1 JOHN 1: 1-4
THE WORD OF LIFE
[John 1:1-10]
"Once upon a time...." Remember how exciting those words used to be? They opened the door into an exciting world of make-believe, into a dreamworld 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 sustaining. You needed 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 may be nothing really wrong with these experiences, but by themselves they never truly 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.
So that people would not waste their years the Apostle John’s wrote this letter. He wrote it to you and he wrote it to me. It is a letter of life, light and love. Though written centuries ago its theme, finding the life that is real, is forever up-to-date.
John had discovered that satisfying reality is not to be found in things or thrills, but in a Person--Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God.[Warren Wiersbe. Bible Exposition Com. Vol. 2. 1989. Victor Books. Wheaton, IL. P. 474.] It is a message of encouragement and reassurance that Jesus Christ is real and that He gives real life, abundant life, satisfying life, to those who follow Him.
I. SENSING REALITY, 1.
II. SEEING REAL LIFE, 2.
III. FINDING FELLOWSHIP & JOY, 3-4.
Without wasting any time, John immediately jumps into his experience with God’s "living reality" in the first paragraph of his letter. John’s witness springs from the page. Deep convictions undiminished by the passing of the years sprout from his pen as the aged Apostle [70+] writes about the coming of Jesus into the world. These first four verses represent just one sentence in the original Greek, with John fervently repeating the tangible physical experiences he and his friends have had of hearing, seeing, and touching the very life of God Himself, incarnate in Jesus. This life is not wishful thinking, passing hearsay, or even a profound spiritual experience alone, it is real. This life is rooted in a flesh-and-blood human being (John 1:14). This life is what his readers must grasp if they too would have real life. For our faith is not just a "story." It’s based on real events seen and heard by real people about a real person, about the one true God (CIT).
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In verse 1 the writer asserts his credentials as an original eyewitness to the truth about God’s Son through continued direct contact with Him. “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-
Without any formal greeting [unlike 2 & 3 John] this unspecified letter [not naming the writer or recipient]- or written sermon was/is intended for mass distribution. [It has no personalizing features in its conclusion either.] It simply begins with a relative pronoun translated what (o-neuter gender.) The pronoun references [or introduces] five things [object clauses] concerning the Lord Jesus.
First, He was from the beginning. The emphasis is on the eternal nature of Christ. The verb “was” [from eime- “I am”] means "was already in existence." Jesus was already in existence when the beginning or creation occurred. There never was a time when Jesus was not in existence.
The second reference [objective clause] is what the apostles [and others who had opportunity to know the incarnate Christ] had heard. They heard the divine thoughts of God spoken by a human voice. Those that had ears to hear, heard the voice [and message] of God. They listened and heard His parables, His moral teachings, His anointed prayers, His rebukes, His encouragements, and His blessings. They heard the Word of God. [If you have not heard Him, you do not know Him nor can you speak for Him.]
The third thought referenced by what is, what the eyes have seen. Jesus was not a ghost or phantom. He was flesh and blood and visible as any human. His followers intently, contemplating gazed at Him and what He did. They saw Him raise the death, give sight to the blind, heal the leper, cause the lame to walk, set free the demonized, cleansed the diseased, restore the fallen, and fed the multitudes.
The fourth reference is concerning what they beheld or grasped. To behold or look upon means “to give attention to, to reflect on,” and thus to mentally assimilate. What they perceived with their senses they contemplated upon until God gave them understanding of Jesus’ distinctive significance. John had come to understand the meaning of real life, the abundant life, satisfying life through his long and intimate association with Christ. At first John did not really understand what Jesus did when He shared His life with believers, but as his relationship with Jesus grew he beheld or understood the reality of the abundant life in Christ. Are you growing in your relationship with Jesus so that you are understanding Him and what He is doing better and better?
The fifth reference is to what their hands handled. The followers of Jesus touched Him physically and were physically touched by Him. They touched Him not only during His ministry but after His resurrection from the dead. Jesus was real, physical, a flesh and blood man. His touch was the healing, fortifying, cleansing touch of God. He still touches people. He still offers to all who will reach out and grasp Him, touch Him in faith, His abundant life that heals, fortifies, cleanses, etc.
God has revealed Himself in creation (Rom. 1:20), but creation alone could never tell us the story of God’s love [nor the overarching story of God’s dealings with this world]. God has also revealed Himself much more fully in His Word, the Bible. But God’s final and most complete revelation is in His Son, Jesus Christ (John 1:14). Jesus said, "He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father" (John 14:9).
Because Jesus is God’s revelation of Himself, He has a very special & significant name: The Word of Life (1 John 1:1). John’s gospel opens with the same title. "In the beginning was The Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God (John 1:1).We also think back to Genesis 1: 1: "In the beginning God..." This message is from the beginning, because it is of God. It precedes creation, time, and history-but in God the message of life also draws near to humanity and finds its fullest revealation in Jesus.
Why does Jesus Christ have this name, “The Word of Life”? Because Christ is to us what our words are to others. Our words reveal to others just what we think and how we feel. Christ reveals to us the mind and heart of God. He is the living means of communication between God and men.
To know Jesus Christ is to know God. To know Jesus is to know “life.” He imparts this life, His life, to all who trust in Him. As you read the Gospel records of the life of Jesus, you see the wonderful kind of life God wants us to enjoy. This life though does not come through intellectual understanding or even by imitating Jesus, our Example. No, there is a far better way.
II. SEEING REAL LIFE, 2.
This Life which the apostles proclaimed is intensely personal. Verse two tells us that we too may have the life of Christ which is life eternal. “and the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us—
The apostle John had a long-term personal experience with Jesus Christ. John knew Christ Jesus face-to-face. He and the other disciples had heard Jesus speak. They watched Him as He lived with them. They in fact studied Him carefully, and touched His body. They knew Jesus was real. God in human flesh.
Yet it was not the apostles physical nearness to Jesus that changed them. It was this life, the spiritual presence or life of Jesus, that changed them. It was receiving this life that saved them. They knew Him for who He is, Lord and Savior, and had committed their lives to Him. Jesus Christ was real and exciting to John and his colleagues because they had trusted Him and experienced His life. By trusting Christ, the life of Christ became manifested in their lives. The word “manifest” means “to bring to light” or “to make known what already exists.” Jesus made God visible or tangible. Since God is life, Jesus also revealed the reality about life and about God.
Spiritual, eternal, abundant life is manifested in Jesus Christ. Life in Christ is real, not false, is eternal, not temporary. Not only is life real in Jesus Christ, but His life is experienced by individuals when they place their trust in Him as Savior. To have Jesus, is to have life, real life, eternal life.
Have you accepted the proclamation of eternal life offered to you by the Father in Christ Jesus? Is the new, animating, energizing, motivating life of Christ unfolding in the various activities of your life? The life was manifested in Christ, and in His disciples. God desires to manifest the life of Christ in your daily life also. Is the life of Christ being displayed in your life?
III. FINDING FELLOWSHIP & JOY, 3-4.
Verse three speaks of the fellowship found by trusting Christ. What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you also may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.”
“What we have seen and heard, we declare to you." Once you have experienced this exciting life that is real, you will want to share it with other people, just as John wanted to declare it to all his readers [at the close of the first century].
Many people (including some Christians) have the idea that "witnessing" means wrangling over differences in religious beliefs, or sitting down and comparing churches. That isn’t what John had in mind! He tells us that witnessing means sharing our spiritual experiences with life and Jesus with others. We witness both by the lives that we live and by the words that we speak.
The reason proclaim Jesus is “so that” others can fellowship with God and we can have true fellowship with them. For once we know Jesus, we have relationship with Him and with His forever family. This personal relationship opens the door for fellowship.
The word fellowship is an important one in the vocabulary of a Christian. It literally means "to have in common.” All that share a common faith or mutual relationship with Jesus [as Lord] can fellowship in His Spirit with each other.
As sinners, men have nothing in common with the holy God. But God in His grace came to earth so that He would have something in common with men. Christ took on Himself a human body and became a man. Then He went to the cross and took upon Himself the sins of the world (1 Peter 2:24). Because He paid the price for our sins, the way is open for God to forgive us and take us into His family. [When we trust Christ, we become "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4). The term translated "partakers" in Peter’s epistle is from the same Greek root that is translated "fellowship" in 1 John 1:3.]
What a thrilling miracle! Jesus Christ took on Himself the nature of man that by faith we may receive the very nature of God! [We do not become gods but receive the spiritual nature of God.] Now we can experience fellowship with the Father and with His forever family.
A famous British writer was leaving Liverpool by ship. He noticed that the other passengers were WAIVING TO FRIENDS on the dock. He rushed down to the dock and stopped a little boy. "Would you wave to me if I paid you?" he asked the lad, and of course the boy agreed. The writer rushed back on board and leaned over the rail, glad for someone to wave to. And sure enough, there was the boy waiving back to him!
A foolish story? Perhaps--but it reminds us that man hates loneliness. All of us want to be wanted. All of us have an inner longing for a place of belonging, for a place where community or fellowship touches us. The life that is real helps solve the basic problem of separation, of loneliness, for Christians have genuine fellowship with God and with one another. Jesus promised, "Lo, I AM with you always" (Mt. 28:20). In his letter, John explains the secret of fellowship with God and with other Christians. This is the first purpose John mentions for writing his letter--the sharing of his experience of eternal life, the sharing of how He came to have personal fellowship with God Himself.
Verse 4 tells us what the sharing of Jesus and the fellowship we have in Him leads to: it leads to joy. “And these things we write, so that our joy may be made complete.”
The readers are invited into a relationship of joy with John’s brothers and sisters in the Lord. God through John is writing these life changing words to us so that we too may experience “fullness of joy.” This fullness of joy is far too rare in Christians, but its offer is sure. It is a recorded promise of God.
Two days after the April 27, 1996 cease-fire in Lebanon, a TV interviewer asked Israel’s prime minister how the new agreement differed from one a few years earlier. He replied, “This one is in writing, where as the former one was verbal over the telephone. Print has a different value.”
Spoken words can be forgotten, or they can be changed when they are repeated. Written words, though, aren’t dependent on memory, and they can’t be easily ignored or changed. Thus God gave His Word to us in writing “so that” we might study it, meditate on it and apply it to our lives. He did not want our relationship to Him to be based on hearsay, but on the reality of His written Word to us.
Fellowship around the written Word is Christ’s answer to the loneliness of life. Joy is His answer to the emptiness, the hollowness of life.
Joy is not something that we manufacture for ourselves. Joy is a wonderful by-product of our fellowship with God. David knew the joy which John mentions for he wrote, "In Thy presence is fullness of joy" (Ps. 16:11).
Basically, sin is the cause of the unhappiness that overwhelms our world today. Sin promises joy but it always produces sorrow. The pleasures of sin are temporary--they are only for a season (Heb. 11:25). God’s joyful pleasures last eternally--they are everlasting (Ps. 16:11).
The life that is real produces a joy that is real--not some limp substitute. The night before Jesus was crucified He said, "These things have I spoken unto you, so that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full" (John 15:11).
Karl Marx wrote, "The first requisite for the people’s happiness is the abolition of religion." But the Apostle John writes, in effect, "Faith in Jesus Christ gives you a joy that can never be duplicated by the world." He said, "I have experienced this joy myself, and I want to share it with you."
[Elton Trueblood, classic preacher from a generation past, put it this way: “The Christian is joyful not because he is blind to injustice and suffering, but because he is convinced that these, in the light of Divine Sovereignty, are never ultimate. The humor of the Christian is not a way of denying the tears but rather a way of affirming something that is deeper than tears.”]
We’re full of joy not because we’re trite or frivolous, but because there’s a deeper reality than the temporary separation from a loved one, the problem with the car, or the bankruptcy of the business. None of those things need rob us of joy because we know there’s a much bigger picture. [Courson, Jon: Jon Courson’s Application Commentary. Nashville, TN : Thomas Nelson, 2003, S. 1613] [As Jesus said ,"Your joy no man taketh from you" (John 16:22).]
In Conclusion
What about you? Are you experiencing fellowship, real relationship with Jesus and His followers? Are you experiencing joy deep down in the core of your being that bubbles up into your heart, eyes, disposition, and words? If not, you may not have a real relationship with Jesus.
A counterfeit Christian [and they are common] is something like a COUNTERFEIT TEN-DOLLAR bill. Suppose you have a counterfeit bill and actually think it’s genuine. You use it to pay for a tank of gas. The gas station manager uses the bill to buy supplies. The supplier uses the bill to pay the grocer. The grocer bundles the bill up with forty-nine other ten-dollar bills and takes it to the bank. And the teller says, "I’m sorry, but this bill is a counterfeit."
That ten-dollar bill may have done a lot of good while it was in circulation, but when it arrived at the bank it was exposed for what it really was, and taken out of circulation.
So it is with a counterfeit Christian. He may do many good things in this life, but when he faces the final judgment, he will be rejected. "Many will say to Me in that day, ’Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name" And in Thy name have cast out demons? And in Thy name done many wonderful works?’ And then will I say to them, depart from Me, you workers of iniquity for I never knew you; ’" (Mt. 7:22-23).
Each of us must honestly ask our self , "Am I a true child of God or am I a counterfeit Christian? Have I truly been born of God? Do I have a real relationship with God through His Holy Spirit?
So do you know God? Do you know Christ? Do you know that you have eternal life? First John was written to help you know the reality of God in your life through faith in Christ, to assure you that you have eternal life, and to encourage you to remain in fellowship with the God who is life, light and love.
If you have not experienced eternal life, this real life, you can experience it right now! Come forward and take my hand right now and make your decision to follow Christ. If you are a member of another church, come forward at this time and unite with our fellowship and experience the life that God shares with His faithful. As the Spirit leads, you come.
[As we study this letter written by one overwhelmed by God’s life, light and love, may your life, light, love and confidence be renewed also. - Dennis Davidson]
