to the top of the steps the deacons in the church said to him, "What did that man want?" And Doctor Finney said, "Well, he wanted to talk to me after church." And they said, "Do you know who that man is?" He said, "No." And they said, "Well, that man is one of the worst men in the city, he's horrible, and you just dare not go with him. He has hired killers and all and he probably has it in for you and you know, don't do it." So after service the deacons met him and said, "You're not going to go with that man are you?" And he said, "Well, yes, I am." They said, "Well, you can't." And he said, "Well, I gave the man my word, I must." And so the man met him and led him down the street up an alley into a back door of a building. As Finney went in, he turned around and locked the door and he said, "Sit down." Finney sat down and the man pulled a gun out of the desk and laid the gun on the desk and he said, "I heard you say something last night and I want to know if it's true or not." Finney said, "What did you hear me say?" He said, "You said the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son can cleanse a man from all sin." He said, "No, I didn't say that, God said that in His Word." He said, "Wait a minute, you don't know me; you don't know what I've done." He said, "You are behind a bar and we have an illegal gambling room," and he said, "The gambling devices are fixed, and I have taken the last dollar from many people, and they have gone out and committed suicide. You mean God could forgive me for that?" And Finney said, "All I can tell is that the Bible says, 'The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son can cleanse a man from all sin." He said, "Wait a minute, that's not the whole story," he said, "I own the bar out in front." And he said, "Men will come in and they'll drink, and their wives will come in rags with their little children and they have begged me not to sell their husband booze. And," he said, "I throw the wives out in the streets and I sell their husbands booze until they run out of money, and then I kick them out on the street. You mean God can forgive a man like that." Then Finney said, "The Bible says that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, can cleanse a man from all sin." The man said, "That's not the whole story," he said, "this gun, it has killed several people who have gotten in my way, and I have hired men to kill others; I've paid them to kill. And you mean God would forgive me?" He said, "All I can tell you is that the Bible says, all sin." He said, "Wait a minute. Across the street in that big brown stone house," he said, "I have a wife and a beautiful little child." He said, "I haven't said a decent word to my wife in over sixteen years. I've been miserable. I've been mean." He said, "The other day when my little child came running up, I pushed her away into the stove and she was burned seriously. I have never told that little girl that I love her. You mean God could forgive me."

And at this point Finney stood up and he grabbed him and he began to shake him and said, "Young man, you've told me about as horrible a story as I've ever heard or could ever dream." And he said, "If it were up to me, I don't know if I could forgive, but all I can tell you is that the Bible says that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son will cleanse a man from all sin." He said, "That's all I wanted to know, thank you." So he went over and unlocked the door and said, "You can find your way from here."

The next morning, as the sun was coming up, he was walking from the bar over to his home, and when he came into the house, his wife was in the kitchen with his little daughter and he went on upstairs. And so the mother said, "Go tell your daddy that breakfast is ready." So she ran up, and half way up the stairs, she called and said, "Daddy, Mommy said breakfast is ready." And he answered, "Sweetheart, tell your Mommy that Daddy doesn't want any breakfast this morning." The little girl came running back down into the kitchen and said, "Mommy, Mommy, Daddy said that he didn't want any breakfast and he called me sweetheart." And the mother said, "Honey, you must of misunderstood, you know. Go up and tell him again that breakfast is ready." And again she ran halfway up the stairs and she said, "Daddy, Momma said that breakfast is ready." And he said, "Come here, honey," and she went over to him and he picked her up and sit her on his lap, and he began to tell her how much he loved her. With that, the mother, of course, wondering what was going on, followed the little girl upstairs, and standing in the door saw him holding his little daughter on his lap for the first time. With tears coming down her cheeks, he said, "Come over here, honey." And he said, "I found out something last night that is the greatest thing that I have ever heard." And he said, "It's true, the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, can cleanse a man from all sin." He closed the bar and he began to be a benefactor to that community, changed by the power of Jesus Christ.

Now matter what the past is, no matter how black or bleak, the gospel of Jesus Christ holds out hope for all. All you have to do is confess your sin and He is faithful and just to forgive you and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Oh, what a glorious thing is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Oh, the transformation it has brought to life and can bring to man who is hopelessly lost in the power of darkness and sin. As Jesus said to Paul, "I have called you to go to the Gentiles, to turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to the kingdom of God." So ours is the most joyous, blessed privilege of sharing with men the power of God to deliver from the power of darkness and sin.

If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us ( 1 John 1:10 ).

"

Contending for the Faith

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;

That which was: John begins with the demonstrative pronoun "that." Why did he not begin with the personal pronoun "He"? It may be for the same reason that he begins his gospel with "The Word" and then moves to the fact that he was speaking of a person. In his epistle, he begins with "that" and moves to "him" in verse 5. He is simply saying that "that" which we have seen and heard and felt is Jesus, the Word of life. In the gospel, he declares that the Word that was "in the beginning" is a person, and here he is saying "that" which was heard, seen, and felt is that same person who was "from the beginning." In using the expression "that which," John is delineating certain things about Jesus that he had witnessed. Woods deals with the neuter pronoun by saying,

The reference is thus not to Christ contemplated as a person only, but to the attributes and characteristics which he, as the Word, possesses. It was "concerning the Word of life" which John purposed to write, hence the neuter to express a collective or comprehensive whole (210).

Lenski quotes Besser, stating that Besser "has given the correct answer" to this matter:

That which was from the beginning was He, the Logos of the Life, God’s Son Jesus Christ; that which we have heard, seen, beheld, handled was He. The neuter conveys more than the masculine would, namely in addition to the person all that his person was and is and ever will be for us (370).

from the beginning: What beginning? It is the same beginning we read about in Genesis 1 and John 1. It reaches back to the creation and to eternity past. Jesus had no beginning but was "in" and "from" the beginning. Since He was in the beginning, He has always been; and because He is from the beginning, He will always be. He uses the same language in chapter two, verses 13 and 14. Jesus is from eternity to eternity. This passage declares in no uncertain terms the divinity of Christ and deals a direct blow to the false views of the Gnostics. "That which was from the beginning" is the One John and others heard, saw, and touched.

which we: John now describes the personal relationship that he and the other apostles sustained to Jesus, the One both divine and human. Who are the "we" of this passage? John often uses this plural personal pronoun in this letter. Some say that it is just an editorial "we," and he is referring only to himself. Speakers often use the editorial "we" when they really mean "I." Others say that it refers to John and the whole church. This idea cannot follow because John addresses members of the church in verses 3 and 4. Is the church writing to the church? After a careful study of 1 John, we must conclude that when John uses the pronoun "we," the context must determine who the "we" is. In the first four verses, "we" clearly refers to the apostles who were the original eyewitnesses of Jesus Christ.

In other verses where John writes authoritatively, commanding certain action on the part of his readers, we must also conclude that he is writing as an apostle. In some instances, however, he includes himself along with his readers. He says, "If we say that we have fellowship with him" or "if we walk in the light" or "if we confess our sins." In these cases, he is writing as an ordinary disciple of Jesus including himself along with his readers.

have heard: It is interesting to note John’s use of increasingly stronger evidential words to describe the eyewitness testimony of the apostles to the humanity of Jesus. To hear is not as strong as to see; to see is not as strong as to behold; and to behold is not as strong as to handle. He and the other apostles did all of these things. They heard, saw, beheld, and touched the One who was from all eternity. They heard Him--oh, how they heard Him!--as the Master Teacher of all time and eternity associated with them on a daily basis for three and one-half years. "Never man spake like this man." They listened as He delivered the greatest sermon that ever fell from the lips of man, the Sermon On The Mount, a sermon that has astonished the wisest of men for almost two thousand years. He shared with them the most profound truths in the simplest language. Yes, this God who became man had a voice that could be and was heard.

which we have seen with our eyes: To hear a great man is an exciting experience but to see him is even more thrilling. With their natural vision, the apostles were witnesses to the physical existence of Jesus. Notice that John says they had seen Jesus with their eyes. Why is he so specific in mentioning the apostles’ eyes? He wants his readers to know they had seen Jesus not only with the eyes of the mind but also with the eyes of the body. John is determined that the know-it-all Gnostics, who denied the humanity of Jesus, should be confronted with the testimony of those who had used the physical sense of sight to see Jesus in the flesh; and he wants his readers to be assured of the indisputable truth that "God was manifest in the flesh" in the person of Jesus Christ.

which we have looked upon: What is the difference in seeing Jesus and looking upon Him? While there is none in the English, there is considerable difference in the Greek. William Barclay explains the distinction:

In the Greek the verb for to see is horan, and it means simply to see with physical sight and with the physical eye. The verb to gaze is theasthai, and it means to gaze at someone, or at something, until a long look has grasped something of the meaning and the significance of that person or thing (27).

John uses this term in John 1, when he says, "We beheld His glory..." (verse 14). This is not a quick glance or an ordinary look but a long contemplative examination of our Lord’s glory. When John declares that he and the other apostles had "looked upon" Jesus, he does not mean a casual look or accidental observance but a close, scrutinizing inspection by careful eyes. They had really seen Jesus.

and our hands have handled: After the glorious resurrection of our Lord, He appeared unto his disciples, saying, "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have" (Luke 24:39). Perhaps John is remembering that sacred occasion when he asserts that they had "handled" or touched Christ. Jesus was not a phantom, a totally spiritual being who could not be touched; He was a real human being with a physical body. Wuest says, "Our Lord’s proof to the disciples that He was raised in the physical body in which He died was based on the scientific evidence of their sense of touch" (1 John 92). The apostles utilized three of the bodily senses in determining the reality of Jesus’ humanity: hearing, seeing, and feeling. Jesus was as real as the apostles’ ears, eyes, and hands. What more proof would one want? Twelve men, who had nothing to gain and everything to lose by lying, hazarded their lives in attesting to the reality of the incarnation of Jesus in human flesh. How can Cerinthus and the other Gnostics reply to this eyewitness testimony? John echoes Peter: "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty" (2 Peter 1:16).

of the Word of life: "Of" is from the Greek peri, better translated "concerning." The apostles’ experiences with Jesus were "concerning" the Word of life. Some try to say that "the Word of life" is the message of life, but we do not preach concerning the word of God--we preach the word itself; however, we do preach concerning Jesus, the Word of life. There should be no question that the Word that was made flesh in John 1 is the Word of life in 1 John 1. "Word" is from logos, meaning more than words in general. W. E. Vine says that logos "denotes the expression of thought--not the mere name of an object...as embodying a conception or idea" (229). Jesus is the total expression of God, the full revelation of all that God is. When He came in human flesh, He showed us God as He is in human form, the full expression of deity. He is not only the living Word of God, He is the "Word of life." He is called "the life" (John 11:25; John 14:6), "the bread of life" (John 6:35; John 6:48), and "the light of life" (John 8:12). Jesus came that we might have abundant life, (John 10:10). "Life" comes from zoe, which Vine says, "is used in the N.T. ’of life as a principle, life in the absolute sense, life as God has it, that which the Father has in Himself, and which He gave to the Incarnate Son to have in Himself, John 5:26, and which the Son manifested in the world, 1 John 1:2..." (336). Those who want true life must come to the Word of life Himself (John 14:6).

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

The "beginning" (Gr. arche) may refer to the beginning of all things (John 1:1) or the beginning of the creation (Genesis 1:1). It could also refer to the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry (i.e., His incarnation; John 1:14), the beginning of the readers’ experience as Christians, or the beginning of the Christian gospel. The last option seems most consistent with what John proceeded to say about that beginning (1 John 2:7; 1 John 2:24; 1 John 3:11; cf. Mark 1:1-4; Acts 1:21-22). The baptism of Jesus, the start of His public ministry and its proclamation, signaled this beginning.

John’s verbs indicate progressively closer approach to the object of investigation. The essence of fellowship is increasing intimacy. Our fellowship with God must involve drawing closer to Him and viewing Him more intently all the time to be genuine fellowship. The same is true of fellowship on the human level. John used his three basic senses to highlight the reality of the object so his readers would know that he was not speaking metaphorically. He cited personal experience and appealed to empirical evidence to support the humanity of Jesus Christ (cf. Luke 24:39). Some false teachers denied His humanity. [Note: Bruce, pp. 16-17.]

"Extreme Docetism [i.e., Docetic Gnostics] held that Jesus was not human at all but was merely a prolonged theophany, while moderate Docetism [i.e., Cerinthian Gnostics] considered Jesus the natural son of Joseph and Mary, upon whom Christ came at the time of baptism." [Note: Ryrie, p. 1464. Cf. Robertson, 6:200.]

Specific instances of personal encounter with Jesus Christ (cf. Luke 24:39) had left a continuing impression on John, as is clear from the verb tenses (perfect in the Greek text).

John may have used "we" editorially to represent himself personally, or "we" may include all Christians. It is more likely, however, that "we" represents John and the other eyewitnesses of Jesus Christ. In this epistle John was speaking for others beside himself, and he was seeking to persuade still other believers of something not all of them had experienced or acknowledged (cf. Luke 1:2). [Note: D. Edmond Hiebert, "An Expositional Study of 1 John," Bibliotheca Sacra 145:578 (April-June 1988):203.]

The "word of life" probably refers to the message about Jesus Christ, namely, the gospel. [Note: Westcott, pp. 6-7; C. H. Dodd, The Johanine Epistles, pp. 3-6; and J. L. Houlden, A Commentary on the Johanine Epistles, pp. 50- 52.] John referred to Jesus as "the Word" in his Gospel, and he described Jesus claiming to be "the life" (John 14:6). The phrase "word of life" seems more likely to describe the message about the Person who is and who personifies life (cf. 1 John 1:2; Philippians 2:16; Acts 5:20). John probably spoke of Christ as "what" rather that "He" because John wanted to emphasize here the content of the message about Christ rather than the person of Christ.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

I. INTRODUCTION: THE PURPOSE OF THE EPISTLE 1:1-4

"This writing begins without any of the formal features characteristic of a letter, such as we found in 2 John and 3 John. Since the conclusion also lacks any typical features of a letter, we must conclude that the writing is not so much a letter as a written sermon or address." [Note: I. Howard Marshall, The Epistles of John, p. 99.]

John began this epistle by explaining to his audience why he wrote. He said he wrote so his readers would enjoy the fellowship with God that is possible only to those who have seen Him. This fellowship, he explained, rests on the reality of Jesus Christ’s incarnation, and it results in full joy for those who experience it.

"No writer in the New Testament holds with greater intensity the full reality of the incarnation." [Note: William Barclay, The Letters of John and Jude, p. 17.]

Barclay's Daily Study Bible

Chapter 1

THE PASTOR'S AIM ( 1 John 1:1-4 )

1:1-4 What we are telling you about is that which was from the beginning, that which we heard, that which we saw with our eyes, that which we gazed upon, and which our hands touched. It is about the word of life that we are telling you. (And the life appeared to us, and we saw it, and testify to it; and we are now bringing you the message of this eternal life, which was with the Father and which appeared to us). It is about what we saw and heard that we are bringing the message to you, that you too may have fellowship with us, for our fellowship is with the Father and with Jesus Christ, the Son. And we are writing these things to you that your joy may be completed.

Every man, when he sits down to write a letter or rises to preach a sermon, has some object in view. He wishes to produce some effect in the minds and hearts and lives of those to whom his message is addressed. And here at the very beginning of his letter John sets down his objects in writing to his people.

(i) It is his wish to produce fellowship with men and fellowship with God ( 1 John 1:3). The pastor's aim must always be to bring men closer to one another and closer to God. Any message which is productive of division is a false message. The Christian message can be summed up as having two great aims--love for men and love for God.

(ii) It is his wish to bring his people joy ( 1 John 1:4), Joy is the essence of Christianity. A message whose only effect is to depress and to discourage those who hear it has stopped halfway. It is quite true that often the aim of the preacher and the teacher must be to awaken a godly sorrow which will lead to a true repentance. But after the sense of sin has been produced, men must be led to the Saviour in whom sins are all forgiven. The ultimate note of the Christian message is joy.

(iii) To that end his aim is to set Jesus Christ before them. A great teacher always used to tell his students that their one aim as preachers must be "to speak a good word for Jesus Christ"; and it was said of another great saint that wherever his conversation began it cut straight across country to Jesus Christ.

The simple fact is that if men are ever to find fellowship with one another and fellowship with God, and if they are ever to find true joy, they must find them in Jesus Christ.

THE PASTOR'S RIGHT TO SPEAK ( 1 John 1:1-4 continued)

Here at the very beginning of his letter John sets down his right to speak; and it consists in one thing--in personal experience of Christ ( 1 John 1:2-3).

(i) He says that he has heard Christ. Long ago Zedekiah had said to Jeremiah: "Is there any word from the Lord?" ( Jeremiah 37:17). What men are interested in is not someone's opinions and guesses but a word from the Lord. It was said of one great preacher that first he listened to God and then he spoke to men; and it was said of John Brown of Haddington that, when he preached, he paused ever and again, as if listening for a voice. The true teacher is the man who has a message from Jesus Christ because he has heard his voice.

(ii) He says that he has seen Christ. It is told of Alexander Whyte, the great Scottish preacher, that someone once said to him, "You preached today as if you had come straight from the presence." And Whyte answered, "Perhaps I did." We cannot see Christ in the flesh as John did; but we can still see him with the eye of faith.

"And, warm, sweet, tender, even yet

A present help is he;

And faith has still its Olivet,

And love its Galilee."

(iii) He says that he has gazed on Christ. What, then, is the difference between seeing Christ and gazing upon him? In the Greek the verb for to see is horan ( G3708) and it means simply to see with physical sight. The verb for to gaze is theasthai ( G2300) and it means to gaze at someone or something until something has been grasped of the significance of that person or thing. So Jesus, speaking to the crowds of John the Baptist, asked: "What did you go out into the wilderness to see (theasthai, G2300) ?" ( Luke 7:24); and in that word he describes how the crowds flocked out to gaze at John and wonder who and what this man might be. Speaking of Jesus in the prologue to his gospel, John says, "We beheld his glory" ( John 1:14). The verb is again theasthai ( G2300) and the idea is not that of a passing glance but of a steadfast searching gaze which seeks to discover something of the mystery of Christ.

(iv) He says that his hands actually touched Christ. Luke tells of how Jesus came back to his disciples, when he had risen from the dead, and said, "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me and see, for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have" ( Luke 24:39). Here John is thinking of those people called the Docetists who were so spiritually-minded that they insisted that Jesus never at any time had a flesh and blood body but was only a phantom in human form. They refused to believe that God could ever soil himself by taking human flesh and blood upon himself. John here insists that the Jesus he had known was, in truth, a man amongst men; he felt there was nothing in all the world more dangerous--as we shall see than to doubt that Jesus was fully man.

THE PASTOR'S MESSAGE ( 1 John 1:1-4 continued)

John's message is of Jesus Christ; and of Jesus he has three great things to say. First, he says that Jesus was from the beginning. That is to say, in him eternity entered time; in him the eternal God personally entered the world of men. Second, that entry into the world of men was a real entry, it was real manhood that God took upon himself. Third, through that action there came to men the word of life, the word which can change death into life and mere existence into real living. Again and again in the New Testament the gospel is called a word; and it is of the greatest interest to see the various connections in which this term is used.

(i) Oftener than anything else the gospel message is called the word of God ( Acts 4:31; Acts 6:2; Acts 6:7; Acts 11:1; Acts 13:5; Acts 13:7; Acts 13:44; Acts 16:32; Php_1:14 ; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; Hebrews 13:7; Revelation 1:2; Revelation 1:9; Revelation 6:9; Revelation 20:4). It is not a human discovery; it comes from God. It is news of God which man could not have discovered for himself.

(ii) Frequently the gospel message is called the word of the Lord ( Acts 8:25; Acts 12:24; Acts 13:49; Acts 15:35; 1 Thessalonians 1:8; 2 Thessalonians 3:1). It is not always certain whether the Lord is God or Jesus, but more often than not it is Jesus who is meant. The gospel is, therefore, the message which God could have sent to men in no other way than through his son.

(iii) Twice the gospel message is called the word of hearing (logos ( G3056) akoes G189) ( 1 Thessalonians 2:13; Hebrews 4:2). That is to say, it depends on two things, on a voice ready to speak it and an ear ready to hear it.

(iv) The gospel message is the word of the Kingdom ( Matthew 13:19). It is the announcement of the kingship of God and the summons to render to God the obedience which will make a man a citizen of that kingdom.

(v) The gospel message is the word of the gospel ( Acts 15:7; Colossians 1:5). Gospel means good news; and the gospel is essentially good news to man about God.

(vi) The gospel is the word of grace ( Acts 14:3; Acts 20:32). It is the good news of God's generous and undeserved love for man; it is the news that man is not saddled with the impossible task of earning God's love but is freely offered it.

(vii) The gospel is the word of salvation ( Acts 13:26). It is the offer of forgiveness for past sin and of power to overcome sin in the future.

(viii) The gospel is the word of reconciliation ( 2 Corinthians 5:19). It is the message that the lost relationship between man and God is restored in Jesus Christ who has broken down the barrier between man and God which sin had erected.

(ix) The gospel is the word of the Cross ( 1 Corinthians 1:18). At the heart of the gospel is the Cross on which is shown to man the final proof of the forgiving, sacrificing, seeking love of God.

(x) The gospel is the word of truth ( 2 Corinthians 6:7; Ephesians 1:13; Colossians 1:5; 2 Timothy 2:15). With the coming of the gospel it is no longer necessary to guess and grope for Jesus Christ has brought to us the truth about God.

(xi) The gospel is the word of righteousness ( Hebrews 5:13). It is by the power of the gospel that a man is enabled to break from the power of evil and to rise to the righteousness which is pleasing in the sight of God.

(xii) The gospel is the health-giving word ( 2 Timothy 1:13; 2 Timothy 2:8). It is the antidote which cures the poison of sin and the medicine which defeats the disease of evil.

(xiii) The gospel is the word of life ( Php_2:16 ). It is through its power that a man is delivered from death and enabled to enter into life at its best.

GOD IS LIGHT ( 1 John 1:5 )

1:5 And this is the message which we have heard from him, and which we pass on to you, that God is light, and there is no darkness in him.

A man's own character will necessarily be determined by the character of the god whom he worships; and, therefore, John begins by laying down the nature of the God and Father of Jesus Christ whom Christians worship. God, he says, is light, and there is no darkness in him. What does this statement tell us about God?

(i) It tells us that he is splendour and glory. There is nothing so glorious as a blaze of light piercing the darkness. To say that God is light tells us of his sheer splendour.

(ii) It tells us that God is self-revealing. Above all things light is seen; and it illumines the darkness round about it. To say that God is light is to say that there is nothing secretive or furtive about him. He wishes to be seen and to be known by men.

(iii) It tells us of God's purity and holiness. There is none of the darkness which cloaks hidden evil in God. That he is light speaks to us of his white purity and stainless holiness.

(iv) It tells us of the guidance of God. It is one of the great functions of light to show the way. The road that is lit is the road that is plain. To say that God is light is to say that he offers his guidance for the footsteps of men.

(v) It tells us of the revealing quality in the presence of God. Light is the great revealer. Flaws and stains which are hidden in the shade are obvious in the light. Light reveals the imperfections in any piece of workmanship or material. So the imperfections of life are seen in the presence of God. Whittier wrote:

"Our thoughts lie open to thy sight;

And naked to thy glance;

Our secret sins are in the light

Of thy pure countenance."

We can never know either the depth to which life has fallen or the height to which it may rise until we see it in the revealing light of God.

THE HOSTILE DARK ( 1 John 1:5 continued)

In God, says John, there is no darkness at all. Throughout the New Testament darkness stands for the very opposite of the Christian life.

(i) Darkness stands for the Christless life. It represents the life that a man lived before he met Christ or the life that he lives if he strays away from him. John writes to his people that, now that Christ has come, the darkness is past and the true light shines ( 1 John 2:8). Paul writes to his Christian friends that once they were darkness but now they are light in the Lord ( Ephesians 5:8). God has delivered us from the power of darkness and brought us into the Kingdom of his dear Son ( Colossians 1:13). Christians are not in darkness, for they are children of the day ( 1 Thessalonians 5:4-5). Those who follow Christ shall not walk in darkness, as others must, but they will have the light of life ( John 8:12). God has called the Christians out of darkness into his marvellous light ( 1 Peter 2:9).

(ii) The dark is hostile to the light. In the prologue to his gospel John writes that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it ( John 1:5). It is a picture of the darkness seeking to obliterate the light--but unable to overpower it. The dark and the light are natural enemies.

(iii) The darkness stands for the ignorance of life apart from Christ. Jesus summons his friends to walk in the light lest the darkness come upon them, for the man who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going ( John 12:35). Jesus is the light, and he has come that those who believe in him should not walk in darkness ( John 12:46). The dark stands for the essential lostness of life without Christ.

(iv) The darkness stands for the chaos of life without God. God, says Paul, thinking of the first act of creation, commanded his light to shine out of the darkness ( 2 Corinthians 4:6). Without God's light the world is a chaos, in which life has neither order nor sense.

(v) The darkness stands for the immorality of the Christless life. It is Paul's appeal to men that they should cast off the works of darkness ( Romans 13:12). Men, because their deeds were evil, loved the darkness rather than the light ( John 3:19). The darkness stands for the way that the Christless life is filled with things which seek the shadows because they cannot stand the light.

(vi) The darkness is characteristically unfruitful. Paul speaks of the unfruitful works of darkness ( Ephesians 5:11). If growing things are despoiled of the light, their growth is arrested. The darkness is the Christless atmosphere in which no fruit of the Spirit will ever grow.

(vii) The darkness is connected with lovelessness and hate. If a man hates his brother, it is a sign that he walks in darkness ( 1 John 2:9-11). Love is sunshine and hatred is the dark.

(viii) The dark is the abode of the enemies of Christ and the final goal of those who will not accept him. The struggle of the Christian and of Christ is against the hostile rulers of the darkness of this world ( Ephesians 6:12). Consistent and rebellious sinners are those for whom the mist of darkness is reserved ( 2 Peter 2:9; Jd 13 ). The darkness is the life which is separated from God.

THE NECESSITY OF WALKING IN THE LIGHT ( 1 John 1:6-7 )

1:6-7 If we say that we have fellowship with him and at the same time walk in darkness, we lie and are not doing the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with each other and the blood of Jesus Christ is steadily cleansing us from all sin.

Here John is writing to counteract one heretical way of thought. There were those who claimed to be specially intellectually and spiritually advanced, but whose lives showed no sign of it. They claimed to have advanced so far along the road of knowledge and of spirituality that for them sin had ceased to matter and the laws had ceased to exist. Napoleon once said that laws were made for ordinary people, but were never meant for the like of him. So these heretics claimed to be so far on that, even if they did sin, it was of no importance whatsoever. In later days Clement of Alexandria tells us that there were heretics who said that it made no difference how a man lived. Irenaeus tells us that they declared that a truly spiritual man was quite incapable of ever incurring any pollution, no matter what kind of deeds he did.

In answer John insists on certain things.

(i) He insists that to have fellowship with the God who is light a man must walk in the light and that, if he is still walking in the moral and ethical darkness of the Christless life, he can not have that fellowship. This is precisely what the Old Testament had said centuries before. God said, "You shall be holy; for I the Lord your God am Holy" ( Leviticus 19:2; compare Leviticus 20:7; Leviticus 20:26). He who would find fellowship with God is committed to a life of goodness which reflects God's goodness. C. H. Dodd writes: "The Church is a society of people who, believing in a God of pure goodness, accept the obligation to be good like him." This does not mean that a man must be perfect before he can have fellowship with God; if that were the case, all of us would be shut out. But it does mean that he will spend his whole life in the awareness of his obligations, in the effort to fulfil them and in penitence when he fails. It will mean that he will never think that sin does not matter; it will mean that the nearer he comes to God, the more terrible sin will be to him.

(ii) He insists that these mistaken thinkers have the wrong idea of truth. He says that, if people who claim to be specially advanced still walk in darkness, they are not doing the truth. Exactly the same phrase is used in the Fourth Gospel, when it speaks of him, who does the truth ( John 3:21). This means that for the Christian truth is never only intellectual; it is always moral. It is not something which exercises only the mind; it is something which exercises the whole personality. Truth is not only the discovery of abstract things; it is concrete living. It is not only thinking; it is also acting. The words which the New Testament uses along with truth are significant. It speaks of obeying the truth ( Romans 2:8; Galatians 3:7); following the truth ( Galatians 2:14; 3 John 1:4); of opposing the truth ( 2 Timothy 3:8); of wandering from the truth ( James 5:19). There is such a thing as might be called "discussion circle Christianity." It is possible to look on Christianity as a series of intellectual problems to be solved and on the Bible as a book about which illuminating information is to be amassed. But Christianity is something to be followed and the Bible a book to be obeyed. It is possible for intellectual eminence and moral failure to go hand in hand. For the Christian the truth is something first to be discovered and then to be obeyed.

THE TESTS OF TRUTH ( 1 John 1:6-7 continued)

As John sees it, there are two great tests of truth.

(i) Truth is the creator of fellowship. If men are really walking in the light, they have fellowship one with another. No belief can be fully Christian if it separates a man from his fellow-men. No Church can be exclusive and still be the Church of Christ. That which destroys fellowship cannot be true.

(ii) He who really knows the truth is daily more and more cleansed from sin by the blood of Jesus. The Revised Standard Version is correct enough here but it can very easily be misunderstood. It runs: "The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin." That can be read as a statement of a general principle. But it is a statement of what ought to be happening in the individual life. The meaning is that all the time, day by day, constantly and consistently, the blood of Jesus Christ ought to be carrying out a cleansing process in the life of the individual Christian.

The Greek for to cleanse is katharizein ( G2511) which was originally a ritual word, describing the ceremonies and washings and so on which qualified a man to approach his gods. But the word, as religion developed, came to have a moral sense; and it describes the goodness which enables a man to enter into the presence of God. So what John is saying is, "If you really know what the sacrifice of Christ has done and are really experiencing its power, day by day you will be adding holiness to your life and becoming more fit to enter the presence of God."

Here indeed is a great conception. It looks on the sacrifice of Christ as something which not only atones for past sin but equips a man in holiness day by day.

True religion is that by which every day a man comes closer to his fellow-men and closer to God. It produces fellowship with God and fellowship with men--and we can never have the one without the other.

THE THREEFOLD LIE ( 1 John 1:6-7 continued)

Four times in his letter John bluntly accuses the false teachers of being liars; and the first of these occasions is in this present passage.

(i) Those who claim to have fellowship with the God who is altogether light and who yet walk in the dark are lying ( 1 John 1:6). A little later he repeats this charge in a slightly different way. The man who says that he knows God and yet does not keep God's commandments is a liar ( 1 John 2:4). John is laying down the blunt truth that the man who says one thing with his lips and another thing with his life is a liar. He is not thinking of the man who tries his hardest and yet often fails. "A man," said H. G. Wells, "may be a very bad musician, and may yet be passionately in love with music"; and a man may be very conscious of his failures and yet be passionately in love with Christ and the way of Christ. John is thinking of the man who makes the highest possible claims to knowledge, to intellectual eminence and to spirituality, and who yet allows himself things which he well knows are forbidden. The man who professes to love Christ and deliberately disobeys him, is guilty of a lie.

(ii) The man who denies that Jesus is the Christ is a liar ( 1 John 2:22). Here is something which runs through the whole New Testament. The ultimate test of any man is his reaction to Jesus. The ultimate question which Jesus asks every man is: "Who do you say that I am?" ( Matthew 16:13). A man confronted with Christ cannot but see the greatness that is there; and, if he denies it, he is a liar.

(iii) The man who says that he loves God and at the same time hates his brother is a liar ( 1 John 4:20). Love of God and hatred of man cannot exist in the same person. If there is bitterness in a man's heart towards any other, that is proof that he does not really love God. All our protestations of love to God are useless if there is hatred in our hearts towards any man.

THE SINNER'S SELF-DECEPTION ( 1 John 1:8-10 )

1:8-10 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, we can rely on him in his righteousness to forgive us our sins and to make us clean from all unrighteousness.

In this passage John describes and condemns two further mistaken ways of thought.

(i) There is the man who says that he has no sin. That may mean either of two things.

It may describe the man who says that he has no responsibility for his sin. It is easy enough to find defences behind which to seek to hide. We may blame our sins on our heredity, on our environment, on our temperament, on our physical condition. We may claim that someone misled us and that we were led astray. It is characteristic of us all that we seek to shuffle out of the responsibility for sin. Or it may describe the man who claims that he can sin and take no harm.

It is John's insistence that, when a man has sinned, excuses and self-justifications are irrelevant. The only thing which will meet the situation is humble and penitent confession to God and, if need be, to men.

Then John says a surprising thing. He says that we can depend on God in his righteousness to forgive us if we confess our sins. On the face of it, we might well have thought that God in his righteousness would have been much more likely to condemn than to forgive. But the point is that God, because he is righteous, never breaks his word; and Scripture is full of the promise of mercy to the man who comes to him with penitent heart. God has promised that he will never despise the contrite heart and he will not break his word. If we humbly and sorrowfully confess our sins, he will forgive. The very fact of making excuses and seeking for self-justification debars us from forgiveness, because it debars us from penitence; the very fact of humble confession opens the door to forgiveness, for the man with the penitent heart can claim the promises of God.

(ii) There is the man who says that he has not in fact sinned. That attitude is not nearly so uncommon as we might think. Any number of people do not really believe that they have sinned and rather resent being called sinners. Their mistake is that they think of sin as the kind of thing which gets into the newspapers. They forget that sin is hamartia ( G266) which literally means a missing of the target. To fail to be as good a father, mother, wife, husband, son, daughter, workman, person as we might be is to sin; and that includes us all.

In any event the man who says that he has not sinned is in effect doing nothing less than calling God a liar, for God has said that all have sinned.

So John condemns the man who claims that he is so far advanced in knowledge and in the spiritual life that sin for him has ceased to matter; he condemns the man who evades the responsibility for his sin or who holds that sin has no effect upon him; he condemns the man who has never even realized that he is a sinner. The essence of the Christian life is first to realize our sin; and then to go to God for that forgiveness which can wipe out the past and for that cleansing which can make the future new.

-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)

Gann's Commentary on the Bible

1 John 1:1

Book Comment:

Walking Thru The Bible

1ST JOHN

Introduction

Author: One of the unique features of the first epistle is that it does not name either the author or the recipients. The Epistle to the Hebrews is the only other book similar in this respect.

    From the beginning it has been recognized as a letter from the Apostle John circulated to the churches around Ephesus (Asia Minor).

    The Apostle John worked with the church in Jerusalem until about A.D. 70. After the destruction of Jerusalem he made his residence at Ephesus. He lived to a great age and here wrote the fourth Gospel, his three epistles and the Book of Revelation.

    Much information about John and testimony to his work and authorship has come down to us through three of his pupils, Polycarp, Papias, and Ignatius, who became leaders in the churches at Smyrna, Hierapolis, and Antioch.

External Evidence:    The external evidence for the Apostle John’s authorship is very great. Only much later did someone try to suggest that the "elder John" was a John different from the Apostle. The term "elder" however was used by 2nd and 3rd generation Christians to refer to their predecessors, "the men of early days". It was natural then for John, the last of the apostles, to refer to himself as one of "the elder men" (Cf. EGT, V, p.160).

Internal Evidence:    The similarity of the 4th Gospel and these three epistles is overwhelming. Identical authorship is obvious from contents, attitude, vocabulary, identical expression style.

Date and Place of Writing:    As Ephesus was the Apostle’s chief abode during the later years of his life, we may assume that they were written from there. Certainly they were written tale in John’s life. The tone of them is that of an old man writing to a younger generation. The internal relation of the three epistles strongly favor their time-order as we have them, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. We may date them about A.D. 80-95.

Recipients:    The first epistle might rightly be called a "general" or "catholic" epistle. It is not addressed to any specific church but is appears messengers took duplicate copies to area churches (See 2 John and 3 John).

Content:    Each of John’s epistles have introductory material and a conclusion, but apart from that it is difficult to make a satisfactory analyzed outline.

Purpose:    John says he writes that the joy of his people be full (1:4) and that they may not sin.

Problem:    Some false teachers were attempting to led some away from the truth. John in a polite way does not name them but he leaves no doubt about whom he is speaking. His language and arguments are directed to refute their heresy.

    One term used to describe this radical philosophy was Docetism. It is from the Greek word that means to seem, ad the Docetists taught that Jesus only "seemed" to have a body. They insisted that he was only a phantom and never had flesh and blood, physical, human body; that he was a purely spiritual being who only appeared to have a body.

    Another term used to describe a philosophy adopted and adapted by some false-Christian teachers was Gnosticism. This Gnosticism led to about three different attitudes:

1.    Since it regarded the body as evil, it sometimes took the form of asceticism with fasting, celibacy, rigid control    and evil deliberate ill treatment of the body.

2.    Or--it might take the form that the body did not matter, therefore it appetites and lusts might be gratified without control and without limit.

3.    The Gnostic regarded himself as an altogether spiritual man; he was above all the material things of life, so completely did they consider themselves above sins that sin, for them, had ceased to exist. To them John speaks of deceiving themselves, 1 John 1:8-10.

A personal enemy of John at Ephesus was a man named Cerinthus. It might help us by seeing by Irenaeus says of him.

    "Cerinthus, again, a man who was educated in the wisdom of the Egyptians,...represented Jesus as having not been born of a virgin, but as being the son of Joseph and Mary according to the ordinary course of human generation, while he nevertheless was more righteous, prudent, and wise than other men. Moreover, after his baptism, Christ descended upon him in the form of a dove from the Supreme Ruler, and that then he proclaimed the unknown Father, and performed miracles. But at last Christ departed from Jesus, and that then Jesus suffered and rose again, while Christ remained impassible / unsuffering / inasmuch as he was a spiritual being."

    Against Heresies, I, 26:1-2.

Style:An understanding of something of the style of John will give greater appreciation to this epistle.

Parallelism

John writes in the Hebraic style of balancing two lines. The second line is usually in opposition or contrast to the first. (CF. 1 John 1:5, 1 John 2:4, 1 John 2:27). Also in antithesis-- 1 John 3:7-10, 1 John 4:4-6, 1 John 5:18-19.

Recapitulation

Sometimes one word will be introduced in a closing sentence of a paragraph only to be taken up and given fuller treatment in the next paragraph.

Word Parenthesis

(Cf. "manifested" 1 John 1:2; "last hour" 1 John 2:18; "out of you" 1 John 2:19; "abide" 1 John 2:27; "love" 1 John 4:7; "Son" 1 John 5:10; "death"; 1 John 5:16.

John’s style sometimes makes him seem repetitious if not understood.

SERMON OUTLINE

WHY THESE THINGS ARE WRITTEN

Introduction:

1.    John sets forth his purpose in writing First John, and deepens our faith in God’s Word.

2.    The idea “I write” or “I have written” appears 9 times.

1.    John Wrote To Give God’s Saints A Basis for Joy - 1 John 1:4

    A.    Men desire happiness. 1 Peter 3:10.

    B.    Greatest happiness comes from obedience to God’s Word.

    C.    We can rejoice in forgiveness of sins.

II.    John Wrote To Urge People To Live Pure Lives - 1 John 2:1-2

    A.    Jesus died for our sins. 1 John 1:2

    B.    Jesus’ blood keeps on cleansing saints from sins - 1 John 1:7

    C.    John would motivate people to live pure lives.

III.     John Wrote So Men Might Have the Right Relationships -

1 John 2:13-14

    A.    Men need to know the Lord.

    B.    Men need to have right relationship with the devil.

    C.    Men need the proper relation to God’s Word.

    D.    Brethren need to have the right relationship with each other -

1 John 2:8-11, 1 John 3:11

IV. John Wrote That God’s People Might Have Access to the Truth--

1 John 2:21

    A.    The Truth shall make you free - John 8:32; 1 Timothy 2:4

    B.    False teachers trying to seduce God’s people - 1 John 2:26

V.    John Wrote That God’s Children Might Know That They Have Eternal Life -

1 John 5:13

    A.    Men need this kind of assurance. “Blessed Assurance” #477.

    B.    This assurance must be built upon God’s revealed and written word. 1 John 5:13.     

CONCLUSION

SECOND SERMON OUTLINE

WHY BRETHREN “GO OUT” FROM US

1 John 2:19

Introduction

1.    It is possible for some to “go out” from us. 1 John 2:19

2.    This danger is seen in the lives of Hymenaeus and Alexander

    (1 Timothy 1:19-20) and Demas (2 Timothy 4:10).

I.    Some “Go Out” Because of Temptation -- Luke 8:13

    A.    Temptation means generally, a testing or trial, but it also means “solicitation to sin.” James 1:12-16.

    B.    “Testing” may come from “friends” (1 Peter 4:3) or lusts of the flesh, eyes, or pride of life. 1 John 2:15.

II.    Some “Go Out” Because Of:

    A.    “Cares of this life” -- Luke 8:14

    B.    Not “seeking the Kingdom first” -- Matthew 6:33

    C.    “Pleasures of this life” -- Luke 8:14 b

III.    Some “Go Out” Because of False Doctrine

    A.    John warned the brethren - 1 John 4:1; 1 John 2:26

    B.    Jesus warned His disciples of false teachers - Matthew 7:15

    C.    Paul described people “tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine” -- Ephesians 4:14

    D.    The Galatian Christians had been deceived by a “perverted gospel” -- Galatians 1:6-9.

    E.    Today brethren are led astray by the false doctrines that:

            1.    “The Church of Christ is just a denomination among denominations.” -- Ephesians 4:4.

            2.    “Morals are relative and ultimately determined by the situation.” -- Galatians 5:19-21.

            3.    “Truth is subjective, and is obtained through dialogue, and through the direct operation of the Holy Spirit.” -- John 8:32; Judges 1:3

Conclusion:

1.    These are some reasons brethren become unfaithful.

2.    Those who “go out” are in the grips of spiritual death -- 1 John 5:16

    a.    A sin unto death is any sin a brother will not confess and repent --1 John 5:16; 1 John 1:6-9.

    b.    Those who “go out” can return -- James 5:19-20.

3.    One thing more tragic than “going out” from the Lord is dying is that condition.

4.    And it is just as tragic to never come “into” the Lord in the first place -- Galatians 3:27; Romans 6:3-5.

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Good resource: The Pulpit Commentary, by A. Plummer.

- - - - Walking Thru The Bible - - - -

[Extended notes in folder - ASV]

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Verse Comment:

1 John 1:1

We -- The Apostles.

The beginning -- He existed before he was manifested to men.

Looked upon -- implies steady contemplation.

Seen, heard, felt -- to contradict Docetism, PpC p.2a [John probably referring to fact he had leaned on His breast at meal ...etc. PP.

Hands handled -- cf. John 20:27. Luke 24:39-40

Word of life -- The "Word: Who is the Life. cf. John 1:1, John 1:14.

v1. Jesus was a man, but v. 2 He was more than a man.

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

That which was from the beginning,.... By which is meant not the Gospel, as if the apostle's design was to assert the antiquity of that, and clear it from the charge of novelty; for though that is called the word, and the word of life, and is the Spirit which gives life, and is the means of quickening dead sinners, and brings the report of eternal life and salvation by Christ, yet the seeing of it with bodily eyes, and handling it with corporeal hands, do not agree with that; but Jesus Christ is here intended, who in his divine nature was, really existed as a divine person, as the everlasting Jehovah, the eternal I AM, which is, and was, and is to come, and existed "from the beginning"; not from the beginning of the preaching of the Gospel by John only, for he was before the Gospel was preached, being the first preacher of it himself, and before John was; yea, before the prophets, before Abraham, and before Adam, and before all creatures, from the beginning of time, and of the creation of the world, being the Maker of all things, even from everlasting; for otherwise he could not have been set up in an office capacity so early, or God's elect be chosen in him before the foundation of the world, and they have grace and blessings given them in him before the world began, or an everlasting covenant be made with him; see John 1:1;

which we have heard; this, with what follows, proves him to be truly and really man; for when the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among men, the apostles heard, and saw, and handled him; they not only heard a voice from heaven, declaring him to be the Son of God, but they often heard him speak himself, both in private conversation with them, and in his public ministry; they heard his many excellent discourses on the mount, and elsewhere, and those that were particularly delivered to them a little before his death; and blessed were they on this account, Matthew 13:16;

which we have seen with our eyes: with the eyes of the body, with their own, and not another's; and they saw him in human nature, and the common actions of life he did, as eating, drinking, walking, c. and his many miracles they saw him raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, restore sight to the blind, cause the lame to walk, the dumb to speak, and the deaf to hear; and they saw him transfigured on the mount. John was one that was present at that time, and saw his glory, as he also was when he hung upon the cross, and saw him bleeding, gasping, and dying there; they saw him after his resurrection from the dead, he showed himself to them alive, and was seen of them forty days; they saw him go up to heaven, and a cloud receiving him out of their sight:

which we have looked upon; wistly and intently, once and again, and a thousand times, and with the utmost pleasure and delight; and knew him perfectly well, and were able to describe exactly his person, stature, features, and the lineaments of his body:

and our hands have handled of the Word of life; as Peter did when Jesus caught him by the hand on the water, when he was just ready to sink; and as this apostle did, when he leaned on his bosom; and as Thomas did, even after his resurrection, when he thrust his hand into his side; and as all the apostles were called upon to see and handle him, that it was he himself, and not a spirit, which has not flesh and bones as he had. Now as this is said of Christ, the Word of life, who is so called, because he has life in himself, as God, as the Mediator, and as man, and is the author of life, natural, spiritual, and eternal, it must be understood as he, the Word, is made manifest in the flesh; for he, as the Word, or as a divine person, or as considered in his divine nature, is not to be seen nor handled: this therefore is spoken of the Word, or of the person of Christ, God-man, with respect to his human nature, as united to the Logos, or Word of God; and so is a proof of the truth and reality of his human nature, by several of the senses.

Mitchell's Commentary on Selected New Testament Books

LIFE EXPERIENCED BY THE APOSTLES

1 John 1:1. What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands han­dled, concerning the Word of Life . . .

In this verse we have the testimony of those who knew the Lord in person and who walked with Him when He was on earth. What an experience these men must have had! Have you ever stopped to think how wonderful it must have been?

They lived with the Saviour.

They accompanied Him for three-and-a-half years.

They traveled with Him, ate with Him, slept with Him.

They listened to His gracious words.

They heard His claims of deity and saw His miracles.

What a blessed sight to see Him heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, open the eyes of the blind, re­buke the fever.

They were with Him when He fed the hungry and when He stilled the storm. No wonder they cried out,

Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him? (Mark 4:41).

Consider, for example the feeding of the five thousand. He took the little boy’s lunch of five loaves and two fishes, and looking up to heaven, He blessed them, broke them, and gave them to the disciples.

Then, as the disciples gave the food to the multi­tude, it was multiplied. When they had fed the

multitude, each disciple had a basketful left (Mat­thew 14:15-21).

My, what an experience was theirs! We could spend much time thinking of the wonderful, mi­raculous things that happened in those three-and­a-half years. This is what John is talking about in this verse.

You absolutely could not fool these men. They knew!

1 John 1:1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled.

Whom did they see and hear? The Word of Life! He can be as real to you as He was to His disciples.

My friend, you may not know much about doc­trine, but if you have received the Saviour, you can have a real experience with God, just as these men did.

You can experience His presence.

You can rejoice in His fellowship.

You can revel in His strength and power and can have full joy in Him.

You can know His tenderness, His love, His com­fort.

I have often wondered how these men felt when they went with Jesus to the tomb of Lazarus.

You will recall that Jesus said, “Remove the stone.”

Martha objected. “Don’t do it! Leave it there be­cause he is already in corruption, for he has been dead four days.”

Jesus answered, “Did I not say to you, if you be­lieve, you will see the glory of God?”

When they had taken away the stone, He said, “Lazarus, come forth!”

Then said Jesus, Unbind him, and let him go (John 11:38-44).

The shocked apostles had just seen resurrection.

Remember this when you come to times of sorrow, when friends or family are taken home to God. You, too, will one day see resurrection; and
you, too, can know what it is to experience the

very presence of the One who said, “Because I live, you shall live also” (John 14:19). “I am the resur­rection and the life; he who believes in Me, shall live even if he dies” (John 11:25).

John knew Him as a Man among men. He knew Him as the risen Saviour. He was the one who had his head upon His bosom. He had heard, had seen, had touched the Word of Life. So, in this verse he is able to tell us what he really knows.

We too can know! I am sure that as we consider together the truths of this wonderful Epistle, the Word of Life will become more real and more pre­cious to us.

Light of Israel Bible Commentary

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched – this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 1 John 1:1

As it has been said, we live on a "visited planet." In the fullness of time the Almighty God sent his only Son to live on this planet as the perfect example of what a human being should be like. He came here in flesh and blood in order to redeem all of us who are flesh and blood, but who are bound by sin and death. The Apostle John the Beloved is here bearing clear witness to what is surely the most important act in human history, the Incarnation of the Son of God.

The ancient Greek thinkers, likely following the teaching of Plato, seemed to have had a block in their heads concerning this very subject. They came to believe that the earth and the flesh were evil and beyond redemption, while the spiritual realm was the only real realm and the only thing that mattered. For them it was unthinkable that God could come down to earth and take upon himself mere flesh. The Gnostic teachers responsible for this letter being written were simply following the Greek way of thinking. Unfortunately, it was in clear opposition to the Hebrew way of thinking that is seen here and throughout the Bible.

The expression, "from the beginning" is very similar but somewhat different than the expression of John 1:1. Scholars seem divided as to whether or not this expression speaks of the beginning of creation and time, or whether it speaks of the beginning of Jesus' ministry. It would seem that John is using the expression much akin to John 1:1 and that he is referring once more to the beginning of creation. As Barclay, that Scottish great, says, "in him eternity entered time; in him the eternal God personally entered the world of men."<footnote>William Barclay, William Barclay's Daily Study Bible, Commentary on 1 John, 1956-1959, vs. 1:1-4. "https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/dsb/1-john-1.html".</footnote> Peter Pett, the English Baptist college lecturer and Bible commentator, remarks, "'That which was from the beginning.' In the light of John 1:1 – this can only signify the eternity of 'the Word of life.'"<footnote>Peter Pett, Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible, Commentary on 1 John, 2013, v. 1:1. https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/pet/1-john-1.html.</footnote>

With this verse, John launches a withering attack on those who would deny that Jesus came in the flesh and that he was a real man. Many of the Gnostics were what we would call Docetists. The Greek word from which this is taken means "to appear." Thus, it would mean that Jesus only appeared to be a man but he was in fact a phantom. Such a view would satisfy the Greek understanding, that the world and flesh were evil and that a righteous God would not be able to be associated with flesh. Unfortunately, this view was mistaken.

John comes forward with several eye-witness statements that thoroughly dispute the Gnostics. He says in essence that God really did become a man and that the disciples were all witnesses to this fact. He says, "We have heard" with our ears. The apostle is not presenting some mere hearsay evidence. He is not relating what others have heard but what he himself has heard. After all, the Beloved Disciple was personally with Jesus during the whole of his earthly ministry. He was even present when Jesus died on the cross. He had personally heard the Word of Life. He heard the Eternal God speak through the flesh of Jesus Christ. As British rector emeritus and prolific writer John Stott says, "What the apostle stresses in his proclamation of the gospel is the historical manifestation of the eternal."<footnote>John R. Stott, The Letters of John, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, Vol. 19 (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1964, 1988, p. 62.</footnote>

Since John was closer to Jesus than the other disciples he heard a lot of things that they did not hear. He heard that Jesus was the logos or Word of God (John 1:1); He heard that he was the Living Water (4:10); He heard that Jesus was the Bread of Life (6:35); that he was the Good Shepherd (John 10:11); and that he was the True Vine (15:1). He heard a lot of other things that they did not hear. They were just not close enough.

Not only did John hear with his own ears the words of the eternal God, but he saw the manifestation of God with his own eyes. John tries to describe the Logos saying, "…which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at…" (1 John 1:1).

The first Greek word for "look" used here (horan) simply means to see. However, the second word (looked at) is theasthai. Barclay describes this word saying, "The verb… theasthai…means to gaze at someone or something until something has been grasped of the significance of that person or thing…"<footnote>Barclay, William Barclay's Daily Study Bible, vs. 1:1-4.</footnote> The disciples had thoroughly looked at and gazed upon Jesus. They knew he was real and that he was the incarnate Son of God. As John would say in his gospel, "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14).

Finally, John says that he has not only heard and seen the Lord but he has actually touched him. The Greek here is pslaphan. Stott, quoting Brooke, says it means "to grope or feel after in order to find, like a blind man or one in the dark; hence to handle, touch… examine closely"<footnote>Quoted in Stott, The Letters of John, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, p. 64.</footnote>

Since John was closer to Jesus than the other disciples, there were probably many times that he snuggled up to Jesus and spoke privately with him. We see one of those times at the Lord's Supper. We note that John was leaning against the Lord's breast during the supper (John 13:25). John could have probably added to his testimony here, "I have even heard his heartbeat!"<footnote>Ray C. Stedman, Ray Stedman Expository Studies, Commentary on 1 John, 2010, v. 1:1. "https//www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/rsc/1-john-1.html".</footnote> In Luke 24:39–40, even after his resurrection, Jesus said to his disciples, "'Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.' When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet." Thus we see that the disciples were not only witnesses of Jesus' fleshly body but of his resurrected spiritual body as well.

John was proclaiming that he had heard, seen and touched the very Word of Life. We can understand by this why it was so important for these early disciples to leave everything and follow after Jesus. He would not appear incarnate again in all human history.

The expression "Word of Life" is an important one. In the Greek language "word" is logos. It was a very popular Greek philosophical concept. Calvary Chapel pastor and web commentator, David Guzik, describes it saying that logos is, "…the basis for organization and intelligence in the universe, the Ultimate Reason which controls all things… It is as if John said to everyone, 'This Logos you have been talking about and writing about for centuries – well, we have heard him, seen him, studied him, and touched him! Let us tell you about him."<footnote>David Guzik, David Guzik Commentaries on the Bible, Commentary on 1 John, 1997-2003, v. 1:1. https://enduringword.com/bible-commentary/1-john-</footnote>

For those moderns and postmoderns who doubt that there is a supreme intelligence behind our universe, we would only mention that several top-notch physicists are now defining the universe in terms like these: J. A. Wheeler says the essence of the universe is information. James Jeans says it is more like a thought, while Werner Heisenberg thinks it is like an idea and George Wald sees it more as mind.<footnote>Gerald L. Schroeder, God According to God, A Physicist Proves We've Been Wrong About God All Along, (NY: Harper Collins, 2009), p. 202.</footnote> All these descriptions are extremely close to "word."

"The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us" (1:2). Augustine (354-430) says of this, "The life itself has been manifested in flesh, so that what can be seen by the heart alone might be seen also by the eyes, in order that hearts might be healed."<footnote>Gerald Bray, ed., Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, James, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude, Vol. XI, New Testament (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 2009, p. 166.</footnote> John says later in this verse that it is the eternal life that has been manifested. The Greek word for eternal is aionios and according to Thayer it means "without beginning and without end, that which always has been and always will be, eternal." Life is zoe and also according to Thayer it "indicates…the absolute fullness of life, both essential and ethical, which belongs to God."<footnote>Quoted in Kenneth S. Wuest, In These Last Days, II Peter, I, II, III John, and Jude in the Greek New Testament (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1954), p. 95.</footnote> It is this eternal life that has been proclaimed to us.

John says that "the life appeared" or was made manifest. The Greek word is phaneroo, and it means "to make manifest or visible or known what has been hidden or unknown."<footnote>Ibid., p. 93.</footnote> It is important to note that the word for "seen" used here is in the Greek perfect, which speaks of continuing action. Pett says of it, "The perfect indicates something happening in the past and continuing into the present. He cannot forget the glory of it and it is still with him. We heard, and we still hear, we saw, and we still see…spiritually that hearing and seeing still goes on in a deeper way, for it is imbedded in their hearts …"<footnote>Pett, Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible, Commentary on 1 John, v. 1:2.</footnote> Kenneth Wuest, the noted Greek scholar comments, "Thus the incarnation of the Son of God was the making visible to human understanding, the life which God is."<footnote>Wuest, In These Last Days, II Peter, I, II, III John, and Jude in the Greek New Testament, p. 94.</footnote>

"We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ" (1:3). John has discovered that which is too good to be kept for himself. It absolutely must be shared with others. The word for "fellowship" is the common New Testament Greek word koinonia. This is a very important concept in John's letter. Pett says it, "…indicates a closeness of relationship. It can signify the marriage relationship, a true and working partnership, a oneness of many, and it can mean to be so close together that all is shared, that their aims and goals are shared, that they have all things that are important in common."<footnote>Pett, Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible, Commentary on 1 John, v. 1:2.</footnote> The great reformer, John Calvin, says, "Whosoever, then, really perceives what fellowship with God is, will be satisfied with it alone, and will no more burn with desires for other things…."<footnote>John Calvin, Calvin's Commentary on the Bible Commentary on 1 John, 1840-57, p. 59. "https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/cal/1-john-2.html".</footnote> The apostle is no doubt wishing to make clear that those who have broken the church fellowship or who have left it altogether are running a big risk of losing the life of God that is only revealed in his Son.

"We write this to make our joy complete" (1:4). The reason for his writing is that his hearers may have fellowship with him and with the Father, so that everyone's joy can become full and overflow. This reminds us of Psalm 16:11, "You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand." Guzik says of this divine joy, "This joy is an abiding sense of optimism and cheerfulness based on God, as opposed to happiness, which is a sense of optimism and cheerfulness based on circumstances…."<footnote>Guzik, David Guzik Commentaries on the Bible, Commentary on 1 John, v. 1:4.</footnote> We all know that circumstances can change but true joy always abides. It continues with us and in fact it becomes our strength (Nehemiah 8:10).

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;   2 (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)   3 That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.   4 And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.

      The apostle omits his name and character (as also the author to the Hebrews does) either out of humility, or as being willing that the Christian reader should be swayed by the light and weight of the things written rather than by the name that might recommend them. And so he begins,

      I. With an account or character of the Mediator's person. He is the great subject of the gospel, the foundation and object of our faith and hope, the bond and cement that unite us unto God. He should be well known; and he is represented here, 1. As the Word of life,1 John 1:1; 1 John 1:1. In the gospel these two are disjoined, and he is called first the Word,John 1:1, and afterwards Life, intimating, withal, that he is intellectual life. In him was life, and that life was (efficiently and objectively) the light of men,John 1:4. Here both are conjoined: The Word of life, the vital Word. In that he is the Word, it is intimated that he is the Word of some person or other; and that is God, even the Father. He is the Word of God, and so he is intimated to issue from the Father, as truly (though not in the same manner) as a word (or speech, which is a train of words) from a speaker. But he is not a mere vocal word, a bare logos prophorikos, but a vital one: the Word of life, the living word; and thereupon, 1. As eternal life. His duration shows his excellency. He was from eternity; and so is, in scripture-account, necessary, essential, uncreated life. That the apostle speaks of his eternity, à parte ante (as they say) and as from everlasting, seems evident in that he speaks of him as he was in and from the beginning; when he was then with the Father, before his manifestation to us, yea, before the making of all things that were make; as John 1:2; John 1:3. So that he is the eternal, vital, intellectual Word of the eternal living Father. 3. As life manifested (1 John 1:2; 1 John 1:2), manifested in the flesh, manifested to us. The eternal life would assume mortality, would put on flesh and blood (in the entire human nature), and so dwell among us and converse with us, John 1:14. Here were condescension and kindness indeed, that eternal life (a person of eternal essential life) should come to visit mortals, and to procure eternal life for them, and then confer it on them!

      II. With the evidences and convictive assurances that the apostle and his brethren had of the Mediator's presence and converse in this world. There were sufficient demonstrations of the reality of his abode here, and of the excellency and dignity of his person in the way of his manifestation. The life, the word of life, the eternal life, as such, could not be seen and felt; but the life manifested might be, and was so. The life was clothed with flesh, put on the state and habit of abased human nature, and as such gave sensible proof of its existence and transactions here. The divine life, or Word incarnate, presented and evinced itself to the very senses of the apostles. As, 1. To their ears: That which we have heard,1 John 1:1; 1 John 1:3. The life assumed a mouth and tongue, that he might utter words of life. The apostles not only heard of him, but they heard him himself. Above three years might they attend his ministry, be auditors of his public sermons and private expositions (for he expounded them in his house), and be charmed with the words of him who spoke as never man spoke before or since. The divine word would employ the ear, and the ear should be devoted to the word of life. And it was meet that those who were to be his representatives and imitators to the world should be personally acquainted with his ministrations. 2. To their eyes: That which we have seen with our eyes,1 John 1:1-3; 1 John 1:1-3. The Word would become visible, would not only be heard, but seen, seen publicly, privately, at a distance and at nearest approach, which may be intimated in the expression, with our eyes--with all the use and exercise that we could make of our eyes. We saw him in his life and ministry, saw him in his transfiguration on the mount, hanging, bleeding, dying, and dead, upon the cross, and we saw him after his return from the grave and resurrection from the dead. His apostles must be eye-witnesses as well as ear-witnesses of him. Wherefore, of these men that have accompanied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection,Acts 1:21; Acts 1:22. And we were eye-witnesses of his majesty,2 Peter 1:16. 3. To their internal sense, to the eyes of their mind; for so (possibly) may the next clause be interpreted: Which we have looked upon. This may be distinguished from the foregoing perception, seeing with the eyes; and may be the same with what the apostle says in his gospel (1 John 1:14; 1 John 1:14), And we beheld--etheasametha, his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father. The word is not applied to the immediate object of the eye, but to that which was rationally collected from what they saw. "What we have well discerned, contemplated, and viewed, what we have well known of this Word of life, we report to you." The senses are to be the informers of the mind. 4. To their hands and sense of feeling: And our hands have handled (touched and felt) of the Word of life. This surely refers to the full conviction our Lord afforded his apostles of the truth, reality, solidity, and organization of his body, after his resurrection from the dead. When he showed them his hands and his side, it is probable that he gave them leave to touch him; at least, he knew of Thomas's unbelief, and his professed resolution too not to believe, till he had found and felt the places and signatures of the wounds by which he died. Accordingly at the next congress he called Thomas, in the presence of the rest, to satisfy the very curiosity of his unbelief. And probably others of them did so too. Our hands have handled of the Word of life. The invisible life and Word was no despiser of the testimony of sense. Sense, in its place and sphere, is a means that God has appointed, and the Lord Christ has employed, for our information. Our Lord took care to satisfy (as far as might be) all the senses of his apostles, that they might be the more authentic witnesses of him to the world. Those that apply all this to the hearing of the gospel lose the variety of sensations here mentioned, and the propriety of the expressions, as well as the reason of their inculcation and repetition here: That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you,1 John 1:3; 1 John 1:3. The apostles could not be deceived in such long and various exercise of their sense. Sense must minister to reason and judgment; and reason and judgment must minister to the reception of the Lord Jesus Christ and his gospel. The rejection of the Christian revelation is at last resolved into the rejection of sense itself. He upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not those who had seen him after he had risen,Mark 16:14.

      III. With a solemn assertion and attestation of these grounds and evidences of the Christian truth and doctrine. The apostles publish these assurances for our satisfaction: We bear witness, and show unto you,1 John 1:2; 1 John 1:2. That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you,1 John 1:3; 1 John 1:3. It became the apostles to open to the disciples the evidence by which they were led, the reasons by which they were constrained to proclaim and propagate the Christian doctrine in the world. Wisdom and integrity obliged them to demonstrate that it was not either private fancy or a cunningly-devised fable that they presented to the world. Evident truth would open their mouths, and force a public profession. We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard,Acts 4:20. It concerned the disciples to be well assured of the truth of the institution they had embraced. They should see the evidences of their holy religion. It fears not the light, nor the most judicious examination. It is able to afford rational conviction and solid persuasion of mind and conscience. I would that you knew what great conflict (or concern of mind) I have for you, and for those at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts might be knit together in love, and unto all riches of full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, even of the Father, and of Christ,Colossians 2:1; Colossians 2:2.

      IV. With the reason of the apostle's exhibiting and asserting this summary of sacred faith, and this breviate of evidence attending it. This reason is twofold:--

      1. That the believers of it may be advanced to the same happiness with them (with the apostles themselves): That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that you may have fellowship with us,1 John 1:3; 1 John 1:3. The apostle means not personal fellowship nor consociation in the same church-administrations, but such as is consistent with personal distance from each other. It is communion with heaven, and in blessings that come thence and tend thither. "This we declare and testify, that you may share with us in our privileges and happiness." Gospel spirits (or those that are made happy by gospel grace) would fain have others happy too. We see, also, there is a fellowship or communion that runs through the whole church of God. There may be some personal distinctions and peculiarities, but there is a communion (or common participation of privilege and dignity) belonging to all saints, from the highest apostle to the lowest believer. As there is the same precious faith, there are the same precious promises dignifying and crowning that faith and the same precious blessings and glories enriching and filling those promises. Now that believers may be ambitious of this communion, that they may be instigated to retain and hold fast the faith that is the means of such communion, that the apostles also may manifest their love to the disciples in assisting them to the same communion with themselves, they indicate what it is and where it is: And truly our fellowship (or communion) is with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. We have communion with the Father, and with the Son of the Father (as 2 John 1:3, he is most emphatically styled) in our happy relation to them, in our receiving heavenly blessings from them, and in our spiritual converse with them. We have now such supernatural conversation with God and the Lord Christ as is an earnest and foretaste of our everlasting abode with them, and enjoyment of them, in the heavenly glory. See to what the gospel revelation tends--to advance us far above sin and earth and to carry us to blessed communion with the Father and the Son. See for what end the eternal life was made flesh--that he might advance us to eternal life in communion with the Father and himself. See how far those live beneath the dignity, use, and end of the Christian faith and institution, who have not spiritual blessed communion with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ.

      2. That believers may be enlarged and advanced in holy joy: And these things write we unto you that your joy may be full,1 John 1:4; 1 John 1:4. The gospel dispensation is not properly a dispensation of fear, sorrow, and dread, but of peace and joy. Terror and astonishment may well attend mount Sinai, but exultation and joy mount Zion, where appears the eternal Word, the eternal life, manifested in our flesh. The mystery of the Christian religion is directly calculated for the joy of mortals. It should be joy to us that the eternal Son should come to seek and save us, that he has made a full atonement for our sins, that he has conquered sin and death and hell, that he lives as our Intercessor and Advocate with the Father, and that he will come again to perfect and glorify his persevering believers. And therefore those live beneath the use and end of the Christian revelation who are not filled with spiritual joy. Believers should rejoice in their happy relation to God, as his sons and heirs, his beloved and adopted,--in their happy relation to the Son of the Father, as being members of his beloved body, and coheirs with himself,--in the pardon of their sins, the sanctification of their natures, the adoption of their persons, and the prospect of grace and glory that will be revealed at the return of their Lord and head from heaven. Were they confirmed in their holy faith, how would they rejoice! The disciples were filled with joy, and with the Holy Ghost,Acts 13:52.