The Testimony of John: The Son of God has come to Earth 1:1-5
1. Jesus has always existed
2. Jesus has proven who He is
3. Jesus has revealed who He is: The Word of Life
a. By appearing, revealing Himself
b. By identifying with men
4. Jesus has come to earth for the most glorious purpose
a. That we might have fellowship with God
b. That our joy may be complete
5. Jesus has preached the most wonderful message
a. That God is light
b. That there is no darkness in God at all
1. Jesus has always existed
John begins this letter in much the same way that he began the Gospel of John. He starts at the beginning. The context here identifies the beginning as the beginning of all created things. In other words, when all of creation as we know it came into existence, our Lord was already in existence. Therefore, we may assume two things from this; first, since He outdated all creation, He must be uncreated. Second, since He is uncreated, He must be without beginning, and therefore deity. (Col 1:15) (First born, cults)
The inspired writer then stresses that he had personally seen, heard, and touched Jesus, stressing the fact that he had personal knowledge of the humanity of Jesus. The reason that he did this is because he was combating heretical teachings of the time by a group called the Docetic Gnostics, who denied the humanity of Christ. The word “Docetic” comes from the Greek word “to seem”. They were teaching that Jesus only seemed to have a real body and that He was only a Spirit, with no real body.
The first proof that John advances for the fact of the humanity of Jesus is that he and his fellow disciples actually heard Him speak in a human voice. Now, John wrote this about A.D. 90. He heard our Lord speak from A.D. 30-33. So about 60 years passed from the time that John actually heard Jesus speak and the time that he wrote this letter. Now, that’s a long time, however, there are several things that account for John’s memory in the event of the life of our Lord.
One is that in the first century books were few and so men trained themselves to remember much, unlike today, where books are plentiful and people remember little. (average attention span) And, of course, there is the fact that he was talking to God and was His companion for three years. (John 14:26) The Holy Spirit would have brought back to memory anything that would have left his mind.
For further proof of the Lord’s humanity, John turns to the sense of vision. John uses a very distinct word for seeing, (horao), which refers to the actual sense of seeing. By the use of this particular word, he was letting the readers know that he didn’t just see a ghost or a spirit; he knew that when he was with Jesus, he saw a man. A living, breathing person.
John then goes on to say that he “looked upon Him” Here; he uses another word, which means, “to see”. This is from the Greek word “theaomai”, which means “to behold, to, view attentively, to contemplate”. This is where we get our English word “theatre”. So John is saying that not only did he see Jesus, but that he also watched Him and knew a great deal about Him.
Now that he has established proof of our Lord’s actual humanity through the senses seeing and hearing, John turns to the sense of touch. The words translated “have handled” are a translation of a verb which means “to examine closely, or to handle with a view to investigation”. The same word is used in the Greek translation of Genesis 27:22, where blind Isaac felt the hands of Jacob. Isaac, puzzled at the voice of Jacob, handled his hands with a view of trying to investigate whether or not the speaker was really Esau. The same word is also used in Luke 24:29. John is probably referring to Jesus’ resurrection, meaning that they were able to touch Him after He was resurrected, proving that He was not a Spirit, but flesh and blood.
John tells us the things that he heard, saw and felt concerning the Word of life. Jesus is the Word of God in the sense that He is the total sense of God as seen through a human medium. His humanity consists of His human body, His human limitations, and His human life, as lived on earth through the power of the Holy Spirit. Believers as well as unbelievers view this life. (Josephus)
(Vs. 2) John says that the life, which God is, has been “manifested” or “made known”. This life, which is invisible to man, has been made known through the humanity of our Lord. The Messiah left heaven came to earth and lived as a man for 33 years, and in doing so, He made visible to human understanding the life which God is. (Lee Strobel, C.S. Lewis)
John now repeats what he said in verse 1, that he has seen with discernment the visible life in the humanity of Jesus. But now he states that he can also bear witness to it, what he calls “eternal life that was with the Father”. This life that John is referring to is God as a person, Jesus, and this life has ethical and spiritual qualities which are communicated to the sinner when he or she places his or her faith in Jesus as Savior and this becomes the new, energizing, motivating principal which transforms the experience of that individual and the saint then lives a Christian life. The message here is that since the believer is a partaker of this life, it is an absolute necessity that the believer shows the ethical and spiritual qualities that are part of the essential nature of God, in their own lives. If these are entirely absent, that person is devoid of the life of God and is unsaved. These ethical and spiritual qualities were exhibited to the human race in the earthly life of the Lord Jesus. His life is the pattern of what our lives should be: in holiness, self-sacrifice, humility, and love. (Waffle House; Luke 19:10, John 4:48)
(Vs 3) John continues the thought of verse one, which was interrupted by verse two. Here he states the purpose for his writings: that his readers might have fellowship with him. (English Language, differences between here and Florida) It does not just mean friends or companionship; it means more than that, it means to be a joint participant with someone in something that you have in common with the other. Remember that John was writing to people who had never physically eye witnessed Jesus as he had. He wrote these things so that those who had never known Jesus as he had could know Him through his writings and have fellowship with Him.
Jacques-Yves Cousteau reported the strange behavior of a dolphin he sighted near Corsica. The dolphin was not swimming; it was just watching the boat draw nearer and nearer. They decided that the dolphin was sick, so they netted it and examined it. There was neither resistance nor fear on the part of the dolphin. There was no sign of any wound or illness. Yet an hour later, the animal was dead. The conclusion Cousteau reached was that other dolphins might have ostracized the dolphin. When they are excluded in this way, they become desperate, attach themselves to anyone or anything, and sometimes will themselves to die. Like the dolphin, we need fellowship. We need companionship with Jesus.
(Vs. 4) John states that he wrote these things so that the reader’s joy may be full. We just learned in verse 3 that fellowship is God’s answer to the loneliness of life. Now John tells us that joy is God’s answer to the emptiness of life. Joy is not something that we manufacture for our-selves; joy is a by-product of our fellowship with God. David knew of the joy, which John was talking about; he said in Ps. 16:11, “In thy presence is fullness of joy.”
Sin is the reason for the unhappiness that overwhelms our world today. Sin promises joy, but it only produces sorrow. The pleasures of sin are temporary (Hebrews 11:25) but, in contrast, the pleasures of God last eternally-they are forevermore.
(Vs. 5) John speaks of the message that they have heard and that they declare, that God is light and that in Him there is no darkness at all. Now this light is not physical light, but spiritual light. In the Old Testament, God light is often the medium of God’s visible revelations to men. Light was the first manifestation of God in creation. God went before Israel in a pillar of fire, descended in fire at Mt. Sinai, and appeared in a luminous cloud, which rested on the mercy seat in the most holy place.
God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. Darkness represents sin. But we know that in God there is no sin at all, in fact, God is so pure that sin cannot even enter into His presence. That is why it is so important that we trust in Jesus for our salvation.
