Background
First John was written by the Apostle John. Though his name is nowhere to be found written in this letter. It has been traditionally ascribed to John the Apostle.
From the beginning of the letter he places himself among the eyewitnesses of the Lord Jesus (1:1-2)
Early Christian writers (Irenaeus, Clement of Alexander, and Tertullian) cited the epistle as John's
John served as the pastor of the church in Ephesus, which was founded by Paul.
It has been the belief of the church down through the years that John wrote his Gospel first, his epistles second, and finally the Revelation just before his death. However, in recent years some have come to the position that John wrote his epistles last. Therefore, with this view in mind he wrote his first epistle after his imprisonment on the Island of Patmos. This places the date about 100 A.D. John died in Ephesus and was buried there.
Understanding the First Epistle of John
J. Vernon McGee writes in his commentary that it helps to understand this epistle if you know something about the city of Ephesus at the beginning of the second century. McGee says there were four important factors which prevailed in Ephesus and throughout the Roman world when John wrote this letter.
I believe when you hear them you will come to believe as I have that this epistle is especially relevant for our day.
The Christian faith had become tarnished.
Many of the believers were children and grandchildren of the first Christians. The new and bright sheen of the Christian faith had become tarnished. Like a new car or home, the newness had worn off. The thrill and glory of the first days had faded.
There was a breakdown of the Judeo-Christian ethics and a disregard of Bible standards.
The high standards of Christianity called for Christians to be different. The children and grandchildren of the first Christians did not want to be different. The new generation of Ephesians had become "cookie-cutter" Christians--Christians in name only. They were ignoring the rule of God in their lives.
Persecution was no longer the enemy of Christianity (ref. Stephen - Acts 7:59; James - Acts 12:2).
The danger to the Ephesian church was not persecution from the outside but seduction from the inside. Both Jesus and Paul warned this would happen:
(Mat 24:24 NKJV) "For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.
(Mat 24:25 NKJV) "See, I have told you beforehand.
(Acts 20:29 NKJV) "For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.
(Acts 20:30 NKJV) "Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves.
Christianity was not in danger of being destroyed; it was in danger of being changed. The attempt was being made to improve it, to make it respectable.
Today this is happening before our very eyes.
Christians are refraining from preaching repentance from sin, faith in Christ and separation from the world. Instead they are content in teaching about love and tolerance.
Preachers are drifting away from teaching the Bible as the supreme standard for living and rule of faith for one's life. Instead they are espousing their own opinions.
Church folk are no longer learning about the holiness of God but are having their ears tickled with doctrines concerning the dominion and godhood of man.
Church music no longer has a common theme of exalting the work of Christ at the Cross but focuses on the writer's superficial experiences in life.
The Christian faith had become tarnished. There was a disregard of Bible standards. Persecution was no longer the enemy of Christianity.
A false teaching called Gnosticism was the real enemy of Christianity.
Gnosticism
The term gnosticism comes from the Greek word gnosis, meaning "knowledge." Gnosticism is a philosophy which centers on a search for higher knowledge.
The Gnostics taught that this knowledge was not intellectual knowledge but a knowledge which the ordinary Christian was incapable of attaining.
There were two main doctrines or axioms basic to the Gnostic beliefs:
Supremacy of knowledge
Douglas Groothuis of the Christian Research Institute writes about this knowledge:
This knowledge is not considered to be the possession of the masses but of the Gnostics, the Knowers, who are privy to its benefits. While the orthodox "many" exult in the exoteric religious trappings which stress dogmatic belief and prescribed behavior, the Gnostic "few" pierce through the surface to the esoteric spiritual knowledge of God.
In other words, only a few, the Gnostics, are the ones who are privy to the deep, deep knowledge of God.
Separation of spirit and matter.
All matter considered evil and detestable and the source of evil.
The spirit was considered good and desirable and impervious to evil.
Gnostics believe that locked within the material shell of the human race is the divine spark of this highest spiritual reality which the unskillful creator accidentally infused into humanity at the creation — on the order of a drunken jeweler who accidentally mixes gold dust into junk metal.
The only hope for humanity is to acquire the information it needs to perfect itself and evolve out of its current physical state.
These doctrines of course impacted their view of God and Christ. When it came to Christianity, the Gnostics split into factions on the subject of Christ's deity:
The Docetic Gnostics
Denied the humanity of Jesus. The word docetic comes from the Greek word dokeo, "to seem." They believed that it was impossible for God, who was spirit and good to become flesh, which was matter and evil, in the person of Jesus Christ. They believed Jesus only seemed to have a body.
The Cerinthian Gnostics
Followers of Cerinthus, they separated the man Jesus from the aeon, the power of Christ. They believed that when the dove came down on Jesus at His baptism, the power of Christ came and rested on the man Jesus. This power then departed before His death on the Cross. So it was simply the "man" Jesus who died, not Jesus Christ, God in the flesh.
These Gnostic heresies denied that God became man and walked this earth in the person of Jesus Christ to bring redemption and salvation to mankind.
Having eliminated Jesus Christ as the only way to God, the Gnostics believed they could make their own way to God through the pursuit of knowledge. Thus John writes to combat this error.
There are forms of Gnosticism prevalent in our society today.
The movie The Matrix attempts to portray life from a Gnostic point of view. The movie's characters find a kind of salvation in discovering secret knowledge and in realizing that the world is not what it appears to be. Neo, played by Keanu Reeves becomes a Gnostic messiah, one chosen to be a guide out of the illusion of the matrix.
There are cults like the Jehovah's Witnesses who do not believe that Jesus was God manifested in the flesh. They do not believe that Jesus experienced a bodily resurrection from the dead. They believe His was just a "spirit" resurrection.
Even among those who refer to themselves as evangelical Christians, there are those who teach that one can come into a special knowledge or "revelation" of the truth that the average Christian may not ever obtain.
In this epistle John sets the record straight about who Jesus is and how one might have fellowship with Him.
John exhorts believers not to love the world, the flesh and the devil but to walk in obedience to God.
In this epistle John teaches believers how we can tell the difference between the children of God and the children of the devil.
John also writes to help us to distinguish between truth and error.
There is a song with the words, "I want to know what love is." Well, in this epistle, John teaches believers how we might know what true love is and the God who personifies it.
In this letter John tells us his purpose for writing in seven different verses and then summarizes his purpose in 5:13:
1 John 1:4 - And these things we write to you that your joy may be full.
1 John 2:1 - My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
1 John 2:12 - I write to you, little children, Because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake.
1 John 2:14 - I have written to you, fathers, Because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, Because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, And you have overcome the wicked one.
1 John 2:21 - I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth.
1 John 2:26 - These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you.
1 John 5:13 - These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.
Let's Begin
(1 John 1:1 NKJV) 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, concerning the Word of life;
"That which was from the beginning…"
What beginning? The Bible mentions three beginnings:
Genesis 1:1 - "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
As far back as man can think God was already there.
If you are a Creationist and believe the earth is around 6000 years old, God was there at its beginning.
If you are an Evolutionist and believe the earth 500 million years old or a billion years old, God was already there at its beginning.
John's Gospel - John 1:1 - "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
The term "Word" is the common Greek word logos, which meant "speaking, a message, or words." At the time of John's writing there was a reigning philosophy that used this word logos, to refer to a floating, supernatural, divine energy that created everything.
John is saying to his readers, "You know that floating, divine, supernatural energy that everyone says created everything, that's Christ." John is merely capturing the thinking of the moment in the terms of those people's philosophy or religion and pointing that thinking to the Word of God
So here, John is referring to the revealing of the eternal Logos before all creation.
When the Book of Genesis uses the words, “In the beginning” it gives us the history of the world in the realm of time.
When uses the words, “In the beginning” he introduces us to the Logos, the Word, who existed in eternity before the world began.
(John 1:2 NKJV) He was in the beginning with God.
(John 1:3 NKJV) All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
Paul puts it this way in his letter to the Colossian church:
(Col 1:15 NKJV) He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
(Col 1:16 NKJV) For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.
(Col 1:17 NKJV) And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.
When it comes to “the beginning” Jesus was already in the beginning when the beginning began.
The third biblical reference to the "beginning" is found in our text:
1 John 1:1 - "That which was from the beginning…"
John begins this letter with a relative pronoun in the neuter gender, "that which" or “what was.” John is referencing things relating to the Lord, or things that were true of the Lord Jesus since the beginning.
John is going back to the "beginning." Not the beginning of creation as we know it; not the beginning of the beginning as in the Gospel of John-- but the beginning of the time Christ came into this world at Bethlehem. John is referring to the beginning of the time that he, himself, as an eyewitness had direct contact with Jesus.
John is "right from the gates" refuting many of the false claims that were being made.
There were people going around saying all kinds of things about Jesus. Later, John would refer to them as "antichrists" who brought new ideas but not those truths which were "from the beginning."
Even today there are those who are circulating a lot of new ideas about Jesus. But John is saying in this passage, "I know the real scoop; I've got the real deal; I've got an exclusive on Jesus because:
'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, concerning the Word of life…the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us…'"
One of the attacks the Gnostics fabricated was against the humanity of Jesus.
Remember, Gnostics taught that the spirit was good and all matter was evil. They found it unacceptable to merge deity with humanity (or matter) so they denied that Jesus was an actual man. They conjured up the idea that He was a phantom.
John counteracts this notion by making four points about the reality of the total personhood of Jesus:
"We have heard"
"We have seen"
"We have looked upon" (Lit. gazed intently upon)
"Our hands have handled."
Let's look at each of these points
"We have heard"
John is not babbling about his own opinions and his speculations. He is talking about the fact that he heard the Lord Jesus, heard His voice, and when he listened to Him, he listened to God. (McGee)
Hearsay is not acceptable in a court of law, nor in the court of this world’s opinion. People will listen only to what we have personally seen and heard.
"Which we have seen with our eyes"
In 2 Pet 1:16, Peter declares, "For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty."
Every so often you might come across a sign tacked to a utility pole that says something like: "If you witnessed the accident that occurred at this intersection on July 21st around 9AM please call Bob.”
John didn't have to post a sign looking for someone who witnessed the life and works of Jesus. He was there. He heard and He saw!
"Which we have looked upon."
The word looked is theaomai, theh-ah'-om-ahee; and means, "to look closely at." We get our English word theatre, meaning "to gaze intently upon." Obviously this means a little more than to just “see.”
The theatre is a place where you sit and look, not just with a passing glance but with a gaze--a steady gaze for a couple of hours.
John writes, “that which we have looked upon…”
When I first laid eyes on my wife Debbie, I did a lot more than just "see."
*I gazed intently upon her.
*I saw the way she walked
*I was captivated with the way she dressed; the way she carried herself and her mannerism.
*I listened to the way she talked and sang.
*I admired the way she attended to Precious who is disabled
*I took notice of the way she sacrificed to care for both Mike and Precious a family she had from the age of 13 years of age.
*I was intrigued with how faithful she was to her employer at the time and how at 20 years of age she had her own apartment and kept it so neat and clean.
As Jesus was embarking on His earthly ministry, He said these words, "The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the Gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD."
John writes, "We have looked upon Him." For three years John and his fellow disciples gazed upon Jesus.
They watched as He preached the Gospel to the poor.
They gazed as He healed the brokenhearted.
They looked intently as He proclaimed liberty to the captives, recovered the sight for the blind and set free those who were oppressed.
They saw and heard as Jesus tenderly taught them the words and ways of His Father. The Apostle John could have easily written the words to the song, In The Garden, with confidence:
I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses.
And the voice I hear falling on my ear
The Son of God discloses.
And He walks with me and He talks with me
And He tells me I am His own
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known.
He speaks, and the sound of his voice
Is so sweet the birds hush their singing
And the melody that He gave to me
Within my heart is ringing.
And He walks with me, and He talks with me
And He tells me I am His own
And the joy we share as we tarry there
None other has ever known.
John writes, "We have looked upon Him."
He and his fellow disciples would gaze upon Jesus just as we would look intently at Him if He visited our church one day in person.
Yes, we would be inspecting His physical features for a moment but it would be His love that wooed us, His character that enamored us and His glory that enraptured us.
In his Gospel account John wrote, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14 NKJV)
Here the word beheld is again the Greek word, theaomai, theh-ah'-om-ahee; and means, "to look closely at."
I am reminded of the 1988 presidential debate where Dan Quayle sparred against Lloyd Benson:
DAN QUAYLE: I have as much experience in the Congress as Jack Kennedy did when he sought the presidency.
LLOYD BENSON: I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy.
In this epistle John is essentially saying to the Gnostics and others attacking the life and works of Jesus Christ, "I served Jesus Christ, I knew Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was a friend of mine. Gnostics, you're no friend of Jesus."
But what about those of us who have not heard the voice of Jesus. What about those of us who haven't seen Him in the flesh?
This is not a problem even for His beloved children who are removed from His earthy ministry for over 2000 years. The Bible says that though we may not be able to see Him with physical eyes, we can see Him with the eye of faith.
(1 Pet 1:8 NKJV) whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory,
Thomas, the doubting disciples blurted out, "Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe."
Jesus later came to him and said,
(John 20:27 NKJV) "…Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing."
(John 20:28 NKJV) And Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!"
(John 20:29 NKJV) Jesus said to him, "Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
Many of us are those people who have believed on Him though we haven't seen Him---this is called faith.
The writer of Hebrews defines faith as, "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (11:1)
This "faith" comes across in the words of this song written by Fanny Crosby who you may know was blind:
I am Thine O Lord I have heard Thy voice
And it told Thy love to me
But I long to rise in the arms of faith
And be closer drawn to Thee
Consecrate me now to Thy service Lord
By the power of grace divine
Let my soul look up with a steadfast hope
And my will be lost in Thine
Oh the pure delight of a single hour
That before Thy throne I spend
When I kneel in prayer and with Thee my God
I commune as friend with friend
John contradicts the propagators of the Gnostic heresy concerning Jesus by declaring four points supporting the personality of Jesus:
"We have heard"
"We have seen"
"We have looked upon" (Lit. gazed intently upon)
And then the last point:
"Our hands have handled."
No, Jesus wasn't a phantom as the Gnostics maintained. He was a real person.
My mind thinks back upon the account in John's Gospel, chapter 21 (vs. 20) where while eating supper in the Upper Room, John, describing himself as "the disciple Jesus loved, reclining upon Jesus' bosom.
There is an old Negro spiritual, the chorus of which concludes its message with the lyrics, "Rock-a-ma-soul in the Bosom of Abraham," repeated several times for emphasis. This spiritual reflects the traditional idea that Abraham's bosom is a figurative expression meaning heaven as the blissful and eternal abode of the saved.
The expression "in Abraham's bosom" signifies being in the favor and in the place of honor of Abraham. The expression is borrowed from the custom of Christ's day of speaking of the honored guest who reclined nearest the host as reclining on his bosom.
The word bosom is used 41 times in the Bible and always means the same thing - the area of the chest or breast of the human being. Anything one embraces is "in the bosom." When I take my wife and wrap my arms about her and hold her close, I take her into my bosom. Isaiah tells us that the Savior will carry the lambs in His bosom, indicating a close, personal relationship.
The people of the East reclined at meals. By this arrangement, the head of one person was brought almost into the bosom of the person who lay above him, and the guests were arranged so as to bring the most honored nearest to the host. At the "last supper" of Jesus Christ, John was leaning on Jesus' bosom (Jn. 13:23) - that is, he was reclining next to Jesus, in the most honored position, indicative of the close, personal relationship that existed between Jesus and John, for John is mentioned in the Bible as that disciple "whom Jesus loved."
Christ is in the bosom of the Father; He possesses the closest intimacy with the Father. Even today when we wish to speak of those especially intimate with us, we call them "bosom friends."
I share all this to say that when John says, “our hands have handled” he is speaking of an intimacy with the Savior that the disciples enjoyed.
But John was also communicating something else. In Luke 24:39 there is this account of Jesus meeting up with His disciples after His resurrection from the dead:
(Luke 24:36 NKJV) Now as they said these things, Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them, and said to them, "Peace to you."
(Luke 24:37 NKJV) But they were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit.
(Luke 24:38 NKJV) And He said to them, "Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts?
(Luke 24:39 NKJV) "Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have."
(Luke 24:40 NKJV) When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet.
In this passage and 1 John 1:1, the word handle is the Greek word, pselaphao, psay-laf-ah'-o; it means to manipulate, i.e. verify by contact; to examine closely.
Not only did they gaze intently, they examined Jesus closely.
The word “handle” is also used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament when blind Isaac felt the hands of the trickster Jacob (Genesis 27:22). Here Jacob was handling the hands of Jacob with a view to investigating whether the speaker was really Esau.
The disciples were examining Jesus closely. Imagine for a moment if you were one of the disciples seeing Jesus doing all those miracles and then being crucified and rising from the dead. You too would have wondered like the disciples, “What manner of man is this! (Matthew 8:27) “Check His stool or something, He’s not human!”
After His resurrection, Jesus anticipated a reaction like this and offered them proof. In Luke 24:42-43, He asked them for some broiled fish to eat.
John is telling us in this first verse of our study: We have heard Him, We have seen Him, We have looked intently upon Him and we have handled (or investigated) Him--He's the Christ and He's a man!
At the end of verse one, John calls Jesus, "the Word of life." In the Greek there is the definite article. He is "the" Word of "the" life.
John isn't referring to any general idea of life. He is the Word (logos) of the life.
He is the logos--Jesus is the total concept of God seen through a human medium.
He is the Word of the life. He is the exact representation of the particular life that God is, revealed in bodily form. (Colossians 2:9)
Jesus Himself has said, "If you've seen Me, You've seen the Father." (John 14:9)
For you theologians, Paul writes in Colossians 1:15, "He is the image of the invisible God…"
Colossians 2:9, "For in Him all the fulness of Deity dwells in bodily form,"
Hebrews 1:3 describes Jesus as "the brightness of God's glory and the express image of His person…"
The Apostle John begins his letter letting us know who Jesus is. He says, “We have heard Him, We have seen Him, We have looked intently upon Him and we have investigated Him--He's the Christ and He's a man--He's the God-man!”
John is giving us his sworn statement. He is testifying concerning the identity of this man Jesus. He is giving us a spiritual affidavit, an official declaration that this Jesus is both God and man. Two verse later he would write:
(1 John 1:3 NKJV) that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
(1 John 1:4 NKJV) And these things we write to you that your joy may be full.
In other words, John wants you and me to come into a relationship with God the Father through His Son Jesus Christ that would allow us to fellowship with Him.
John wants you and me to come into a relationship with God the Father through His Son Jesus Christ—a relationship that would make your joy become full.
Further study on Gnosticism
http://www.equip.org/free/DG040-1.htm
