1 JOHN CH 1 V 1 & 2
INTRODUCTION
Have you ever seen something that’s taken your breath away? It’s stopped you dead in your tracks and you’ve forgotten everything else that up to that point occupied you?
I once visited the National Gallery in London and saw Georges Seurat’s ‘Bathers, Asnières’ painted by him in 1883-84. It is a huge imposing picture. But if you look very closely you see that the paint isn’t brushed on but applied in thousands and thousands of tiny individual dots. As you walk away backwards from the canvas the dots quickly converge and merge into this magnificent piece of art. That simply took my breath away!
Michelangelo’s statue of David in Florence was cleaned-up and restored not so long ago. A tourist visiting it soon after made this entry in her e-mail diary: ‘We entered the main hall, and there was Michaelangelo’s masterpiece! It would take your breath away! Such details, like tendons on the hands, rib bones, arm veins, collar bones, neck tendons, were all carved in the statue, with a detail that made it look alive!!’
Many things affect different people in similar ways: natural landscapes, buildings, cars and so on.
For the Christian, whilst certain things might be truly admirable to us -and there’s nothing wrong in us appreciating art and beauty - the one great thing that has taken our breath away spiritually, and which outstrips anything else by far, is the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That’s the sort of impression I get about Apostle John when looking at the opening of his first letter. He’s captivated; gripped; all taken up with his subject. He’s declaring to us the most incredible and wonderful truth that totally changed his life, and which changes ours too if our trust is in Jesus.
(V 1-2) ‘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. 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.’
These words convey us into the same territory as those we find in John’s Gospel Ch 1 V 1,2: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning” and Verse 14 “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.’
John is, of course, in both instances focusing our attention on Jesus, the Word, or Word of life, who was from the beginning. John’s big point is that He who eternally existed as God entered into time and space as a man: that God appeared on the earth in human form.
JESUS AS GOD
‘That which was from the beginning.’ If it’s Jesus that John is writing about why does he say ‘that’ instead of ‘who’? It’s because John is including the message in with the messenger. It’s the person of God’s Son and what He reveals that’s in mind and the two shouldn’t be separated. As Simon Kistemaker puts it. ‘The term “that” is broader than the word “who” for it includes the person and the message of Jesus Christ. The terms refers to God’s revelation, namely, the gospel…’
‘That which was from the beginning’. What beginning was this? When the heavens and the earth were made and time-space continuum formed. When the great act of creation took place the Word already existed.
In COL CH 1 V 16,17 the Apostle Paul declares the same thing: all things were created through Christ and it, therefore, follows that: ‘He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together’.
Here Jesus’ eternity and pre-eminence are affirmed. Peter Lewis commenting on these two verses declares: ‘Christ pre-dated all creation, that when nothing at all existed except God – the Son already was!” It also means that, He is before all things in importance’.
How does John identify the Lord Jesus? What name does He give?
‘This we proclaim concerning the Word of life.’
THE WORD
As Christians we’re very familiar with Jesus as ‘The Word’, and it’s so full of meaning and depth.
John Calvin said: ‘I think he calls the Son of God ‘the Word’ simply because, first, He is the eternal Wisdom and Will of God, and secondly, because He is the express image of His purpose’.
Jon Mackinney states: ‘It means “a divine revelation, an assertion, or a declaration”. It is the official, authoritative word’.
Words are hugely important: we use them to communicate as accurately and clearly as we can our inner thoughts to others. Now Jesus Christ is God’s Word – by Christ He has spoken to us: He reveals Himself to us; His thoughts; His purpose; His Will.
If God hadn’t revealed Himself to us we could never know Him in His grace and love. We could know something of Him through creation – His power and Godhead – but not as our merciful Lord and Saviour.
A key characteristic of Jesus as the Word is that He is unchanging and final. You often hear of people wanting to give the final word on a debate, or inquiry that is supposed to sum everything up, and gives a final, authoritative conclusion.
Jesus is not ‘a’ Word but ‘the’ Word, the final Word. What He is and reveals, and teaches, is complete and perfect and needs no addition or amendment. All that God intends for us to receive, therefore, all that we need to know, is in the Son. HEB CH 1 V 1,2 ‘In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe’.
Peter Lewis again says: ‘The prophets spoke God’s early words; Jesus is God’s definitive word’.
THE LIFE
Now John not only called Him the Word, but ‘the Word of life’. John explains to us what he means by ‘life’ In Verse 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’.
The life – not just ‘a’ but ‘the’ life – the big thing; the fullness; the core and support of all other life. It’s the pure; powerful dynamism of the eternal divine nature. And as Jesus is the Word of life: that life resides in Him alone. As David Jackman puts it: Jesus is, ‘The Word which is the life’. So JOHN CH 1 V 4 ‘In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.’
This life is eternal which underlines the fact that Jesus is eternal. The life that He has, spiritual in nature, has no beginning and no end. It is, as William Hendriksen puts it: ‘The fullness of God’s essence.’
How else does John describe the Lord? This life ‘was with the Father’. This highlights the living eternal fellowship that the Word, the eternal Son, has with God the Father and so introduces us to the mystery of the trinity.
David Jackman explains it like this: ‘This phrase [‘with the Father’] indicates the closest sort of face-to-face fellowship existing in the eternal mystery of the Godhead’.
John helps us to see a glimpse of the total, complete, unified. mutual love and enjoyment of God the Father and God the Son, and of course, though it is not John’s purpose to directly touch on it here, the Holy Spirit as well. JOHN CH 1 V 1 ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with [or, face to face with] God [Fellowship] and the Word was God [unity of Godhead]’.
Again John Ch 1 V 18 brings out this unique relationship: ‘No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the father’s side [or, who lies upon His breast], has made Him known’.
The unity and fellowship of Father and Son is the basis of the fellowship that we enjoy here on earth with God and one another – next time we’ll be looking directly at that fellowship in verses 3 & 4.
What a word this is for our modern multi-cultural and multi-faith society! A former Archbishop of Canterbury gave the Sir Francis Younghusband Memorial Lecture on 50th anniversary of the World Congress of faiths. He told of a lady missionary he met during a visit to India. As they passed a shrine she remarked: ‘I am always very sad to see the piety with which those Hindus worship at that shrine’. The Archbishop asked her why: ‘”Well” she said with a sort of simple finality, ‘“There’s no one there to hear”’. ‘“That simple finality has no place today”’ said Dr Runcie.
But If as John declares, Jesus Christ is truly the eternal Son of God, through whom He made the universe; if Jesus is supreme and incomparable, above all things; If He is not A word but THE Word: the unique and perfect expression of the true God; is there, can there, be any room for another Lord, Saviour, Teacher? Of course not! It’s our joy and duty to proclaim Him, in truth and love, as supreme both in our words and in our lives, as no doubt that lady missionary sought to do.
What a spur and encouragement to Bible reading and study! God has recorded the truth about Jesus and His teaching as Scripture, and the Holy Spirit in our heart testifies to its truth. As Word of God is sure and certain we can, with humility and confidence, search it out in bible study and prayer, and learn more and more of Him and His Will. When the wheels of our devotions grind slowly lets oil them by reminding ourselves of the amazing Lord and Saviour that we have.
“Hit-and-run bible reading can often become hit and miss” JB
When we look by faith at Jesus Christ as He is presented to us in the Bible He truly takes our breath away by His power, glory and majesty, as the One and Only Son of the Father, the Word which was from the beginning and who is eternal life. Jesus Christ is God!
JESUS AS MAN
What John tells about the Word of life; the Word, is that He became a true and real human being:
HE APPEARED
‘The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it’. The eternal life that was with the Father was revealed, manifested, made known to us.
It’s so important to underline that this was not humankinds doing but God’s act. Jesus was not man’s discovery but God’s revelation. God took the first step; He came to us, not we to Him. Matthew Henry wrote: ‘By the light of nature we see God as a God above us; by the light of the law we see Him as a God against us; but by the light of the Gospel we see Him as Emmanuel. God with us.’
HIS TRUE HUMANITY
We need never be afraid to stress Jesus’ human nature. John wasn’t. He was secure in the knowledge that Jesus was truly and totally God therefore could handle the truth that He was also truly and totally man. The ‘how’ of it we can’t fully grasp, neither should that surprise us, for we are limited in our human understanding. But we can accept it by an informed faith and worship Him.
(V 1) ‘That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and out hands have touched’.
John heavily stresses the facts of his and the other apostles experience and he had good immediate reason for doing so. He was countering a false teaching that Jesus human body wasn’t real, it was phantom. The bad boys here were those who went by the name of ‘Gnostics’; they imbibed Greek philosophy that said that which is physical, the body, is necessarily evil, and only that which is spiritual, heavenly, can be really good. So the idea of God becoming a man was illogical and abhorrent to them.
So John rubs it home: ‘We heard him. We saw with our eyes! We looked at him and we touched Him – with our hands! He was true flesh and blood!’
Many other events, but certainly that recorded in LUKE CH 24 V 37, must have been in John’s mind as he penned this letter. Jesus had appeared after His resurrection and the disciples thought they had seen a ghost. Jesus said: ‘Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.’
How humbling it was for the eternal Word to put aside His external glory and robe himself in lowly humanity. As a man Jesus humbled Himself to live in dependence on the Holy Spirit and on prayer to His heavenly Father. He lived a wonderful sinless life in obedience to His Father: 1 JOHN 3:5 ‘You know that He appeared so that He might take away our sins. And in Him is no sin.’ No shadow or stain of sin spoiled His strong, pure and peerless soul.
Yes, John is saying, He was really among us and by His appearing proved just how much He loves us and wants us to know Him. God has come as close to us as He possibly can in the person of Jesus. To see Jesus’ incredible humility bursts human pride and preening.
THE WORD PROCLAIMED
John declared that it is the Word of life that He and the other apostles proclaimed: Jesus Christ is the message. He is the life, the life of God, who came into the world to overcome death by the cross, dispel our darkness, and bring true light so that we can know and experience, and enjoy Him.
God walked the earth in the person of His Son and His chosen apostles were His witnesses! He lived and breathed among men. The disciples heard Him, saw Him, touched Him, laughed with Him, wept with Him, stood in awe of Him, were taught by Him, prayed with Him, worshipped with Him. They saw the power of God work through Him; the miracles, the divine glory. When they looked into His face they looked into the face of God, and they worshipped Him.
It’s that same Jesus Christ that we worship, love and obey today! No we don’t see Him with our eyes, or touch Him with our hands. But – and this is the joy and the challenge – we can know Him in a real and living way.
We’re often tempted to feel – if only, If only I were there when Jesus walked the earth. Wouldn’t it have been great, better, to hear Him, see Him, look at Him, touch Him? By thinking like that we really sell ourselves short - short of the riches the bible puts in our hands.
In John CH 14 the disciples were distraught at the news that Jesus was to leave. But He said that they shouldn’t be anxious or upset for He was making the perfect provision for them: He wouldn’t abandon them like Orphans but rather would send them the Helper, the Holy Spirit. And Jesus would be present with and in them through the Holy Spirit’s ministry. JOHN CH 14 V 23 ‘”If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”’
The Apostle Paul speaks of great mystery of the Gospel, in seven simple but significant words: COL 1 V 27 “Christ in you, the hope of glory”.
Though Jesus’ physical body is in heaven at the Father’s right hand, and has been for 2,000 years, He is spiritually within us too through the ministry of the Holy Spirit! Jesus Christ lives in every true believer. In you and me. As we walk with Him day by day we can nurture that fellowship with Him that John talks about later.
It is this Jesus that we have the honour to proclaim by word and life. Not simply happy feelings, or happy thoughts, but the grip of grace on our lives and consequent commitment. Feelings come and go; Jesus Christ remains.
And when He comes to dwell in us He makes a difference: Jon MacKinney says: ‘Jesus was, …so powerfully life changing, so much that He had life within Himself, that those He contacted and those who were transformed by relationship with Him through faith, became people who were willing to bear disgrace, dispersion and even death to testify concerning who He was. He was the Word’.
Hudson Taylor, Missionary to China, often used a little poem, as a prayer that was found on a creased up piece of paper in his diary:
‘Lord Jesus, make thyself to me
a living bright reality;
More present to faith’s vision keen
Than any earthly object seen;
More dear, more intimately nigh
Than e’en the dearest earthly tie.
The Christian majors on things not seen and eternal – not things seen and temporary. Let’s seek to make this a reality more and more in our own lives. Be captivated and held by our faith’s view of Jesus the living Word and His grace which takes our spiritual breath away.
