(1 John 1:1-4 )  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. {2} 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.

Once upon a time. . . .” Remember how exciting those words used to be? They were the open door into an exciting world of make-believe, a dream world that helped you forget all the problems of childhood.

Then—pow! You turned a corner one day, and “Once upon a time” became kid stuff. You discovered that life is a battleground, not a playground, and fairy stories were no longer meaningful. You wanted something real.

The search for something real is not new. It has been going on since the beginning of history. Men have looked for reality and satisfaction in wealth, thrills, conquest, power, learning, and even in religion.

There is nothing really wrong with these experiences, except that by themselves they never really satisfy. Wanting something real and finding something real are two different things. Like a child eating cotton candy at the circus, many people who expect to bite into something real end up with a mouthful of nothing. They waste priceless years on empty substitutes for reality.

This is where the Apostle John’s first epistle comes in. Written centuries ago, this letter deals with a theme that is forever up-to-date: the life that is real.

John had discovered that satisfying reality is not to be found in things or thrills, but in a Person—Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Without wasting any time, he tells us about this “living reality” in the first paragraph of his letter.

When John was called he was found mending his nets. John is a mender. His written ministry comes in after the church has been in existence for several decades, and at a time when apostasy had begun to creep in. There was need of a voice to call people back to the original foundations and that is the ministry of the Apostle John. He calls men back to truth. When we begin to drift, when some false concept creeps into our thinking or into our actions, it is John who is ordained of the Lord to call us back, to mend the nets and to set things straight.

If you were to go into the streets and ask, “What is Christianity?” you’d probably get a wide range of answers. Some might say that it is a system of thought or morality. Others might call it a religious organization. Those who are bitter against the church may say that it’s an evil system of repression. Even if you were to limit your question to those who make a claim to be some sort of Christian, I’d guess that you would get a wide range of answers.

The same would be true if you asked, “Who do you think Jesus Christ is?” Many would say that He was a great religious teacher or a good man. Some may identify Him as the founder of Christianity. Some may even say, correctly, that He is the Son of God, but they would be hard pressed to explain what that means.

It’s no accident that there is such confusion on the essence of true Christianity and the person of Jesus Christ. These are foundational issues. If you have a shaky foundation, it does not matter if the rest of the building is impressive—you’ve got a shaky building! And so Satan has tried to confuse people about true Christianity.

He’s been at it for centuries. Before the first century church was sixty years old, Satan had moved in to cause confusion. As we saw last week, many false teachers had arisen in the churches of Asia Minor, where the aged apostle John labored. They had left the churches and taken followers with them (1 John 2:19). They claimed to have the real truth about Christ and Christianity. So the apostle John wrote to his little children in the faith, to make sure that they were clear on the essence of true Christianity. He wanted them to spot and resist error and to grow in true fellowship with Jesus Christ.

The enemy is no less active today in stirring up such confusion. There are the cults, of course, with their blatant deviations from the faith. But, also, there are many errors that keep worming their way into Christian circles. Currently, the “new perspective on Paul” seeks to redefine the doctrine of justification by faith alone. The unity movement sets aside the gospel for the sake of unity between Roman Catholics and Protestants. “Open Theism” challenges God’s omniscience and absolute sovereignty. Arminianism in effect makes man sovereign over God in the matter of salvation. “Christian” psychology has introduced many errors, including the concept of self-esteem. The list could go on!

John begins his letter by getting right down to business. Except for Hebrews, John’s letters are the only New Testament epistles that begin without an opening salutation. Instead, John begins with a section that is similar to the prologue of his Gospel. Here he begins to counter the false teachers. He shows that…

True Christianity is Jesus Christ—revealed, experienced, and proclaimed with joy.

Christianity is not essentially a system of thought. Rather, it is a person—Jesus Christ—who was historically validated, personally experienced, and authoritatively proclaimed by the apostles. That is the foundation that John lays in these opening verses.

1. True Christianity is Jesus Christ revealed.

The main foundation of Christianity is not the speculations of men about God, but rather that God has chosen to reveal Himself to us. The prime way that He did that is in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ, who is the eternal God in human flesh. The only way that we can come to God or know Him is through Jesus Christ. As Jesus said (John 14:6), “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” Or, again Jesus said (John 17:3), “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

A. The revelation of Jesus Christ is historically validated.

John begins (1:1) by listing five ways that the revelation of Jesus Christ is historically validated. After the first, the last four are in a progression from the least (heard) to the most definite (touched).

(1). Jesus Christ is validated by the historic message about Him.

Conservative scholars are divided over the interpretation of the first phrase, “what was from the beginning.” Some note the parallel with John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This parallels Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” So they interpret this as a reference to the eternality of the Son of God. They argue that this is supported by the phrase in 1 John 1:2, “was with the Father,” and by 2:13, 14, which refers to Jesus as existing “from the beginning.” (John Stott argues for this, The Epistles of John [Eerdmans], pp. 58-59.)

Others, however, while not denying the eternality of the Son, argue that that is not John’s meaning here. They would argue that instead the phrase means what it later means in 1 John 2:7, 2:24, and 3:11, namely, the beginning of the gospel. They point out that John’s emphasis here, to counter the recent message of the false teachers, is that the apostolic message has not changed. It is the same message that has been proclaimed from the earliest days of the gospel. Also, the emphasis of the rest of verse 1 is on Christ’s humanity. So John’s point would be that his message is not the new message of the Gnostics. Rather, it is the old message, which has been proclaimed from the earliest days of Christ’s ministry. It is the same message that his readers had heard and believed from the beginning of their Christian experience. (F. F. Bruce, The Epistles of John [Eerdmans], p. 35; A. W. Pink, Exposition of 1 John [Associated Publishers & Authors], pp. 7-8; and Robert Law, The Tests of Life [Baker], p. 369, argue for this view.)

It is difficult to decide between these two views, but I lean toward the second view, in that John here seems to be appealing to his apostolic authority, and the fact that he had been with Jesus from the beginning of His earthly ministry. Thus the records of the four Gospels bear witness to the person of Jesus Christ.

(2). Jesus Christ is validated by His teaching.

“What we have heard” (1:1). John and the other apostles (the “we” of 1:1-4) had heard the very words of Jesus, and what amazing words they were! Even His enemies testified (John 7:46), “Never has a man spoken the way this man speaks.” How true! If you are trying to bear witness to someone who has never read the Gospels, direct him to do that. The words of Jesus bear witness of who He is.

(3). Jesus Christ is validated by His life and miracles.

“What we have seen with our eyes.” The addition of the phrase, “with our eyes,” shows that John is not talking about a mystical “vision” of Christ, but of actually watching Jesus as He lived before them. The apostles saw Jesus turn the water into wine, feed the 5,000, walk on water, heal the multitudes, and raise the dead. The 35 miracles recorded in the four gospels are only a fraction of those that the apostles witnessed. John (21:25) ends his gospel by stating that if all the things that Jesus did were written in detail, the whole world couldn’t contain the books. Jesus’ sinless life and the powerful miracles He performed validate that He is the unique Son of God.

(4). Jesus Christ is validated by the glory of His person.

“What we have looked at.” This is not just a repetition of “what we have seen with our eyes,” but a step further. The Greek verb means, “careful and deliberate vision which interprets its object” (G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament [Scribner’s], p. 203). We derive our English word “theater” from it. It is the word that John (1:14) uses in his gospel, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John was especially referring to his experience on the Mount of Transfiguration, when he and Peter and James saw Jesus’ glory unveiled. Peter refers to that event when he states (2 Pet. 1:16), “For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.”

(5). Jesus Christ is validated by His bodily resurrection.

What we have … “touched with our hands.” This is the same word that Jesus used after His resurrection, when He appeared to the disciples. He said (Luke 24:39), “See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (see also, John 20:27).

So John is saying that Jesus Christ was revealed and that He was historically validated by the apostles in all of these objective ways, both before and after the resurrection. But, also, …

B. The revelation of Jesus Christ is spiritually manifested.

John states (1:1) that he is writing “concerning the Word of Life,” and then adds (1:2), “and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us.” In verse 1, the emphasis is on the humanity of Jesus Christ as He came in the flesh. In verse 2, John’s focus shifts to Jesus Christ as the one who both embodies and imparts eternal life. By stating that this Eternal Life (it should be capitalized) was “with the Father,” he uses the same preposition as in John 1:1, “the Word was with God.” But there the focus is on Jesus as the Word. Here the emphasis is on Jesus as the Life. This has two important implications:

(1). The message about Jesus Christ is not only about knowledge—it’s also about life.

The false teachers emphasized secret knowledge. While proper knowledge is vital—you cannot believe the gospel without knowing certain facts—there is more. The gospel is about dead sinners being raised to new life. Nicodemus was a teacher of the Jews (he had knowledge), but before he met with Jesus, he did not understand that he needed new life through the new birth (John 3:1-16). The apostle Paul told the Ephesians that they were dead in their sins (Eph. 2:1-3). Then he adds the wonderful words (2:4-5), “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ….”

So the gospel is not just a matter of knowing and assenting to the facts about Jesus Christ, although it includes that. It’s also a matter of Christ raising you from spiritual death to life.

(2). The message about Jesus Christ must be revealed to us so that we can see Christ as our life.

John states (1:2), “the life was manifested,” and then repeats that this eternal life “was manifested to us” (the apostles). In other words, the apostles not only had Jesus Christ revealed to them in an objective, historical way; but also, He was manifested to them in a spiritual way as “the life, the eternal one” (literal translation of the Greek). God opened their eyes to see that the man, Jesus, was not just a godly man or a great teacher. It was revealed to them that He is “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16-17).

Why didn’t the multitudes that heard the same teaching and saw the same miracles as the apostles also see and believe in Christ as the life-giving Savior? Jesus explained (Luke 10:21) that the Father had hidden these things from the wise and revealed them to infants (see also, Matt. 13:10-17). Then (10:22) He added, “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” In a similar vein, Paul explained (2 Cor. 4:4), “… the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” Unless God shines into our hearts to give sight (2 Cor. 4:6), we cannot and will not see the truth about who Jesus Christ really is. At its core, true Christianity is Jesus Christ revealed.

2. True Christianity is Jesus Christ experienced.

Our experience of Jesus Christ must be based on the biblical revelation of Him. It is both personal and corporate. The personal aspect is evident in the repetition of “we” and “our” in these verses. The apostles knew Christ individually, but also they shared together in the experience. And the experience was progressive, or growing. We can see this here in three ways (I need to be brief now, but I hope to come back to this next week):

A. The experience of Jesus Christ begins with reliable information about Him (1:1).

This is the historical validation that we’ve already seen. Christianity is not a mystical experience or someone’s subjective ideas about God. Rather, it is an experience rooted in history. God sent His Son at a point in history, in fulfillment of promises that He had made in earlier history. Our experience must be biblically based.

B. The information leads to eternal life (1:2).

This is the spiritual manifestation of Jesus Christ. At some point in discovering the historical facts, God opens a person’s eyes to see who Jesus truly is. He sees that Jesus is Life, eternal life (John 14:6). As John later states (1 John 5:20), “And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.”

C. The eternal life leads to deepening fellowship with God and with other believers (1:3).

“Fellowship” means, literally, to share in common. The fellowship that we share when we come to know Jesus Christ as our life is two-dimensional: it is with God and with one another. John begins on the human plane, stating that he is proclaiming these truths about Jesus Christ “so that you too may have fellowship with us” (the apostolic circle). Then he adds, “and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.” John Stott (ibid., pp. 63-64) explains, “John does not here mention the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, which is a characteristic expression in the Pauline Epistles (2 Cor. 13:14; Phil. 2:1), no doubt because the false teachers against whom he is writing make him concentrate on the Son, whom their heresy dishonored, and the Father whom they thereby forfeited.”

I’ll say more about this fellowship next time, but for now let me say that true Christianity is an experience rooted in revelation and realized in relationship—with God and with other believers. This two-dimensional fellowship should always be deepening in both directions. If you’ve been a Christian for a while, you should know and enjoy fellowship with God better than before. And, you should be deepening your relationships with God’s people. This is to say that unless you are in solitary confinement, you cannot be a growing Christian in isolation from other Christians. True Christianity is an experience of fellowship with God and with His people.

3. True Christianity is Jesus Christ proclaimed.

The Gnostics claimed that the truth about Christ was a deep mystery or secret, known only by the few. They were deliberately exclusive. But John counters their error by showing that true Christianity is not exclusive and hidden. Rather, it is a message that by its very nature must be proclaimed. He uses three words to describe how the apostles communicated the gospel:

A. We proclaim Jesus Christ on the authority of eyewitness testimony (“testify”).

“Testify” is a legal term meaning, “to bear witness.” When you testify in court, you swear to tell the truth about what you saw or heard. John Stott (p. 61) calls this “the authority of experience.” The apostles spoke the truth about what they had seen and heard during their time with Jesus.

B. We proclaim Jesus Christ on the authority of commission (“proclaim”).

This word means to report or announce as a messenger. Stott calls it “the authority of commission,” in that it implies that Jesus Christ appointed the apostles to proclaim the good news about His life, teaching, death, and resurrection. They did not launch the church because they were a bunch of religious entrepreneurs or franchisers, promoting their business. They were under orders from Jesus Christ and they weren’t free to change the message to fit the customers. They had to proclaim the message that the King had commanded them. That message hasn’t changed!

C. We proclaim Jesus Christ on the authority of written revelation (“write”).

John (and some of the other apostles) wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit the words that God wanted us to receive. Through these writings (our New Testament), we can enter into the same fellowship with God that the apostles enjoyed!

If John and the other apostles had not proclaimed the message, we wouldn’t know Christ today. The Great Commission that Jesus gave to them applies to us, also. If we don’t proclaim to others the authoritative message of the King, how will they know and believe (see Rom. 10:14-15)? God’s method of imparting eternal life to those who are dead in their sins is through the proclamation of the word of life, the gospel. If you’re not proclaiming God’s revelation about Jesus Christ by your life and words, you’re not experiencing the fullness of true Christianity. One final note:

4. True Christianity is great joy in Jesus Christ.

John says that he writes these things “so that our joy may be made complete.” Some later manuscripts change “our” to “your,” and certainly that is true. But the original reading was probably “our” joy, referring to the joy of the apostolic circle that knew Christ firsthand. John was by this point the only surviving apostle. But, how was his joy made complete in writing these things? In the sense of 3 John 4, “I have no greater joy than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth” (see also, 2 John 4). If John’s little children would read these letters and not be carried away by the false teachers, but continue in the truth, he was a happy man.

You may think that joy in the Lord is a nice extra, but not essential. But as John Piper often points out, we cannot glorify God properly unless we enjoy Him thoroughly. A. W. Pink (ibid., p. 28) observed, “Now this joy is not to be regarded as a luxury, but rather as a spiritual necessity. We are obligated to be glad in God.” He goes on to cite several Scriptures that command us to be glad and rejoice in the Lord. Then he points out that we will not glorify God apart from such genuine joy in Him. Our aim in proclaiming the gospel to others should be that they, too, would come to share our joy in Jesus Christ.

Conclusion

James Boice sums up (The Epistles of John [Zondervan], p. 30),

This then is the way in which the gospel has come to us and must be passed on. The apostles bore witness to what they had seen and heard of Jesus, proclaimed it authoritatively on His commission, and finally preserved it in the writings which have since become our New Testament. Today believers are to take their writings and, having through them entered into the experience of the apostles, proclaim the Christ of the apostles to the world.

Many people believe in a Jesus of their own imagination and have an emotional experience that they call being born again. But when their problems are not all magically solved, or they go through difficult trials, they conclude that “Jesus didn’t work,” and they go back to the world. The problem is, they didn’t believe in the Jesus revealed by the apostles in the New Testament. Their experience was not that of true fellowship with God and with others who know God. And so any witness about their supposed conversion is lost when they abandon the faith. It’s likely that they never experienced true Christianity.

True Christianity is essentially Jesus Christ—revealed in Scripture, experienced in new life and fellowship, and proclaimed with joy. Make sure that you’ve got the real deal!

Three things are highlighted for us in this introduction: A relationship, a fellowship, and a joy that follows. But it must all begin with this matter of relationship, for John is concerned first about the family of God.

In all probability, John had been released from his imprisonment on the Isle of Patmos and was residing in Ephesus, where he wrote this Epistle. His first statement is extremely meaningful. As the elder statesman of believers, he had seen the diabolical effects of unbelief and heresy in the church. Due to the false teachers, much misunderstanding had resulted, especially among the young believers.

Frequently the illusion was heard, “What shall we believe?” There is only one message to believe: “That which was from the beginning” (1:1).

This is the message that proclaims Christ and all that pertains to Him: His miraculous birth, His spotless life, His divine power, His death, and His glorious resurrection.

This is what one must believe if he is to experience eternal life and all of its benefits. God’s message must never be changed. While some believers are “tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness” (Ephesians 4: 14), those who would experience peace, blessing, and assurance must hold to “that which was from the beginning.”

1:1  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.  This letter is attributed to John, one of Jesus’ original twelve disciples. He was “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 21:20), and, along with Peter and James, he had a special relationship with Jesus. This letter was written between a.d. 85 and 90 from Ephesus, before John’s exile to the island of Patmos (see Revelation 1:9). Jerusalem had been destroyed in a.d. 70, and Christians had been scattered throughout the empire.

Unlike the style of most letters at this time, this letter does not give the name of its writer at the beginning. Both 2 and 3 John begin with “the elder” and follow with the name of the addressee. This letter, however, includes no author’s name, except the understanding that this is an elder of the church writing to his “dear children” (2:1). (The “Author” section in the introduction offers more information about this letter’s authorship.) This unaddressed, unsigned letter was probably more of a written sermon or treatise sent to several of the churches in and around Ephesus that were under John’s care. As the oldest living apostle, John was the “elder statesman” of Christianity; he had watched the church deal with conflict from within and persecution from without. Plentiful false teachers were accelerating the downward slide of many away from the Christian faith. John wrote this letter to put believers back on track. John directly confronted the false teachings, called them lies, and refocused the readers back to the truth of the foundational gospel message.

John’s first letter to the churches opens by emphasizing Christ’s eternal nature. The words “that which was from the beginning” seem odd because, since John was writing about Jesus, he might be expected to have written, “He who was from the beginning.” But the relative pronoun (“that which”) was more inclusive—it encompassed everything about “the Word of life” that the apostles had come to know and experience. “The Word of life” describes the Son of God as the personal expression of the invisible God and the giver of divine, eternal life to the believers. John opened his Gospel with the same thought (see John 1:1).

God came into the world as a human, and he, John, had been an eyewitness to Jesus’ life. In both the Gospel and this letter, John revealed that he (with the apostles) had heard, seen, and even touched God (John 1:14). When the Son entered into time, his fellowship with the Father also entered into time. Thus, to have heard Jesus was to have heard the Father speaking in the Son (John 14:10, 24), to have seen Jesus was to have seen the Father (John 14:8–10), and to have known Jesus was to have known him who was one with the Father (John 10:30, 38).

John made a point of saying that not only had they heard and seen Christ, they had “touched” him. In other words, Jesus had been a completely physical being. Some false teachers denied the Incarnation, claiming that God did not—indeed could not—become human. They taught that Jesus merely had assumed the guise of humanity but had not been truly human. The truth of Jesus’ humanity, however, is vital to Christianity and to salvation.

John called Jesus the Word of life. In his Gospel, John had written, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning” (John 1:1–2 ). As the “Word,” the Son of God fully conveys and communicates God. What kind of “Word” was this? The Greek term is logos, and theologians and philosophers, both Jews and Greeks, used the term “word” in a variety of ways.

In the Hebrew language of the Old Testament, “the word” was an agent of creation (Psalm 33:6), the source of God’s message to his people through the prophets (Hosea 1:2), and God’s law, his standard of holiness (Psalm 119:11). The Greeks used “the word” to refer to a person’s thoughts or reason or to a person’s speech expressing his or her thoughts. As a philosophical term, logos was the rational principle governing the uerse. For both Jews and Greeks, the term logos signified beginnings. Jesus Christ, the logos, is from the beginning because he is God (Genesis 1:1). John’s use of logos is a good title for the Son who both created the uerse with God and then came to earth to be the perfect expression of God to humanity. Jesus, the logos, reveals God’s mind to human beings. Jesus Christ, the logos, is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15), the express image of God’s substance (Hebrews 1:3), the revealer of God, and the reality of God.

Not only is Jesus Christ “the Word,” he is the Word of life—of spiritual life. People may be physically alive but spiritually dead. Jesus, however, as the express image of God himself, gives both spiritual life and eternal life to all who believe in him (1:2).^[1]

“The beginning” spoken of here is the same time referred to in John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God” (John 1:1-2).

This is the beginning of creation, not the beginning of Christ, for He, the Father, and the Holy Spirit are without beginning. When God’s creation began, Christ, with all of His attributes, was existent. In fact, the creation we enjoy is the work of the Son of God who existed eternally before the uuerse was created.

(Genesis 1:1-2 )  In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. {2} Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

(Colossians 1:15-20 )  He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. {16} For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. {17} He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. {18} And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. {19} For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, {20} and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Thus, what we believe, as followers of Christ, is not new, or even several hundred years old. It is the age-old message of truth which had its derivation in “the beginning.” It will continue to exist even after the heavens and the earth pass away.

The Apostle Paul had something to say about this message in his valuable treatise on the resurrection:

(1 Corinthians 15:1-5 )  Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. {2} By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. {3} For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance : that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, {4} that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, {5} and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.

Nothing could be clearer; we “are saved” by believing in the crucified and resurrected Christ.

“That which was from the beginning” pointed to a Person. This he substantiated by actual experience: “We have heard… we have seen. . . we have looked upon. . . and our hands have handled, of the Word of life.”

Doubtless this was written to refute the teachings of a group in the church known as Gnostics. The Gnostics were divided among the Docetics and the Cerinthians.

The errors they taught dealt primarily with the person of the Lord Jesus. The Docetic Gnostics denied the humanity of Christ, saying that He did not have an actual body; He only seemed to have a body.

The Cerinthian Gnostics denied the virgin birth, teaching that Jesus was born of human parents, but at His baptism Christ descended upon Him in the form of a dove, at which time He began to do the works of the Father until the cross, when the Christ departed again from Jesus.

Directed by the Holy Spirit, the apostle sought to combat these errors in his first Epistle. His initial argument is one that cannot be disproved easily, that of a personal relationship and experience. John “heard” Christ speak, not once, but innumerable times. Much of what he heard has been recorded for our benefit in the fourth Gospel.

Not only was it by his auditory nerves that John was made aware of the fact of Christ’s humanity, but through his sense of vision, as well. He heard Christ speak many, many times, and he also saw Him. What John wrote was not the result of dreams or hallucinations. He actually saw the body of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The word used for “seeing” embodies more than a visual impression; it has to do with a mental perception.

John thoroughly understood what he saw. He realized without question that he looked upon the Son of God. In addition to hearing and sight, John had physical contact with Christ, having touched His actual body. What greater proof does one need?

One may believe that Jesus was simply a good man, while attempting to pattern his life after Christ’s example. This will tend to lift one toward Heaven, but only as he submits to the Son of God as Savior and Lord will he be allowed to enter Heaven. We don’t have the option that “Jesus was just a good man” because if that is all that is true, then He was the biggest phony and liar who has ever walked upon the face of the earth!

• That which was from the beginning” is the message every human in the world needs to hear, for it is the message that provides deliverance from all the frustrations and fears of life resulting from the mixed up and chaotic world in which we live. How consoling is the truth that “if the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36).
• It is the message that molds families together and keeps couples from the divorce court as they submit “one to another in the fear of God” (Ephesians 5:21).
• It is the message that can stabilize our educational system and train our youth for respectability and worthwhile endeavors, for “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding” (Proverbs 9: 10).
• It is the message that can solve the economic problems of the world, enabling us to recognize where the true values of life really are.
• It will help us to understand that “a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth” (Luke 12: 15).
• It is the message that could bring warmth and value to the churches proclaiming the social gospel which is no gospel at all. God warns, “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” (Matthew 7: 15).
• It is the message that could change the course of our civilization from its downward path of destruction to one of prosperity and blessing. It is axiomatic that “righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34).
• Of course, to be effective, this message must be believed. To be believed, Christ must be received. To receive Christ is to respond to Him through faith with the desire ultimately to be immersed in water in order to receive forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38).

Nothing else will do. There are no substitutes. It is Christ we need; only as we heed the truth “which was from the beginning” can we know life, peace, and happiness.

Recall how Thomas laughed at the report he received from the other disciples of the resurrected Christ. Boldly he affirmed, “Except I shall see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe” (John 20: 25).

Eight days later, as Christ appeared to him in the presence of the other disciples, he was invited by our Lord to reach out his hand and touch the scars. But for Thomas, this was not necessary; seeing was believing; he needed nothing beyond this. Convinced, he cried out, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28).

John went further than Thomas. Not only did he hear and see Christ, he touched Him. There was no question in the apostle’s mind about the Son of God being an actual human when He was on this earth.

What is so important about the humanity of Christ?

Is it not enough that He is the Son of God? The humanity of Christ is of extreme importance to the child of God. Consider the consoling truths of Hebrews 4: 15-16: “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”  Because of His humanity, our Lord understands all about temptation. We have been tempted and have yielded many times. Always, when Christ faced temptation, He emerged victorious. As believers, we too can be victorious. As we unload our cares upon Him and trust Him for His power, we can be “more than conquerors through Him” (Romans 8:37).

1:2  This one who is life from God was shown to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and announce to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was shown to us.  The Greek word for “life” is zoe. In classical Greek, it refers to life in general. There are a few examples of this meaning in the New Testament (Acts 17:25; James 4:14; Revelation 16:3), but in all other instances, the word was used to designate the divine, eternal life—the life of God (see, for example, Ephesians 4:18; Philippians 2:16; 1 Timothy 6:12). This “life” resided in Christ, so John described Jesus Christ as this one who is life from God and repeated the fact that we have seen him. He, the other disciples, and thousands of other people had indeed “seen” Jesus. He was more than just a human being. “Was shown to us” literally means “was revealed or manifested.” The phrase has four emphases—life from God was shown (1) through Jesus’ earthly ministry (3:5, 8); (2) through Jesus’ appearances after his resurrection (John 21:1, 14); (3) through his appearing when he returns in full glory (2:28; Colossians 3:4; 1 Peter 5:4); and (4) through the Incarnation when all of his nature became present in the person of Jesus.

John’s work during the many years since Jesus’ ascension had been to testify and announce to everyone that [Jesus] is the one who is eternal life. Because Christ is eternal life, those who trust in him also have eternal life.

In Greek, the phrase “he was with the Father” suggests that the Word was face-to-face with the Father. This common Greek expression indicated a personal relationship. By using this expression, John was saying that the Word (the Son) and God (the Father) enjoyed an intimate, personal relationship from the beginning. In Jesus’ intercessory prayer, recorded in John 17, he revealed that the Father had loved him before the foundation of the world (John 17:24). The words “then he was shown to us” refer to the revelation of the Son of God in human form. Several times, Jesus explained that he was God himself, in human form:

• “Then they asked him, ‘Where is your father?’ ‘You do not know me or my Father,’ Jesus replied. ‘If you knew me, you would know my Father also.’ ” (John 8:19 )
• “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30 )
• “‘If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’ Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, “Show us the Father”? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works.’ ” (John 14:7–10 )^[2]

^[1] Bruce B. Barton and Grant R. Osborne, 1, 2 & 3 John, Life Application Bible Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1998), 12–15.

^[2] Bruce B. Barton and Grant R. Osborne, 1, 2 & 3 John, Life Application Bible Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 1998), 15–16.