That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we saw, and our hands touched, concerning the Word of life (and the life was revealed, and we have seen, and testify, and declare to you the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was revealed to us); that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us. Yes, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ. And we write these things to you, that our joy may be fulfilled.
This is the message which we have heard from him and announce to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in the darkness, we lie, and don’t tell the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us the sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we haven’t sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv1–10 This Epistle is altogether worthy of the spirit of…
This Epistle is altogether worthy of the spirit of that disciple who, above others, was loved by Christ, that he might exhibit him as a friend to us. But it contains doctrines mixed with exhortations; for he speaks of the eternal Deity of Christ, and at the same time of the incomparable grace which he brought with him when he appeared in the world, and generally of all his blessings; and he especially commends and extols the inestimable grace of divine adoption.
On these truths he grounds his exhortations; and at one time he admonishes us in general to lead a pious and holy life, and at another time he expressly enjoins love. But he does none of these things in a regular order; for he everywhere mixes teaching with exhortation. But he particularly urges brotherly love: he also briefly touches on other things, such as to beware of impostors, and similar things. But each particular shall be noticed in its own place.
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He shows, first, that life has been exhibited to us in Christ; which, as it is an incomparable good, ought to rouse and inflame all our powers with a marvelous desire for it, and with the love of it. It is said, indeed, in a few and plain words, that life is manifested; but if we consider how miserable and horrible a condition death is, and also what is the kingdom and the glory of immortality, we shall perceive that there is something here more magnificent than what can be expressed in any words.
Then the Apostle’s object, in setting before us the vast good, yea, the chief and only true happiness which God has conferred on us, in his own Son, is to raise our thoughts above; but as the greatness of the subject requires that the truth should be certain, and fully proved, this is what is here much dwelt upon. For these words, What we have seen, what we have heard, what we have looked on, serve to strengthen our faith in the gospel. Nor does he, indeed, without reason, make so many asseverations; for since our salvation depends on the gospel, its certainty is in the highest degree necessary; and how difficult it is for us to believe, every one of us knows too well by his own experience. To believe is not lightly to form an opinion, or to assent only to what is said, but a firm, undoubting conviction, so that we may dare to subscribe to the truth as fully proved. It is for this reason that the Apostle heaps together so many things in confirmation of the gospel.
1 That which was from the beginning As the passage is abrupt and involved, that the sense may be made clearer, the words may be thus arranged; “We announce to you the word of life, which was from the beginning and really testified to us in all manner of ways, that life has been manifested in him;” or, if you prefer, the meaning may be thus given, “What we announce to you respecting the word of life, has been from the beginning, and has been openly shewed to us, that life was manifested in him.” But the words, That which was from the beginning, refer doubtless to the divinity of Christ, for God manifested in the flesh was not from the beginning; but he who always was life and the eternal Word of God, appeared in the fullness of time as man. Again, what follows as to the looking on and the handling of the hands, refers to his human nature. But as the two natures constitute but one person, and Christ is one, because he came forth from the Father that he might put on our flesh, the Apostle rightly declares that he is the same, and had been invisible, and afterwards became visible.
Hereby the senseless cavil of Servetus is disproved, that the nature and essence of Deity became one with the flesh, and that thus the Word was transformed into flesh, because the life-giving Word was seen in the flesh.
Let us then bear in mind, that this doctrine of the Gospel is here declared, that he who in the flesh really proved himself to be the Son of God, and was acknowledged to be the Son of God, was always God’s invisible Word, for he does not refer here to the beginning of the world, but ascends much higher.
Which we have heard, which we have seen. It was not the hearing of a report, to which little credit is usually given, but John means, that he had faithfully learnt from his Master those things which he taught, so that he alleged nothing thoughtlessly and rashly. And, doubtless, no one is a fit teacher in the Church, who has not been the disciple of the Son of God, and rightly instructed in his school, since his authority alone ought to prevail.
When he says, we have seen with our eyes, it is no redundancy, but a fuller expression for the sake of amplifying; nay, he was not satisfied with seeing only, but added, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled By these words he shews that he taught nothing but what had been really made known to him.
It may seem, however, that the evidence of the senses little availed on the present subject, for the power of Christ could not be perceived by the eyes nor felt by the hands. To this I answer, that the same thing is said here as in the first chapter of the Gospel of John, “We have seen his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father;” for he was not known as the Son of God by the external form of his body, but because he gave illustrious proofs of his Divine power, so that in him shone forth the majesty of the Father, as in a living and distinct image. As the words are in the plural number, and the subject equally applies to all the apostles, I am disposed to include them, especially as the authority of testimony is what is treated of.
But no less frivolous (as I have before said) than impudent is the wickedness of Servetus, who urges these words to prove that the Word of God became visible and capable of being handled; he either impiously destroys or mingles together the twofold nature of Christ. It is, therefore, a pure figment. Thus deifying the humanity of Christ, he wholly takes away the reality of his human nature, at the same time denying that Christ is for any other reason called the Son of God, except that he was conceived of his mother by the power of the Holy Spirit, and taking away his own subsistence in God. It hence follows that he was neither God nor man, though he seems to form a confused mass from both. But as the meaning of the Apostle is evident to us, let us pass by that unprincipled man.
Of the Word of life The genitive here is used for an adjective, vivifying, or life-giving; for in him, as it is said in the first chapter of John’s Gospel, was life. At the same time, this distinction belongs to the Son of God on two accounts, because he has infused life into all creatures, and because he now restores life to us, which had perished, having been extinguished by the sin of Adam. Moreover, the term Word may be explained in two ways, either of Christ, or of the doctrine of the Gospel, for even by this is salvation brought to us. But as its substance is Christ, and as it contains no other thing than that he, who had been always with the Father, was at length manifested to men, the first view appears to me the more simple and genuine. Moreover, it appears more fully from the Gospel that the wisdom which dwells in God is called the Word.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 I heard him speak, I saw him myself with…
I heard him speak, I saw him myself with mine eyes, I handled with mine hands him that is very God, being made very man, and not I alone, but others also that were with me.
That same everlasting word, by whom all things are made, and in whom only there is life.
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He beginneth with the description of the person of Christ, whom he maketh one and not two: and him both God from everlasting (for he was with the Father from the beginning, and is that eternal life) and also made true man, whom John himself and his companions, both heard and beheld, and handled.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–10 1 That which was from the beginning, which we…
1 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, of the Word of life;
Ver. 1. That which was from the beginning] Christ, the eternal God. {See Trapp on "Joh 1:2"}
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Which we have heard, &c.] The man Christ Jesus, the arch-prophet.
Which we have seen] And what so sure as sight? See Luk 1:2. αυτοπτης, this was denied to many kings and prophets, Luk 10:24. To have seen Christ in the flesh was one of the three things that Austin wished, which yet St Paul set no such high price upon, in comparison to a spiritual sight of him, 2Co 5:16. {See Trapp on "2Co 5:16"}
Which we have looked upon] εθεασαμεθα, diligently and with delight. How sweet shall be the sight of him in heaven! With what inconceivable attention and admiration shall we contemplate his glorified body outshining the brightest cherub!
And our hands have handled] i.e. With whom we have most familiarly conversed, sitting with him at the same table, and eating some bushels of salt with him, as the Greek word, Act 1:4, seems to import, συναλιζομ. from αλς, salt. Christ’s faithful ministers that have the honour to handle his law (as the phrase is, Jer 2:8) come nearest to the apostles in this glorious privilege.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–10 The order of discourse requires we begin with the…
The order of discourse requires we begin with the last thing in this verse,
the Word of life. This phrase, the Word, is by this apostle (not here to inquire in what notion some, both Jews and pagans, before took it) familiarly used, to signify the eternal Son of God: and whereas this is his usual style in speaking of this sacred Person, as in the entrance of his Gospel, (so very like that of this Epistle), so often over in his Revelation, Rev 19:13, and that afterwards in this Epistle itself, 1Jo 5:7, he so readily falls into the mention of him by this name, (as not doubting to be understood), it is scarce to be supposed, that being so constant to himself herein, he should use the same form of speech without any such intendment in this place, where the circumstances do both allow and invite us so to understand him. Nor doth the addition to it here, the Word of life, render it the less fit to be applied to this purpose, but rather the more; as serving to denote the peculiar excellency of this Word, that he is the living and vivifying Word; whereupon he also styles him in the following verse, simply, the life, and, that eternal life, ( which is fit to be noted here, viz. that these three expressions, the Word of life, the life, and that eternal life, do, by the contexture of the discourse, plainly mean the same thing, and seem in their principal intendment to be set down as so many titles of the Son of God), designing to represent him as the original and radical life, the root of the holy, divine life, to all who partake thereof, agreeably to his own words concerning him in the Gospel, Joh 1:4, In him (viz. the Word) was life, and the life was the light of men (i.e. the Word was a vital, enlivening light); and 1Jo 5:20, He (viz. the Son of God) is eternal life: and to our Lord's words of himself, I am the life, Joh 11:25; 14:6; and that the Father had given him to have life in himself, Joh 5:26, and consequently, to be capable of being to others an original or fountain of life. Yet whereas by the Word, and the Word of life, is often signified the gospel, {1Jo 2:5; Phi 2:16; and elsewhere} it seems not incongruous or disagreeable to this context, to understand the apostle, as designing to comprehend both the meanings together in one expression, apt enough to include them both. See Dr. Hammond in loco. Nor are they of so remote an import, considered in their relation to us, as not fitly to admit of being both intended at once. The Son of God being his internal Word, the Word of his mind, his Wisdom, (another appellation of him, frequent in Scripture, Pro 8:1-36 and elsewhere), comprehending all ideas of things to be created or done; to us, the immediate original of light and life, and by whose vivifying beams we are especially to be transformed into the Divine likeness: the gospel being his external word, the word of his mouth, the radiation of those beams themselves. As we do ourselves first conceive, and form in our minds, what we afterwards utter and express: only whereas our thonght, or the word of our mind, is fluid, and soon vanishes; God's (in whom is no change) is permanent, consubstantial and coeternal with himself: The Word was with God, and the Word was God, Joh 1:1. Neither are these two senses of the Word of life less fitly (or with more impropriety) comprehended together under that one expression, than in common discourse: speaking of the sun in reference to ourselves, we often comprehend together in our meaning, both the body of the sun itself and its beams; as when we say it enlightens us, revives us, shines in at this window, or upon that dial, we do not intend (as reasonably we cannot) to exclude either, but mean the sun doth it by its beams. And now the notion being settled of the Word of life, (which was necessary first to be done, and which required a larger discourse), we may the more easily perceive, how what is here said of it may, in the one sense or the other, be applied thereto.
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That which was from the beginning; so the living Word, in the first sense, was, viz. when all things also began; which is not said itself then to have begun, as Joh 1:1; In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and, at the next step, the Word was God. And with what is said by this Word himself, (then taking another, but an equivalent, name, the Wisdom of God), Pro 8:22-30. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When, & c.-Then I was by him, as one brought up with him, & c.: where from the beginning, and from everlasting, we see is all one. See 1Jo 2:13,14.
Which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands
have handled: these are all expressions indifferently applicable both:
1. To the person of the Son of God, primarily meant by the Word of life;
for that same glorious Person who was from the beginning with the Father, viz. being now incarnate, became the object of these their very senses, to this and the other apostles, who had so frequent opportunity to hear, and see, and behold him, and even to handle him with their hands, Luk 24:39; Joh 20:25. And:
2. To the gospel revelation, a secondary (not unintended) notion of the Word of life, and whereof these latter expressions seem more especially meant; they denote the perfect certainty the apostles had (the rest of whom his manner of speaking seems purposely to comprehend with himself) of that truth, which, as he after speaks, they testified; it being their office and business as apostles so to do; see Joh 15:27; Act 1:21,22; 4:20; and it was necessary they should be able to do it with such assurance as these expressions import.
Therefore having said,
which we have heard, which imports a more overly notice, it is added,
which we have seen, a much more certain way of knowing, as 2Pe 1:16,17; and
with our eyes, a more lively expression of that certainty, as Job expresses his expected sight of his Redeemer, Job 19:27; and to signify it was not a casual, transient glance, it is further said, which we have looked upon, eyeasameya, i.e. studiously, and of set purpose, bent ourselves to contemplate. Unto all which it is moreover added,
and our hands have handled, eqhlafhsan, which though literally not otherwise applicable than to the person of our Lord incarnate, yet is a most emphatical metaphor, elegantly representing their most certain knowledge and lively sense of his excellent doctrine; as the expression is usual of a palpable truth, to signify a most evident one. So is that implied to be a truth that may be felt, that this world hath a mighty and bountiful Sustainer and Lord, Act 17:27; ψηλαφησειαν.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv1–10 It is first observable, that whereas St. John began…
It is first observable, that whereas St. John began his gospel with a description of Christ’s divinity, as God, he begins his epistle with a demonstration of the truth of his human nature, as man; for the certainty of which he appeals to the judgement of sense, because the senses, when rightly circumstantiated, are the proper judges of all sensible objects;
Accordingly St. John here, to show the certainty of Christ’s incarnation, and manifestation in the flesh, brings in three of the five senses, to wit, hearing,seeing,feeling, to bear witness to it, the latter still carrying a stronger testimony than the former; to see is more than to hear; to feel is more than to see: That which we have heard, which we have seen, which we have handled.
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Observe farther, That to make the testimony yet more strong, St. John adds two words more, by way of confirmation,
1. That which we have looked upon; now this is more than to see; to see may be but a transient sudden act, but to look upon is a fixed and deliberate act, and usually a pleasing and delightful act; we looked upon him as the rarest object, as the desire and the delight of our eyes.
2. It is added, as the surest ground of certainty, that their hands had handled the Word of life; as they daily conversed with Christ, so they handled and touched him, both before his resurrection and after it; so that from hence we may remark, that God has given us the highest and fullest assurances, that can be desired, of his Son’s manifestation in our flesh, and appearing in our nature; he was heard and seen, looked upon, and handled, by those that conversed with him, which are evident demonstrations of the truth of the human nature assumed by him.
Observe farther, That our apostle takes notice of Christ’s divine nature, as well as asserts the reality of his human nature; he styles him the Word; the Word of life, and the Word which was from the beginning; in the beginning, when all things received their being, then the Word was, and did actually subsist, even from all eternity.
Learn hence, That Jesus Christ, the eternal Word, not only antecedent to his incarnation, but even before all time, and the beginning of all things, had an actual being and subsistence. I was set up from everlasting, then was I by him as one brought up with him; Pro 8:23 Thus was this Jesus, in whom we trust, both God and man, having two distinct natures in one person.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 5, 8 The apostle omits his name and character (as also…
The apostle omits his name and character (as also the author to the Hebrews does) either out of humility, or as being willing that the Christian reader should be swayed by the light and weight of the things written rather than by the name that might recommend them. And so he begins,
I. With an account or character of the Mediator's person. He is the great subject of the gospel, the foundation and object of our faith and hope, the bond and cement that unite us unto God. He should be well known; and he is represented here, 1. As the Word of life, Jo1 1:1. In the gospel these two are disjoined, and he is called first the Word, Joh 1:1, and afterwards Life, intimating, withal, that he is intellectual life. In him was life, and that life was (efficiently and objectively) the light of men, Joh 1:4. Here both are conjoined: The Word of life, the vital Word. In that he is the Word, it is intimated that he is the Word of some person or other; and that is God, even the Father. He is the Word of God, and so he is intimated to issue from the Father, as truly (though not in the same manner) as a word (or speech, which is a train of words) from a speaker. But he is not a mere vocal word, a bare logos prophorikos, but a vital one: the Word of life, the living word; and thereupon, 1. As eternal life. His duration shows his excellency. He was from eternity; and so is, in scripture-account, necessary, essential, uncreated life. That the apostle speaks of his eternity, parte ante (as they say) and as from everlasting, seems evident in that he speaks of him as he was in and from the beginning; when he was then with the Father, before his manifestation to us, yea, before the making of all things that were make; as Joh 1:2, Joh 1:3. So that he is the eternal, vital, intellectual Word of the eternal living Father. 3. As life manifested (Jo1 1:2), manifested in the flesh, manifested to us. The eternal life would assume mortality, would put on flesh and blood (in the entire human nature), and so dwell among us and converse with us, Joh 1:14. Here were condescension and kindness indeed, that eternal life (a person of eternal essential life) should come to visit mortals, and to procure eternal life for them, and then confer it on them!
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II. With the evidences and convictive assurances that the apostle and his brethren had of the Mediator's presence and converse in this world. There were sufficient demonstrations of the reality of his abode here, and of the excellency and dignity of his person in the way of his manifestation. The life, the word of life, the eternal life, as such, could not be seen and felt; but the life manifested might be, and was so. The life was clothed with flesh, put on the state and habit of abased human nature, and as such gave sensible proof of its existence and transactions here. The divine life, or Word incarnate, presented and evinced itself to the very senses of the apostles. As, 1. To their ears: That which we have heard, Jo1 1:1, Jo1 1:3. The life assumed a mouth and tongue, that he might utter words of life. The apostles not only heard of him, but they heard him himself. Above three years might they attend his ministry, be auditors of his public sermons and private expositions (for he expounded them in his house), and be charmed with the words of him who spoke as never man spoke before or since. The divine word would employ the ear, and the ear should be devoted to the word of life. And it was meet that those who were to be his representatives and imitators to the world should be personally acquainted with his ministrations. 2. To their eyes: That which we have seen with our eyes, Jo1 1:1-3. The Word would become visible, would not only be heard, but seen, seen publicly, privately, at a distance and at nearest approach, which may be intimated in the expression, with our eyes - with all the use and exercise that we could make of our eyes. We saw him in his life and ministry, saw him in his transfiguration on the mount, hanging, bleeding, dying, and dead, upon the cross, and we saw him after his return from the grave and resurrection from the dead. His apostles must be eye-witnesses as well as ear-witnesses of him. Wherefore, of these men that have accompanied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection, Act 1:21, Act 1:22. And we were eye-witnesses of his majesty, Pe2 1:16. 3. To their internal sense, to the eyes of their mind; for so (possibly) may the next clause be interpreted: Which we have looked upon. This may be distinguished from the foregoing perception, seeing with the eyes; and may be the same with what the apostle says in his gospel (Joh 1:14), And we beheld - etheasametha, his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father. The word is not applied to the immediate object of the eye, but to that which was rationally collected from what they saw. "What we have well discerned, contemplated, and viewed, what we have well known of this Word of life, we report to you." The senses are to be the informers of the mind. 4. To their hands and sense of feeling: And our hands have handled (touched and felt) of the Word of life. This surely refers to the full conviction our Lord afforded his apostles of the truth, reality, solidity, and organization of his body, after his resurrection from the dead. When he showed them his hands and his side, it is probable that he gave them leave to touch him; at least, he knew of Thomas's unbelief, and his professed resolution too not to believe, till he had found and felt the places and signatures of the wounds by which he died. Accordingly at the next congress he called Thomas, in the presence of the rest, to satisfy the very curiosity of his unbelief. And probably others of them did so too. Our hands have handled of the Word of life. The invisible life and Word was no despiser of the testimony of sense. Sense, in its place and sphere, is a means that God has appointed, and the Lord Christ has employed, for our information. Our Lord took care to satisfy (as far as might be) all the senses of his apostles, that they might be the more authentic witnesses of him to the world. Those that apply all this to the hearing of the gospel lose the variety of sensations here mentioned, and the propriety of the expressions, as well as the reason of their inculcation and repetition here: That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, Jo1 1:3. The apostles could not be deceived in such long and various exercise of their sense. Sense must minister to reason and judgment; and reason and judgment must minister to the reception of the Lord Jesus Christ and his gospel. The rejection of the Christian revelation is at last resolved into the rejection of sense itself. He upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not those who had seen him after he had risen, Mar 16:14.
III. With a solemn assertion and attestation of these grounds and evidences of the Christian truth and doctrine. The apostles publish these assurances for our satisfaction: We bear witness, and show unto you, Jo1 1:2. That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, Jo1 1:3. It became the apostles to open to the disciples the evidence by which they were led, the reasons by which they were constrained to proclaim and propagate the Christian doctrine in the world. Wisdom and integrity obliged them to demonstrate that it was not either private fancy or a cunningly-devised fable that they presented to the world. Evident truth would open their mouths, and force a public profession. We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard, Act 4:20. It concerned the disciples to be well assured of the truth of the institution they had embraced. They should see the evidences of their holy religion. It fears not the light, nor the most judicious examination. It is able to afford rational conviction and solid persuasion of mind and conscience. I would that you knew what great conflict (or concern of mind) I have for you, and for those at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts might be knit together in love, and unto all riches of full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, even of the Father, and of Christ, Col 2:1, Col 2:2.
IV. With the reason of the apostle's exhibiting and asserting this summary of sacred faith, and this breviate of evidence attending it. This reason is twofold: -
1. That the believers of it may be advanced to the same happiness with them (with the apostles themselves): That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that you may have fellowship with us, Jo1 1:3. The apostle means not personal fellowship nor consociation in the same church-administrations, but such as is consistent with personal distance from each other. It is communion with heaven, and in blessings that come thence and tend thither. "This we declare and testify, that you may share with us in our privileges and happiness." Gospel spirits (or those that are made happy by gospel grace) would fain have others happy too. We see, also, there is a fellowship or communion that runs through the whole church of God. There may be some personal distinctions and peculiarities, but there is a communion (or common participation of privilege and dignity) belonging to all saints, from the highest apostle to the lowest believer. As there is the same precious faith, there are the same precious promises dignifying and crowning that faith and the same precious blessings and glories enriching and filling those promises. Now that believers may be ambitious of this communion, that they may be instigated to retain and hold fast the faith that is the means of such communion, that the apostles also may manifest their love to the disciples in assisting them to the same communion with themselves, they indicate what it is and where it is: And truly our fellowship (or communion) is with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. We have communion with the Father, and with the Son of the Father (as Jo2 1:3, he is most emphatically styled) in our happy relation to them, in our receiving heavenly blessings from them, and in our spiritual converse with them. We have now such supernatural conversation with God and the Lord Christ as is an earnest and foretaste of our everlasting abode with them, and enjoyment of them, in the heavenly glory. See to what the gospel revelation tends - to advance us far above sin and earth and to carry us to blessed communion with the Father and the Son. See for what end the eternal life was made flesh - that he might advance us to eternal life in communion with the Father and himself. See how far those live beneath the dignity, use, and end of the Christian faith and institution, who have not spiritual blessed communion with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ.
2. That believers may be enlarged and advanced in holy joy: And these things write we unto you that your joy may be full, Jo1 1:4. The gospel dispensation is not properly a dispensation of fear, sorrow, and dread, but of peace and joy. Terror and astonishment may well attend mount Sinai, but exultation and joy mount Zion, where appears the eternal Word, the eternal life, manifested in our flesh. The mystery of the Christian religion is directly calculated for the joy of mortals. It should be joy to us that the eternal Son should come to seek and save us, that he has made a full atonement for our sins, that he has conquered sin and death and hell, that he lives as our Intercessor and Advocate with the Father, and that he will come again to perfect and glorify his persevering believers. And therefore those live beneath the use and end of the Christian revelation who are not filled with spiritual joy. Believers should rejoice in their happy relation to God, as his sons and heirs, his beloved and adopted, - in their happy relation to the Son of the Father, as being members of his beloved body, and coheirs with himself, - in the pardon of their sins, the sanctification of their natures, the adoption of their persons, and the prospect of grace and glory that will be revealed at the return of their Lord and head from heaven. Were they confirmed in their holy faith, how would they rejoice! The disciples were filled with joy, and with the Holy Ghost, Act 13:52.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–10 That which was from the beginning,.... By which is…
That which was from the beginning,.... By which is meant not the Gospel, as if the apostle's design was to assert the antiquity of that, and clear it from the charge of novelty; for though that is called the word, and the word of life, and is the Spirit which gives life, and is the means of quickening dead sinners, and brings the report of eternal life and salvation by Christ, yet the seeing of it with bodily eyes, and handling it with corporeal hands, do not agree with that; but Jesus Christ is here intended, who in his divine nature was, really existed as a divine person, as the everlasting Jehovah, the eternal I AM, which is, and was, and is to come, and existed "from the beginning"; not from the beginning of the preaching of the Gospel by John only, for he was before the Gospel was preached, being the first preacher of it himself, and before John was; yea, before the prophets, before Abraham, and before Adam, and before all creatures, from the beginning of time, and of the creation of the world, being the Maker of all things, even from everlasting; for otherwise he could not have been set up in an office capacity so early, or God's elect be chosen in him before the foundation of the world, and they have grace and blessings given them in him before the world began, or an everlasting covenant be made with him; see Joh 1:1;
which we have heard; this, with what follows, proves him to be truly and really man; for when the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among men, the apostles heard, and saw, and handled him; they not only heard a voice from heaven, declaring him to be the Son of God, but they often heard him speak himself, both in private conversation with them, and in his public ministry; they heard his many excellent discourses on the mount, and elsewhere, and those that were particularly delivered to them a little before his death; and blessed were they on this account, Mat 13:16;
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which we have seen with our eyes: with the eyes of the body, with their own, and not another's; and they saw him in human nature, and the common actions of life he did, as eating, drinking, walking, &c. and his many miracles; they saw him raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, restore sight to the blind, cause the lame to walk, the dumb to speak, and the deaf to hear; and they saw him transfigured on the mount. John was one that was present at that time, and saw his glory, as he also was when he hung upon the cross, and saw him bleeding, gasping, and dying there; they saw him after his resurrection from the dead, he showed himself to them alive, and was seen of them forty days; they saw him go up to heaven, and a cloud receiving him out of their sight:
which we have looked upon; wistly and intently, once and again, and a thousand times, and with the utmost pleasure and delight; and knew him perfectly well, and were able to describe exactly his person, stature, features, and the lineaments of his body:
and our hands have handled of the Word of life; as Peter did when Jesus caught him by the hand on the water, when he was just ready to sink; and as this apostle did, when he leaned on his bosom; and as Thomas did, even after his resurrection, when he thrust his hand into his side; and as all the apostles were called upon to see and handle him, that it was he himself, and not a spirit, which has not flesh and bones as he had. Now as this is said of Christ, the Word of life, who is so called, because he has life in himself, as God, as the Mediator, and as man, and is the author of life, natural, spiritual, and eternal, it must be understood as he, the Word, is made manifest in the flesh; for he, as the Word, or as a divine person, or as considered in his divine nature, is not to be seen nor handled: this therefore is spoken of the Word, or of the person of Christ, God-man, with respect to his human nature, as united to the Logos, or Word of God; and so is a proof of the truth and reality of his human nature, by several of the senses.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1–10 That which was - Here means, He which was…
That which was - Here means, He which was the Word himself; afterwards it means, that which they had heard from him. Which was - Namely, with the Father, ver. 2, before he was manifested. From the beginning - This phrase is sometimes used in a limited sense; but here it properly means from eternity, being equivalent with, "in the beginning," John i, 1. That which we - The apostles. Have not only heard, but seen with our eyes, which we have beheld - Attentively considered on various occasions. Of the Word of life - He is termed the Word, John i, 1; the Life, John i, 4; as he is the living Word of God, who, with the Father and the Spirit, is the fountain of life to all creatures, particularly of spiritual and eternal life.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1–9 Chronological Notes relative to this Epistle.
THE FIRST GENERAL EPISTLE OF JOHN.
Chronological Notes relative to this Epistle.
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-Year of the Constantinopolitan era of the world, or that used by the Byzantine historians, and other eastern Writers, 5577.
-Year of the Alexandrian era of the world, 5571.
-Year of the Antiochian era of the world, 5561.
-Year of the world, according to Archbishop Usher, 4073.
-Year of the world, according to Eusebius, in his Chronicon, 4297.
-Year of the minor Jewish era of the world, or that in common use, 3829.
-Year of the Greater Rabbinical era of the world, 4428.
-Year from the Flood, according to Archbishop Usher, and the English Bible, 2417.
-Year of the Cali yuga, or Indian era of the Deluge, 3171.
-Year of the era of Iphitus, or since the first commencement of the Olympic games, 1009.
-Year of the era of Nabonassar, king of Babylon, 818.
-Year of the CCXIIth Olympiad, 1.
-Year from the building of Rome, according to Fabius Pictor, 816.
-Year from the building of Rome, according to Frontinus, 820.
-Year from the building of Rome, according to the Fasti Capitolini, 821.
-Year from the building of Rome, according to Varro, which was that most generally used, 822.
-Year of the era of the Seleucidae, 381.
-Year of the Caesarean era of Antioch, 117.
-Year of the Julian era, 114.
-Year of the Spanish era, 107.
-Year from the birth of Jesus Christ, according to Archbishop Usher, 73.
-Year of the vulgar era of Christ's nativity, 69.
-Year of Vologesus, king of the Parthians, 20.
-Year of the Dionysian period, or Easter Cycle, 70.
-Year of the Grecian Cycle of nineteen years, or Common Golden Number, 13; or the fifth embolismic.
-Year of the Jewish Cycle of nineteen years, 10; or the year before the fourth embolismic.
-Year of the Solar Cycle, 22.
-Dominical Letter, it being the first year after the Bissextile, or Leap Year, A.
-Day of the Jewish Passover, the twenty-fourth of March, which happened in this year on the sixth day after the Jewish Sabbath.
-Easter Sunday, the twenty-sixth of March.
-Epact, or age of the moon on the 22d of March, (the day of the earliest Easter Sunday possible,) 12.
-Epact, according to the present mode of computation, or the moon's age on New Year's day, or the Calends of January, 20.
-Monthly Epacts, or age of the moon on the Calends of each month respectively, (beginning with January,) 20, 22, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 27, 28, 0, 0, 2, 2.
-Number of Direction, or the number of days from the twenty-first of March to the Jewish Passover, 3.
-In this year reigned four Roman emperors, viz., Galba, from Jan. 1 to Jan. 15, Otho ninety days, Vitellius eight months, and Vespasian for the remainder of the year.
-Roman Consuls, Servius Sulpicius Galba Augustus, the second time, and Titus Vinius Rufinus, from Jan. 1 to the death of Galba, Jan. 15; Salvius Otho Augustus, and L. Salvius Otho Titianus, from Jan. 15 to March 1; L. Virginius Rufus, and Vopiscus Pompeius Silvanus, from March 1 to May 1; Titus Arrius Antoninus and P. Marius Celsus, the second time, from May 1 to Sept. 1; C. Fabius Valens and Aulus Alienus Coecina, from Sept. 1, the former holding the Consulship to Nov. 1, the latter being succeeded by Roscius Regulus, on Oct. 31; Cn. Caecilius Simplex and C. Quintius Atticus, from Nov. 1, to the end of the year.
CHAPTER I.
The testimony of the apostle concerning the reality of the
person and doctrine of Christ; and the end for which he bears
this testimony, 1-4.
God is light, and none can have fellowship with him who do not
walk in the light; those who walk in the light are cleansed
from all unrighteousness by the blood of Christ, 5-7.
No man can say that he has not sinned; but God is faithful and
just to cleanse from all unrighteousness them who confess their
sins, 8-10.
NOTES ON CHAP. I.
Verse 1. That which was from the beginning] That glorious personage, JESUS CHRIST the LORD, who was from eternity; him, being manifested in the flesh, we have heard proclaim the doctrine of eternal life; with our own eyes have we seen him, not transiently, for we have looked upon him frequently; and our hands have handled-frequently touched, his person; and we have had every proof of the identity and reality of this glorious being that our senses of hearing, ὁ ακηκοαμεν, seeing, ὁ ἑωρακαμεν τοις οφθαλμοις ἡμων, and feeling, και αἱ χειρες ἡμων εψηλαφησαν could possibly require.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 8 1Jn 1:1. That which was — That is, as…
1Jn 1:1. That which was — That is, as the expression here means, the word which was, namely, with the Father, (1Jn 1:2,) before he was manifested; from the beginning — This phrase sometimes means the beginning of the gospel dispensation, as 1Jn 2:7-8, and is thus interpreted here by Whitby, Doddridge, and Macknight. But if the apostle be speaking, as the context seems to show he is, of the eternal Word, the Son of God, he could not mean to tell us merely that he existed from the beginning of the gospel, for who needed to be informed of that? since it was well known by all professing Christians, that, even as to his human nature, he had existed near thirty years before the gospel dispensation was in any degree opened by the ministry of his forerunner, John the Baptist. The expression, from the beginning, here seems to be equivalent with in the beginning, (Joh 1:1,) and therefore to mean from the beginning of time, or rather, from eternity; that which we — The apostles; have heard — Most credibly attested by authentic witnesses; nay, have heard discoursing to us times innumerable; which we have seen with our eyes — And that not only daily, for three years before his crucifixion, but repeatedly after his resurrection from the dead; which we have looked upon — Εθεασαμεθα, have contemplated; the word is different from that rendered we have seen, in the former clause; and denotes their beholding him attentively, and considering maturely and diligently his person and conduct, his words and actions, his doctrine, sufferings, and miracles, and all the other particulars by which he manifested the reality and extraordinary nature of his life in the flesh. And our hands have handled, &c. — Here the apostle seems chiefly to allude to what Christ said to his disciples when he appeared to them after his resurrection, and said, Handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have, Luk 24:39. On many other occasions, however, the disciples had an opportunity of handling their Master, and knowing that he had a real body. For example, when he washed their feet; when he took Peter by the hand to prevent him from sinking as he walked on the water; when the disciples gave him the loaves and fishes, and when he, after multiplying them, put them into their hands to be distributed to the multitude. John, in particular, had an opportunity of feeling Christ’s body when he leaned on his bosom during the last passover supper, Joh 13:23. Of the Word of life — He is termed the Word, Joh 1:1, the Life, Joh 1:4, as he is the living word of God, who with the Father and the Spirit, is the fountain of life to all creatures, particularly of spiritual and eternal life.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–10 That which was from the beginning - There can…
That which was from the beginning - There can be no doubt that the reference here is to the Lord Jesus Christ, or the “Word” that was made flesh. See the notes at Joh 1:1. This is such language as John would use respecting him, and indeed the phrase “the beginning,” as applicable to the Lord Jesus, is unique to John in the writings of the New Testament: and the language here may be regarded as one proof that this Epistle was written by him, for it is just such an expression as “he” would use, but not such as one would be likely to adopt who should attempt to palm off his own writings as those of John. One who should have attempted that would have been likely to introduce the name “John” in the beginning of the Epistle, or in some way to have claimed his authority. The apostle, in speaking of “that which was from the beginning,” uses a word in the neuter gender instead of the masculine, (ὅ ho.) It is not to be supposed, I think, that he meant to apply this term “directly” to the Son of God, for if he had he would have used the masculine pronoun; but though he had the Son of God in view, and meant to make a strong affirmation respecting him, yet the particular thing here referred to was “whatever” there was respecting that incarnate Saviour that furnished testimony to any of the senses, or that pertained to his character and doctrine, he had borne witness to.
He was looking rather at the evidence that he was incarnate; the proofs that he was manifested; and he says that those proofs had been subjected to the trial of the senses, and he had borne witness to them, and now did it again. This is what is referred to, it seems to me, by the phrase “that which,” (ὅ ho.) The sense may be this: “Whatever there was respecting the Word of life, or him who is the living Word, the incarnate Son of God, from the very beginning, from the time when he was first manifested in the flesh; whatever there was respecting his exalted nature, his dignity, his character, that could be subjected to the testimony of the senses, to be the object of sight, or hearing, or touch, that I was permitted to see, and that I declare to you respecting him.” John claims to be a competent witness in reference to everything which occurred as a manifestation of what the Son of God was.
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If this be the correct interpretation, then the phrase “from the beginning” (ἀπ ̓ ἀρχῆς ap' archēs does not here refer to his eternity, or his being in the beginning of all things, as the phrase “in the beginning” (ἐν ἀρχῇ en archē) does in Joh 1:1; but rather means from the very commencement of his manifestation as the Son of God, the very first indications on earth of what he was as the Messiah. When the writer says 1Jo 1:3 that he “declares” this to them, it seems to me that he has not reference merely to what he would say in this Epistle, for he does not go extensively into it here, but that he supposes that they had his Gospel in their possession, and that he also means to refer to that, or presumes that they were familiar with the testimony which he had borne in that Gospel respecting the evidence that the “Word became flesh.” Many have indeed supposed that this Epistle accompanied the Gospel when it was published, and was either a part of it that became subsequently detached from it, or was a letter that accompanied it. See Hug, Introduction P. II. Section 68. There is, it seems to me, no certain evidence of that; but no one can doubt that he supposed that those to whom he wrote had access to that Gospel, and that he refers here to the testimony which he had borne in that respecting the incarnate Word.
Which we have heard - John was with the Saviour through the whole of his ministry, and he has recorded more that the Saviour said than either of the other evangelists. It is on what he said of himself that he grounds much of the evidence that he was the Son of God.
Which we have seen with our eyes - That is, pertaining to his person, and to what he did. “I have seen him; seen what he was as a man; how he appeared on earth; and I have seen whatever there was in his works to indicate his character and origin.” John professes here to have seen enough in this respect to furnish evidence that he was the Son of God. It is not hearsay on which he relies, but he had the testimony of his own eyes in the case. Compare the notes at 2Pe 1:16.
Which we have looked upon - The word used here seems designed to be more emphatic or intensive than the one occurring before. He had just said that he had “seen him with his eyes,” but he evidently designs to include an idea in this word which would imply something more than mere beholding or seeing. The additional idea which is couched in this word seems to be that of desire or pleasure; that is, that he had looked on him with desire, or satisfaction, or with the pleasure with which one beholds a beloved object. Compare Mat 11:7; Luk 7:24; Joh 1:14; Joh 11:45. See Robinson, Lexicon. There was an intense and earnest gaze, as when we behold one whom we have desired to see, or when one goes out purposely to look on an object. The evidences of the incarnation of the Son of God had been subjected to such an intense and earnest gaze.
And our hands have handled - That is, the evidence that he was a man was subjected to the sense of touch. It was not merely that he had been seen by the eye, for then it might be pretended that this was a mere appearance assumed without reality; or that what occurred might have been a mere optical illusion; but the evidence that he appeared in the flesh was subjected to more senses than one; to the fact that his voice was heard; that he was seen with the eyes; that the most intense scrutiny had been employed; and, lastly, that he had been actually touched and handled, showing that it could not have been a mere appearance, an assumed form, but that it was a reality. This kind of proof that the Son of God had appeared in the flesh, or that he was truly and properly a man, is repeatedly referred to in the New Testament. Luk 24:39; “behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have.” Compare Joh 20:25-27. There is evident allusion here to the opinion which early prevailed, which was held by the Docetes, that the Son of God did not truly and really become a man, but that there was only an appearance assumed, or that he seemed to be a man. See the Introduction, Section 3. It was evidently with reference to this opinion, which began early to prevail, that the apostle dwells on this point, and repeats the idea so much, and shows by a reference to all the senses which could take any cognizance in the case, that he was truly and properly a man. The amount of it is, that we have the same evidence that he was properly a man which we can have in the case of any other human being; the evidence on which we constantly act, and in which we cannot believe that our senses deceive us.
Of the Word of life - Respecting, or pertaining to, the Word of life. “That is, whatever there was pertaining to the Word of life, which was manifested from the beginning in his speech and actions, of which the senses could take cognizance, and which would furnish the evidence that he was truly incarnate, that we have declared unto you.’ The phrase “the Word of life,” means the Word in which life resided, or which was the source and fountain of life. See the notes at Joh 1:1, Joh 1:3. The reference is undoubtedly to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 5, 8 The first two verses and part of the third…
The first two verses and part of the third have a great conformity with the beginning of St. John’s gospel. The construction is somewhat obscure, unless we observe that the second verse is to be taken by way of a parenthesis, and the sense is not complete till these words, we declare to you, &c. The whole may be expressed in this literal paraphrase: We declare and preach to you the eternal and always living word, which was from the [1] beginning, (for this word which was with the Father from eternity, hath appeared,[2] and manifested himself to us, when he took upon him our human nature, and was made flesh). This word I say, incarnate, we have seen with our eyes, we have heard him preach his gospel, we have touched his true body with our hands, as we witness and declare to you, that you may have fellowship with us, and be made partakers of the graces which God came from heaven to bestow upon mankind, to make us his adoptive sons and heirs of heaven. (Witham)
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
This answers to, in principio erat verbum [in the beginning was the Word. (John i. 1.)]
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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
Et vita manifesta est. This corresponds to, in ipso vita erat, [in him was life, (John i. 4.)] and apparuit nobis to Verbum Caro Factum est. [the Word was made flesh. (John i. 14)] And it was true to say that they had seen the eternal word, not as God, but under the veil of human nature.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
John Nelson Darby 1862 · Public Domain On v1 1 John Chapter 1
1 John Chapter 1
The Epistle of John has a peculiar character. It is eternal life manifested in Jesus, and imparted to us- the life which was with the Father, and which is in the Son. It is in this life that believers enjoy the communion of the Father, that they are in relationship with the Father by the Spirit of adoption, and that they have fellowship with the Father and the Son. God’s own character is that which tests it; because it proceeds from Himself.
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The first chapter establishes these two latter points: namely, communion with the Father and the Son, and that this communion must be according to the essential character of God. The name of Father is that which gives character to the second chapter. Afterwards it is that which God is, which tests the reality of imparted life.
The Epistles of Paul, although speaking of this life, are in general occupied with setting before Christians the truth respecting the means of standing in the presence of God justified and accepted. The Epistle of John, that is to say, his First, shews us the life that comes from God by Jesus Christ. John sets God before us, the Father revealed in the Son, and eternal life in Him. Paul sets us before God accepted in Christ. I speak of what characterises them. Each respectively touches on the other point.
Now, this life is so precious, manifested as it is in the Person of Jesus, that the epistle now before us has in this respect quite a peculiar charm. When I, too, turn my eyes to Jesus, when I contemplate all His obedience, His purity, His grace, His tenderness, His patience, His devotedness, His holiness, His love, His entire freedom from all self-seeking, I can say, That is my life.
This is immeasurable grace. It may be that it is obscured in me; but it is none the less true, that that is my life. Oh how do I enjoy it thus seen! How I bless God for it! What rest to the soul! What pure joy to the heart! At the same time Jesus Himself is the object of my affections; and all my affections are formed on that holy object.[1] But we must turn to our epistle. There were many pretensions to new light, to clearer views. It was said that Christianity was very good as an elementary thing; but that it was grown old, and that there was a new light which went far beyond that twilight truth.
The Person of our Lord, the true manifestation of the divine life itself, dissipated all those proud pretensions, those exaltations of the human mind under the influence of the enemy, which did but obscure the truth, and lead the mind of men back into the darkness whence they themselves proceeded.
That which was from the beginning (of Christianity that is, in the Person of Christ), that which they heard, had seen with their own eyes, had contemplated, had touched with their own hands, of the Word of life-that was it which the apostle declared. For the life itself had been manifested. That life which was with the Father had been manifested to the disciples. Could there be anything more perfect, more excellent, any development more admirable in the eyes of God, than Christ Himself, than that Life which was with the Father, manifested in all its perfection in the Person of the Son ? As soon as the Person of the Son is the object of our faith, we feel that perfection must have been at the beginning.
The Person then of the Son, the eternal life manifested in the flesh, is our subject in this epistle.
Grace is consequently to be remarked here in that which regards life; while Paul presents it in connection with justification. The law promised life upon obedience; but life came in the Person of Jesus, in all its own divine perfection, in its human manifestations. Oh how precious is the truth that this life, such as it was with the Father, such as it was in Jesus, is given to us! In what relationships it sets us, by the power of the Holy Ghost, with the Father and with the Son Himself! And this is what the Spirit here first sets before us. And observe, how it is all grace here. Farther on, indeed, He tests all pretensions to the possession of fellowship with God, by displaying God’s own character; a character from which He can never deviate. But, before entering on this, He presents the Saviour Himself, and communion with the Father and the Son by this means, without question and without modification. This is our position and our eternal joy.
The apostle had seen that life, had touched it with his own hands; and he wrote to others, proclaiming this, in order that they also should have communion with Him in the knowledge of the life which had been thus manifested.[2] Now, inasmuch as that life was the Son, it could not be known without knowing the Son, that is, that which He was, entering into His thoughts, His feelings: otherwise He is not really known. It was thus they had communion with Him -with the Son. Precious fact! to enter into the thoughts (all the thoughts), and into the feelings, of the Son of God come down in grace: to do this in fellowship with Him, that is to say, not only knowing them, but sharing these thoughts and feelings with Him. In effect, it is the life.
But we cannot have the Son without having the Father. He who had seen Him had seen the Father; and consequently he who had communion with the Son had communion with the Father; for their thoughts and feelings were all one. He is in the Father, and the Father in Him. We have fellowship therefore with the Father. And this is true also, when we look at it in another aspect. We know that the Father has entire delight in the Son. Now He has given us, by revealing the Son, to take our delight in Him also, feeble as we are. I know, when I am delighting in Jesus-in His obedience, His love to His Father, to us, His single eye and purely devoted heart -I have the same feelings, the same thoughts, as the Father Himself. In that the Father delights, cannot but delight, in Him in whom I now delight, I have communion with the Father. So with the Son in the knowledge of the Father. All this flows, whether in the one or the other point of view, from the Person of the Son. Herein our joy is full. What can we have more than the Father and the Son ? What more perfect happiness than community of thoughts, feelings, joys, and communion, with the Father and the Son, deriving all our joy from themselves? And if it seem difficult to believe, let us remember that, in truth, it cannot be otherwise: for, in the life of Christ, the Holy Ghost is the source of my thoughts, feelings, communion, and He cannot give thoughts different from those of the Father and the Son. They must be in their nature the same. To say that they are adoring thoughts is in the very nature of things, and only makes them more precious. To say that they are feeble and often hindered, while the Father and the Son are divine and perfect, is, if true, to say the Father and the Son are God, are divine, and we feeble creatures. That surely none will deny. But if the blessed Spirit be the source, they must be the same as to nature and fact.
This is our Christian position then, here below in time, through the knowledge of the Son of God; as the apostle says, “These things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.”
But He who was the life which came from the Father, has brought us the knowledge of God. [3] The apostle had heard from His lips that which God was -knowledge of priceless value, but which searches the heart. And this also the apostle, on the Lord’s part, announces to believers. This then is the message which they had heard from Him, namely, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness. With regard to Christ, He spoke that which He knew, and bore testimony to that which He had seen. No one had been in heaven, save He who came down from thence. No one had seen God. The Only-begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father, He had declared Him. No one had seen the Father, save He who was of God; He had seen the Father. Thus He could, of His own and perfect knowledge, reveal Him.[4] Now God was light, perfect purity, which makes manifest at the same time all that is pure, and all that is not so. To have communion with light, one must oneself be light, be of its nature, and fit to be seen in the perfect light. It can only be linked with that which is of itself. If there is anything else that mingles with it, light is no longer light. It is absolute in its nature, so as to exclude all that is not itself.
Therefore, if we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not practise truth: our life is a perpetual lie.
But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we (believers) have communion with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. These are the great principles, the great features of Christian position. We are in the presence of God without a veil. It is a real thing, a matter of life and of walk. It is not the same thing as walking according to the light; but it is in the light. That is to say, that this walk is before the eyes of God, enlightened by the full revelation of what He is. It is not that there is no sin in us; but walking in the light, the will and the conscience being in the light as God is in it, everything is judged that does not answer to it. We live and walk morally in the sense that God is present, and as knowing Him. We walk thus in the light. The moral rule of our will is God Himself, God known. The thoughts that sway the heart come from Himself and are formed upon the revelation of Himself. The apostle puts these things always in an abstract way: thus he says, “he cannot sin, because he is born of God;” and that maintains the moral rule of this life; it is its nature; it is the truth, inasmuch as the man is born of God. We cannot have any other measure of it: any other would be false. It does not follow, alas! that we are always consistent; but we are inconsistent if we are not in this state; we are not walking according to the nature that we possess; we are out of our true condition according to that nature.
Moreover, walking in the light, as God is in the light, believers have communion with each other. The world is selfish. The flesh, the passions, seek their own gratification; but, if I walk in the light, self has no place there. I can enjoy the light, and all I seek in it, with another, and there is no jealousy. If another possess a carnal thing, I am deprived of it. In the light we have fellow-possession of that which He gives us, and we enjoy it the more by sharing it together. This is a touchstone to all that is of the flesh. As much as one is in the light, so much will we have fellow-enjoyment with another who is in it. The apostle, as we have said, states this in an abstract and absolute way. This is the truest way to know the thing itself. The rest is only a question of realisation.
In the third place, the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
To walk in the light as God is in it, to have fellowship with one another, to be cleansed from all sin by the blood; these are the three parts of Christian position. We feel the need there is of the last; for while walking in the light as God is in the light, with (blessed be God) a perfect revelation to us of Himself with a nature that knows Him, that is capable of seeing Him spiritually, as the eye is made to appreciate light (for we participate in the divine nature), we cannot say that we have no sin. The light itself would contradict us. But we can say that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us perfectly from all sin [5] Through the Spirit we enjoy the light together: it is the common joy of our hearts before God, and well pleasing to Him; a testimony to our common participation in the divine nature, which is love also. And our conscience is no hindrance, because we know the value of the blood. We have no conscience of sin upon us before God, though we know it is in us; but we have the conscience of being clean from it by the blood. But the same light which shews us this, prevents our saying (if we are in it) that we have no sin in us; we should deceive ourselves if we said so; and the truth would not be in us; for if the truth were in us, if that revelation of the divine nature, which is light, Christ our life, were in us, the sin that is in us would be judged by the light itself. If it be not judged, this light-the truth which speaks of things as they are-is not in us.
Footnotes for 1 John Chapter 1
1: And this is morally very important; while it is in Him, not in myself, that I rejoice and delight.
2: The life has been manifested. Therefore we have no longer to seek for it, to grope after it in the darkness, to explore at random the indefinite, or the obscurity of our own hearts, in order to find it, to labour fruitlessly under the law, in order to obtain it. We behold it: it is revealed, it is here, in Jesus Christ. He who possesses Christ possesses that life.
3: It will be found that, when grace to us is spoken of in John’s writings, he speaks of the Father and the Son; when the nature of God or our responsibility, he says God. Joh 3:1-36 and 1Jn 4:1-21 may seem exceptions, but are not. It is what God is as such, not personal action and relationship in grace.
4: He who had seen Him had seen the Father; but here the apostle speaks of a message and the revelation of His nature.
5: It is not said “has” nor “will.” It does not refer to time, but to its efficacy. As I might say such a medicine cures the ague. It is its efficacy.
John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On vv1, 5, 6, 8 Ιωαννου α in A. B. Ιωαννου επιστολη α Cod.…
Ιωαννου α in A. B. Ιωαννου επιστολη α Cod. Sin. al. [other Codd. read επιστολη Ιωαννου τρωτη; l. r. Ιωαννου του αποστολου επιστολη καθολικη πρωτη.—M.].
I. THE EXORDIUM
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1Jn_1:1-4
OBJECT AND PURPOSE OF THE APOSTOLIC ANNUNCIATION (1Jn_1:1-3). DESIGN OF THE EPISTLE. (1Jn_1:4)
1That which1 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, of the Word of 2life; (For2 the life was manifested, and we have seen it,3 and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which4 was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) 3That which we have seen and heard declare5 we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship6 is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4And these things write7 we unto you that your joy8 may be full.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The exordium (1Jn_1:1-4) describes in vivid and definite language the object and purpose of the Apostolical annunciation and of this Epistle.—The affinity of this exordium with the prologue of the Gospel of St. John is unmistakable.
The Gospel.The First Epistle.Joh_1:1. In the beginning (ἐν ἀρχῇ) was the Word.1Jn_1:1. What was from the beginning (ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς.)Joh_1:1-2. And it was with God (πρὸς τὸν Θεόν.)1Jn_1:2. Which (Life) was with God [with the Father] (πρὸς τὸν θεὸν.)Joh_1:1-4. The Word (λόγος) in Him was Life (ζωή.)1Jn_1:1. The word of the Life (τοῦ λόγου τῆς ζωῆς.)Joh_1:5. The Life was the Light of men, and the Light shineth (φαίνει)—1Jn_1:2. The Life was manifested, appeared (ἐφανερώθη.)Joh_1:9. He was the true Light, who lighteneth every man, come into the world. Joh_1:14. We gazed upon His glory (ἐθεασάμεθα.)1Jn_1:2. What we have seen with our eyes, what we gazed upon (ἐθεασάμεθα.)Equally unmistakable is the difference between the two exordia; the prologue of the Gospel is a monologue, a testimony and confession, where the Apostle, soaring aloft like an eagle, is raised in calm contemplation above all the tumults of life; the exordium of the Epistle, however, is written in profound emotion under the impressions of a blessed experience in the past, and of the present in hearty sympathy with and tender anxiety for the readers of the Epistle; its address is eloquent, pathetic and lively.
In point of form this exordium differs from that of almost all the Epistles of the New Testament, and resembles only the exordium of the Epistle to the Hebrews; it is alike devoid of the name of the writer, of a description of the readers, and of the salutation. But even in the second and third Epistles, although addressed to individuals, and specifying their name or description, the name of the author is not given, his office only being mentioned (ὁ πρεσβύτερος).—As in the Gospel, so in the Epistles, John loves to suppress his name (Joh_1:35; Joh_1:40; Joh_13:23; Joh_18:15; Joh_19:26; Joh_20:3; Joh_21:20, and cf. J. P. Lange, the Ev. Jo., p. 63. 2). But although he does not name himself, the Apostolical office and vocation of the author are accurately marked; and although the readers are not even designated, his relation to them is made sufficiently prominent, so that we must say that the Epistle is written not only for them, but to them. But the salutation (χαίρειν) may be alluded to in ἵνα ἡ χαρὰ ὑμῶν ᾖ πεπληρωμένη.
The structure, 1Jn_1:1-3, owing to its liveliness, is not quite simple; it is repeatedly interrupted and has been variously given. The fundamental or leading word (the verbum finitum), is doubtless ἀπαγγέλλομεν, 1Jn_1:3, which for the sake of clearness is appropriately placed between the object of the annunciation and its purpose. The purpose is simply and definitely indicated: ἵνα καὶ ὑμεῖς κοινωνίαν ἔχητε μεθ’ ἡμῖν. In defining the object, the Apostle seems to struggle for the right expressions, and renders it prominent in a double series of clauses, first, 1Jn_1:1 : ὃ ἦν ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς—ἐψηλάφησαν; then 1Jn_1:1 : περὶ τοῦ λόγου τῆς ζωῆς—ἐφανερώθη ἡμῖν. He marks it first according to its import and being, 1Jn_1:1. ὃ ἦν ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς, in the second part of 1Jn_1:1; περὶ τοῦ λόγου τῆς ζωῆς, and 1Jn_1:2, ἡ ζωή ἡ αἰώνιος ἥτις ἦν πρὸς τὸν πατέρα, and then according to its manifestation, 1Jn_1:1 : ὃ ἑωράκαμεν—ἐψηλάφησαν, 1Jn_1:2 : ἐφανερώθη—ἡμῖν, or first according to its mysterious sublimity and fulness, and then according to the manifold internal relations in which it stood and stands to John and his associates. The Apostle, while strongly marking the object of the Apostolical annunciation after the first series of relative clauses by περὶ τοῦ λόγου τῆς ζωῆς, takes occasion to introduce with the Genitive ζωῆς a parenthesis, 1Jn_1:2, which concludes with ἐφανερώθη ἡμῖν, and cannot be resolved or broken up. This constrains him to connect the sentence, thus interrupted by the parenthesis, with what goes before by ὃ ἑωράκαμεν καὶ ἀκηκόαμεν, and so that, as the sentence begins with a relative, now that the object has been distinctly defined by περὶ τοῦ λόγου τῆς ζωῆς, it also concludes with a relative. We have therefore here no period with protasis and apodosis, but a simple sentence, much enlarged indeed and interrupted by long parentheses, the structure of which however is plain enough and does not allow any other construing.
The Object Of The Apostolical Annunciation. 1Jn_1:1-3 a
a. The First Series of Clauses.
1Jn_1:1
1Jn_1:1. What was from the beginning.—The opening words remind us of Joh_1:1 : “In the beginning was the Word,” and of Gen_1:1 : “In the beginning God created.” Not the moment of creation, but the purely eternal existence until the beginning of the world and its history. The word ἀρχή must always be defined by the context, e.g., in 1Jn_2:7 : “Ye had from the beginning,” the beginning denotes the time when they became Christians, in 1Jn_3:8, “the devil sinneth from the beginning,” i.e., from the time when he became the devil, which happened immediately after the creation of the world; in 1Jn_2:13-14 : “Ye have known him that is from the beginning,” i.e., from eternity, Jesus Christ.—The beginning of the devil dates from the creation of the world (1Jn_3:8), the beginning of faith lies in the life of the readers themselves (1Jn_2:7), and the beginning here and at 1Jn_2:13, denotes eternity before the creation of the world. The sense is clear from the parallel sentence, 1Jn_1:2, “ἦν πρὸς τὸν πατέρα,” and corresponds with πρὸ πάντων Col_1:17, πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου Eph_1:4, πρὸ τοῦ τὸν κόσμον εἶναι Joh_17:5, or with ἀπὸ τῶν αἰώνων Eph_3:9; Col_1:26. But ἀπό does not equal πρὸ, nor is ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς equal to ἐν ἀρχῇ, Joh_1:1.—In the Gospel the Apostle describes and considers the Existence of the Logos with the Father before the Creation, and then proceeds to denote His agency in the creation; but here the Apostle passes from the Existence of the Logos to His manifestations in history. He was therefore before the world was, and He was, before He appeared in history [i.e., before His incarnation.—M.]. The Apostle looks back from his personal experience to the eternity from whence He came; His eye travels over thousands of years from the beginning to the time of His personal experience. As He became not the Logos when He became man, so He became not [began to exist—M.] when the world was made, began to exist. The reference is consequently not to the μυστήριον Θεοῡ (Theophylact, Oecumen.), or to the Gospel of Jesus Christ (Socinus), or to the res a Deo destinatæ (Grotius).—The simplest explanation of the designation of the personal Logos by the Neuter ὃ, is the supposition that the Apostle, moved by the mysterious sublimity and the fulness of essential [belonging to the Being or Essence of Christ—M.] glory (which will not be fully recognized and known before His ultimate revelation in His second advent, 1Jn_3:2 : καθώς ἐστι), writes with a soaring sense of indefiniteness, and views the Person to whom he refers at the same time as the principle of the world and its history, although this does not pass into a reflecting consciousness [sic in German.—M.]. Similarly τὸ κατέχον precedes ὁ κατέχων in 2Th_2:6; similar terms may also be seen in Luk_1:35; Joh_3:6; Joh_6:37; Heb_7:7; 1Co_1:27 sq.; Col_1:26; 1Jn_5:4. The reference is consequently not to abstraction, the Word of Life, the Life (Huther), or to the connection of the Person of Jesus with His history and doctrine (Lücke Ebrard), or the taking together of His preëxistence and historical appearance (Düsterdieck), or to the mere designation of the Apostolical annunciation (Hofmann). [Braune’s explanation lacks perspicuity, and really seeks to combine the views of Huther and Düsterdieck, with the addition of a reference to the second coming of Christ; we doubt whether it will convince many readers, while Huther’s explanation, which we give in full, supplies a clear and natural reason for the use of the Neuter ὅ. “The Apostle points to the Apostolical annunciation, namely, the personal Christ, by the Neuter because he thinks of Him as ‘the Word of Life,’ or ‘the Life.’ The reference then being to an abstract (per se) or general idea, ζωή, the Neuter ὅ seems to be in place. The Apostle might indeed have used ὅς for ὅ, because this ζωή is to him the personal Christ; but considering that the characteristic import of Christ consists in His being the Life (not only a living individual) and that John, full of this idea, begins this Epistle, it was more natural that he should use ὅ than ὅς”—M.]
What we have heard—seen—gazed upon—handled is a rising gradation; hearing is the lowest degree of the climax, it strikes the ear from a certain distance, perhaps unsought for; with our eyes intensifies the word seen; seeing indeed may be involuntary, but the beginning of self-activity is already marked; gazing upon gives prominence to this self-activity [voluntary exercise of the sense of sight—M.], with the secondary idea of continuance; handled with our hands denotes the nearest and most direct intercourse. By “what we have heard” the Apostle naturally passes from the eternal existence of the Logos to His historical appearing; the λόγος ἄσαρκος becomes the λόγος ἔνσαρκος. He makes Himself known first and most naturally in the Word. Not what he had heard of Him in the Word of the Old Testament, in the prophecies until John the Baptist, but that he had heard Himself. “O cannot be another object than in the first clause; the same word, ὅ, is used in all the clauses, and designates the same object, the Logos; the perceptions and modes of revelation only differ. The Apostle had not only heard words of the mouth, words from human lips, but in such human words, and through them the speaker Himself, the Logos; not the Apostle’s ear, but he himself has heard, his soul of course through the instrumentality of the material organ of hearing.—He had seen, as he says, in order to lay peculiar emphasis on the testimony of his ears and eyes, with his own eyes, the form of a servant, the Son of man, but of course what lived therein shown forth therefrom in look and mien, in manner and motion; the soul of John, therefore, looked with bodily eyes into the Nature of the manifested, incarnate Logos. Hence again the same object. Indeed He says Himself: “He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father,” Joh_14:9 compared with Joh_12:45.
What we gazed upon—handled are Aorists, not Perfects, as just before. This change of tense is neither arbitrary nor inaccurate, but designed and wise. The Apostle had heard and seen in single moments; these are finished acts, facts with their effects; but now he intends by the use of these Aorists to point to the past as an expiring present, how he had ever and anon had continuous intercourse with Him in the most direct nearness and lively self-activity.—The verbs “heard” and “seen” rather denote involuntary perception, while the others, “gazed upon” and “handled,” signify voluntary, intentional perception for the purpose of making sure of the reality and nature of the Logos. (Huther).—The man Jesus only was gazed upon, His body only was handled, but through all that sensuousness the Son of God was recognized and felt, and His Divine glory perceived and experienced. We have, therefore, to deal with the same object throughout. The verb “gazed upon” reminds us of the language of John in his Gospel (Joh_1:14): “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we gazed upon (ἐθεασάμεθα) His glory;” the verb “handled” is connected with the words of the risen Saviour, Luk_24:39 : “Behold my hands and my feet that it is I myself; handle me (ψηλαφήσατέ με), and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have,” cf. Joh_20:27. John, who leaned on His bosom, Joh_13:23 : ἐν τῷ κόλπῳ, Joh_13:25; Joh_21:20 : ἐπὶ τὸ στῆθος, denotes thereby the most intimate relation, rendering shaking of hands and kissing proper, and thus places the real humanity and bodily existence of Christ beyond the possibility of doubt. “He patiently allowed murderers to handle Him, why should He not have suffered those who love Him to do the same.” (Pfenninger). Thus the Apostle marks here two things, first, the fulness of his perceptions, and, secondly, their authentication. Luther says correctly: “He multiplies words, and thus makes the matter great and important. We have, says he, looked and gazed upon with the utmost care and diligence; we have not been deceived, but are sure that it was not an illusion. He says this in order to make his hearers perfectly sure of the matter.” Thus both the glory of the incarnate Word, so difficult to understand, and the authentication of the testimony, so important in its bearing, are portrayed in such lively colours on account of the object.
b. The Second Series of Clauses.
1Jn_1:1-3 a.
Of the word of the Life is neither an independent appositive addition to the preceding definitions of the object (Huther), nor governed by the last verb, ἐψηλάφησαν (Erasmus, al.), nor, indeed, by ἧν ἀπ̓ ἀρχῆδ (S. G. Lange, “What happened to the Word of Life from the beginning!”). It is the beginning of a new clause, parallel with the series of relative clauses as to matter (Düsterdieck), which terminates with them in ἀπαγγέλλομεν. That which before had been taken indefinitely as a Neuter, is here described for the first time as a Person. The Word of Life, per se, may stand both for the Gospel of Life and the Personal Logos of Life, and taken as the Apostolical Word, or the hypostatical Word. If it be taken in the former sense as verbum simpliciter (Bengel), the Genitive τῆδ ζωῆδ may designate the quality (Socinus, Grotius), like ὁ ἄρτος τῆς ζωῆδ, Joh_6:35, τὸ φῶδ τῆδ ζωῆδ, or the object (Luther: “we speak of the life,” Düsterdieck), as in 1Co_1:18 : ὁ λόγοδ τοῦ σταυροῦ. But this construction of περὶ τοῦ λόγου τῆδ ζωῆδ is impossible, because it must be connected with ἀπαγγέλλομεν (1Th_1:9 : περὶ ἡμῶν ἀπαγγέλλουσιν); the construction with περὶ instead of the Accusative is designed to guard against the possible misunderstanding of making the Word designate the Gospel and not Christ. To speak the Gospel concerning, respecting the Word, although in the manner of a declaration, pertains rather to the province of science, is more the work of the theologian than of the Apostle. But grammatically it is inadmissible to infer from the parenthesis after ζωῆδ, namely from the words ἀπαγγέλλομεν τὴν ζωὴν τὴν αἰώνιον, that λόγοδ τῆδ ζωῆς is equal to said words, i.e., the declaration or annunciation of life. The Word, ὁ λόγος, the object of the Apostolic annunciation, must be, as in Joh_1:1, sqq., the original, eternal, personal Word, the eternal Son of the eternal Father, and fully accords with ο͂ ἧν ἀπ̓ ἀρχῆδ, with the sole difference that the neutrum becomes a masculinum, in order to bring out the personal character of the Logos according to His historical manifestation. On ὁ λόγοδ see J. P. Lange, The Gospel According to John, p. 38, sq., Germ. edition.—The Genitive τῆδ ζωῆδ is explained by Joh_1:4 : ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν. The Word has Life in itself, is Life Itself, and imparts Life to others. It is the true, eternal, primal Life, and this Life is the Nature of the Logos, but the object of the annunciation is the Logos Himself. (Düsterdieck).
1Jn_1:2. And the Life was manifested.—καὶ adds in a vivid manner an explanation by introducing a parenthesis and interrupting the sentence; ἐφανερώθη recalls Joh_1:4-5, “And the Life was the Light, and the Light shineth (φαίνει) in the darkness.” The Life of the Logos appeared, was manifested, so that we may infer His Being and Nature from His Life, and thus acquire a knowledge of the Son. This epiphany is the immediate consequence of the Incarnation, of the ἐνσάρκωσιδ. Joh_1:14 : ὁ λόγοδ σάρξ ἐγένετο.
And we have seen—testify—declare.—Antithesis of Joh_1:5, “And the darkness has (Luther: had) not comprehended it.” The climax is: ἑωράκαμεν connected with ἐφανερώθη, he had been a spectator, but did not see in vain; for he became a witness through intercourse with the manifested One, and in his capacity of witness he fixes his eye on what had become visible, the acts and events which he had experienced: what he thus sees and utters is purely objective without reference to his hearers and their wants or relations, but in the interest in and for the matter itself. But he does not stop there; he now declares also what he has seen; he explains and applies at the same time; he unfolds in their fulness, and with a special interest in his readers, the thoughts and facts comprised in his personal experience. The objective is brought near through the subjective. Thus he joyfully recalls to himself that blessed manifestation, and is constrained to testify for himself, and to declare to others, that they also may have such an experience. ̓Απαγγέλλειν=καταγγέλλειν, Act_17:27; and =κηρύσσειν, Rom_10:14, sq., cf. Mat_28:8; Mat_28:11; Act_26:20. In John’s writings, ὁρᾷν and μαρτυρεῖν are frequently joined together, Joh_1:34; Joh_3:32; Joh_19:35; but the last of these passages, like Joh_15:27, is without an object, which, however, may be readily supplied from the context. The object of the three verbs is the Eternal Life (Oecumenius, Lücke, Huther), and not only of ἀπαγγέλλειν (Fritsche, de Wette, Düsterdieck). The life is called eternal, ἡ αἰώνιοδ, because it did not take its beginning in the world, but rather gave a beginning to the world and the life in the world. It is Absolute Life, the source and root of all life in the world, physical and ethical (Lücke on Joh_1:4). It was before it appeared, became visible; it did not become [come into being] perchance, when it appeared. On that account the Apostle adds ἥτιδ ἧν πρὸδ τὸν πατέρα.—The relative ἥτιδ is not=ἥ, but = ut quæ, hence, eternal life as which it was, that is to say, which was (ἦν) as such before its revelation in the direction towards the Father, not with, alongside of Him; it denotes not a mere juxtaposition, but a being together, having mutual intercourse; it is directed towards Him, turned to Him, longing for and leading to Him, according to its nature. It is not in the Father, but from Him, and hence directed towards Him. Here is asserted of the ζωή what Joh_1:1 predicates of the λόγοδ; in Him truly is such life, in Him also it has become manifest. Because John had just had such a lively conception of the Life of the Logos, he was able to begin in the Neuter, ο͂ ἦν ἀπ̓ ἀρχῆδ; for it is without the world, before the world, with and for God in the Logos.
And was manifested unto us.—Eternal Life has appeared, and just now become manifest to us the Apostles. Thus closes the parenthesis with a return to the thought at the beginning, and it is because of this conclusion (ἐφανερώθη) that John resumes the interrupted sentence, the words “what we have seen and heard” being placed before, and, in consequence of the prolonged interruption, breaks off and drops the series of clauses beginning with περὶ τοῦ λόγου, and resumes the first series of clauses, in a brief and concise form. The object is the same as in 1Jn_1:1.
The Subject of the Annunciation, 1Jn_1:3.
On ἀπαγγέλλομεν see the notes on 1Jn_1:2.
1Jn_1:3 a. Declare we also to you.—Καὶ ἱμῖν places the readers of this Epistle alongside of other Churches who had heard the Apostolical annunciation; hence John, in using the Plural in the verbs from 1Jn_1:1 onward and ἡμῖν in 1Jn_1:2, probably did not only refer to himself after the manner of authors, but to himself and his brethren, more particularly to the disciples of Jesus and the Apostles; the opposition of ἡμῖν and ὑμῖν is only the opposition of the first Christians and the immediate disciples of the Lord, or the Apostles and the Churches formed by the instrumentality of the former, or founded by the agency of the latter. John is fond of including himself among the whole of Christendom, 1Jn_1:6-8; 1Jn_2:1; 1Jn_2:28; 1Jn_3:1. But the comparison of Joh_15:27 seems to render it probable that John in this place speaks of himself as connected with the Apostles, the reference being to the founding and conservation of Christian Churches. He does not stand alone, but like him all the Apostles have heard, seen and handled, and bear witness with him.
Purpose of the Annunciation, 1Jn_1:3 b.
1Jn_1:3 b. That ye also may have fellowship with us.—The word also, καὶ before ὑμεῖδ after the preceding καὶ ὑμῖν, renders it very prominent that the purpose of the Apostolical annunciation is always and every where the same with all the Apostles in all Churches, namely: unity and fellowship. Fellowship with us is not the same as fellowship such as we have it, like us, with the Father and the Son (Socinus, Episcopius, Bengel); The position of the words forbids such a construction. It is rather the fellowship with us, the Church-fellowship of Christians among themselves.—Μετά (from μέσοδ, between, among) τινοδ denotes the circle into which one enters, consequently cöexistence, whereas σύν τινι signifies connection with, coherence (so Krüger). The Church of the first disciples, of the Apostles, is the primitive Church into which they must enter in order to partake [of its fellowship—M.]; mere connection with it is not sufficient. The Apostles are and remain the foundation on which we must take our stand (Eph_2:20), the mediators who must take us by the hand (Eph_4:11-12); they are the stem out of which the Churches break forth and grow like branches. All (καὶ) the Churches are to be in Church-fellowship with the Apostles.—ἔχητε is not: acquire (Fritzsche), nor does it denote progress (à Lapide [who says: “pergere et in ea, κοινωνίᾳ, proficere et confirmari”—M.]), but indicates simply permanent possession, constancy.
And our fellowship indeed is with the Father, etc.—καὶ does not connect with the preceding clause, so that also that which follows depends on ἵνα (Luther: and our fellowship be, so Augustine, Calvin, Grotius, Ebrard); for there is also a δὲ after κοινωνία [see Appar. Crit. 5:3:5.—M.]. The reference, therefore, is to a κοινωνία, here as well as in the preceding clause, hence καὶ ἡ κοινωνία ἡμετέρα; but this fellowship is yet another μετὰ τοῦ πατρὸδ, etc. The other stands, in some sort of antithesis to this; it must go beyond the former, and in it come to the latter, hence δὲ. Similar is the construction, Joh_6:51; Joh_8:17; Mat_16:18; Mar_4:36; Luk_2:35. Winer, p. 393. We have here a separate clause, in which ἐστί must be supplied, which adds a new and somewhat different particular, as if we did read: καὶ ἡμεῖδ ἔχομεν κοινωνίαν μετὰ ψοῦ πατρὸδ κ. τ. λ., so that they have not only fellowship with the Apostles, but also with the Father and the Son. The thought itself forbids a close connection with ἵνα. The purpose of the Apostolical annunciation is not to effect a union with the Father and the Son, for that is the office of Jesus Christ, the Mediator. The Apostle insists upon Church-fellowship, and that is sufficient, because in it is the fellowship with the Father and the Son; a fellowship with God in Christ is not to be created from Church-fellowship; the Church-fellowship is not without the former, and the former is in the latter; otherwise the Church-fellowship would be no Church-fellowship, the Apostolical fellowship, no fellowship with the Apostles. Κοινωνία is a fellowship with the Father and the Son, so that we form part of Them and are personally united with Them, They are in us and we in Them (Joh_14:23), Their Life is our Life (1Jn_1:6). Besides the Father, His Son Jesus Christ is particularly named, and thus the full designation of Him ὅ ἦν ἀπ̓ ἀρχῆδ, of the λόγοδ τῆδ ζωῆδ serves to show His identity with the Incarnate Saviour; and thus the conclusion is found. Cf. Joh_17:22-26. [This κοινωνία is one of essence and being, founded on the circumstance that its subjects are begotten of the same σπέρμα θεοῦ (1Jn_3:9), and that the same power of a heavenly and glorified life animates them; so Sander. The definition of Zuinglius deserves transcribing: “De qua loquatur societate, quodque intelligat consortium, exponit; non qua homines hominibus solum pace, concordia et amicitia fraterna juguntur, sed qua homines Deo animo, mente atque adeo fide hic uniuntur indissolubiter et posthanc cum eo aeternum viventes. Hoc est quod Christus orat Patrem, John 17.”—M.].
The Epistle and its Design, 1Jn_1:4.
1Jn_1:4. And these things we write unto you.—And not only connects, but continues, leads us further, and marks the next progress; the fellowship just described promotes joy, operates in the depth of the heart. Ταῦτα is neither what precedes (Sander), nor what follows immediately (Socinus), but the whole contents of the Epistle (Lücke Wette, Düsterdieck, Huther, Ebrard). John considers the Epistle with its contents as documentary evidence connected with the oral annunciation.
We write.—Although the personal relation of the Apostle to the readers is here more prominent than in the Plurals of the preceding clauses, the Plural is not used, after the manner of authors, for the Singular. John continues impressed with the convictions of the common Apostolical annunciation; he knows that he is in perfect agreement with all the Apostles, that he speaks as they speak, and that their speech is like his; nor does he stand alone, but has his associates and assistants, like Paul (1Co_1:1, Παῦλος και Σωσθένης ὁ ἀδελφός; 2Co_1:1; Colossians 1, 1; Phm_1:1, Παῦλος καὶ Τιμόθεος; Php_1:1, Παῦλος καὶ Τιμόθεος δοῦλοι; 1Th_1:1; 2Th_1:1 : Παῦλος καὶ Σιλουανὸς καὶ Τιμόθεος). Writing is indeed another species of μαρτυρία, coördinate with oral communication. Bengel:—Testimonium genus; species duæ: annuntiatio et scriptio; annuntiatio ponit fundamentum, scriptio superædificat.” The Epistle seems only to build up and perfect the life already existing in the readers. Düsterdieck.
That your joy may be fulfilled.—The reading ἡμῶν would make the joy of the Apostles over the Churches [i.e., joy, because their word yields fruit among their hearers. Theophylact: “ἡμῶν γὰρ ὑμῖν κοινωνούντων πλείστην ἔχομεν τὴν χαρὰν ἡμῶν, ἥν ταῖς θερισταῖς ὁ χαίρων σπορεὺς ἐν τῇ τοῦ μισθοῦ ἀπολήψει βραβεύσει, χαιρόντων καὶ τούτων ὁ.τι τῶν πόνων αὐτῶν ἀπολαύοισι.”—M.]. So does Bede with reference to Php_2:2; “gaudium doctorum sit plenum, cum multos prædicando ad sanctæ ecclesiæ societatem perducant.” Joh_17:13; Joh_15:11 cannot be adduced in support of this reading; said passages, besides the reason already stated above in Appar. Crit. [1Jn_5:4; 1Jn_5:8—M.], may have suggested this reading. The identical language occurs at Joh_16:24 : ἵνα ἡ χαρὰ ὑμῶν ᾖ πεπληρωμένη. To be sure, according to Joh_15:11 : ἵνα ἡ χαρὰ ἡ ἐμὴ ἐν ὑμῖν ᾖ καὶ ἡ χαρὰ ὑυῶν πληρωθῇ, the joy of Christians is the joy of Christ, of which they had become partakers. For Christ has in Himself the Life, Life eternal, true, full, unobstructed Life, which is happiness and peace. Whoso derives Life from Christ becomes a convalescent, recovers health, the health of the soul, and that is peace and joy. Surely, he who is holy, must be happy, and none but the holy and sanctified are happy. If Christ’s high-priestly intercession (Joh_17:13) still continues the object and ground of great joy, it contemplates also the growth of joy in individuals going on to eternity, even as John remarks in a private Epistle addressed to a friend (2Jn_1:12).—Hence Christ speaks of His joy, which shall become our joy, even as Christ’s Life shall become our Life through faith; hence χαρὰ πίστεως, Php_1:25.—Given is the joy by Him, but only like a grain of wheat, which must grow in order to become perfect and to yield fruit. But that which is to be perfected must exist. The perfection, however, is not instantaneous, magical or miraculous, but has its stages and maladies of development,—struggles—dangers; hence: ᾖ πεπληρωμένη. Now this takes place in the fellowship, both in that of the Church and in that with the Father and the Son; there, joy is not only a transient emotion, but an habitual state becoming ever more perfect. Luther (Schol. ed. Bruns.):—“Principium hujus gaudii est, quum incipimus credere; postea quum fides augescit meditando, docendo, studendo, tum fit plenum gaudium.” The reason why the Apostle dwells on joy (χαρὰ) rather than on peace, may be that at the beginning of the Epistle he thinks with reference to the readers of the greeting, χαίρειν, which, apart from the Epistle of Claudius Lysias to Felix (Act_23:26-30), occurs only in the circular of the Apostles at the Council of Jerusalem (Act_15:23) and at Jam_1:1. [Wordsworth contrasts the πλήρωμα χαρᾶς with the πλήρωμα of the Gnostics.—M.]
[Düsterdieck:—“The peace of reconciliation, the blessed consciousness of sonship, the happy growth in holiness, the bright prospect of future completion and glory,—all these, are but simple details of that which in all its length and breadth is embraced by one word, Eternal Life, the real possession of which is the immediate source of our joy. We have joy, Christ’s joy, because we are blessed, because we have Life itself in Christ.” Compare the beautiful extract from Augustine, below in Doctrinal and Ethical, No. 7.—M.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On the word λόγος cf. J. P. Lange on Joh_1:1, Vol. IV., p. 41, sq., of the Bibelwerk, German edition.—It is characteristic of John, and perfectly analogous to the Gospel, to start from the historical stand-point, Joh_10:1-3., cf. Joh_1:14, and draw the à posteriori conclusion of the Eternal Being and Nature, and then taking there, as it were, a firm position, to trace the epiphanies and operations of the Logos in the world, in time and among men. On this account the Apostle begins here, as in the Gospel, with the Prëexistence of the Logos (ο͂ ἦν ἀπ̓ ἀρχῆς ἡ ζωή ἡ ἀιώνιος, ἥτις ἧν πρὸς τὸν πατέρα). He does not lose himself in the genesis of the Logos, like the Gnostics with their theogonies, but only dwells upon His Being, as ζωὴ αἰώνιος, in relation to the Father (πρὸς τὸν πατέρα). Hence we must not connect the λόγος and the ζωὴ as a (third) syzygy with Valentinus (†160 on the island of Cyprus), “that most profound, spiritual, thoughtful, intelligent and imaginative” Gnostic (see Gieseler, K. G., I., p. 155; particularly Kurtz, K. G., I., 136, sqq.). Eternal, true, full life is only the Being of the Logos, as it is the Being of the Father. But this Life He has not only in Himself as a possession, as Joh_1:4 : ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν, but He Himself was truly and altogether Life, eternal Life in His Being (1Jn_1:2), of the same Life-substance with God the Father, indissolubly united with Him, although different from Him in Person, there is nothing in Him which is not likewise in the Father, but He is self-dependent, turned to and belonging to the Father (πρὸς τὸν πατέρα).
2. Threefold is the mode of existence of the Logos: a. anterior to the world of time; b. earthly-human; c. glorified. The first is made prominent in the beginning of this Epistle: ο͂ ἦν ἀπ̓ ἀρχῆς, ὁ λόγος τῆς ζωῆς, the second is intimated in ἐφανερώθη, and in conjunction with the third in υἱὸς αὐτοῦ ̓Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ. For λόγος and υἱός are to be distinguished, so that the historical Christ is called Son, cf. Joh_10:1-3 with Joh_1:1; Joh_1:14. But in reality it is the same Person. The incarnate Logos does not become the Son of God, and this designation is not so much of ethical as of metaphysical import. He is called and is the Son of God only because of the relation essential to His Person, and of His eternal and ante-temporal relation to God.
3. The humanity of the Logos is referred to with marked emphasis, in the terms ἀκούειν, ὁρᾶν, θεᾷσθαι, ψηλαφᾶν, Joh_10:1-3. The Son of Man has become audible, visible, sensible to the children of men. His being ἐφανερώθη to the disciples was only brought about by His human nature, but so that He really σορξ ἐγένετο and ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν(Joh_1:14). He is perfect man. But His becoming man is not brought out as much, by John as by the other Apostles with reference to His humiliation, because John recognized the Divine glory in the form of the Servant, the Divine attributes in the form of His human appearing, sought their traces with peculiar love, and found them with a jubilant soul. John was more concerned with what the Son of God brought with Him, His eternal Life which He had in Himself, than with what He did assume, human flesh and blood. The Apostle sees in all the epiphanies and exhibitions of the Incarnate One, in all the humiliations of His earthly-human Being and Life, the Love, the Wisdom and the Power of Christ; he follows their traces with ardent attachment, and he follows them not in vain. He bears more testimony to the κρύψις than the κένωσις, but also more to the Lutheran intermixture [German: Into-one-another—M.] of the Divine and the Human in Christ.—Traces of the transcendency and immanency of God may also be found and proved here, and how both have to be held fast together.
4. Christ is the eternal principle of the life of men and of the world in general; He is the Mediator of all the activity of the Father exerted with reference to the world. The thought expressed in the Epistle to the Hebrews by φέρων τὰ πάντα τῷ ῥήματι τῆς δυνάμεως αὐτο͂υ is the fundamental pre-supposition of ο͂ ἦν ἀπ̓ ἀρχῆς, ζωὴ αἰώνις, ἥτις ἦν πρὸς τὸν πατέρα, κοινωνία μετὰ τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ μετὰ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ ̓Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ, as well as of ἵνα—πεπληρωμένη. John, by the use of ἀπ̓ ἀρχῆς—, which, as opposed to ἐν ἀρχῇ, Joh_1:1, within the beginning, points as a definite sphere, and as opposed to κατ̓ ἁρχὰς (Heb_1:10) along the beginnings, following the beginnings,—points, although fastened to a longer line, more than ἐξ ἀρχῆς, Joh_6:64, out of the beginning as out of a fountain, to a source of history after the beginning—intends to mark the power existing in eternity as present and real in time and the course of history. [The peculiarly involved and occasionally obscure style of Dr. Braune will tax the patience of the reader, as it does that of the translator, who tries his best to express B’s meaning in idiomatic English. The last sentence was peculiarly difficult, but the use of dashes and other marks of punctuation will, it is hoped, enable the reader to catch the author’s meaning.—M.]. But it must be remembered that the Apostle is more concerned with the life of individuals, of the Apostles and of Churches, than with that of the whole world. Still what holds good in the case of individual man, the microcosm, must also apply to the whole world, the macrocosm. Christ could not be the principle of salvation to individuals, unless He were potent and destined for the whole world. Because in the creation He is the Mediator of the beginning of the world’s life (Joh_1:3) so also in the redemption He is of course the Mediator of the consummation of the world’s life. The earth requires no new suns, and mankind no other Saviour. The truth of Christ is the only and eternal truth for all nations and times. Christ is not a world-historical personage, like Alexander the Great, but the Living One that has the keys of hell and of death (Rev_1:18).
4. 1Jn_1:3 indicates the relation of Churchliness and Christianness, of Church-dom and Christianity, [I am not altogether satisfied with these terms, but they express as nearly as possible the German words, Kirchlichkeit, the quality of being Church-like, Christlichkeit, the quality of being Christ-like, or Christian, Kirchenthum, the state, existence or establishment of the Church, and Christenthum, the religion taught by Christ.—M.] For ἡ κοινωνία μεθ̓ ἡμῶν, the fellowship of the Churches with the Apostles and among themselves is Church, while κοινωνία μετὰ τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ ̓Ιησοῦ Χριστοῦ denotes the nature of Christianity. John insists only on Church-fellowship for the promotion of Christianness. It is Apostolical that the Churches should keep to the Apostles and their annunciation, and be united among each other without independentism, but it is equally and only Apostolical that the Christ-like or the Christian-like should be the basis and aim of the Churchly. The Churchly must ever be measured and adjusted by the Christ-like.
5. The Church is a whole, an organization embracing heaven and earth in the Church militant and triumphant, and in the Church militant all the different local Churches (καὶ ὑμῖν, καὶ ὑμεῖς, 1Jn_1:3), and all the Churches of all centuries (ἀπαγγέλλομεν) gathered by the Apostolical ministry in general, with its continuous activity (Lücke). What Paul says (1Co_3:9 to 1Co_11:16; Eph_2:20 sq.; cf. 1Pe_2:5) of the Church, that it is a building of the temple of God founded on Christ the corner-stone, or a body of which Christ is the head (Eph_1:22 sq.; Eph_5:23; Col_1:18), is here also present to the mind of John, who, with a leaning to Joh_15:1, seems to think of a growth, in which the Church is the stem founded by Christ, out of which believers come forth on all sides like branches (Joh_17:20).
6. The Apostolical annunciation, ἀπαγγελία, presupposes an eventful experience from personal intercourse with the Redeemer, and is accompanied by the Apostolical writings (γραφόμεν). All information derived from oral communication must be strengthened, guided, cleared and completed by the written communication. He only is able to work for the Lord and the brethren that has lived with Him in intimate converse, to whom He did yield Himself and whom he did draw to Himself, so that he “cannot but speak the things which he has seen and heard,” (Act_4:19-20).
7. Joy is the essence of Christianity. Augustine, Conf., 10, 22, says: “Est enim gaudium, quod non datur impiis, sed iis tantum, qui te gratis colunt, quorum, gaudium tu ipse es. Et ipsa est beata vita gaudere ad te, de te, propter te, ipsa est et non altera.”—The Christian faith does not move in a circle of different objects, thoughts, words and works, some of which must be done and others shunned; but it moves in that which it does gladly, and shuns that which it scorns to do. The Word and Life of Christ are as much the Christian’s element as air is the element of birds, and water that of fishes. The exercises of godliness are to him not charms against an evil, or the worship of God a slave-work, or prayer a burden. The godliness, which is kindled by the loving-kindness of God is true happiness and felicity. The fear of God does not bring to the Christian gloomy self-denial and renouncing of the world, as if the Christian’s life consisted solely in the suppression of ardent desires and want, but in joys which he experiences, according to the exhortation of the Apostle Paul in the Epistle for the fourth Sunday in Advent (Php_4:4): “Rejoice in the Lord alway; and again I say rejoice.” Or according to the Lord’s promise in the Gospel for the third Sunday after Easter (Joh_16:22): “Your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.” Hence the reiterated monition: “Be not afraid,” and the promise of the Comforter and of peace. In the praise and love of God we have a token and a standard of true Christianity. Delight in the Lord (Psa_37:4) with His creating, preserving, overruling, pardoning, atoning and glorifying (Joh_3:2) love, is the Christian’s duty and life. Only that he abide, and the joy or Christ abide in him, and that his joy may be full (Joh_15:1-11).
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Seek Jesus and His light; all without that is unprofitable.—Seek in all your experience in time for that which is from all eternity.—Seek in all sensuous manifestations for the supersensuous kernel with its life, which continues to all eternity, even as it is from all eternity.—Nothing is more sure than that which is of Christ: He is from all eternity, and brings His own into the Kingdom of the Father.—Learn more and more that God is not only above thee, but in the world, not far from thee, but very nigh thee.—Speak of Christ only as His witness. Speak of Him, because thou hast known and felt Him within thee, not because thou art a preacher or a theologian, or because thou art baptized.—Do not despise Church-fellowship; it contains a blessing, even an eternal blessing.—Be not satisfied with thy churchliness (churchmanship) unless it make thee more happy in, and more sure of the Father and the Son.—Christian knowledge, like all science, is possible only in fellowship with the whole, especially in going back to the fountain-head in the writings and the testimony of the Apostles.—Holiness and joy are indissolubly united in the Christian, but impiety and lust in the worldly-minded.—Be ashamed, if for want of faith or courage, or even because of a desponding mind, thou dost not rejoice in thy Lord.—Be afraid lest thy joy in Christ and the Kingdom of heaven decrease.—Strive that thy joy in Christ grow fuller and fuller. Delight in the Lord is thy duty, in order that thy duty become thy joy and honour, not thy task and burden.—A Christian must be joyful, for his is the truth which maketh free, the righteousness that availeth with God, the liberty of the children of God, the peace that passeth all understanding, the joy that no man may take away, the Divine sonship and inheritance, the life which death cannot kill, and the happiness which endureth and groweth forever.
Starke:—Christ is Absolute Life, and our life depends upon Him, not only this earthly life, but also blessed, eternal life through faith in Him.—He that despises the word of the Gospel, despises also the Absolute Word of God, for Christ is the star and kernel of the whole Bible.—Christ liveth, and the believers shall live too. Glorious consolation! Mighty strengthening of our faith, in adversity and temptation and in the hour of death! Because Life and Light have appeared unto us in Christ Jesus, we should most diligently use them, for sure he will be without excuse that notwithstanding remaineth in darkness and blindness.—What shall it profit an unconverted teacher, to testify of Christ the Life, and to urge the people to receive Him, if he himself remains in death and in his life and by his works denies Him?—In order to be saved, it is not enough that a man know and believe Christ to have come into the world, but he must know and believe Him to have also risen and shone as the Morning-star in his heart.—The design of the Gospel is to lead men to fulness of joy, for God has not called us to sadness, but to joy.—If our joy turns sometimes into sorrow when affliction without and temptation within, as it were, threaten to take it by storm, we know, for our edification and comfort, that Christ will come again and turn our sorrow into joy. [Cf. Dr. Muhlenberg’s hymn, “I would not live alway.”—M.]
Spener:—Our life in Christ is eternal life, and out of (extra) Him there is no life; although hidden now, it shall be revealed hereafter.—The Divine word of the Gospel is given unto us for the purpose of restoring us to the fellowship with God, and it is therefore an inestimable benefit that it gives us not only the knowledge of certain truths, but actually bestows upon us the blessings which it announces.—The written Word of God is not less potent to produce faith than the preached word, and this Word the Apostles have left us as a legacy which may be heard and read at all times, and therefore we ought to consider the written Word as more sure and trusty than the declarations of men.
Lange:—In spiritual matters every man should for himself examine and understand the truths of God, and not blindly believe the report of others, lest like a blind man he be led astray and miserably cheated.—All human fellowship should be so arranged and constituted that it do not oppose the fellowship with God. We should regard the Epistles of the Apostles as Epistles of God addressed to ourselves, and know that they are most surely addressed to us in order that we may become, as it were, living Epistles of God, known and read of all men.
Besser:—There is no fellowship with the Head of the Church apart from the instrumentality of the joints of the Apostles. Those who are inserted in the edifice of the Church, rest upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, with Jesus Christ Himself as the chief corner-stone.—Out of infinite Love the Son of God became what we are, in order that He might give us power to become what He is; He became partaker of our nature, that we should become partakers of the Divine nature. (Irenæus.)
Heubner:—Christianity demands a solemn and deep contemplation wholly absorbed in Christ [or entering into Christ.—M.]; hasty and superficial looking and hurrying away is unprofitable; Christianity wants profound natures.—Christianity rests mainly on facts, as external revelations of God, in order that thus the Godhead may become visible to the sensuous man [to our senses.—M.], without any injury being done to its dignity.—The Apostles as such eye-and-ear-witnesses are also most sure and reliable, and it is impossible that their account of so many facts, their harmonious and many-sided account, could have been fabricated or be spurious.—These Apostolical writings compensate us for that which we can no longer see with our own eyes. We have, moreover, the testimony of the Church for those facts, for without them it [the Church.—M.] could not have come into existence.—The vocation of the Apostles was most philanthropic and beneficent: the design of their testimony and of the preached Gospel in general, is to lead all men to the fellowship of the same life which was enjoyed by the Apostles. The Apostles did not wish to keep their life to themselves, but loved to communicate it. The true nature of life is its impulse, wherever it is, to pour itself into others. The Apostles were to the first Christians, and are still to all Christians, channels and conductors to the Life Eternal; without the Apostles we should have neither Christ nor Christianity. The Apostles conduct us to it. Those who reject the Apostles and their testimony, cannot reasonably continue to discourse of Christianity; they have only left to them a Christianity of their own making.—Holy Scripture is a standing monument of history that may not be interpolated; it remains a pure and ever-accessible fountain; oral delivery would have grown more and more unreliable, the memory would have lost much, and our delight in the enjoyment of the Gospel would have lessened.—The evangelical history the most sublime history: 1. We will convince ourselves of it, it comes from God, continues in God, and leads us to God; and, 2. Lay to heart the conclusions we draw: behold the poverty of those who despise and neglect it! Give more attention and diligence to it!
Christian joy is from its very nature the highest joy. For,
I. a. Whence is it? Of God, of heavenly origin. b. What does it aim at? The eternal salvation of our souls. c. For whom does it exist? For all in the same manner (without exception).
II. (Conditions on our part): a. Acquire a thorough understanding of the truth that sin is our common misery, and that none can save us therefrom but Jesus Christ alone, b. Believe in Jesus, the Son of God. c. Animate this faith by habits of devotion.
The Apostolical testimony of the Word of Life.—1. How it is attested (as to its verification); 2. How joyful it is (as to its object: the Life was manifested, and as to its effects: Fellowship of Christians among themselves and with God).
The firm foundation of our faith.—It rests, 1, upon the Apostolical annunciation of the witnesses of Him who is the Beginner, Fulfiller and Object of our faith (1Jn_1:1); 2, on its joyful object (contents, German) 1Jn_1:2, which could not have spontaneously entered into any man’s heart; 3, on the testimony of the Holy Ghost in those who receive the word of faith from the lips of the aforesaid witnesses.
Spurgeon:—It is indeed written (Pro_14:10): “A stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy.” The secret is with them that fear Him, and their joy no man taketh from them. But we would remind you of the proverb, “Still waters run deep.” The brook rushing over the stones dries up in summer, but the deep river flows uniformly along in freshets, or in heat and drought, and yet glides calmly through the fields. We do not speak or boast so loudly of our joys, as you do of your pleasures, because it is unnecessary; ours are as well known in silence as in lively company. We do not want your company to indulge our joy, still less the manifold condiments with which you try to flavour your joy. We require no cups, no banquets, no fiddles, no dance in order to be joyful.—Our joy does not depend on transitory things, but rests in the eternal, unchangeable Creator of all things. I know very well, notwithstanding all we shall say, the slander will continue that the children of God are a wretched people.—We have joy, we have delights, so precious that we would not exchange an ounce of ours with a ship-load of yours; not drops of our delight for rivers of your pleasures. Our delight is not tinsel, painted joy, but solid reality; our joys are such as we take along with us to our quiet resting place beneath the dust; joys which sleep with us in the grave and will wake with us in eternity, joys on which we may courageously look back, and which, therefore, we enjoy a second time in memory; joys also which we enjoy beforehand, and know already here below as the antepast of eternal joy and delight. Our joys are no soap-bubbles which only glitter and sparkle in divers colours in order to burst, they are no apples of Sodom which crumble in your hand into ashes; true joys are real, true, solid, lasting, enduring, eternal! What more shall I say? Joy and true piety are eternally joined together like root and blossoms, as inseparably as truth and assurance; they are indeed two precious jewels, set side by side in the same gold setting.”
[Sermons and Sermon-Themes:
Ch. I. II. Binning, Hugh: Fellowship with God, or twenty-eight sermons on the first and second chapters of the first Epistle of St. John. Works, II., 177.
1Jn_1:1-3. Mill, W. H.: The Word Incarnate, the essential basis of individual and social Christianity. Sermons, (Advent, 1846), I.
1Jn_1:3. The same author: The Word Incarnate in the totality of His exhibition in the Church, the true centre of Christianity. Sermons, (Advent, 1846), XXVIII.
Bradley, C.: Fellowship with God. Sacramental, 216.—M.]
Footnotes:
[1]1Jn_1:1. German [“What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we gazed upon and our hands handled, of the Word of the Life.”—M.]
[2]1Jn_1:2. German [“And the Life was manifested, and we have seen and testified and declare unto you the eternal Life, as which it was with the Father and was manifested unto us.”—M.]
[3][It, supplied by E. V., not necessary; it is better to construe ἐωράκαμεν, μαρτυροῦμεν and ἀπαγγέλλομεν with ζωὴν τὴν αἰώνιον. So Lachm., Hahn, Theile, Tischend. and Lillie.—M.]
[4][On the whole, the rendering of E. V., “that eternal Life which was with the Father,” is preferable to the German, and the meaning is clear without the adoption of the Greek idiom, “Life Eternal,” by Wordsworth.—M.]
[5] 1Jn_1:3. [German: “What we have seen and heard, declare we also to you, that ye us; and our fellowship indeed is with Christ.” καὶ—δὲ; the καὶ adds something, and δὲ is slightly adversative, cf. 2Pe_1:5, also Mat_16:18; Mar_4:36; Luk_2:35; Act_3:24; Act_22:29; Heb_9:21; Joh_6:51; Joh_8:16-17; Joh_15:27.—Indeed or truly seem to bring out this slightly adversative sense better than again (Lillie).—M.]
Cod. Sin. has καὶ ἀπαγγέλλομεν καὶ ὑμῖν. The first καὶ occurs also in Theoph. and Vulg. (Cod. Amiatinus; it may have crept in from 1Jn_5:2). The second καὶ is found in A. B. C. Cod. Sin. has before this second καὶ an erased ι, as if ἲνα καὶ ὑμεῖς was to have followed forthwith; καὶ ὑμῖν seems therefore to be copied.
[6]Cod. Sin. has ὑμῶν after ἡμετέρα, but a disapproval in the margin.
[7]1Jn_1:4. B. ἡμεῖς for ὑμῶν, [Cod. Sin. ἡμεῖς and ἡμῶν.—M.]
[8] B. G. al. ἡμῶν; so Vulgate with the variation, “ut gaudeatis et gaudium nostrum sit plenum.” Both ἡμεῖς and ἡμῶν have probably arisen from the μεθ’ ἠμῶν and ἠμετέρα of 1Jn_5:3, [ἠ χαρὰ ὑμῶν. A. C. K. al. Copt.; Tischend.—M.]
[German: “And these things we write unto you that your joy may be fulfilled.” Wordsworth: “filled up to the full;” but fulfilled is better.—M.]
[German:—And this is the message, which we have heard from Him, and announce yon again, that God is Light and darkness in Him is none whatsoever.—M.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–10 the life--Jesus, "the Word of life."
the life--Jesus, "the Word of life."
was manifested--who had previously been "with the Father."
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show--Translate as in Jo1 1:3, "declare" (compare Jo1 1:5). Declare is the general term; write is the particular (Jo1 1:4).
that eternal life--Greek, "the life which is eternal." As the Epistle begins, so it ends with "eternal life," which we shall ever enjoy with, and in, Him who is "the life eternal."
which--Greek, "the which." the before-mentioned (Jo1 1:1) life which was with the Father "from the beginning" (compare Joh 1:1). This proves the distinctness of the First and Second Persons in the one Godhead.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–10 The writer’s authority as an original personal witness, 1Jn_1:1-4.
EXORDIUM.—
The writer’s authority as an original personal witness, 1Jn_1:1-4.
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1. That—A highly inverted sentence embracing the three verses. The commencing verb is in the third verse, declare we. Of this verb the which, thrice expressed and once implied in the first verse, are the objectives; and the true order is this: We declare unto you that (real, bodily personality) of the Word of life which was from the beginning, which… heard, which… seen, which… looked upon, and which our hands have handled. The reason why St. John uses the neuter that which, (which might as well have been the English compound relative what,) instead of the masculine him whom, is because the heretics questioned not that he, Christ, really appeared, but questioned his nature. He was, they said, a docetic, incorporeal phantom; or the Jesus was a mere man upon whom the superhuman Christ descended and rested.
From the beginning—This phrase, in application to his readers, St. John uses in 1Jn_2:7; 1Jn_2:13; 1Jn_2:24; 1Jn_3:11 of the beginning of the preaching of the gospel; but in 1Jn_3:8 of an ante-mundane beginning of Satan. And so here we have the same ante-mundane beginning as in the first verse of St. John’s Gospel, where see notes. The same is the ante-mundane existence of the “Son” in Heb_1:3, where see notes. We—John and the other apostles. St. John’s we (1Jn_1:3) includes himself personally, and all the apostles representatively, whose office it was to be witnesses of what Jesus said, and did, and was. Note on Luk_1:2. We, apostles, are original authorities; whereas the heretics are strangers, basing their speculations on third or fourth hand testimonies, supplemented by their own fancies. And as we saw his miracles, heard his own account of himself, and handled his very physical body, so our account is original and ultimate, the first and last word.
Have—The Greek uses the perfect tense of the first two verbs, have heard and have seen; but the aorist, without the have, of looked upon and handled. This is a significant change of tense, lost in our English translation. It indicates that the apostles are persons who have seen and have heard, and that remains in its effect the permanent fact. But they also specifically and at the moment looked upon, that is, contemplated and deeply studied, the inner nature, and also felt, so as to deeply cognize the bodily substance of the Lord. This specialty is increased from the fact that the first was done with our bodily eyes, and in no dream, and the last with our hands, the surest instruments of touch. Though he was from the beginning, and was truly the Word of life, he submitted himself to our most bodily perceptions that we might most surely declare his determinate personality. Of—This preposition does not here represent, as usually, the Greek genitive, but the preposition περι, in the sense of pertaining or belonging to; as in Luk_22:37 : Php_1:27; Col_4:8.
The Word of life—That Word whose property was life so essentially that he truly called himself “the Life.” “In him was life; and the life was the light of men.” Joh_1:4, where see notes. These first three verses are an essential reference to John’s Gospel, especially its first four verses. They evince that both Epistle and Gospel were by the same author; and John truly bases the doctrines of this Epistle upon the facts and declarations of the Gospel.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–10 1. That which was from the beginning] The similarity…
1. That which was from the beginning] The similarity to the opening of the Gospel is manifest: but the thought is somewhat different. There the point is that the Word existed before the Creation; here that the Word existed before the Incarnation. With the neuter ‘that which’ comp. Joh_4:22; Joh_6:37; Joh_17:2; Act_17:23 (R. V.). The Socinian interpretation, that ‘that which’ means the doctrine of Jesus, and not the Incarnate Word, cannot stand: the verbs, ‘have seen’, ‘beheld’, ‘handled’, are fatal to it. In using the neuter S. John takes the most comprehensive expression to cover the attributes, words and works of the Word and the Life manifested in the flesh.
was] not ‘came into existence’, but was already in existence. The difference between ‘to be’ (1Jn_1:2) and ‘to come to be’ or ‘become’ (1Jn_2:18) must be carefully noted. Christ was from all eternity; antichrists have arisen, have come into existence in time.
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from the beginning] The meaning of ‘beginning’ must always depend upon the context. Here it is explained by ‘was with the Father’ in 1Jn_1:2. It does not mean the beginning of the gospel, or even of the world, but a beginning prior to that. It is equivalent to ‘from all eternity’. The Gospel is no new-fangled invention, as Jewish and heathen philosophers contended. The same Greek phrase is used in LXX. for ‘Art Thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God?’ (Hab_1:12), and when this is denied of idols (Wis_14:3). See on Joh_1:1.
which we have heard] With this clause we pass from eternity into time. The first clause refers to something prior to the Creation. Here both the Creation and the Incarnation have taken place. The second clause refers to the teaching of all the Prophets and of the Christ. There is no need to make ‘which’ (better, that which, to bring out the exact similarity of the first four clauses) in the different clauses refer to different things; e.g. the words, miracles, glory, and body of Christ. Rather, each ‘which’ indicates that collective whole of Divine and human attributes which is the Incarnate Word of Life.
have seen with our eyes] Note the climax: seeing is more than hearing, and beholding (which requires time) is more than seeing (which may be momentary); while handling is more than all. ‘With our eyes’ is added for emphasis. The Apostle would have us know that ‘see’ is no figure of speech, but the expression of a literal fact. With all the language at his command he insists on the reality of the Incarnation, of which he can speak from personal knowledge based on the combined evidence of all the senses. The Docetic heresy of supposing that the Lord’s body was unreal, and the Cerinthian heresy of supposing that He who ‘was from the beginning’ was different from Him whom they heard and saw and handled, is authoritatively condemned by implication at the outset. In the Introduction to the Gospel there is a similar assertion; ‘The Word became flesh and dwelt among us—and we beheld His glory’ (Joh_1:14). Comp. 2Pe_1:16.
which we have looked upon &c.] Rather, that which we beheld and our hands handled: we have first an imperfect, then a pair of perfects, then a pair of aorists. ‘Beheld’ implies deliberate and perhaps pleasurable sight (Joh_1:14; Joh_1:34; Act_1:11). We can hear and see without intending to do so; but we can scarcely behold and handle unintentionally. The aorists probably refer to definite occasions on which the beholding and handling took place. ‘Handled’ seems to be a direct reference to the test demanded by S. Thomas (Joh_20:27) and offered to the other disciples (Luk_24:39, where the same verb is used as here). “The clear reference to the Risen Christ in ‘handled’ makes it probable that the special manifestation indicated by the two aorists is that given to the Apostles by the Lord after the Resurrection, which is in fact the revelation of Himself as He remains with His Church … The tacit reference is the more worthy of notice because S. John does not mention the fact of the Resurrection in his Epistle” (Westcott). Tertullian is very fond of insisting on the fact that the Lord was ‘handled’: Adv. Prax. XV. twice; De Animâ XVII.; De Pat. III.; comp. Ad Uxorem IV. So also Ignatius (Smyr. iii.); “I know and believe that He was in the flesh even after the resurrection: and when He came to Peter and his company, He said to them, Take, handle Me, and see that I am not a bodiless demon.” Bede points out that the argument has special force as coming from the disciple who had lain on the Lord’s breast. No greater proof of the reality of His Body before and after the Resurrection could be given.
of the word of life] Better, concerning the Word of life; it is not the single genitive, but the genitive with a preposition. The preposition is strongly in favour of ‘Word’, i.e. the personal Logos, rather than ‘word’, i.e. doctrine. For this preposition used of testimony concerning persons comp. 1Jn_5:9-10; Joh_1:15; Joh_1:22; Joh_1:30; Joh_1:48; Joh_2:25; Joh_5:31-32; Joh_5:36-37; Joh_5:39; Joh_5:46, &c. We can hardly doubt, moreover, that ‘Word’ or ‘Logos’ in this Introduction has the same meaning as in the Introduction to the Gospel; especially as the Epistle was written as a companion to the Gospel. ‘The Word’, therefore, means the Son of God, in whom had been hidden from eternity all that God had to say to man, and who was the living expression of the Nature and Will of God. See on Joh_1:1 for the history of the term, which is peculiar to the phraseology of S. John. But of the two terms, Word and Life, the latter is here the emphatic one as is shewn by 1Jn_1:2 and by the fact that ‘the Life’ is one of the main topics of the Epistle (1Jn_2:25, 1Jn_3:14, 1Jn_5:11-12; 1Jn_5:20), whereas ‘the Word’ is not mentioned again. ‘The Word of life’ may be analogous to ‘the tree of life’, ‘the water of life’, ‘the bread of life’, where ‘of life’ means ‘life-giving’; but more probably to ‘the temple of His body’, ‘the sign of healing’, where the genitive is one of apposition. ‘The Word which is the Life’ is the meaning. Christ is at once the Word of God and the Life of man.
Chap. 1Jn_1:1-4. The Introduction
That the first four verses are introductory is generally admitted. They are analogous to the first eighteen verses of the Gospel and to the first three verses of the Revelation. Like the Prologue to the Gospel, this Introduction tells us that what the Apostle purposes to write about is the Word who is the Life. At the same time it states the authority with which he writes, an authority derived from the irrefragable evidence of the closest personal experience: and it states also the purpose of the letter,—to complete their joy in the Lord.
1–4. The construction is somewhat involved and prolonged. Such complicated sentences are not common in S. John: but we have similar sentences, extending over three verses, Joh_6:22-24; Joh_13:2-4. Various ways of connecting the clauses have been suggested, making ‘is’ understood, or ‘handled’, the main verb, thus; ‘That which was from the beginning is that which we have heard’, or ‘That which was from the beginning, which &c., our hands also touched’. But beyond all reasonable doubt ‘we declare’ is the main verb, and, ‘that which’ in each case introduces the thing declared. 1Jn_1:2 is a parenthesis, and then part of 1Jn_1:1 is repeated for emphasis and clearness. The complication is due to the crowding of profound thoughts which almost strangle the Apostle’s simple command of language.
“S. John throughout this section uses the plural as speaking in the name of the apostolic body of which he was the last surviving representative” (Westcott).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 5 [1. The Exordium (1Jn_1:1-4).
[1. The Exordium (1Jn_1:1-4).
(1) OBJECT AND PURPOSE OF THE APOSTOLIC PREACHING: The setting forth of the historical Christ for the spread of human fellowship with the Father and the Son (1Jn_1:1-3).
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(2) DESIGN OF THE EPISTLE: Fulness of joy for those who should read it (1Jn_1:4).]
(1) That which was from the beginning.—The profound emotion, the hearty sympathy, the tender anxiety which St. John feels as he begins his counsels to his friends, mark off this introduction very distinctly from the parallel passage in the Gospel. There it was calm contemplation of the height and depth of Christ’s existence; here he vehemently insists on the personal relation between the Word and those to whom He had been revealed.
As in the Gospel, he starts with the grandeur of an indefiniteness beyond which no eye can pierce: At the beginning of all that concerns us, be it world or universe or all creation, there was——that which we are announcing. “That which,” not “Him who,” because it is not merely the Person of Christ which he is going to declare, but also His Being, all that relates to Him, His gospel, the treasures of wisdom that lay in Him, His truth, all that could be known about Him by human ken.
The vibrating eloquence of the passage makes the construction at first sight obscure. But take “that declare we unto you” (1Jn_1:3) as the principal verb, set aside 1Jn_1:2 as a parenthesis, notice the rising climax of 1Jn_1:1 (heard, seen, looked upon, handled), pause at the end of 1Jn_1:1 to sum up the results of this climax in the words “of (or, that which concerns) the Word of life,” and at the beginning of 1Jn_1:3 resume the thoughts interrupted by the parenthesis, and all is at once clear.
Which we have heard.—All those gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth, enough to fill countless books could they have been noted down. St. John has given us more of these than any other of the Evangelists; and their effect upon him was such that it is almost the same as if he had written down nothing at all of his own; for the thought and style of Him who had loved him more intimately than others, had moulded his own thought and style into a strikingly close resemblance. “We” includes ail the eye-witnesses. (Comp. Luk_1:2.)
Which we have seen.—All that is meant by the Word of God in its fullest sense had been seen in the human Person of Jesus of Nazareth during His earthly sojourn, and especially during the three years’ ministry. In a similar sense Jesus Himself said, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,” Joh_14:9. (Comp. 1Jn_4:14; Isa_40:5; 2Pe_1:16.)
With our eyes.—This gives the same force as “the Word was made flesh;” it was an actual personal visible revelation, as opposed to the evolving of a religious system out of the inner consciousness or reflection.
Which we have looked upon.—A more deliberate and closer contemplation; for which John had special opportunities, as one of the inner three, and again as he who lay on Jesus’ bosom. There is a change of tense implying emphasis on the historic fact, “which in those days we gazed upon.”
And our hands have handled.—Comp. Mat_26:49; Luk_24:39; Joh_20:27. This and the foregoing expressions might be directed against Cerinthus and the Doketists—those that held that Christ was only a phantom.
Of the Word of life.—All that concerns the Word of the true Life, the Reason, or Son, or Express Image of God, in whom was inherent all life, material as well as moral or religious. (Comp. Joh_1:4; Joh_5:26; Joh_11:25; Col_1:16-17; Heb_1:3.)
(2) For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.—The parenthesis reiterates with redoubled force that the whole essence of the relation of God to man lies in the audible, visible, tangible, historical appearance of God in Jesus. After the manner of St. John, the word “life” at the end of the last sentence suggests the form of the phrasing in the new sentence: Jesus was that Eternal Life which was at the side of the Father, in communion with Him, in equal intercourse with Him; that Life on which all other existence, physical and spiritual, depend (1) for its license to exist, (2) for its fulfilment of the end for which it was created. (See Note on Joh_1:4.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–10 Vers. 1-4. 1. THE INTRODUCTION. It declares the writer"s…
Vers. 1-4. 1. THE INTRODUCTION. It declares the writer"s authority, based on personal experience; announces the subject-matter of his Gospel, to which this Epistle forms a companion; and states his object in writing the Epistle.
These opening verses help to raise the reader to the high frame of mind in which the apostle writes. Emotion, suppressed under a sense of awe and solemnity, is shown by the involved construction through which his thoughts struggle for utterance. We are reminded of the introduction to the Gospel, especially in the first clause. Both announce to us the subject of the writing which follows the Word who is the Life. Both set before us, in the simplest language, truths of profoundest meaning. But while in the Gospel he seems to lose sight of his readers in the magnitude of his subject, here the thought of his "little children" is uppermost.
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The construction of the first three verses may be taken in more ways than one; but almost certainly the main verb is ajpaggellomen, and the clauses introduced by o give the substance of the ajpaggelia. The sentence is broken by the parenthetical verse 2, after which the main part of verse 1 is repeated for clearness. Reduced to a simple form, the whole runs thus: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon, and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life, we declare to you also, that ye also may have communion with us.
The first clause states what or how the object is in itself; the next three state St. John"s relation to it; "which," in the first clause nominative, in the others is accusative. The neuter (o) expresses a collective and comprehensive whole (Joh_4:22 Joh 6:37 Joh_17:2; Act_17:23, etc.) the attributes of the Logov rather than the Logov himself are indicated. Or, as Jelf expresses it, "the neuter gender denotes immaterial personality, the masculine or feminine material personality." In the beginning is not quite the same as in Joh_1:1; there St. John tells usthat the Word was in existence before the world was created; here that he was in existence before he was manifested. Thus far all is indefinite; the philosopher, about to expound a law of nature, might begin, "That which was from the beginning declare we unto you." What follows is in a climax, making the meaning clearer at each step: seeing is more than hearing, and handling than seeing. The climax is in two pairs, of perfects and of aorists; the aorists giving the past acts, the perfects the permanent results. Together they sum up the apostolic experience of that boundless activity of Christ, of which the world could not contain the full account. (Joh_21:25) Beheld ejqeasameqa is more than have seen eJwrakamen. Seeing might be momentary; beholding implies that steady contemplation, for which the beloved disciple had large and abundantly used opportunities. In our hands handled we may see a reference tosate; Luk_24:39, where the same verb is used yhlafh and still more to. Joh_20:27, where the demanded test of handling is offered to St. Thomas, provoking the confession of faith to which the whole Gospel leads up, "My Lord and my God!" Had St. John merely said "heard," we might have thought that he meant a doctrine. Had he merely said "heard and seen," we might have understood it of the effects of Christ"s doctrine. But "our hands handled" shows clearly that the attributes of the Word become flesh are what St. John insists on, and probably as a contradiction of Docetism. "Those who read his letter could have no doubt that he was referring to the time when he saw the face of Jesus Christ, when he heard his discourses, when he grasped his hand, when he leaned upon his breast" (Maurice) Between the first clause and what follows lies the tremendous fact of the Incarnation; and St. John piles verb on verb, and clause on clause, to show that he speaks with the authority of full knowledge, and that there is no possible room for Ebionite or Cerinthian error. The first clause assures us that Jesus was no mere man; the others assure us that he was really man. Precisely that Being who was in existence from the beginning is that of whom St. John and others have had, and still possess, knowledge by all the means through which knowledge can have access to the mind of man. (For "seeing with the eyes," cf. Luk_2:30; for qeasqai of contemplating with delight Stark 16:11, 14, Joh_1:14, Joh_1:34; Act_1:11) Concerning the Word of life. "Concerning" peri may depend on "have heard," and, by a kind of zengma, on the other three verbs also; or on the main verb," we declare." "The Word of life" means "the Word who is the Life," like "the city of Rome, the Book of Genesis;" the genitive case is "the characterizing or identifying genitive." The peri is strongly against the interpretation, "the word of life," i.e., the life-giving gospel. Had St. John meant this, he would probably have written on ajkhkoamen togon thv zwhv ajpaggellomen; (Joh_5:24, 37 8:43 14:24) peri is very frequent of persons. (Joh_1:7, Joh_1:8, Joh_1:15, Joh_1:22, Joh_1:30, Joh_1:48, etc.) Moreover, the evident connexion between the introductions to his Gospel and Epistle compels us to understand oJ Logov in the same sense in both. (see on Joh_1:1 in this Commentary, and in the "Cambridge Greek Testament" or "Bible for Schools What St. John has to announce is his own experience of the Eternal Word incarnate, the Eternal Life made manifest; (Joh_14:6) his hearing of his words, his seeing with his own eyes his Messianic works, his contemplation of the Divinity which shone through both; his handling of the body of the risen Redeemer.
HOMILETICS.
Vers. 1-4.
The Life.
Dr. Edersheim makes the remark that there are two great stages in the history of the Church"s learning of Christ: the first, to come to the knowledge of what he was by experience of what he did; the second, to come to experience of what he did and does by knowledge of what he is. The former, he says, is that of the period when Jesus was on earth; the second is that of the period after his ascension into heaven and the descent of the Holy Ghost. This is true. And there is also an intermediate truth with which we are closely concerned. It is the truth of which we are reminded at the opening of this Epistle, viz. that the instrumentality by means of which we now pass on to the second stage is the writings of those who passed through the first. This is evidently intended to be the effect of this inspired letter; written, it can scarcely be questioned, by the author of the Fourth Gospel; written upon a specific theme, on a distinct method, with an avowed aim. Two preliminary statements hereupon require distinct and emphatic notice here.
1. There is a declaration that the writer was one who had been brought intoclose contact with the Person of the Lord Jesus, who had himself intimately known him, and who had associates in knowledge of and fellowship with him.
2. The internal evidence that the author of this Epistle is the same whowrote the Fourth Gospel is unusually clear. If any man could be known by his style of writing, surely the Apostle John can be by the way he plays upon the words "life," "light," "love." Note: Each apostle has his own keywords. Those of John are the ones just specified. That of James is "works." That of Paul is "faith." That of Peter is "hope." The main keyword of John here is "life." In these introductory verses the apostle opens up his theme. The purport of his Epistle, yea, not only of his Epistle, but of his entire apostolic and ministerial life, is indicated here; it has to do with "the Word of life," i.e., (cf. Westcott, in loc. ) with the revelation of life; may we not rather say with the Life and its self-revelation? In opening up this introductory paragraph we may trace the Life in five stages.
I THE LIFE ETERNALLY EXISTENT. "That which was from the beginning." With God there is no beginning. With him there shall be no end. But Divine revelation is worded to suit the exigencies of our limited apprehension. Finite minds make their own horizon of thought. Both back and front there are limits beyond which thought cannot go. Hence we are mercifully allowed to think as of a beginning and as of an end. Not as if either were a "definite concrete fact." Let us, then, go back to this "beginning. It is not said, either here or in John 1, that the Life then ejgeneto came to be, but h+n was (cf. Pro_8:22-31; alsorcwn. Php_2:6, uJpa There is here no thought of life apart from a Living One a personal Being. There can be none. That Living One was before all creation its ground, its medium, its reason, its center of support. In him all things hold together. This Life was "from the beginning." But note
II THE LIFE WAS MANIFESTED IN TIME. "The Life was manifested" (verse 2). From what afterwards follows, there can be no question that the apostle here refers to the Lord Jesus Christ. And in thus declaring that he passed out of eternity into the limits of time, out of the invisible to the visible realm, he thus avows the mystery of the Incarnation. A mystery, without the assumption of which the words and life of the Christ can no more be accounted for than the stability of the framework of nature can be accounted for without the law of gravitation. The difficulties that gather round the doctrine would be insuperable if it were a mere marvel, leading nowhere and effecting nothing. But since it is the center of a framework of doctrine around which the noblest hopes do gather, and the substratum of the renewed life of an entire living Church, the difficulties gather rather round its denial than around its assertion. The Life was manifested. The Divine Life can only be manifested to man by taking the form of man.
III THE LIFE PERSONALLY VERIFIED. "We have "seen," "tasted," "handled, etc. This should be compared with Joh_1:14, "We beheld his glory." The seeing of the glory was by no means coextensive with beholding the bodily form. "The eye only sees that which it brings with it the power of seeing." Some saw Christ to vilify; others to adore him. "The pure in heart will see God." The Nathanaeis will see heaven opened, but the "wise and prudent" will miss the sight.
IV THE LIFE THUS VERIFIED IS AUTHORITATIVELY DECLARED. "That which we have seen declare we unto you." Here are, as Westcott admirably remarks, "in due sequence the ideas of personal experience, responsible affirmation, authoritative announcement." This latter is involved in the words, "we declare." Some object to authority in matters of religion. But why? Only ignorance can demur to it, so long as the authority is a lawful one. And since the authority here implied is that which comes from adequate knowledge on the matter in hand, none ought to demur to it for a moment.
V THE LIFE AUTHORITATIVELY DECLARED WITH A DEFINITE AIM. The aim is twofold:
1. That of a kindred fellowship of souls who are in communion with the Life! No other fellowship to compare with this. It is
1. pure,
2. undying.
3. That out of the closeness of fellowship there might come a fullness ofjoy. Life is the root of joy. Joy is the fruit of life. A plant is not in perfection till it blooms. The Christian life is not perfected till it smiles and sings.
In conclusion, note:
1. The real and only valid succession in the Church is that of life.
2. There can be no value in forms, except as they express life.
3. Through the Divine Life men are reborn to the noblest fellowshipwith God and with one another!
Ver. 5.
The message.
Connecting link: The Son of God, whom we have seen as manifested Life, has brought us a message from the invisible and everlasting Father. Topic The message from heaven brought by the Lord Jesus Christ. A careful study of the text will suggest several points for consideration and expansion.
I WHAT THE MESSAGE IS.
1. Whom it concerns. "God." "The announcement as to the nature of Godis a personal revelation, and not a discovery" (Westcott, in loc. ). We know something of God by reasoning upward from the works of nature. Nature speaks. (Psa_19:1-4) Her works are a manifestation of God. But not a full or a clear one. We want a testimony direct from God, as to what he is, as to his thoughts towards us; and here it is.
2. What does it tell us about God?
(1) Positively: "God is Light." Physically, light is the splendour in which all else is revealed. Intellectually, light is knowledge. Morally, light is purity. God is the One Being in and by whose existence all else receives an adequate interpretation of its coming into being. He hath knowledge without limit. He hath purity without stain. Hence the text speaks:
(2) Negatively: "No darkness at all." Not the least speck. He is absolutely pure. Infinitely wise. How much is summed up in the three sentences which John has recorded: "God is Spirit;" "God is Light;" "God is Love"! Not all the collective wisdom of man could have taught us so much as this.
II WHENCE THE MESSAGE CAME. "We have heard from him;" i.e. from the Lord Jesus Christ, as the incarnate Manifestation of the Invisible. Obviously, the value of such a message depends on the Person who brings it. If, then, we ask the all-important question Who brought this message down to earth? apostles, one and all, join with unwavering tongue in declaring that it was brought by the everlasting Son of the Father, who came from him. This is the distinctive assertion of Christianity. It is made, not doubtfully, not apologetically, but categorically and positively, for the acceptance and salvation of man. This message was brought to man directly by the greatest Messenger from the eternal throne that even heaven itself could send!
III HOW THE MESSAGE REACHES US. "We announce unto you." The Lord Jesus Christ asserted his claims and proved them. He sealed them by his death, confirmed them by his resurrection, and gave to apostles the unwavering certitude of their validity by the gift of the Holy Ghost. They, thus sure of and confirmed in the message, living on it themselves as their own life and joy, preached and taught it, and also put it down in writing, that it might be spread over the world through the after-ages. They gave it forth authoritatively, with the authority which comes
(1) of a Divine commission to declare it, and
(2) of adequate knowledge of that which they declare.
Thus the message reaches us. In the Epistles we have the sum and substance of that which in the first century was orally received. It is utterly useless for the adherents of the mythical school to urge the later authorship and miracle-embellishments of the Gospels with the view of weakening this position; since, whatever be the age of the Gospels, there are known letters of the apostolic age, by Paul, Peter, James, and John, from which alone the ground-plan of the Redeemer"s life and the gist of his message could be reproduced, even if the misfortune of the loss of the Gospels could be supposed possible. The historic position is one which never has been and never can be shaken; that in the Epistles we have the sum of that which apostles gave forth orally the message which has remained unchanged from the beginning of the Christian age. The verse of our text has as much force as if the Apostle John were now living and actually uttering the words in our ears: "This is the message," etc.
IV HOW DOES THE MESSAGE BEAR UPON US? We can but briefly suggest.
1. The fact of this truth coming as a message from God unto us, shows usthat God is concerned about his intelligent creatures knowing who and what he is.
2. It shows us also that, if we are adequately to know who or what God is,it must be by a message from him to man, and not through man attempting to search out him.
3. We see, further, that by means of such a message, brought by such a Messenger, we may come to know the very greatest fact in the very simplest way.
4. This revelation of the nature of God is not for the purpose of satisfyingspeculative inquiries; it is intended to yield practical results (cf. verses 610).
5. The right use of this message will yield us a knowledge of God and ofhis Son Jesus Christ, which is in itself" the eternal life" (cf. Joh_17:3)
V INFERENCES AND APPLICATION.
1. This sublime truth, being presented to us as a message from God, indicates to us so far an element of truth in agnosticism. "The world through its wisdom knew not God". (1Co_1:21, Revised Version)
2. If the gospel be a message from the everlasting God, then the one point which has to be verified is, not whether the message be in all respects such a one as we might have expected, but whether the Messenger be at once capable and true.
3. To demand the same kind of verification which a man gets of his own discoveries in physical science, is absurd. The only possible verification of a testimony lies in the proof of the ability and veracity of the witness. Each kind of truth has its lines of verification in its own direction, and in no other.
4. Most jealous care should be taken that we do neither the Messenger northe message an injustice through allowing any prejudice or any dogmatic assumption to interfere with the consideration of their claims.
5. The substance of the message is in itself a strong argument for the truthof the Messenger. One assumption only is involved therein, viz. that God can reveal himself.
6. There is an infinite difference between an agnosticism that is suchbecause it never heard the message, and that which is such because it scornfully ignores it under the pretence that God is unknowable. The one is a grievous misfortune; the other, a more grievous sin. In the one there is a yearning for the light; in the other, a turning from it. "They did not like to retain God in their knowledge.
HOMILIES BY W. JONES Vers. 1-4.
The apostle"s aim and method.
"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard," etc.
I HERE IS AN OBJECT EMINENTLY WORTHY OF AN APOSTLE OF JESUS CHRIST. "That ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full." St. John sought to lead his readers into:
1. Participation in the highest fellowship. "That ye also may have fellowship with us," etc. (verse 3). The word "fellowship," or "communion," signifies "the common possession of anything by various Persons." By the "with us" we understand the apostles and others, who had been eyewitnesses of Jesus Christ. And St. John"s aim was that his readers should participate in the truth and trust, the life and love, which the older generation of Christian disciples already possessed; that they should share in his own highest and holiest experiences. And it was not into an exalted human communion merely that the apostle endeavoured to lead his readers. "And truly" he says, "our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." In infinite condescension, the heavenly Father and the Divine Son admit Christian believers into vital and intimate communion with themselves. This fellowship is a thing of character and of life. They who share in it are "begotten of God;" they have "become partakers of the Divine nature; and they realize with joy the Divine presence. The apostle sought to lead his readers into:
2. Realization of perfect joy. "And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full." Hitherto the joy of those to whom St. John wrote had not been full; for their acquaintance with Christian truth had been imperfect and partial. By the fuller disclosures of that truth he hopes that their joy may be fulfilled. How rich and manifold and abundant is the joy of the true Christian! The joy of the forgiveness of sins, of reconciliation with God, of progress in truth and holiness, of hope of future perfection and glory. Our Lord said, "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full." "Rejoice evermore.
II HERE ARE MEANS EMINENTLY ADAPTED TO ACCOMPLISH THIS OBJECT. St. John endeavoured to attain his aim by declaration of the truth concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. Notice:
1. The title applied to him. "The Word of life." Each term of this title demands consideration.
(1) The Word the Logos. (cf. Joh_1:1) "The term Logos," says Canon Liddon, "denotes at the very least something intimately and everlastingly present with God, something as internal to the Being of God as thought is to the soul of man. In truth, the Divine Logos is God reflected in his own eternal thought. In the Logos God is his own object. This infinite thought, the reflection and counterpart of God, subsisting in God as a Being or hypostasis, and having a tendency to self-communication, such is the Logos. The Logos is the thought of God, not intermittent and precarious like human thought, but subsisting with the intensity of a personal form. The expression suggests the further inference that, since reason is man"s noblest faculty, the uncreated Logos must be at least equal with God.... The Logos necessarily suggests to our minds the further idea of communicativeness. The Logos is speech as well as thought.
(2) The life which is predicated of the Word. "The Word of life." We cannot define this life. Its essential nature is hidden from us. But life in an extraordinary sense and degree is attributed to the Lord Jesus Christ. Twice he himself said, "I am the Life." And St. John says, "In him was life, and the life was the light of men." "As the Father hath life in himself, even so gave he to the Son also to have life in himself." He is the Giver of life to others. "All things were made by him," etc. "I came," said he, "that they might have life, and that they might have it abundantly." "As the Father raiseth the dead, and quickeneth them, even so the Son also quickeneth whom he will." He has life in himself, and he is the great Bestower of all life to others. And his life is eternal. It "was from the beginning." He existed before creation, and before time, and his existence is independent of time. "We declare unto you that eternal life." He is ever-living and unchangeable.
1. His intimate communion with God the Father. "That eternal life which was with the Father". (cf Joh_1:1) "The Word was with God." "He was not merely: para tw Qew, "along with God," but prov ton. This last preposition expresses," says Canon Liddon, "beyond the fact of coexistence or immanence, the more significant fact of perpetuated intercommunion. The face of the everlasting Word, if we may dare so to express ourselves, was ever directed towards the face of the everlasting Father." Or, as Ebrard expresses it, the life "was towards the father. A life which did indeed flow forth from the bosom of the Father, but which did at once return back into the bosom of the Father in the ceaseless flow of the inmost being of God.
2. His manifestation to men. "And the life was manifested, and we have seen," etc. "The Word" also suggests the idea of revelation or communication; for the Logos is not only reason, but discourse; not only thought, but the expression of thought. The life was manifested in the Person of Jesus Christ in his words and works and life amongst men. It was exhibited gloriously in his splendid triumph over death by his resurrection. "It was not possible that he should be holden of it." "The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us," etc. We have said that these means the declaration of the truth concerning the Lord Jesus Christ were eminently adapted to lead men into participation in the highest fellowship and realization of perfect joy. The statement is capable of ample proof.
(1) A right relation to God is essential to fellowship with him and to true joy. For us, who have sinned against him, reconciliation to him and trust in him must become facts before we can have any communion with him.
(2) A true knowledge of God is essential to right relation to him. If we regard him as a stern Lawgiver, offended, resentful, implacable, we cannot even approach unto him. And the guilty conscience is prone to entertain such views of him.
(3) The true knowledge of God is attainable through Jesus Christ. "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." In Jesus Christ, God is revealed unto us as "a just God and a Saviour," as mighty and merciful, as faithful and forgiving, as infinitely holy and gracious and full of compassion. Such a revelation of God is attractive; it is fitted to melt the heart into penitence, to awaken its confidence in him, and to draw it to him in the fellowship of life and light.
III HERE IS AN AGENT EMINENTLY QUALIFIED TO USE THESE MEANS. The apostle was qualified by various and competent knowledge of him concerning whom he wrote.
1. He had heard his voice. "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard." St. John and his fellow-apostles had heard his words on very many occasions both in public discourse and in private conversation.
2. He had seen his human form and his mighty works. "That which we have seen with our eyes The Life was manifested, and we have seen it." There is, perhaps, a special reference to his having seen hint accomplish his great and beneficent miracles. But the apostles had seen their Master in various circumstances and conditions. They had seen him in his majesty and might quelling the tempest and raising the dead to life; and they had seen him exhausted and weary. They had seen him bleeding and dying on the cross; and they had seen him after he had risen again from the dead. John and two others had seen him bowed in anguish in Gethsemane; and they had seen him radiant in glory on Hermon.
3. He had intently contemplated him. "That which we looked upon," or beheld. This looking upon him is more internal and continuous than the having seen hint with their eyes. With the most intense and affectionate and reverent interest the apostle contemplated him.
4 . He had handled his sacred body. The hands of John and the other apostles must frequently have touched the body of their Divine Master. But there is, perhaps, special reference to the touching of him after his resurrection: "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me,". (Luk_24:39) "He saith to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and see my hands," etc.. (Joh_20:27) Thus we see how eminently qualified St. John was to testify concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. How conclusive is the testimony which he bears! And how fitted is such an agent with such means to introduce men into the blessed fellowship and the perfect joy! Have we entered into this high fellowship? Do we realize this sacred and perfect joy? Let those who are strangers to these hallowed nod blessed experiences seek them through Jesus Christ. W.J.
HOMILIES BY R. FINLAYSON Vers. 1-4.
Introduction.
I SUBJECT OF APOSTOLIC PROCLAMATION.
1. What is thrown into prominence.
(1) The absolute concerning the Word of life. "That which was from the beginning." By this form of expression we are taken back to a point which has existence only in thought, and from that point we are called to look forward. "That which was from the beginning," or, strictly, "that which is timeless," concerning the Word of life, viz. his Divine Personality and attributes, was included in the proclamation. It is put first as the grand background of the Incarnation. The Incarnate One must be thought of as having timelessness and all that belongs to timelessness.
(2) The historical concerning the Word of life. "That which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled." John uses the plural number, as writing in the name of the apostles, of whom he was the sole survivor. There could also be predicated of Christ that he was the Object of sensuous perception. This was not from the beginning, but in time. We thus come upon the historical existence of Christ. "That which we have heard." In accordance with the context, we are to think only of what they had heard from the lips of Christ. They had been so near him as actually to hear him speaking. They had heard him when he spoke the sermon on the mount, when he taught them to pray, when he bade the sea be still, when he uttered the seven voices on the cross, when he saluted them after his resurrection, when he blessed them in parting from them. "Have heard." That which they had heard the words and tone of voice was their permanent possession; and it is the permanent possession of the Church still in substance, though not now associated with impressions through the sense of hearing. "That which we have seen with our eyes." Some had only come into contact with those who had seen Christ: they had seen him with their own eyes. They had seen him when he was teaching, when he was walking on the sea, when he was transfigured, when he was hanging on the cross, when he was risen, when he was going up into heaven. "Have seen." The impressions received through the sense of sight remained with them, instead of which we have only the descriptions of the evangelists. "That which we beheld." By a change of verb we are referred to seeing with an intention, and by a change of tense we are referred to separate acts. On occasion after occasion they looked purposely, and satisfied themselves that he was indeed bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh. "And our hands handled." This is joined closely in the same tense to what goes before. They had the solid evidence of handling on which to proceed. They not only touched, but touched with an intention. They must often have felt the touch of his hand; and we can think of them looking forward to an opportunity, and satisfying themselves, in the actual contact, that he was indeed their own flesh. There was one remarkable occasion after his resurrection; when he stood suddenly in the midst of them, they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they beheld a spirit; and he asked them to go beyond beholding. "Handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye behold me having." And apparently they were each favoured with the convincing evidence of handling him.
(3) The designation of Christ as the Word of life. "Concerning the Word of life." In the introduction to his Gospel John calls Christ" the Word." The natural interpretation is that he is the Word in relation to God, as essentially manifesting God. Instead of God here we have Life, which therefore is to be taken as a designation of God. Created life has only a partial significance; life in its absolute significance is only to be found in God. The chief elements of life are consciousness, activity, gladness; in the Word, God sees brought out the infinite richness of his own conscious, active, glad life.
2. Parenthetical statement.
(1) Designation of Christ as the Life. "And the Life." In the former designation God is thought of as the Life; now Christ, as essentially manifesting God in the particular aspect, is designated the Life. (Joh_1:4)
(2) Another manifestation which is connected with the evidence of sight.
manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness." As the Word, Christ was manifested to God; but here we come upon another manifestation. The reference is to the Incarnation, or his becoming flesh (as it is expressed in. (Joh_1:14) As the Word, he was hidden from men; as the Incarnate, he was manifested to men, specially to the apostles. He came within the sphere of their vision, and they were put in the position of eyewitnesses to the Life as manifested.
(3) The second manifestation not announced out of connection with the first. "And declare unto you the Life, the eternal Life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us." They realized the importance of making public the manifestation of the Life to them, but, at the same time, what he was before being manifested to them. He was eternal; while entering into time, in the life which essentially belonged to him, he was timeless. He was also with the Father a Companion, as it were, in whom the fatherly love found its object. This was the blessed concealment out of which he came. It is only when the Incarnation is thus connected that its graciousness appears. He who manifested the fullness of the Divine life was manifested in a form level to sense. He who was manifested eternally was manifested in time. He who was manifested with the Father was manifested in the midst of uncongenial society.
3. Former statement, which was left incomplete, resumed. "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also." We are not told who the recipients of this Epistle were. They were not all Christians, for, having declared their message to others, they declared it to them also. Their message was based on facts for which they had the evidence of sight and hearing. In accordance with what has been said, they presented those facts with their proper setting, viz. as facts in time concerning him who was before all time. They also presented them with their proper interpretation, viz. as showing the Divine desire for human salvation. This gave a great simplicity and power to their preaching: they had a few facts to tell, which they themselves could attest. Christ is not now in the world, so that we can have faith founded on the testimony of our own senses of sight and hearing; but we can have faith founded on apostolic testimony. We owe a debt of gratitude to the apostles that they were as careful witnesses, looking purposely and handling purposely, and that they took such pains to make their testimony known; and we owe a debt of gratitude to the great Head of the Church, who made use of them for the eliciting and establishing of our faith.
II AIM OF THE APOSTOLIC PROCLAMATION AND OF THIS EPISTLE.
1. Aim of the apostolic proclamation.
(1) Fellowship with apostles. "That ye also may have fellowship with us." Fellowship depends, to a great extent, on a common range of experience. There were saving experiences which the apostles enjoyed, in connection with which many had fellowship with them; they wished these, too, to have fellowship with them in connection with the same experiences. Therefore they preached the Incarnation to them, for that was the condition of those experiences being enjoyed.
(2) Fellowship with God. "Yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ." Of far more importance than having fellowship, even with apostles, is having fellowship with God. This is the principal end for which we are associated. We have fellowship with the Father. In his fatherly love he enters into all our experiences, and we have to enter into his loving thoughts and purposes and to share in his peace and joy. We have fellowship with the Father, as identified with his Son Jesus Christ him whom he sent forth on the errand of human salvation. From his human experiences, even of death, the Son can enter into all our experiences; and we are to be encouraged to enter into sympathy with him in the whole extent of his saving work. The apostles proclaimed the Incarnation, that, within the Christian circle, this elevating fellowship might be promoted.
2. Aim of this Epistle. "And those things we write, that our joy may be fulfilled." It is implied that his letter was in keeping with the apostolic proclamation. In the joy of the experiences connected with the Incarnation there was one element of pain. It was the feeling that man did not share, or did not share more fully, in the joy of these experiences. He sought relief from this pain in writing. He had some joy in his readers experiencing the joy of the Incarnation; he wished to have his joy completed in the completion of their joy. This was the apostle"s feeling, which, as the last of the apostles, he was conserving in the name of all. R.F.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 That which was from the beginning
1Jn_1:1-4
That which was from the beginning
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The preface to the First Epistle of John
This is a homiletical Epistle, the address of an absent pastor to his flock, or to disciples widely scattered and beyond the reach of his voice.
It is a specimen of apostolic preaching to believers, a masterpiece in the art of edification. The address is based on the gospel history, which it presupposes throughout. Some have thought the Epistle written on purpose to accompany St. Johns Gospel, in order to serve as its practical application and enforcement. The two lie so near to each other in their cast of thought and dialect, and are connected by so many turns of expression, that it is evident they are the outcome of the same mind, and, we may safely say, of the same stage and state of mind. The preface to the Epistle is, in effect, a summary of the Gospel according to John, as we see at once when we compare it with the opening and closing words of that narrative (Joh_1:1-18; Joh_20:30-31). The revelation of God through His Son Jesus Christ, a revelation entirely human and apprehended already by his readers, is that which the writer desires to communicate and set forth in its living effect. This revelation is the spring of a new eternal life for all men, a life of fellowship with God Himself, in which St. John would fain make his fellows sharers with him. It is this preface that we have now to consider, consisting of 1Jn_1:1-4. Its subject is the eternal life manifested. We adopt the revised translation of these four verses, preferring, however, in verse 1, the marginal word of life, without the capital. For it is on life rather than word that the stress of the sentence lies (for the life was manifested, John continues); and Word must have stood alone to be recognised as a personal title, or could at most be qualified as it is in the Apocalypse (Rev_19:13): His name is called the Word of God. Johns word of life resembles the word of life that Paul bids the Philippians hold forth (Php_2:16), the words of life eternal which Peter declared his Master to possess (Joh_6:68), and all the words of this life which the apostles were bidden to speak in the temple to the people (Act_5:20). It is synonymous with the gospel, the message of the new life which those bear witness to and report who have first heard it and proved its living power. Concerning the word of life stands in opposition to the four preceding relative clauses (that which we have heard … our hands handled) and states their general subject matter and import; while the first clause, That which was from the beginning, stands alone in its sublime completeness. Declare, in verses 2, 3 more precisely understood, signifies report (υἱος βροντῆς). It is the carrying of tidings or messages from the authentic source: What we have seen and heard we report also to you (cf. verse 5)--we are the bearers to you of the word we received from Him. So in verse 2: We bear witness and report; where, as Haupt acutely says, in the former expression the emphasis lies on the communication of truth, in the latter on the communication of truth. Readers of the Greek will note the expressive transition from the perfect to the aorist tense and back again, that takes place in verses 1-3. When John writes, That which we have heard and have seen with our eyes, he asserts the abiding reality of the audible and visible manifestation of God in Christ. This is now the fixed possession of himself and of his readers, the past realised in the present; and to this immovable certainty he reverts once and again in verses 2, 3. The sudden change of tense in the middle of verse 1, missed by our authorised translation, carries us back to the historical fact. Looking with Johns eyes upon this mysterious Person, feeling and grasping with his hands its flesh and blood reality, and pondering its meaning, we say with him: The life was manifested, the eternal life that was with the Father, was manifested to us. While ἐθεασάμεθα (we beheld) implies an intent contemplative gaze, ἐψηλάφησαν, occurring, in the New Testament, only in Act_17:27, and Heb_12:18 beside these two passages, denotes not the bare handling, but the searching, exploring use of the hands, that tests by handling. So much for the verbal elucidation of the passage. Let us look at its substantial content.
I. St. John had witnessed, as he believed, the supreme manifestation of God. The secret of the universe stood unveiled before his eyes, the everlasting fact and truth of things, the reality underlying all appearances, that which was from the beginning. Here he touched the spring of being, the principle that animates creation from star to farthest star, from the archangel to the worm in the sod: The life was manifested, the life eternal which existed with the Father, was manifested to us. If the life of this passage is identical with that of the Gospel prologue, it has all this breadth of meaning; it receives a limitless extension when it is defined as that which was from the beginning. The source of spiritual life to men is that which was, in the first instance, the source of natural life to all creatures. Here lies the foundation of St. Johns theology. It assumes the solidarity of being, the unity of the seen and unseen. It contradicts and excludes, from the outset, all Gnostical, dualistic, and docetic conceptions of the world. This essential and aboriginal life, he tells us, became incarnate, that it may have fellowship with men; it was slain, that its blood may cleanse them from iniquity--for the cross is not far off, we shall find it in the next paragraph. It is the fourth verse, rather than the first of the Gospel, which supplies the text for the Epistle: That which hath come to be, in Him was life; and the life was the light of men (R.V. margin).
II. In the second place, observe the energy with which the apostle asserts the actuality of the manifestation of the life of God in Jesus Christ. Thrice in three verses he reiterates, we have seen it, twice we have heard; and twice he repeats, the life was manifested. This stupendous fact has, naturally, always had its doubters and deniers. In any age of the world, and under any system of thought, such a revelation as that made in Jesus Christ was sure to be met with incredulity. It is equally opposed to the superstitions and to the scepticisms natural to the human mind. In truth, the mind that is not surprised and sometimes staggered by the claims of Christ and the doctrines of Christianity, that has not felt the shock they give to our ordinary experience and native convictions, has hardly awakened yet to their full import. St. John feels that the things he declares demand the strongest evidence. He has not believed them lightly, and he does not expect others to believe them lightly. This passage, like many besides in the New Testament record, goes to show that the apostles were well aware of the importance of historical truth; they were conscientious and jealously observant in regard to this cardinal requirement. Their faith was calm, rational, and sagacious. They were perfectly certain of the things they attested, and believed only upon commanding and irresistible proof, that covered the whole extent of the case. But the facts they built their faith upon are so largely of the spiritual order, that without a corresponding spiritual sense and faculty they can never be absolutely convincing. Already, in St. Johns old age, the solvents of philosophical analysis were being applied to the gospel history and doctrine. The Godhead incarnate, the manifestation of the infinite in the finite, was pronounced impossible and self-contradictory; we know beforehand, the wise of the world said, that it cannot be. The incarnation, the miracles, the resurrection, the ascension--what are they but a myth, a beautiful poetic dream, a pictorial representation of spiritual truth, from which we must extract for ourselves a higher creed, leaving behind all the supernatural as so much mere wrappage and imaginative dress! So the Apostle John confronts them, and their like in every time, with his impressive and authoritative declaration. Behind him lies the whole weight of the character, intelligence, and disciplined experience of the witnesses of Jesus. Of what use was it for men at a distance to argue that this thing and that thing could not be? I tell you, says the great apostle, we have seen it with our eyes, we have heard Him with our very ears; we have touched and tested and handled these things at every point, and we know that they are so. As he puts it, at the end of his letter, We know that the Son of God is come; and He hath given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true. The men who have founded Christianity and written the New Testament were no fools. They knew what they were talking about. No dreamer, no fanatic, no deceiver, since the world began, ever wrote like the author of this Epistle.
III. And now, in the third place, there is founded upon the facts thus attested, there is derived from the eternal life revealed in Christ, a new Divine fellowship for men. To promote this end St. John writes: That you also may have fellowship with us. To communicate these truths, to see this fellowship established and perfected amongst men, is the apostles one delight, the business and delight of all those who share his faith and serve his Master: These things we write, that our joy may be fulfilled. We have a great secret in common, we and the apostles. The Father told it to Jesus, Jesus to them, they to us, and we to others. Those who have seen and heard such things, cannot keep the knowledge to themselves. These truths belong not to us only, but to the whole world (1Jn_2:2); they concern every man who has a soul to save, who has sins to confess and death to meet, who has work to do for his Maker in this world, and a way to find for himself through its darkness and perils. The Apostle John is writing to Greeks, to men far removed from him in native sympathy and instinct; but he has long since forgotten all that, and the difference between Jew and Greek never once crosses his mind in writing his letter. He has risen above it, and left it behind through his fellowship with Christ. The only difference he knows is that existing between men who are of God and men who are of the world. In St. John the idea of the Church catholic as a spiritual brotherhood is perfected. But our fellowship is not only with prophets, apostles, martyrs, saints of God. We do not hold with the apostle merely such fellowship as we have with other great minds of the past; nor was Johns communion with his Lord that which we cherish with our beloved dead, the communion of memory, or at best of hope. If the facts the apostles test are true, they are true for us as for them. If the life manifested in the Lord Jesus was eternal, then it is living and real today. As it was from the beginning, it will be to the end. Jesus Christ had brought His disciples into spiritual union and fellowship with the living God. He had shown them the Father. He had made them individually children of God, with Himself for elder brother. He had passed away from their sight, to be with them forever in His Spirit. In this way He had really come to them, and the Father with Him, when He seemed to be going (Joh_14:18-23, R.V.). They felt themselves to be in direct communion and communication, every day they lived, with the Almighty Father in heaven, and with His Son Jesus Christ whom they had known and loved on earth. To this fellowship they invite and summon all mankind. The manifestation of God in Christ makes fellowship with God possible in an altogether new and richer way. Does not the very distinction revealed in the Godhead render such communion accessible, as it could not be otherwise to human thought? Our communion, writes John, is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ--with each distinctly, with each in and through and for the other. We have fellowship with Christ in the Father. He has explained the Father (Joh_1:18), and talked to us about Him; and we are entering into His views. We share Christs thoughts about God. On the other hand, we have fellowship with God in the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is Gods; but He is ours as well! God has told us what He thinks about His Son, and wishes us to think with Him. Showing Him to the world, He says: This is My Son, the Beloved, in whom I am ever well pleased. And we agree to that: we are well pleased with Him too! We solemnly accept the testimony of God concerning His Son. Then we are at one with God in respect to Christ. And all harmony and peace centre there. The Father Himself loveth you, said Jesus to His disciples, because you have loved Me, and believed that I came out from the Father. In Him God is reconciling the world to Himself. Only when we think aright of Christ, and are rightly disposed toward Him, can we have fellowship with each other, and work together with God for the worlds redemption. (George G. Findlay, B. A.)
Johns testimony to Christ
I. The faith which came by seeing Jesus. Too often intimate acquaintance lowers our reverence even for the great. How different the result of Johns close friendship with Christ! Such was the faith which came by seeing Christ. What a faith it was! It breathes in all his writings; it breathed in his actions; it fitted him to look through heavens open door and tell us what he saw.
II. The faith which comes by hearing of Jesus. We cannot as yet rise to the level of the faith which grew by seeing Jesus; but we, too, hope to see, hear, handle Christ. And even now there is a special blessing promised to them who have not seen, and yet have believed.
III. The joy of faith. Clearly the writers joy was full. A faith so vigorous could not be otherwise. And St. John seeks to fill us with the same. We are unworthy servants, weary pilgrims, fainting soldiers, desponding amid sorrows, led astray by deceptive joys. We want a faith which shall make our courage strong, and our joy full. (T. M. Herbert, M. A.)
The apostles doctrine
The very mistakes of the primitive Churches have been to us the sources of unspeakable advantage. Principally to refute existing errors, the apostles gave out those beautiful expositions of Christian doctrine and duty which make the glory of the epistolary scriptures. Thus we see how, under the reign of omnipotent love, error itself is made to elicit truth, and the evils of a day to work out forms of good that shall brighten and unfold forever.
I. The declaration respecting Christ.
1. The eternal existence of Christ. He says, He is that eternal life; and at the close of his appeal he adds the assertion, This is the true God and eternal life. Try to take in the meaning of the word eternal! You are unable to do it. We can explain nothing which lies beyond the horizon of our limited life. To us, that which is infinite never can be definite. Mysterious as is the word eternity, this one thing is clear--He who is eternal must be Divine. He who is before all things must be the cause of all things; and creation, however wide in range or rich in splendour, must be less by infinity than its author.
2. Jesus assumed human nature. The mystery is no argument against its truth. You are unable to explain the wonderful union of God and man in the nature of Christ; but are you more perfectly able to explain the union of matter and spirit in your own?
3. Jesus is the Word. What words are to thought, Christ is to God? He utters God; and of every imaginable manifestation of God, He is the manifestor. Nature shows the Divine perfections, but we may still doubt if it proves the Divine personality. The personal man yearns for the knowledge of a personal God. Age after age rose the ceaseless cry of man, For God, for the living God! Christ heard that cry, and said, Lo, I come, I come! In the earliest times He shadowed out the Divine personality by His appearance as the Angel of the Presence; and when the fulness of time arrived He broke the silence of ages, and in Him, at last, the unutterable found utterance. But Christ has given a yet more advanced revelation than this. He has uttered the Divine love to sinners. Great God! conscience threatens us; the law threatens us; death threatens us, and we deserve it all. Art thou with us, or with our adversaries? The Cross furnishes the reply. 4 Jesus is our Life. As the Word, He is the Revealer of what we need; as the Life, He is the Communicator of what we need. As the Word, He is God uttering Him self; as the Life, He is God giving Himself. As the Word, He is God without us; as the Life, He is God within us. (C. Stanford, D. D.)
Fellowship with the Father
I. St. John was now an old man in a new world. It was an age of busy thought and daring speculation. It had its realists, who held that Jesus was but a man, and Christianity but one of the religious movements of the last century. It had its dreamy idealists, who spiritualised away all the facts of Christianity. The age, in fact, called for a restatement of Christian truth. We too have our realists in art and literature--painters who strip the halo from Christs brow, and set before us simply the man Jesus, the peasant saint of Galilee--authors who write lives of Jesus as the Son of Mary, but not of Christ the Son of the living God. We too have our idealists, who regard Christianity as a dream of mans spirit--a beautiful dream, yet capable of being improved, and so they wish, not to destroy, but to remake the Christ, to pull the Gospels to pieces, but only to put them together again after a better fashion. Here we have the last word of inspiration. The revelation that began in Genesis ends here.
II. We have in our text the substance of the Gospel--what it is in the last analysis.
1. It is something eternal--that which was from the beginning. Christianity is not one of the religious movements of a recent age. It is not one of a class. It cannot be compared with other religions. Its sources are out of sight. It was manifested in time, but it was from the beginning.
2. It is something historical. That which we have heard, that which we have seen [not in vision] with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled … declare we unto you. We do not announce fancies of our own. We bear witness to facts--to an eternal truth revealed in time.
3. It is something absolutely unique. The word of life, the eternal life, which was with the Father. Christ approaches humanity. He comes not, as one of many, on a common errand of sympathy with sorrow. His mission is unique. He comes alone. He comes to give men life--eternal life--life as it was with the Father the very life of God Himself in its purest form.
III. Again, we have the end aimed at in the Gospel stated in its largest, fullest form. That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also, that ye also may have fellowship with us. Men are to be saved for something as well as from something, and that is for the fellowship of holy spirits, the commonwealth of souls, the city of God. Truth says to all who possess it, I am sacramental bread and wine; eat of me, drink of me, and pass me on to others. As every stream of water makes for the sea, every rill of truth is making for fellowship. The missionary spirit is often spoken of as something separate, peculiar to certain people. No! it is the spirit of all truth. Get Christ into men, and the Christ in them will straightway want to get into other men; for the great end for which every Christian truth is making, is fellowship--the perfect brotherhood of all souls.
IV. Yes! But brotherhood can only be through fatherhood. And our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. Union is union with God. Cicero has said that there can be no friendship but between good men. Bad men may combine, but cannot unite. Their combination is a rope of sand. God only unites. Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. The hope of the world lies not in agitation, nor in revolution, nor in reformation, but in regeneration.
V. Communion with men must then begin as union with God. And this is the message--God is light--is holiness and love. Do you say, It is a message that crushes? Nay, it consoles too, it inspires. There is a gospel in it. The sun looking down at the green wheat blade, says, You must be like me. But how? By looking at me. I, by shining on you, will make you to be what I want you to be. God is light! If He is holiness without spot, He is also love without measure. He gives Himself away like the light. (J. M. Gibbon.)
The perfect Saviour
I. The apostles testimony concerning Christ as a perfect Saviour (verses 1, 2).
1. No stronger evidence can be conceived.
2. The statement of such evidence proves the importance of giving facts as the foundation of Christianity.
3. The terms of this statement deserve careful study.
(1) The pre-existence of our Lord.
(2) The real, objective humanity of our Lord.
(3) The life-giving power of our Lord.
II. The design of this testimony--that others might participate in the peculiar privileges of the apostles of Christ (verse 3).
1. Fellowship.
2. Fulness of joy.
III. The evidences of real union with Christ as perfect Saviour.
1. A life of practical holiness (verses 5-7).
2. A Scriptural sentiment (verses 8-10).
3. Compliance with the condition of forgiveness and cleansing (verse 9).
Lessons:
1. The solid basis of Christianity--a historical Christ, attested by unimpeachable witnesses.
2. The distinguished privileges of a believer in Christ.
(1) Divine fellowship.
(2) Divine cleansing.
(3) Divine forgiveness.
3. The blessed and royal life of the Christian. To walk in the light. (D. C. Hughes, M. A.)
Witnesses of the Word of life
These words are as a head to the body, a gate to the field, a porch to the building of this epistle; an introduction which very much speaketh the writer to be St. John, because it is as it were a resounding to the proem of his Gospel.
I. The apostles care of publishing the Gospel is that which St. John doth here insert in the behalf not only of himself, but his fellow apostles, for it is not the singular I, but the plural we.
1. The first we meet with is μαρτυροῦμεν, bear witness. This was indeed the chief office to which the apostles were designed by Christ, to bear witness of Him; and that they might be enabled to the faithful discharge of it, He promised the power of the Holy Ghost (Joh_15:26-27; Act_1:8).
2. The next expression, ἀπαγγέλλομεν, is twice repeated, verses 2, 3, but Englished by two several words, we show and we declare, it is that which intimateth what kind of bearing witness the apostle here intended. The nature of light is to discover, the business of an ambassador is to impart his message; and accordingly the work of an apostle is to reveal the gospel. We declare, as being sent by God to publish this errand; and that which hereby is intimated to us is that these holy apostles did not run before they were sent, but had a mission and commission to show and declare the things of the gospel.
3. There is yet one term more behind, verse 4, and that is γράφομεν, we write unto you: and as declaring showeth what kind of bearing witness the apostle chiefly relateth to, so this writing what kind of declaring he especially speaketh of; for whereas there are but two ways of declaring the gospel, to wit, sermo and scriptio, word and writing, by the tongue and the pen, this latter is that which the apostle principally intendeth when he saith, We declare, we write; that is, we declare by writing.
(1) By this it is we speak to many, very many, even those that are absent and far distant from us; in which respect writing is wittily styled an invention to deceive absence.
(2) Again, by this it is we speak, not only whilst alive, but when we are dead, and so declare the truth, not only to them who are coetaneous with us, but shall in future ages succeed after us; in which regard that of the Psalmist is very suitable (Psa_102:18).
II. The Gospels excellency.
1. The appellation here affixed to the gospel is choice and comfortable, it is the word of life; a title which is made use of by St. Paul (Php_2:15-16).
2. The reason of this appellation is fit and pregnant, because those words, eternal life is manifested to us, are such a confirmation that they are withal an explication of the title in both the branches of it.
(1) Would we know what this life is, whereof the gospel is the word? The answer is, it is eternal life; in which respect St. Peter saith to Christ (Joh_6:68).
(2) Would we know in what respect the gospel is the word of this life? The answer is, because this eternal life which was with the Father is by it manifested to us. To apply this, what should the consideration teach us but--
1. Thankfully to acknowledge what a rich treasure, a precious pearl, God hath vouchsafed to us in bestowing the gospel on us!
2. To endeavour that what this word of life is in itself it may be to every one of us; and as it is the word of life by way of manifestation, so it may be also by way of operation, effectual to bring us to that life which it revealeth to us. (N. Hardy, D. D.)
Christ the revealer of God
I. Him of whom John is here speaking--that which was from the beginning. What God is in His nature, persons, life, blessedness, glory, immortality, and eternity, is, and ever will be, incomprehensible (Job_11:7-9). The person of Christ was from the beginning. He was as God-man before the world, and had a glory with the Father before the world was (Joh_8:58). This most glorious one, who was God-man before the world was, became incarnate in the fulness of time. John lived in the days of Christs Incarnation; he had the honour to see Christ, the Messiah, and was favoured with communion with Him. This was grace and glory inexpressible.
II. He had heard, he had seen, he had handled Him. So had others also. These various terms of hearing, seeing, looking, handling, are designed to express the reality of our Lords Incarnation. That He had a real body. It was a palpable one; it was seen; it was touched; it was heard. The truth of this was denied by some heretics in the apostolic age; to refute which the apostle expresseth himself as he here doth. There was satisfaction given, and such demonstration given to every sense of body and mind, that Christ had a body like our own, that no greater proof could be given. He was made in all things like unto His brethren. It was in our nature He obeyed. Bore the sins of many in His own body on the tree. The person of Christ is a most transcendently excellent subject. The Incarnation of Christ, a deep and most momentous subject.
III. The persons who had thus seen Him--which we have heard, etc. They were the apostles themselves. He speaks in their and his own name here. Not but other saints beside them saw the Lord in His incarnate state; yet they were not called and appointed to be witnesses of this, as the apostles were. The evidence the apostles had of His person and Incarnation was different from ours. We receive ours from them: and that in a way of believing. They had the evidence of sense as truly as we have the evidence of faith. True believers hear the voice of Christ in His Word, and in hearing it their souls live. They see Christ in the light of the gospel, and behold salvation and everlasting life in Him; but this is with the eyes of their mind. They touch, they taste, and handle Christ mystically and representatively in their fellowship with Him in His holy supper, yet this is quite different from what the apostle is here speaking. Yet it is as effectual to us for our souls benefit as theirs was. Yet notwithstanding this, the different ends answered by the same are so essential, that they ought to be distinguished. They were to record His life, His words, His miracles, His threatenings, His promises, His prophecies, His holiness, His righteousness, His passion, His death, His burial, His resurrection, His ascension into heaven, His session at the right hand of the Majesty on high, His coronation in glory, and His sending down the Holy Ghost from heaven, to prove Him to be the Lords Messiah, the Saviour of the world. Now the apostles who were to be witnesses of all this unto the people, saw God incarnate, and conversed with Him in His incarnate state--a sight we shall never behold. It is everlastingly impossible we should, that state being past. We shall see God incarnate, God-man, in heaven--we shall see Him in the state of ultimate glory. We see Him now, in the glass of the everlasting gospel, as truly as the apostles did, in our measure and degree, though not as they did with their bodily eyes. We see Him with the eye of faith, as certainly as those persons did with the eyes of their body, and as truly, yet not so clearly and fully, as saints in heaven do by sense and vision.
IV. The title John gives this most wonderful One. He styles Him The Word of life. The word is the index of the mind. By what is contained in the mind is expressed. So Christ, as one in the self-existing Essence, speaks out the mind of the eternal Father. It was by His Almighty fiat the heavens and the earth were created, and all the host of them. It was by Him all the secrets of the Most High were spoken out and proclaimed, and the invisible God brought out of His invisibility. It is in Him the full revelation of Godhead is made known. It is in the essential Word all the mind of God is opened, all the love of God expressed, the whole of God declared. It is as this essential Word, and only begotten Son of God, shines forth as God-man, in His most glorious person, mediation, work, grace, and salvation, in the everlasting gospel, and enlightens His Church therewith, that they in His light see light. (S. E. Pierce.)
The Incarnation of Christ, before and after
Midway down the Simplon Pass, the traveller pauses to read upon a stone by the wayside the single word Italia. The Alpine pines cling to the mountainsides between whose steeps the rough way winds. The snow covers the peaks, and the brooks are frozen to the precipices. The traveller wraps his cloak about him against the frost that reigns undisputed upon those ancient thrones of icebound rock. But at the point where that stone with the word Italia stands, he passes a boundary line. From there the way begins into another world. Soon every step makes plainer how great has been the change from Switzerland to Italy. Humanity has crossed a boundary line between two eras. Up to Bethlehem was one way, growing bleaker, and more barren, and colder, as man hastened on. Down from Bethlehem has been another and a happier time. The one civilisation was as Switzerland shut in among its icy Alps; the other is as Lombardys fruitful plain. The one led up to Stoicism; the other opens into charity. Judaism, also, and the gospel are as two different climes. We need deny no pagan virtue, we need exaggerate no pagan vice, in order to bring out the greatness of the change which began at Bethlehem. For it is not simply a difference in men, or in civilisation, which we have to observe, great as, without historical exaggeration, that may be shown to be; but the advent of Christ works a difference in motives, and in the motive powers, which make human life, and which are creative of civilisations. It was the coming of a new power to change the world. The impulse which was imparted to humanity by the presence among men of Jesus Christ can be compared to nothing less potential than the impulse which was given, we may suppose, to the creation when motion first became a fact and law of primeval matter. And from the advent of motion dates the order of the worlds. (Newman Smyth, D. D.)
The Divine and human in Christ
The picture produced in the stereopticon is fuller, rounder and more natural than the same picture seen without the use of that instrument. But to produce the stereoscopic picture there must be two pictures blended into one by the use of the stereopticon, and both the eyes of the observer are brought into requisition at the same time, looking each through a separate lens. Thus Christ is only seen in His true and proper light, when the record of His human nature and the statement of His Divine are blended. It is a flat, unfinished Christ with either left out. But it is as seen in the Word, with the moral and mental powers of our being both engaged in the consideration, and thus only, that we get the full and true result.
Which we have heard--
Obedient hearing
The word translated heard often signifies with the inspired writers an obedient hearing. It is such a hearing of the proposed truth as issues in the conviction of the mind, and more than this, such a hearing as disposes the mind to submit itself to the doctrine presented: it is in this way that faith springs up, and from hence its origin. The Lord by His special grace induces this result. Faith is of the operation of God (Jam_1:16-18). When addressing the gracious Author of his faith, the favoured child of man thus speaks: Mine ears hast Thou opened (Joh_10:3).
Which we have looked upon--
Contemplative faith
The apostle is not weary of describing faiths various actings in the soul. And it is for our edification that he sets before us his own experience in this matter. It is in order that such of us as have heard and seen Jesus may still fix on Him the eyes of our under standing with an intent and protracted gaze. And can one view of the King in His beauty satisfy the spiritual eye? No; it will rest with a mingled feeling of sorrow and joy on Him whom our sins have pierced. When Jesus has been seen as full of grace and truth--fairer than the children of men--the believer will surely look upon Him with a steady contemplation of the soul and fixed devotion of the heart, It may be that it is not given to all believers to attain to the full experience of the beloved disciple, or to realise all He felt when He says which we have looked upon; but in a measure the same contemplative faith is proper to all the saints. And without it there could be no due assimilation to the image of Christ. It is by the contemplation of Christs person that we become in a measure changed into His likeness. Christ looked upon as a wondrous spectacle, steadfastly, deeply, contemplatively. Appropriate to Johns contemplative character. (A. R. Fausset, M. A.)
And our hands have handled of the Word of life--
Appropiating faith
Without this concluding sentence the apostles description of the experience of faith had been imperfect; for wherever the Lord carries on the work of faith with power, there is on the believers part an appropriation to himself of that eternal life which he has heard, seen, and looked upon by faith. There is, as John expresses it, a handling of the Word of life. And probably the expression, which our hands have handled, denotes some sensible experience of our union with the Lord Jesus, and a consciousness that we are within the bonds of the covenant of grace, so that by the aid of the Holy Ghost we can say with Paul, He loved me and gave Himself for me. Laying hold on eternal life, and apprehending Christ with a faith which says, I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me, we are blessed indeed, and exclaim in the language of faiths assurance, My Lord and my God! (Anon.)
The realisation of faith
Consider what impressions we gain from the sense of touch. It is touch which, more than any other sense, convinces us of the reality of matter. What you see might be merely a phantom, an optical illusion, a picture painted on the retina of the eye, and nothing more; but if you go up to the thing you see, and touch it, and handle it, you become assured of its existence, you know that it is substantial. Now what is faith? It may be defined as the faculty by which we realise unseen things. I say the faculty (not by which we conceive, but) by which we realise these things, feel them to have a body and a substance. To imagine the truths of religion is not to believe them. We may from time to time imagine God as He is in heaven, surrounded by myriads of glorious angels--we may imagine Christ looking down upon us from Gods right hand, interceding for us, calling us to account at the last day, and awarding to us our final doom; but the mere picturing these things to ourselves is not the same thing as believing them; the believing them is the having such a conviction of their reality as to live under their influence, and to be in some measure, at least, governed by them. In short, to imagine the truths of religion is like surveying things by the eye; to believe in the truths of religion is like grasping the same things with the hand, and thus proving them to have substance and consistency. (Dean Goulburn.)
The mystery of the holy Incarnation
There is not in Scripture a more amazing statement than this. The Word of life is God the Son. And now speaking of this eternal and Divine Person, the evangelist affirms that he and other men had heard Him, had seen Him with their eyes, had looked upon Him, and had handled Him. Well may such expressions trouble the mind; they are so real, so physical, so material, so intense. But the whole force of the gospel is in them. That gospel is no philosophy, no human invention; but the mystery of godliness meeting mans deepest needs. Among those needs is that of a real access to God and communion with Him; not by way of thought merely, not through the chill avenue of the intellect, but as body with body, and flesh with flesh; by the hearing of the ear, and the seeing of the eye; by taste and touch, by emotion and sensation; in short, through the entire nature, and not only through one part of it. This is the need of which the apostle here declares that it has been satisfied: and in the fact that it has thus been met lies the power of the gospel. I begin with this proposition: that in the proportion in which religious belief becomes intellectualised and refined, in that same proportion does it lose its power over men and cease to control the practical order of their lives. This will best appear by contrasting two types of religion: the first is that of the vulgar idolater, the second that of the advanced philosophical mind: the former a superstition, the latter a rationalistic theory; but of the two the former has the greater power, and, as a religion, is better than the latter.
1. First, look at the lowest form of idolatry. Here is a man who makes an image of wood or stone. This is to him a god. The man has, after all, what lies at the basis of true religion; the faith in a power, outside of him, above him, and acting on him directly; capable of being approached, prayed to, propitiated, a very present help in trouble. He thinks the power to be somehow in a carved stone or a bit of painted and gilded wood: but at least he believes in the power; he has a religion; and it is practical and positive; it affects his actions, it comes home to him in his dark life.
2. Secondly, let us take another type of religion. It is that of the man whose belief in God has been attenuated into a mere intellectual assent to the proposition that there is something somewhere or other, to which he is willing to concede the sacred name. This God of his has no personality; it cannot hear or see or feel, it cannot be heard or seen or felt; it cannot think, it cannot love; it has neither heart, nor will, nor memory; no relation to us such as we have toward each other. This is the opposite extreme: and of the two the lower is better than the higher. The poor heathens religion is still a religion. It is a link (that blind, gross, material notion) between him and a higher world, whose invisible powers he reveres, dreads, and trusts; it has the elements of Christian faith, and needs only to be purified by grace. But the notions of the acute philosophic mind have in them no reality. The refinement has gone too far; the evaporation has produced a thin film, without light, without warmth, without value to any human being. Such are two extremes, whereof every age of the world thus far affords illustrations. The truth is in neither of them: it lies between. Going from the former towards the latter, there is a point at which we must stop, having found what we need. We want what is above the first, but stops short of the second; the reality of the idolaters faith and the spirituality of that of the philosopher; the material and the immaterial together; a religion meeting man as a body, and meeting him also as a spirit; helping and upholding him on the physical and spiritual side at once. All these wants are met, in the gospel and theology of the Incarnation. When the Word was made flesh there stood before men, first, what could not have been more real to the senses than it was. The Son of God took flesh; He dwelt among us in a true body; He did not abhor such material tabernacle. In that flesh dwelt He who is a spirit and whom men are to worship in spirit and truth (Joh_4:24). God, immaterial and spiritual, without parts, or passions, was manifested in a body having members, in a humanity like unto our own, sin only excepted, in and under sensible and material forms, to the senses first, and through them to the spirit and heart of men. This is the mystery of the Incarnation, which whosoever looketh upon with faith and love shall find the extreme terms in the problem of religion brought together and harmonised therein. Thus far I have been speaking mainly of the days when Christ was here on earth. All that began so strangely has been carried on no less strangely among us since He went away. Still is the Lord unto us very Man and very God in one. Christianity, rightly understood, is Christ; and Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever, still God and man in One. Christianity, therefore, being ultimately resolvable into Him, and being, in fact, the perpetual and abiding manifestation in Him, must be what He is, Divine and human at once. It must also have two sides, two elements, the physical and the spiritual, the material and the immaterial, the body akin to the dust, the spirit out of heaven. Neither of these can be spared; religion without the latter would be a gross and carnal system; without the former a cold abstraction. The Church of Christ is a visible body; from her it was intended that a visible and outward glory should shine through this dark world. Let us understand our mission; we are the apostles, the representatives of a religion which should give to the world not only the grandest ideas, the holiest thoughts, the most powerful inspirations, the deepest truths, and the most practical and valuable maxims, but also the most splendid sights, the most elevating sounds, and all that can cheer and sustain the heart of pilgrim man. It is Christianity, on its physical side, which has given us the cathedrals of the world, grand creeds and anthems at once in stone and sculpture, reflecting the spiritual glory of the Lord in their solemn magnificence, and praising Him as far as their towers, domes, and cross-topped spires can be seen; it is from that side of religion that men have drawn the fulness of that refreshment which a simple and unsophisticated humanity craves. It boots not to say by way of objection that these are material things; they are, of course. Even so Christ was Man, and beautiful in His humanity to the eye of faith; and these things represent the Word made flesh, the human Christ. This visible side of religion, all glory and magnificence, was intended to correspond to the human side in. Christ, that body wherein dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead. (Morgan Dix, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 4 Chapter 5
Chapter 5
ANALYSIS AND THEORY OF ST. JOHNS GOSPEL
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1Jn_1:1
IN the opening verses of this Epistle we have a sentence whose ample and prolonged prelude has but one parallel in St. Johns writings. It is, as an old divine says, "prefaced and brought in with more magnificent ceremony than any passage in Scripture."
The very emotion and enthusiasm with which it is written, and the sublimity of the exordium as a whole, tend to make the highest sense also the most natural sense. Of what or of whom does St. John speak in the phrase "concerning the Lord of Life," or "the Lord who is the Life"? The neuter "that which" is used for the masculines "He who"-according to St. Johns practice of employing the neuter comprehensively when a collective whole is to be expressed. The phrase "from the beginning," taken by itself, might no doubt be employed to signify the beginning of Christianity, or of the ministry of Christ. But even viewing it as entirely isolated from its context of language and circumstance, it has a greater claim to be looked upon as from eternity or from the beginning of the creation. Other considerations are decisive in favour of the last interpretation.
(1) We have already adverted to the lofty and transcendental tone of the whole passage, elevating as it does each clause by the irresistible upward tendency of the whole sentence. "The climax and resting place cannot stop short of the bosom of God."
(2) But again, we must also bear in mind that the Epistle is everywhere to be read with the Gospel before us, and the language of the Epistle to be connected with that of the Gospel. The procemium of the Epistle is the subjective version of the objective historical point of view which we find at the close of the preface to the Gospel. "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us"; so St. John begins his sentence in the Gospel with a statement of a historical fact. But he proceeds, "and we delightedly beheld His glory"; that is a statement of the personal impression attested by his own consciousness and that of other witnesses. But let us note carefully that in the Epistle, which is in subjective relation to the Gospel, this process is exactly reversed. The Apostle begins with the personal impression; pauses to affirm the reality of the many proofs in the realm of fact of that which produced this impression through the senses upon the conceptions and emotions of those who were brought into contact with the Saviour; and then returns to the subjective impression from which he had originally started.
(3) Much of the language in this passage is inconsistent with our understanding by the Word the first announcement of the Gospel preaching. One might of course speak of hearing the commencement of the Gospel message, but surely not of seeing and handling it.
(4) It is a noteworthy fact that the Gospel and the Apocalypse begin with the mention of the personal Word. This may well lead us to expect that Logos should be used in the same sense in the procemium of the great Epistle by the same author.
We conclude then that when St. John here speaks of the Word of Life, he refers to something higher again than the preaching of life, and that he has in view both the manifestation of the life which has taken place in our humanity, and Him who is personally at once the Word and the Life. The procemium may be thus paraphrased. "That which in all its collective influence was from the beginning as understood by Moses, by Solomon, and Micah; which we have first and above all heard in divinely human utterances, but which we have also seen with these very eyes; which we gazed upon with the full and entranced sight that delights in the object contemplated; and which these hands handled reverentially at His bidding. I speak all this concerning the Word who is also the Life."
Tracts and sheets are often printed in our day with anthologies of texts which are supposed to contain the very essence of the Gospel. But the sweetest scents, it is said, are not distilled exclusively from flowers, for the flower is but an exhalation. The Seeds, the leaf, the stem, the very bark should be macerated, because they contain the odoriferous substance in minute sacs. So the purest Christian doctrine is distilled, not only from a few exquisite flowers in a textual anthology, but from the whole substance, so to speak, of the message. Now it will be observed that at the beginning of the Epistle which accompanied the fourth Gospel, our attention is directed not to a sentiment, but to a fact and to a Person. In the collections of texts to which reference has been made, we should probably never find two brief passages which may not unjustly be considered to concentrate the essence of the scheme of salvation more nearly than any others. "The Word was made flesh." "Concerning the Word of Life (and that Life was once manifested, and we have seen and consequently are witnesses and announce to you from Him who sent us that Life, that eternal Life whose it is to have been in eternal relation with the Father, and manifested to us); That which we have seen and heard declare we from Him who sent us unto you, to the end that you too may have fellowship with us."
It would be disrespectful to the theologian of the New Testament to pass by the great dogmatic term never, so far as we are told, applied by our Lord to Himself, but with which St. John begins each of his three principal writings-The Word.
Such mountains of erudition have been heaped over this term that it has become difficult to discover the buried thought. The Apostle adopted a word which was already in use in various quarters simply because if, from the nature of the case necessarily inadequate, it was yet more suitable than any other. He also as profound ancient thinkers conceived, looked into the depths of the human mind, into the first principles of that which is the chief distinction of man from the lower creation- language. The human word, these thinkers taught, is twofold; inner and outer-now as the manifestation to the mind itself of unuttered thought, now as a part of language uttered to others. The word as signifying unuttered thought, the mould in which it exists in the mind, illustrates the eternal relation of the Father to the Son. The word as signifying uttered thought illustrates the relation as conveyed to man by the Incarnation. "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten God which is in the bosom of the Father He interpreted Him." For the theologian of the Church Jesus is thus the Word; because He had His being from the Father in a way which presents some analogy to the human word, which is sometimes the inner vesture, sometimes the outward utterance of thought-sometimes the human thought in that language without which man cannot think, sometimes the speech whereby the speaker interprets it to others. Christ is the Word Whom out of the fulness of His thought and being the Father has eternally inspoken and outspoken into personal existence.
One too well knows that such teaching as this runs the risk of appearing uselessly subtle and technical, but its practical value will appear upon reflection. Because it gives us possession of the point of view from which St. John himself surveys, and from which he would have the Church contemplate, the history of the life of our Lord. And indeed for that life the theology of the Word, i.e., of the Incarnation, is simply necessary.
For we must agree with M. Renan so far at least as this, that a great life, even as the world counts greatness, is an organic whole with an underlying vitalising idea; which must be construed as such, and cannot be adequately rendered by a mere narration of facts. Without this unifying principle the facts will be not only incoherent but inconsistent. There must be a point of view from which we can embrace the life as one. The great test here, as in art, is the formation of a living, consistent, unmutilated whole.
Thus a general point of view (if we are to use modern language easily capable of being misunderstood we must say a theory) is wanted of the Person, the work, the character of Christ. The synoptical Evangelists had furnished the Church with the narrative of His earthly origin. St. John in his Gospel and Epistle, under the guidance of the Spirit, endowed it with the theory of His Person.
Other points of view have been adopted, from the heresies of the early ages to the speculations of our own. All but St. Johns have failed to coordinate the elements of the problem. The earlier attempts essayed to read the history upon the assumption that He was merely human or merely divine. They tried in their weary round to unhumanise or undeify the God-Man, to degrade the perfect Deity, to mutilate the perfect Humanity-to present to the adoration of mankind a something neither entirely human nor entirely divine, but an impossible mixture of the two. The truth on these momentous subjects was fused under the fires of controversy. The last centuries have produced theories less subtle and metaphysical, but bolder and more blasphemous. Some have looked upon Him as a pretender or an enthusiast. But the depth and sobriety of His teaching upon ground where we are able to test it-the texture of circumstantial word and work which will bear to be inspected under any microscope or cross examined by any prosecutor-have almost shamed such blasphemy into respectful silence. Others of later date admit with patronising admiration that the martyr of Calvary is a saint of transcendent excellence. But if He who called Himself Son of God was not much more than saint, He was something less. Indeed He would have been something of three characters; saint, visionary, pretender-at moments the Son of God in His elevated devotion, at other times condescending to something of the practice of the charlatan, His unparalleled presumption only excused by His unparalleled success.
Now the point of view taken by St. John is the only one which is possible or consistent-the only one which reconciles the humiliation and the glory recorded in the Gospels, which harmonises the otherwise insoluble contradictions that beset His Person and His work. One after another, to the question, "What think ye of Christ?" answers are attempted, sometimes angry, sometimes sorrowful, always confused. The frank respectful bewilderment of the better Socinianism, the gay brilliance of French romance, the heavy insolence of German criticism, have woven their revolting or perplexed christologies. The Church still points with a confidence, which only deepens as the ages pass, to the enunciation of the theory of the Saviours Person by St. John-in his Gospel, "The Word was made flesh"-in his Epistle, "Concerning the Word of Life."
Chapter 6
ST. JOHNS GOSPEL HISTORICAL, NOT IDEOLOGICAL
1Jn_1:1
OUR argument so far has been that St. Johns Gospel is dominated by a central idea and by a theory which harmonises the great and many-sided life which it contains, and which is repeated again at the beginning of the Epistle in a form analogous to that in which it had been cast in the procemium of the Gospel-allowing for the difference between a history and a document of a more subjective character moulded upon that history.
There is one objection to the accuracy, almost to the veracity, of a life written from such a theory or point of view. It may disdain to be shackled by the bondage of facts. It may become an essay in which possibilities and speculations are mistaken for actual events, and history is superseded by metaphysics. It may degenerate into a romance prose-poem; if the subject is religious, into or mystic effusion. In the case of the fourth Gospel the cycles in which the narrative moves, the unveiling as of the progress of a drama, are thought by some to confirm the suspicion awakened by the point of view given in its procemium, and in the opening of the Epistle. The Gospel, it is said, is ideological. To us it appears that those who have entered most deeply into the spirit of St. John will most deeply feel the significance of the two words which we place at the head of this discourse-"which we have heard," "which we have seen with our very eyes" (which we contemplated with entranced gaze), "which our hands have handled."
More truly than any other, St. John could say of this letter in the words of an American poet:
"This is not a book-It is I!"
In one so true, so simple, so profound, so oracular, there is a special reason for this prolonged appeal to the senses, for the place which is assigned to each. In the fact that hearing stands first, there is a reference to one characteristic of that Gospel to which the Epistle throughout refers. Beyond the synoptical Evangelists, St. John records the words of Jesus. The position which hearing holds in the sentence, above and prior to sight and handling, indicates the reverential estimation in which the Apostle held his Masters teaching. The expression places us on solid historical ground, because it is a moral demonstration that one like St. John would not have dared to invent whole discourses and place them in the lips of Jesus. Thus in the "we have heard" there is a guarantee of the sincerity of the report of the discourses, which forms so large a proportion of the narrative that it practically guarantees the whole Gospel.
On this accusation of ideology against St. Johns Gospel, let us make a further remark founded upon the Epistle.
It is said that the Gospel systematically subordinates chronological order and historical sequence of facts to the necessity imposed by the theory of the Word which stands in the forefront of the Epistle and Gospel.
But mystic ideology, indifference to historical veracity as compared with adherence to a conception or theory, is absolutely inconsistent with that strong, simple, severe appeal to the validity of the historical principle of belief upon sufficient evidence which pervades St. Johns writings. His Gospel is a tissue woven of many lines of evidence. "Witness" stands in almost every page of that Gospel, and indeed is found there nearly as often as in the whole of the rest of the New Testament. The word occurs ten times in five short verses of the Epistle. {1Jn_5:6-12} There is no possibility of mistaking this prolixity of reiteration in a writer so simple and so sincere as our Apostle. The theologian is a historian. He has no intention of sacrificing history to dogma, and no necessity for doing so. His theory, and that alone, harmonises his facts. His facts have passed in the domain of human history, and have had that evidence of witness which proves that they did so.
A few of the stories of the earliest ages of Christianity have ever been repeated, and rightly so, as affording the most beautiful illustrations of St. Johns character, the most simple and truthful idea of the impression left by his character and his work. His tender love for souls, his deathless desire to promote mutual love among his people, are enshrined in two anecdotes which the Church has never forgotten. It has scarcely been noticed that a tradition of not much later date (at least as old as Tertullian, born A.D. 90) credits St. John with a stern reverence for the accuracy of historical truth, and tells us what, in the estimation of those who were near him in time, the Apostle thought of the lawfulness of ideological religious romance. It was said that a presbyter of Asia Minor confessed that he was the author of certain apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla-probably the same strange but unquestionably very ancient document with the same title which is still preserved. The mans motive does not seem to have been selfish. His work was apparently the composition of an ardent and romantic nature passionately attracted by a saint so wonderful as St. Paul. The tradition went on to assert that St. John without hesitation degraded this clerical romance writer from his ministry. But the offence of the Asiatic presbyter would have been light indeed compared with that of the mendacious Evangelist, who could have deliberately fabricated discourses and narrated miracles which he dared to attribute to the Incarnate Son of God. The guilt of publishing to the Church apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla would have paled before the crimson sin of forging a Gospel.
These considerations upon St. Johns prolonged and circumstantial claim to personal acquaintance with the Word made flesh, confirmed by every avenue of communication between man and man-and first in order by the hearing of that sweet yet awful teaching-point to the fourth Gospel again and again. And the simple assertion-"that which we have heard"-accounts for one characteristic of the fourth Gospel which would otherwise be a perplexing enigma-its dramatic vividness and consistency.
This dramatic truth of St. Johns narrative, manifested in various developments, deserves careful consideration. There are three notes in the fourth Gospel which indicate either a consummate dramatic instinct or a most faithful record.
(1) The delineation of individual characters. The Evangelist tells us with no unmeaning distinction, that Jesus "knew all men, and knew what is in man" Joh_2:24-25. For some persons take an apparently profound view of human nature in the abstract. They pass for being sages so long as they confine themselves to sounding generalisations, but they are convicted on the field of life and experience. They claim to know what is in man; but they know it vaguely, as one might be in possession of the outlines of a map, yet totally ignorant of most places within its limits. Others, who mostly affect to be keen men of the world, refrain from generalisations; but they have an insight, which at times is startling, into the characters of the individual men who cross their path. There is a sense in which they superficially seem to know all men, but their knowledge after all is capricious and limited. One class affects to know men, but does not even affect to know man; the other class knows something about man, but is lost in the infinite variety of the world of real men. Our Lord knew both-both the abstract ultimate principles of human nature and the subtle distinctions which mark off every human character from every other. Of this peculiar knowledge he who was brought into the most intimate communion with the Great Teacher was made in some degree a partaker in the course of His earthly ministry. With how few touches, yet how clearly, are delineated the Baptist, Nathanael, the Samaritan woman, the blind man, Philip, Thomas, Martha and Mary, Pilate!
(2) More particularly the appropriateness and consistency of the language used by the various persons introduced in the narrative are, in the case of a writer like St. John, a multiplied proof of historical veracity. For instance, of St. Thomas only one single sentence, containing seven words, is preserved, outside the memorable narrative in the twentieth chapter; yet how unmistakably does that brief sentence indicate the same character-tender, impetuous, loving, yet ever inclined to take the darker view of things because from the very excess of its affection it cannot believe in that which it most desires, and demands accumulated and convincing proof of its own happiness. Further, the language of our Lord which St. John preserves is both morally and intellectually a marvellous witness to the proof of his assertion here in the outset of his Epistle.
This may be exemplified by an illustration from modern literature. Victor Hugo, in his "Legende des Siecles," has in one passage only placed in our Lords lips a few words which are not found in the Evangelist. Everyone will at once feel that these words ring hollow, that there is in them something exaggerated and fictitious-and that, although the dramatist had the advantage of having a type of style already constructed for him. People talk as if the representation in detail of a perfect character were a comparatively easy performance. Yet every such representation shows some flaw when closely inspected. For instance, a character in which Shakespeare so evidently delighted as Buckingham, whose end is so noble and martyr-like, is thus described, when on his trial, by a sympathising witness:
"How did he bear himself? When he was brought again to the bar, to hear His knell rung out, his judgment-he was struck with such an agony, he sweat extremely. And something spoke in choler, ill and hasty; but he fell to himself again, and sweetly. In all the rest showd a most noble patience."
Our argument comes to this point. Here is one man of all but the highest rank in dramatic genius, who utterly fails to invent even one sentence which could possibly be taken for an utterance of our Lord. Here is another, the most transcendent in the same order whom the human race has ever known, who tacitly confesses the impossibility of representing a character which shall be "one entire and perfect chrysolite," without speck or flaw. Take yet another instance. Sir Walter Scott appeals for "the fair license due to the author of a fictitious composition"; and admits that he "cannot pretend to the observation of complete accuracy even in outward costume, much less in the more important points of language and manners." But St. John was evidently a man of no such pretensions as these kings of the human imagination-no Scott or Victor Hugo, much less a Shakespeare. How then-except on the assumption of his being a faithful reporter, of his recording words actually spoken, and witnessing to incidents which he had seen with his very eyes and contemplated with loving and admiring reverence-can we account for his having given us long successions of sentences, continuous discourses in which we trace a certain unity and adaptation; and a character which stands alone among all recorded in history or conceived in fiction, by presenting to us an excellence faultless in every detail? We assert that the one answer to this question is boldly given us by St. John in the forefront of his Epistle-"That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes-concerning the Word who is the Life-declare we unto you."
St. Johns mode of writing history may profitably be contrasted with that of one who in his own fine was a great master, as it has been ably criticised by a distinguished statesman. Voltaires historical masterpiece is a portion of the life of Maria Theresa, which is unquestionably written from a partly ideological point of view; for those who have patience to go back to the "sources," and to compare Voltaires narrative with them, will see the process by which a literary master has produced his effect. The writer works as if he were composing a classical tragedy restricted to the unities of time and place. The three days of the coronation and of the successive votes are brought into one effect, of which we are made to feel that it is due to a magic inspiration of Maria Theresa. Yet, as the great historical critic to whom we refer proceeds to demonstrate, a different charm, very much more real because it comes from truth, may be found in literal historical accuracy without this academic rouge. Writers more conscientious than Voltaire would not have assumed that Maria Theresa was degraded by a husband who was inferior to her. They would not have substituted some pretty and pretentious phrases for the genuine emotion not quite veiled under the official Latin of the Queen. "However high a thing art may be, reality, truth, which is the work of God, is higher!" It is this conviction, this entire intense adhesion to truth, this childlike ingenuousness which has made St. John as a historian attain the higher region which is usually reached by genius alone-which has given us narratives and passages whose ideal beauty or awe is so transcendent or solemn, whose pictorial grandeur or pathos is so inexhaustible, whose philosophical depth is so unfathomable.
He stands with spellbound delight before his work without the disappointment which ever attends upon men of genius; because that work is not drawn from himself, because he can say three words-which we have "heard," which we have "seen" with our eyes, which we have "gazed" upon.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv1–10 1–4. That which was from the beginning. Compare John…
1–4. That which was from the beginning. Compare John 1:1; see notes there. Compare also Gen. 1:1. John 1:1 shows that the Word, manifested as Christ, was from the beginning. Which we have heard, … looked upon, … handled. In its incarnate form in the person of Jesus Christ. The Word of life. Christ, the revealed Word, when it became flesh and dwelt among men; “in whom also was life” (John 1:4).
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 5 1Jn_1:1-4 are introductory, and may be compared with the…
THE FELLOWSHIPS OF THE HOLY LIFE
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
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1Jn_1:1-4 are introductory, and may be compared with the prologue of the gospel by St. John. The subject of the epistle is “the Word who is the life”; and its purpose “to complete the joy of the disciples in the Lord.” Westcott thinks that St. John uses the plural we as speaking in the name of the apostolic body, of which he was the last surviving representative.
1Jn_1:1. From the beginning.—ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς, neuter. This is usually taken as referring to the existence of Christ from before the Incarnation. “The Being which existed from the beginning.” But it may be the simple assertion of the apostle’s competency to deal with a matter of which he had information at first hand (compare Luk_1:2-3). “From the beginning” may mean the beginning of Christ’s ministry. St. John was one of the first disciples, and the one who enjoyed closest intimacy with our Lord. The first-hand knowledge of the apostles gave them their special authority. Of the Word of life.—Concerning Him; related to Him. Genitive with preposition περί. The Word which is the Life. The Word of God, and Life of men. Or, the Word which was in a life. That human life which Christ lived was His word, His message.
1Jn_1:2. Manifested.—A word has to be spoken if it is to be apprehended by others. A word that is a life must appear in mortal scenes if it is to be understood, and to exert a gracious influence. Manifested is made apprehensible by human senses. Shew unto you.—Better, declare. Eternal life.—Divine, spiritual life. The word “eternal” indicates a class or kind of life. The time figure in it only helps to the realising of quality or kind. R.V. “the life, the eternal life.” “St. John tells us over and over again that eternal life can be possessed in this world.”
1Jn_1:3. Fellowship.—κοινωνίαν, participation, communion in privilege and blessing. The special theme of the epistle; the ruling word. “It generally denotes the fellowship of persons with persons in one and the same object, always common to all, and sometimes whole to each” (Canon Evans). “This is St. John’s conception of the Church: each member of it possesses the Son, and through Him the Father; and this common possession gives communion with all other members as well as with the Divine Persons” (Plummer). Our fellowship.—Our is emphatic. It is precisely that fellowship the apostles enjoyed which they wanted the whole Church to share. His Son.—Greek, “the Son of Him.”
1Jn_1:4. Your joy.—Better, “our joy may be fulfilled” (compare Php_2:2; Joh_15:11; Joh_17:13). “That serene happiness which is the result of conscious union with God and good men, of conscious possession of eternal life, and which raises us above pain, and sorrow, and remorse.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—1Jn_1:1-4
The Testimony of the Apostles.—It may be that, strictly speaking, the term “apostle” means no more than “sent one,” and is sufficiently represented by our term “missionary”; but it is evident that it was used in the early Church both in a general and in a special sense. It is applied to missionaries, such as Barnabas and Silas; but it is also the precise designation of twelve men who had been in daily personal relations with the Lord Jesus. The commonly received idea of an apostle was indicated by St. Peter in the upper room, when he suggested the filling up of the place of Judas: “Of the men therefore which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and went out among us, beginning from the baptism of John, unto the day that He was received up from us, of these must one become a witness with us of His resurrection.” And St. Paul rests his claim to apostleship on the fact that he also had actually seen the Lord Jesus, and had received direct communications from Him (Gal_1:11-17). The writer of this epistle does not give his name; probably there was no occasion for him to do so, as he was well known in the Churches, and the harmony between the letter and his teachings was at once and fully recognised. He claims attention to his message not on purely personal grounds, but on the ground of his accurate and first-hand knowledge of the things of which he wrote.
I. The competency of the apostles for their witness and their work.—That witness concerned the earthly life of the Lord Jesus; that work was declaring the impressions which their direct relation to Christ’s earthly life had made upon them. They were to tell men that their personal experience had convinced them that Jesus was Messiah, Son of God, God manifest.
1. They were competent through their sense-apprehensions of Christ. Most of the twelve, and John was one, had known Christ, in personal discipleship, from the very beginning of His ministry, and all had been with Him in daily intercourse for three years up to the sudden and violent close of His life. They had the testimony of their senses, of their sight, and of their hearing. They watched their Lord in His varied daily labours, and nightly devotions and restings. They knew every characteristic expression of His face, and movement of His hand. They listened to His mutiplied teachings, and knew well the differing tones of His voice. They had been with Him in the many moods of His feeling—now tender and sympathetic, now intense and earnest, now mystical and dreamy, now reproachful and severe. If ever men knew a fellow-man through sense-apprehensions of him, those twelve men, and St. John more especially, must have known Christ And that sensible intimacy gave a peculiar force, exactness, and persuasiveness to their testimony. They spoke at first hand, and not what they had been told, but what they had themselves seen, and heard, and handled of the Word of life. In these days the verification of everything by actual experiment, or sense-knowledge, is demanded; and it is not sufficiently considered that precisely this personal, direct, sensible apprehension of Christ the apostles had, and that on our own conditions of acceptable testimony we are bound to receive theirs. They saw with their own eyes, they beheld, their hands handled. We do not deal fairly by the apostles if we either suspect or reject their testimony. But their relation to Christ brought them—
2. Competency through their mental apprehensions. What they thus daily saw and heard became food for thought. Thought fitted the new facts and impressions to previously possessed knowledge, and the apostles gradually made up their minds that Jesus was the promised Messiah, though by no means the sort of Messiah that they expected. That otherwiseness of Jesus became increasingly impressed upon them as they came to know Him better; and gradually they came to fill with their deeper meanings the names, “Son of man,” and “Son of God.” Those thinkings were genuine, unbiassed, the natural workings of the sensible impressions made upon them in their daily intercourse with Jesus. It should be clearly seen that there were, in the apostles’ days, no doctrines concerning the person of Christ which could possibly bias their minds. They thought simply and genuinely. Indeed, their thinking even surprised themselves. And when they testified that Jesus is the Son of God, they uttered the personal conviction to which twelve men had been led by thinking on a series of facts of which they had direct and exact knowledge. Surely if any men ever were competent to make a testimony about anything, these apostles were concerning the person and mission of the Lord Jesus. Yet this is not all.
3. These apostles had an unusual and direct spiritual illumination, and the competency to render their testimony which belongs to men Divinely inspired. It is well for us to see first their natural competency as men, and then their supernatural competency as inspired men. Their Lord promised them the power of the Holy Ghost for giving their witness concerning Him, and the sign that the promise was fulfilled is found in the baptism of the Day of Pentecost. In all the records of history, can any man, or any body of men, be found who were more efficiently and satisfactorily fitted for their life-work than the apostles of the Lord Jesus? St. John has a perfect right to claim competency in dealing with the Christian truth.
II. The one truth which is the centre of the apostolic testimony.—Perhaps most evidently of St. John’s testimony, but as really of St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s. It was the double truth of the Deity and humanity of Christ. “Declare unto you the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.” It is not with sufficient distinctness seen that the double nature of Christ is no more capable of proof, satisfactory to the human intellect, than is the being of God. The apostles reached the conviction of the Divine humanity of Jesus through their close personal intercourse with Him; it was the impression made upon them by what they saw, and heard, and felt. And the conviction of the Divine-humanness of Christ never comes to any man in any other way. Let any man now come into close personal relations with Christ, let him feel the impression which Christ always makes, when He is permitted to come fully into the sphere of a man’s thought, and heart, and life, and he will surely be drawn to the “Man Christ Jesus,” and will bow before Him, saying, “My Lord, and my God.” “St. John gives a twofold utterance concerning the object of his publication: that He in His nature is eternal, and therefore Divine; and also that He descended into the domain of human, yea sensible, experience, and thus became manifest, so that He became known in a perfectly assured manner.” “The eternal life is described as something enfolded in Christ and inseparable from His person” (Eric Haupt).
III. St. John has one great aim in rendering his witness.—“That ye also may have fellowship with us” (1Jn_1:3). Fellowship with us in our fellowship, he means. “Yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ.” What appears to be in St. John’s mind is this—the spiritual apprehension of Christ which he had gained, had not only brought him closely near to Christ, but had also brought him closely near to God, nearer than anything else ever had, or ever could. Realising the Sonship of Christ glorified God to him; it revealed him as the eternal Father. Realising his sonship in Christ brought him the delightful realisation that God was his Father, and so put him in closest and dearest relation and fellowship with Him. And then St. John exclaims, that he writes this epistle because he wants his friends to share his joy. He would have them know Christ as he knew Him; then they would share with him the fellowship of the Father and the Son, and their joy would be full. St John’s testimony as an apostle then is fully trustworthy; he was competent to the work of giving it. It concerned the possibility of fellowship with God. It declares that he enjoyed the fellowship. It explains how he came into it. He had personal intercourse with Christ. He learned the mystery in Christ. Through His humanity he discovered His Divinity. He saw Him to be the Son of God. The vision drew him close; and when close to, for communing with the Son, he found he was communing with the Father. St. John’s was the typical experience of believers: they apprehend the “Man Christ Jesus”; they find in Him “the Son of God with power”; and the vision of the Son brings the vision of the Father—the fellowship of the Son, the fellowship of the Father.
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
1Jn_1:1. The Power of Personal Experience.—There are some things that can only be effectively known through a personal experience of them, or in relation to them. That must be so, because some things cannot be apprehended by the intellect alone; they must be known through feeling. The highest truths of religion cannot be grasped save by intellect fused in feeling. It has often been pointed out that a man cannot know evil save by doing it, and feeling its results. And it is certain that no man ever can know Christ until he has come into personal relations with Him, and has experienced what He, by His grace, can do in and for him. St. John claims to have that peculiar power to declare truth, and to persuade others, which comes from knowledge gained through experience. It is a power which, in one sense, no Christian teacher can have had since the apostles’ days; yet it is a power which, in another sense, every Christian teacher may have, and must have for efficiency, in every age.
1Jn_1:2. Manifesting the Eternal Life.—Manifesting means bringing an unseen, spiritual thing into the realm of the human senses, so that it may be apprehensible to beings who are placed under the limitations of sense-conditions. But manifesting does not mean that the spiritual changes its nature, and becomes material. What is meant is, that the spiritual accommodates itself to our sense-conditions, by using and showing itself by means of a medium which makes due appeal to the senses. Christ is a spiritual and unseen Being, but He is manifest to us through the medium of the “Man Christ Jesus,” who is the material veil through which we can discern the spiritual Being that He is. He, the life, the spiritual, the eternal life, was manifested, and we have seen it. Man can only think with words which are really figures apprehensible by the senses. So it is said, God, who cannot be seen, is seen, is “manifest in the flesh.” We see God in the human Christ.
“Ver.
3. Fellowship with the Father.—There are three stages in what we may call the higher Christian life.
1. Baptism with the Spirit.
2. Conscious vital union with the Song of Solomon 3. Fellowship with the Father. Coming to God, reconciliation with God, loving God, praying to God, hoping to be with Him, are all blessed, but they are not fellowship.
I. The access to God which is possible to the believer is that of close and abiding fellowship.—The sense of the Divine reality and nearness was a constant experience in Eden. But sin altered all that. It cut us off from God. Our Lord came to bring us back to God. The possibility of human fellowship with God is shown—
1. In the earthly life of Christ. To Him the spiritual world was always near.
2. By God’s presence and relationship.
3. By the plain statements of His word.
II. This fellowship is the supreme Christian blessedness—
1. Think of it as unspeakable honour.
2. As permanent satisfaction.
3. As progressive holiness.
III. This supreme blessedness is to be enjoyed in Christ.—
1. In Christ we have the right of approach to God.
2. In Christ we have the personal purity needed for Divine communion.
3. In Christ we have the spirit that ever rises to the Father.
4. In Christ we have the welcome with God that He has.—Charles New.
The Mystery in Christ.—The following profound thoughts struggle for expression in these four opening verses. There is a Being who has existed with God the Father from all eternity: He is the Father’s Son; He is also the expression of the Father’s nature and will. He has been manifested in space and time; and of that manifestation I and others have had personal knowledge; by the united evidence of our senses we have been convinced of its reality. In revealing to us the Divine nature He becomes to us life, eternal life. With the declaration of all this in our hands as the gospel, we come to you in this epistle, that you may unite with us in our great possession, and that our joy in the Lord may be made complete.—A. Plummer, D.D.
Our Fellowship in Christ.—“Fellowship” is the key-word of this epistle. St. John’s prevailing idea was that Christianity brings men together in brotherly helpfulness by bringing them to God. He, in effect, says: “You and I may be in fellowship with one another, if we are in fellowship with the Father and the Son. I would help you to get and to keep in that fellowship.” When sin entered into the world, it spoiled man’s sonship to God, and his brotherhood with his fellow man. He who truly loves God will be sure to love his brother. He who loses the love of God will be sure to find his human fellowships breaking up. God made fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters; but the result of the Fall was a sort of separation between Adam and Eve, the parents, in the first generation, and between Cain and Abel, the brothers, in the second. Gustave Doré represents Adam and Eve, when they have sought the thick shade of the trees to hide away from God. They are sitting apart from each other, self-conscious and ashamed, and a huge, hideously shaped trunk of a great forest tree is between them, a fitting symbol of that dreadful thing, self-will, and self-indulgence, which had come between them and God, and therefore separated them from each other. The evil grew with the generations. Men built cities to protect themselves from each other. Brothers made much of “mine” and “thine”; each man lived for himself; and then man’s ruin was complete. Christ came to restore the fellowship of man with man, and He could only accomplish this work by doing another work first—restoring man’s fellowship with God. Christianity brings men together as nothing else does. And it attains its end by restoring God’s family idea for man. Parents and children must help each other. Brothers and sisters must help each other. Each member of the family must live for the other members: “By love serving one another.” No redeemed man “liveth unto himself.” He is redeemed from that very thing. Dr. George Macdonald has a very queer and dreamy character, who thinks and imagines most weird, and quaint, but suggestive things. In one of his dreams he seemed to be in heaven, and it was just like earth. There were shops, and buying and selling were going on, only there was no money. Everybody simply did his best to serve his neighbour for nothing. The wholesale house was served by the manufacturer, and the retail tradesman was served by the wholesale house, and the private customer was served by the retail tradesman. The Christ-spirit was triumphant. There was no need for money to buy service, for it was freely given. It is a striking thing that, in the first enthusiasm of the early Church, an effort should have been made to realise this fellowship of mutual service. They kept together, and lived on a common fund.
I. Our fellowship in Christ is based on relationship.—It is “with the Father.” To have fellowship with the Father clearly means that we are, in all the joy of the home life, fully entering into all the privileges of our relationships. Where a father dwells is a home; by his presence it becomes a home. He keeps all the members together. When he is gone, the family is scattered. We may take these earthly associations, and let them help us to apprehend our relationships with God. We are, as Christians, not a separated, scattered family; we are all with our Father. We are at home. We are sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, in the actual relations of family life; and our Father is with us. This is no mere doctrine or sentiment. “Because we are sons, He hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts,” and in the home life we are to be as brotherly and helpful to one another as Christ is to us.
II. Our fellowship in Christ is based on character.—When our attention is directed to it, we can plainly see that the joy and unity of an earthly family, in an earthly home, depend on goodness. Not on love, or on numbers, or on abilities; but on character. The one thing that breaks up homes is lost characters, not calamity, not sickness. We can neither have fellowship with the Father, nor with one another, unless we have fellowship with the Son, oneness with Him in thought, feeling, spirit, purpose, character. God smiled out of heaven upon His Son, and said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased”; and it was Christ’s character with which He was pleased. Christ bade His disciples “follow Him,” and He did not merely mean, “Attend upon Me; come after Me; step in My footprints”: He meant, “Be like Me; do like Me; have My mind; breathe My spirit; work My work; be changed into My image; be the Father’s sons, acceptable to Him, even as I am.” St. John says, “Fellowship with the Son,” to remind us that the spirit of sonship is the essential to fellowship with the Father, and with each other. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings God perfects praise. A story is told of an old coloured woman in Michigan, known as Sojourner Truth. Some one had spread a report that she had left the fellowship of the Church, and joined the spiritualists. One of the village pastors went to question her. “Who tole you dat, chile?” said the old lady. “It is so stated in the newspapers, and I wanted to know if you had joined the spiritualists.” Straightening herself up to her full height, and bringing her arm down like a blacksmith, the old woman exclaimed, “Bress your soul, chile, dahs nothen to jine! You may tell all the people that ‘ole Sojourner” long to Jesus these many years. She’s as true to de Master as de anvil to de hammer. I nebber give up my faith in Jesus for anything else.” The fellowship of Jesus carried with it the fellowship of the Church.
1Jn_1:4. Joy in Higher Truth.—A.V. “That your joy may be full.” R.V. “That our joy may be full.” We may perhaps combine the two, and read, “That the joy may be full, yours as well as ours.” It is in the fuller and worthier apprehension of the person of Christ that St. John expects to increase his own joy, and the joy of those to whom he writes. It is often pointed out that the increase of knowledge is usually an increase of sorrow. It is apt to shake down confidence in long-cherished beliefs, to separate us from the friendships and associations of early life, and to bewilder us with ever-gathering and ever-thickening mysteries. And if that is in any sense true of increasing knowledge of the material world, and of the mental and social life of humanity, it is certainly much more true of those things which concern man’s spiritual nature, and man’s relations as a spiritual being to God the great Spirit. Apprehension of the higher philosophical, theological, and spiritual truths brings with it a great strain on feeling, which may even be called “sorrow.” Yet this is only one side of the truth. Advance into all higher truth is attended by delightful excitement, surprise, and joy. Positive pleasure, and pleasure of the purest and best kind, is felt by those who learn more, deeper, and surprising things concerning the phenomena of life upon the earth, and concerning the marvels of the heavens. A Newton, a Faraday, a Darwin, have positive joy, a fulness of joy, in the higher truth of fact in regard to the material world which they attain day by day. And the same may be said of the masters in philosophy, and in history, and in art. But a curious idea has come to be established in relation to religion. It is boldly assumed that a man’s religious joy will be in proportion to the simplicity—the childishness—of his grasp of the eternal verities that centre in the person and manifestation of Jesus Christ. Men are deterred from growing into the higher truth by fear of losing their joy. St. John unfolds the higher mysteries of Christ, in order that, thus, men’s joy might be filled up full.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv1, 5 1. Here John’s personal testimony to the literal, actual…
ARGUMENT 1
CHRIST THE INCARNATION OF LIFE
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1. Here John’s personal testimony to the literal, actual and unmistakable incarnation of Christ.
2. Life is original with none but God. Hence the presence of God is the inalienable condition of life. Where there is no probation involved, in case of all vegetables and animals, the abiding presence of God, bestowing and perpetuating life, is the normal and invariable condition. In case of intelligent probationers, the divine presence is determined by the volition. So long as Adam’s will was true to God, He abode with him, sustaining and perpetuating his spiritual life. When Adam deflected from God under Satan’s influence He departed from him, spiritual life simultaneously evanescing, leaving him a dead soul, still retaining animal life. The incarnation of Christ was absolutely necessary to the clear, ostensible and unmistakable manifestation of the life principle to the world.
3. This is the solution of Christian fellowship, i.e., the innate congeniality and universal brotherhood of all beings, human and angelic, possessing spiritual life; the same spiritual fellowship reaching up and appropriating the divine Fatherhood and brotherhood.
4. “Truly we write these things in order that our joy may be complete.” The man who does not freely, fully and heroically proclaim by speech or pen the whole truth as it is in Jesus, cuts down his own reward and plucks the stars from his own crown. I know millions will regret in heaven that they were not as bold, clear, and outspoken in the proclamation of God’s truth as they might have been. Good Lord, help us all to be candid as martyrs and true as angels.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 1Jn 1:1
1Jn 1:1
The Word of Life.
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St. John sets forth in his writings no theory of life. He cannot, or does not, formulate his conception of it into a system; he simply feels a power, not of death, but of life, working in his own soul. He is sure there is nothing in the world or beyond the world that can destroy it. Its evident tendency to God attested its origin from God. There might be other media to other men; to him it came through Christ.
I. As a rule of life, bidding us be pure, and unselfish, and kindly affectioned; as a high ideal, stimulating us to forget the things that were behind and to reach forward unto things that were yet before; enlightening us where we saw but dimly; enabling and capacitating us where we Were feeble and incompetent; purifying us where appetite and passion were in danger of blunting the finer perceptions of the heart, the nobler purposes of the soul; laying the foundations of an ampler and higher life, first for the individual and then for society and the race—it was thus that the "word of life" presented itself to the mind of St. John. If it had free course; if all who preached it practised it; if the failure of other systems to explain the phenomena of humanity, and still more to relieve its admitted ills and sorrows, were more fairly estimated and more fully known, perhaps it would be thought and seen that Christianity had not said its last word.
II. We first frustrate the grace of God, and do despite to it, trample it under our feet, and then call the Gospel a failure. We make Christian influence impossible, and then ask, Where is it to be found? We first grieve, and finally quench, the Spirit of God, and then say we can recognise no tokens of His presence or His power. And yet, under all these circumstances of disadvantage, there are to be found in palaces and cottages pure, and brave, and noble souls; and where one such soul lives and breathes, diffusing the fragrance of its beneficent influence and the power of its saintly life, there is the proof of the truth of Christ’s Gospel, there is the witness that Christ still leaves of Himself in the world. Let us beware of separating religion from morality. When St. Peter has stirred our spiritual impulses by telling us, as St. John also tells us, of the exceeding great and precious promises by which we are, as it were, made partakers of the Divine nature, he at once brings us down from heaven to earth again by saying, "And, besides all this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue"; when St. Paul would pray for the best gifts for his Thessalonian converts, he prays that God would "sanctify them wholly, and that their whole spirit, soul, and body might be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Bishop Fraser, University Sermons; p. 154.
Reference: 1Jn 1:1-3.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ii., p. 158.
1Jn 1:1-6
The Ground of Christian Ethics.
I. St. John begins with speaking of that which he saw, and heard, and handled. Those who read his letter could have no doubt that he was referring to the time when he saw the face of Jesus Christ, when he heard His discourses, when he grasped His hand, when he leaned upon His breast. There might be some still upon earth who had been in Jerusalem at that time, who had even been disciples of Christ. There would not be any of them upon the earth long. And there was none of them who would have thought he had as much right to use these expressions as the son of Zebedee had. Here, then, he claims for himself the full dignity of an Apostle.
II. St. John says that that face of His which he saw, that voice of His which he heard, those hands of His which he handled, were "about the word of life." A life there was within that body just as there is a life within the body of each man we converse with; but St. John says that this life which was in Him was not merely a life, but the life—the life from which all the life that is in us and in the other creatures is derived.
III. St. John introduces a parenthesis here: "For the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness," etc. He must make the Ephesians understand that this is the beginning and end of all he has been saying to them since he began to dwell among them. A life has been manifested; the life has been manifested. That which he saw of Christ while he was with Him upon earth was to enable him to testify of this life. He had no other business than to tell them that it had been fully revealed. But that he may perform that task properly, he must tell them what kind of life it was. It was the eternal life, not a life of years, and months, and days, and instants, but a fixed, permanent life—the life of a Being in whom is no variableness, nor the shadow of a turning. If the life is that which was manifested in Christ, in His words and acts, it is a life of gentleness, justice, truth. You cannot measure these by the clocks; you do not wish or try to measure them. And if that is the life of God, surely it is not a terrible thing, though it may be an awful thing, to recollect that He is, and was, and is to come, and that He is not far from any one of us.
IV. "That ye also may have fellowship with us." There is nothing which John claims for himself as an Apostle that he does not claim for those to whom he writes. The very highest privilege which can belong to him he affirms to be theirs. His reward is that he has the delight of announcing to them that it is theirs, and how they may enter into the enjoyment of it. Fellowship or communion with God, he is to tell them, is possible for man.
V. The proposition, "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all," is the proposition from which all others start. It does not only tell you of a goodness and truth without flaw—though it does tell you of these—it tells you of a goodness and truth that are always seeking to spread themselves abroad, to send forth rays that shall penetrate everywhere and scatter the darkness which opposes them.
F. D. Maurice, The Epistles of St. John, p. 19.
Reference: 1Jn 1:2.—J. T. Stannard, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiv., p. 204.
1Jn 1:3
The Doctrine and Fellowship of the Apostles.
I. As to the knowledge: "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you"—that which we have seen and heard of the "Word of life"—"the Life" which "was manifested," that Eternal Life which was with the Father, and "was manifested unto us." These names and descriptions of the Son undoubtedly refer in the first instance to His eternal relation to the Father, of whose nature He is the image, of whose will He is the expression, of whose life He is the Partner and the Communicator. But this eternal relation, what He is to the Father from everlasting, must be viewed now in connection with what He is as He dwells among us on the earth. It is "the Man Christ Jesus" who is the "manifested Life." In the midst of all the conditions of our death this life is thus manifested. For He who is the Life takes our death. Not otherwise could "that Eternal Life which was with the Father be manifested unto us."
II. So much for the communicated knowledge. The communicated fellowship comes next: "That ye may have fellowship with us." The meaning plainly is, that you may share our fellowship, which truly "is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ." (1) The object of this fellowship is the Father and the Son—the Father and His Son Jesus Christ; not each apart, but the two, both of them, together, with whatever the Spirit of the Father and the Son may be commissioned to show, and your spirits may be enabled to take in, of the "counsel of peace" that is "between them" both; that is what is presented to you as the object of your fellowship. (2) The nature of the fellowship can be truly known only by experience. In so far as it can be described in its conditions, its practical working, and its effects, it is brought out in the whole teaching of this epistle, of which it may be said to be the theme. But a few particulars may here be indicated: (1) That it implies intelligence and insight, such intelligence and insight as the Spirit alone can give. (2) There must be faith, personal, appropriating, and assured faith, in order that the intelligence, the insight, may be quickened by a vivid sense of real personal interest and concern. (3) This fellowship is of a transforming, conforming, assimilating character. (4) It is a fellowship of sympathy. (5) The fellowship is one of joy.
R. S. Candlish, Lectures on First John, p. 1.
References: 1Jn 1:3.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vii., No. 409; J. Clements, Church of England Pulpit, vol. i., p. 218.
1Jn 1:4
The Joy of the Lord and its Fulness.
I. Joy, as it is commonly understood and exemplified among men, is a tumultuous feeling, a quick and lively passion or emotion, blazing up for the most part upon some sudden prosperous surprise and apt to subside into cold indifference, if not something worse, when fortune threatens change or custom breeds familiarity. All the joy of earth partakes more or less of that character, for it is dependent upon outward circumstances, and has no deep root in itself. Even what must in a sense be called spiritual joy may be of that sort. Such joy is like "the goodness which, as a morning cloud and as the early dew, goeth away." It is Christ’s joy that is fulfilled in him who is truly and heartily the "Bridegroom’s friend." Christ’s twofold joy: (1) His joy as the Bridegroom possessing the bride and (2) His joy as the Son possessing the Father.
II. This joy, "His joy," is to become ours; it is to "remain in us." "Our joy is to be full" by "His joy being fulfilled in us." Let us notice first the reality and then the fulness of this fellowship or partnership of joy between Christ and us. Christ would have His joy to be really ours. First, in His standing with the Father He calls us to share, and, secondly, He makes us partakers of, the very same inward evidence of acceptance and sonship as He Himself had when He was on earth; and, thirdly, we have the same commission with Christ, the same trust reposed in us, the same work assigned to us. The chiefest element of Christ’s joy is that He is "meek and lowly in heart"; and therefore "His yoke is easy, and His burden is light"—so easy, so light, that we may count it joy to bear them. We must share that meekness of His, that lowliness of heart; we, like Him, must be emptied of self, for no true joy is or can be selfish.
III. The reality of this joy, Christ’s own joy remaining in us, may now be partly apparent. But who shall venture to describe its fulness? "That My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." Misery ends and fulness of joy comes when we think, and feel, and wish as God does. Therefore fulness of joy may be ours, ours more and more, when "beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord," this glory of His being the Father’s willing Servant and loyal Son, "we are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."
R. S. Candlish, Lectures on First John, p. 18.
1Jn 1:5
I. A part of the teaching of the words, "God is light," is to show that we cannot see God. You cannot see "light." You see things by the light. You may in a certain sense see "light" reflected; but you cannot see "light" Its very lustre prevents you looking at it; by its nature it protects itself from human vision and makes itself invisible. It is possible it may be a mere piece of poetry or fancy, but it may be a fact, that all the "light" which shines on this earth is a reflection from the actual person of God. It comes from the sun to us; but we all know now that the sun is only a reflector. But whence does it come to the sun? may not it be from the person of the great Creator and Fountain of all things? It is conceivable, and the conception is grand. But you will do well to make a distinction. God the Father is "light." He is not. "the Light of the world." "I," Christ says—"I am the Light of the world." And the reason is plain. God is in Himself "I am"—"I am what I am": light unapproachable. But all that man can see of it, Christ is, and Christ shows. The communication of it to the universe is Jesus Christ.
II. Look at some of the practical results which lie in the thought that "God is light." How do we see anything? By "light." "Light" touches the object, and then the "light" which has touched the object touches us. It makes a picture on the eye, and so we see it. How can we see a truth? How can we see all truth? How can we see God, where all truth is? Christ came from God; the Holy Ghost comes from Christ; the Holy Ghost touches a man’s mind, enters into a man’s mind, makes an impression upon a man’s mind. By that path, coming down from God, that mind, touched by the Holy Ghost, sees Christ; through Christ he sees God. "God is light." The ray emanates from God, passes into Christ, travels to us by the Spirit, carries us back through Christ to the Father, from whom it sprang; and so, and only so, we know God. "Light" is a very penetrating, searching thing. Do you wish "light" to come into your soul? That entrance will disclose strange things, the hidden wickednesses and weaknesses that are in your heart, just as the sunlight coming into a dark chamber shows all the dust and the dirt, which lay as thick before, but till then unrevealed. Again and again in God’s word "light" is joy, and our "God is light." Then our God is a happy God. Then we are happiest when we are most like God. Keep near Him, and you will walk in sunshine. The heart where He is will always carry its own inner radiance; and glad thoughts and sweet smiles will by their beautiful reflections be the best preachers, and tell to the whole world that "God is light." Things at this moment may be dark about you in the world, and darker still when you look down into your own heart. Think of this. Go up and down in God. It is all "light" there. It is a wonderful triumph of scientific power by which man has learnt to paint by the sun, and by a process of simple nature every object can cast its image only by "light." But what is all photography but a shadow of the still higher truth that there are passings and repassings between a soul and God by which God casts His own image? and if only we look, "we shall be like Him," here and in eternity, just in proportion as we "see Him as He is."
J. Vaughan, Sermons, 13th series, p. 173.
References: 1Jn 1:5.—E. Blencowe, Plain Sermons to a Country Congregation, vol. ii., p. 27; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. v., p. 31.
1Jn 1:5-7
I. The form of the announcement in the fifth verse is very peculiar: "This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you." It is not a discovery which we make concerning God. It is an authentic and authoritative communication to us from Himself. The message is twofold. First, positively, "God is light"; next, negatively, "in Him is no darkness at all." (1) Positively, "God is light." Light is clear, transparent, translucent, patent, and open, always and everywhere, as far as its influence extends. It comes in contact with all things; it is itself affected by nothing. Thus "God is light," in His character perfectly open and perfectly inviolable. (2) Negatively, "in Him is no darkness." The light shineth in darkness, and "in Him is no darkness at all."
II. "If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth." The thing itself is impossible, for light hath no fellowship with darkness.
III. From the solemn message in the fifth verse and the faithful warning in the sixth the gracious assurance in the seventh fitly follows: "We have fellowship one with another," God with us and we with Him. It is our joint fellowship with God, and His with us, that alone is to the purpose here.
R. S. Candlish, Lectures on First John, p. 37.
Reference: 1Jn 1:6.—Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 328.
1Jn 1:6
Light and Darkness: Sin and Purification.
I. The expressions, "light" and "darkness," were wonderfully suitable for those to whom St. John wrote. The Ephesians had paid a special worship to Artemis or Diana. They connected her with the moon, the night ruler. They had paid a worship, in common with the other Greeks, to Apollo; him they connected with the sun that rules the day. They connected them, I say, with these beautiful objects; but they were never satisfied with doing so. They worshipped the visible things from which they thought that the light proceeded. All the time they felt that men were better than these things; therefore, if they worshipped these things, they must also worship men. St. John had believed that God had revealed Himself, not in the sun or in the moon, but in a humble and crucified Man. With this conviction becoming every hour deeper and deeper in his mind, he had settled in the city where Apollo and Diana were worshipped. Hut he did not think that the Ephesians had been wrong when they dreamt of a God of light. That was a true dream; Christ had come to fulfil it. That light which belongs especially to man, that light by which he is to guide his steps, that light which keeps men in fellowship with each other, that was His own true light, His own proper nature; that was what God had manifested to men in His Son.
II. "If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another." The darkness of which St. John speaks is an utterly unsocial condition. A man thinks about himself, dwells in himself; the rest of the universe lies in shadow. It is not that he has not continual transactions with other people; it is not that they do not supply him with things that he wants; it is not that he could dispense with them. But all they do is only contemplated in reference to himself; they work, and suffer, and think for him. Our selfishness is too strong for all, however bright, in earth, and sea, and air to overcome. It is not too strong for God to overcome. We may walk day by day as if we were in His presence, as if He were looking at us and guiding us, and guiding all our brethren and all this universe. And then we have fellowship one with another. If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, wherever we are, in lonely rooms or in crowded streets, we may have fellowship with each other; we may see each other, not as reflections of ourselves, but as images of Him.
III. "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Instead of the fancy that we are without sin being a proof how clearly the light is shining into us, it is a proof that we are shutting out the light, for that would reveal to us our own inclination to flee from it and choose the darkness. God’s faithfulness and justice are the enemies of our sins; therefore to them we may turn from our sins. They are the refuges from the darkness that is in us. He forgives us that He may cleanse us. The forgiveness is itself a part of the cleansing. He manifests His righteousness to us that we may trust Him. By trusting Him we are delivered from the suspicion which is the very essence of sin.
F. D. Maurice, The Epistles of St. John, p. 34.
References: 1Jn 1:7.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xi., No. 663; vol. iv., No. 223; Ibid., Evening by Evening, pp. 206, 246; Homilist, 4th series, vol. i., p. 181; W. J. Woods, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvi., p. 194; R. W. Dale, Ibid., vol. xxvii., p. 184; J. Edmunds, Fifteen Sermons, p. 80.
1Jn 1:8
I. The Apostle declares that the imagination of our sinlessness is an inward lie. The particular causes of this delusion will vary with every variety of individual character. Every temptation that occupies, and by occupying excludes all other occupants, may claim its share in the perpetuation of this melancholy illusion. The whole host of Satan are engaged to drug this opiate. All their enchantments are accessory to this, and result in this. It would be vain, therefore, to think of specifying the particular causes of this evil; we can only speak of some of the general principles on which it rests.
II. (1) The first and darkest of Satan’s works on earth is also the first and deepest fountain of the misfortune we are now lamenting—the original and inherited corruption of the human soul itself. It is ignorant of sin, just because it is naturally sinful. There is a sense in which it may be said that the heart knoweth not its own bitterness. One chief object of the Gospel history, as applied by the Spirit of God, is to humble and yet animate us by a portraiture of moral excellence which, as observation cannot furnish, so assuredly nature will never spontaneously imagine. We cannot know our degradation, we cannot struggle, or even wish to rise, if we have never been led to conceive the possibility of a state higher than our own. (2) So far, then, it appears that Nature, herself prone to sin, may be expected, in virtue of that very tendency, to tell us we have no sin, and that therefore her evidence is to be received with suspicion; but it must next be remembered that, properly speaking, no human being can be seen in this state of nature alone. Man is far advanced upon his way before his steps are arrested. Repeated acts are become principles of action, and every man is the creature of his own past life. If Nature alone, treacherous and degraded Nature, is silent in denouncing sin, if she has no instinctive power to arouse herself, what shall she be when doubly and trebly indurated by habit? (3) No man arrests that evil in himself which his eyes have never ceased to contemplate in others. Even follies that at first are odious lose their oppressiveness when we are surrounded with nothing else, as the enormous weight of the air becomes imperceptible from its pressure being universal. (4) How the power of this universality of sin around us to paralyse the sensibility of conscience is augmented by the influence of fashion and rank, I need not assert. "Who can understand his errors?" Let us urge the humble petition of the Psalmist, "Cleanse Thou me from secret faults."
W. Archer Butler, Sermons Doctrinal and Practical, p. 140.
Reference: 1Jn 1:8.—W. Landels, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 344.
1Jn 1:8-9
Divine Justice and Pardon Reconciled.
There are two extreme tendencies in human sentiment respecting God from which a devout and thoughtful heart shrinks with equal repugnance: a religion which begins with fear and a religion which ends without it. On the one hand is the passionate faith of remorse, which throws the shade of its own despair upon the universe of God, lies prostrate in the dark cell of alienation, and declares that if no mediator interpose, there is no hope or respite from the curse of inexorable law; on the other is the creed of lenient good-nature, which spreads the light of its mild indifference over all things, considers the sins of men as chiefly venial frailties, is pleased with its own tolerance, and trusts that Heaven will overlook what it must have foreseen and did not think it worth while to prevent.
I. It is a hard thing for our narrow mind to take in the infinite harmony of Divine perfection. Our conscience and our affections make incompatible demands on God. We require for our support that He be faithful; we look for our comfort’s sake that He be tender too. If compassion be impossible to God, it is strange that He has implanted any in us; for He has more reason to pity us, than we can have to pity one another, we gazing in the face of an equal and a brother, He looking from His serene almightiness down upon our nature, tempted, sorrowing, struggling, dying. No, it is as much a part of perfection to receive the penitent as to reprove the sin, unless the noblest impulse of the human soul seeks vainly for its image and prototype in Him.
II. But how, you will ask, can both these things be? How can God at once swerve no hairbreadth from His threatened punishment, and yet be ever ready to forgive? Rightly to understand this, we must mark the distinction between His interior nature and His external government, between what He is in Himself and what He has written out and proclaimed in the legislation of the universe. Not all that dwells in His thought and lives in His heart has He put forth; and, vast as is the field and sublime the record of creation, solemn as we find the path of life, and awful the insight of His conscience, these are but a part of His ways; and there is yet a hiding-place of His thunder that none can understand. Everything to Him is infinite, and all the splendours of His revelation in the old earth and in the older sky, and on the heart of humanity, and even in the unique life of the Man of sorrows, are but a few faint lines of light, streaking the surface of immensity. Within the realm of law and nature He is inexorable, and has put the freedom of pity quite away; and as the Atlantic storm turns not aside to avoid the ship where sanctity or genius is afloat, so neither does the tempest of justice falter and pause to spare the head uplifted in repentant prayer. But it is otherwise in respect to the soul and person of the sinner himself: the sentiments of God towards him are not bound; and if, while the deed of the past is an irrevocable transgression, the temper of the present is one of surrender and return, there is nothing to sustain the Divine aversion or hinder the outflow of infinite pity.
J. Martineau, Hours of Thought, vol. i., p. 102.
1Jn 1:8-10
I. "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." It is not deliberate falseness that we are here warned against, but a far more subtle form of falsehood, and one more apt easily to beset us as believers even when most seriously and earnestly bent on "walking in the light, as God is in the light." I am not conscious of anything very far amiss in my spiritual experience or in my practical behaviour. I begin to "say that I have no sin," but I deceive myself, and the truth is not in me. "Guile" is taking the place of "truth"; and I am very apt to lose a precious privilege, the privilege of continual and constant confession in order to continual and constant forgiveness.
II. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." God is true—true to Himself and true to us. "He is faithful and just in forgiving our sins."
III. If, in the face of such a faithful manner of forgiveness on the part of God, we continue to shrink from that open dealing and guileless confession which our "walking in the light, as God is in the light," implies, we not only wrong ourselves and do violence to our own consciousness and our own conscience, but, "saying that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us."
R. S. Candlish, Lectures on First John, p. 52.
References: 1Jn 1:8-10.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxi., No. 1241. 1Jn 1:9.—Ibid., vol. v., No. 255; J. H. Hitchens, Christian World Pulpit, vol. i., p. 93; R. Glover, Ibid., vol. vi., p. 88. 1Jn 1:10.—A. Rowland, Ibid., vol. xxx., p. 203.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v1 Division 1. (1Jn 1:1-10; 1Jn 2:1-11.)
Division 1. (1Jn 1:1-10; 1Jn 2:1-11.)
God as Light and in the light, and the light in us.
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The division, as already said, in the very beginning carries us back to the Gospel. We are even. referred to "that beginning" which we find in the Gospel, not the beginning as we have it in Genesis, but the new beginning now, Christ having come into the world, the true Light for the first time manifestly shining, and God revealed in such a way as makes comparatively dim all former revelation. Light is evidently the characteristic all through this part of John. God is not only light, He is in the light; that is, He is revealed, and Christ who is the Life is the Light -the revelation. This light is in us by the communication of the life. The commandment that He gives is thus true in Him and in us. Here we have, as is clear, one great characteristic of Christianity -the effect of the rent veil, although not exhibited after the same manner as in Hebrews. But God in the light means the veil rent, and it is striking that in the Gospel of John there is yet no reference to the rending of the veil at all. In fact, Christ being before us as He is in the Gospel, is already the Light, the revelation of God in the world. In this sense the veil is rent already; but it is rent that He may come among us; it is not yet rent so that we can be with Him in the full way for which love seeks us. Thus the commandment given by Christ in the Gospel, the commandment of love, becomes for us now in Christianity itself a new commandment -from the very fact that it is now true in Him and in us, manifestly so. We are brought into the light, and we have received the light within us.
1. In the first place, then, we find Christ as the Life, and the Life the Light of men. John carries us back to Christ upon earth as they had seen Him, contemplated Him, handled Him with their hands, and yet manifestly One in whom there was a divine fulness which could not be seen with the eyes, however fully contemplated, nor therefore handled. For him and for all else, recipients of the revelation, it was indeed a new beginning. All former ages had been but the history of man, fallen man even, though God had wrought and testified; but there was as yet no second man. Now the second Man had come, the Man according to the divine thought of man when God made him, but not the man that God first made, although the Son of Man; and thus in the nearest possible place of intimacy to us, nay of kinship in a sense, the Kinsman-Redeemer. It is evident that this is the "beginning" of which John speaks, by his appeal to the old commandment which they had "from the beginning." It is not, let us remember, His existence that could be spoken of in this way as from the beginning. He was in the beginning, as we know; but that is a different thing. When anything began, He was -did not begin; but on this very account one could not rightly say, "from the beginning." It would not give the whole and suited truth. Moreover, he is speaking of One in the world, manifest to men’s eyes and ears; and that was not what had been in that primal beginning. Yet this was a more wondrous one, eclipsing the other, but only as brightness eclipses brightness, as stars and all else are eclipsed in the radiance of the day.
He says: "That which was from the beginning," not who, as we should expect. He is speaking, as he tells us, of the Word of life -the Word of God, according to the Gospel, and in whom was life; but in the presence of such an One he can only speak of "what we have heard and seen." It was not, as it were, the whole Person fully told out, just because it was impossible that He should be fully told out; and this accounts for the peculiarity of the expression. Yet he allows of no distance in which they were from Him. Every expression here seems to be designed only to bring Him nearer, and to assure the soul more fully of its right, through grace, to Him. Thus, first it is, "We have heard;" but that, if it stood alone, might be a distant Voice, the Person Himself hidden. Therefore he goes on to say: "Which we have seen with our eyes;" but then that is not enough. It was not a momentary vision. It was not as when He appeared to the two going to Emmaus, when they knew Him and He vanished out of their sight. No, he says: we have "contemplated" Him. He has been before our eyes so that we could take in and dwell upon the blessed One before us. But that even is not enough; as He says to Thomas, for perfect conviction of who He is, "Handle Me and see," so says the apostle here: "Our hands have handled." Thus He is known in the most intimate way, the Word of Life, the Giver of it surely, but at the same time the One in whom it was, whose every act and word was the expression of it, "that Eternal Life which was with the Father."
This life, he adds, "was manifested." It was, as he says in his Gospel, "the light of men" -light in the midst of surrounding darkness which knew it not and could not comprehend it; but a light, nevertheless, manifesting all else, a divine life in Man, a revelation of personal glory. And then it was not an exceptional one, simply to those meant to be distinguished from all else by receiving it. True, the One manifesting it has not remained among us, He is gone back where He was before; but those who have seen it are witnesses of the revelation, designed witnesses, sent to declare to others "that Eternal Life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us." We are to think of it as of a life lived actually upon earth, but manifesting the unseen energy which was beneath it all, divine and eternal. It was the Son of God in the world, as he delights to tell us, "The only-begotten Son," with an excellency entirely His own, and which could not be communicated to others, and yet at the same time with a fulness of power and blessing in it such as could be communicated and enjoyed: thus producing a living fellowship which followed (for those who received it in faith) the report made, on the part of those who, whatever they had, they had for others also besides themselves, and whose joy it was to communicate to others that which only enriched themselves the more by the communication.*
{*The "we" and the "you" are the apostles and other witnesses who had been in personal contact with our Lord, on the one hand, and the readers of the Epistle on the other. These last are undoubtedly believers, and yet sometimes addressed as if just hearing the Word for the first time. Thus "that ye also may have fellowship with us," would suggest those just being brought into knowledge of the truth. It does not mean to preserve the distinction between "us" the apostles, and "you" the saints. "Our fellowship is with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ," would not mean that fellowship was possible only for the apostles, as some hold, but for all saints, brought into fellowship with them. -S.R.}
This fellowship was "with the Father" Himself, and "with His Son Jesus Christ;" the Father revealing the Son, and the Son revealing the Father; the Son the object of the Father’s delight, and the Father He to manifest whom the Son wrought and spoke; nay, the Father who abode in Him, and, as He says, "did the works." It is into this that we are brought -one fellowship with the apostles themselves, participation with them in the thoughts and purposes, the feelings and the affections, the whole mind of Christ. And in this fellowship, as he adds finally here, is fulness of joy to be found, -a joy which is in God Himself revealed, -not merely the fall done away, the distance produced by it annihilated, but, far more than that, the Revealer Himself Immanuel, God in Man, with men. Blessed it is to see the intensity of desire, as expressed by the apostle, that we should not only know such things, but that the whole blessing of them, if one might so say, should be enjoyed. There is, no doubt, infinity in it, but still not in such a way as to disappoint and check the eagerness of the soul, but to lead it on further and further, deeper and deeper, into that which, continually satisfying, yet draws it on ever by the satisfaction itself. Thus is the Life the light of men.
2. The apostle goes on to distinguish this from all former communications. The message heard of Him and now declared is that "God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all." Clouds and darkness have been round about Him. The veil of separation, as in the temple of old, hid Him from sight; nay, under the conditions existing then, it was mercy to do so; no one could look upon Him and live. Even Moses says: "I exceedingly fear and quake;" and they that heard His voice desired that He would speak to them in that direct way no longer, lest they should die. The mere revelation of the glory in the face of Moses had to be hidden from them; and that was the characteristic of all that dispensation -glory there waiting to be manifested, but the veil over it, so that men could not see the very blessedness of which they spoke, and which was typified and foreshadowed in all around them. Now, God is in the light, says the apostle: -"We walk in the light as He is in the light." We could not walk in the light in this sense until He was in the light. The veil is rent, the glory of God is seen. It is this into which faith introduces us now, as even faith itself could never introduce men before. We "walk in the light as He is in the light;" and thus we have "fellowship one with another," the fellowship of eyes that alike see, and of those brought into a common enjoyment of all that it manifests.
But, again, it is in this circle of the light that "the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin." It is plain what the apostle is referring to here, that he is just in presence of that open holiest, opened by the rending of the veil when Christ died. The blood shed in propitiation for our sins has opened the way into the presence of God; the light into which we enter searches out sin, cannot leave it hidden but where this is true, the blood cleanses from the sin brought out. In Israel’s sanctuary the blood was upon the mercy-seat itself, under the full blaze of the overshining glory. Israel could not see it; but we see it; and the very light which will not suffer sin to be hidden shines in full brightness upon the blood which has been shed for it, the value of which the light, wherever it shines, carries with it. To walk in the light is what is characteristic of the Christian, of every Christian. It is this light in which God is perfectly revealed, into which faith introduces; and he that is outside of it is walking still in darkness, ignorant of God, and of all things besides. It is this that he is speaking of when he puts the condition that it is "if we walk in the light," the blood cleanses. It is not if we walk according to the light. That is not here the question. It is where we walk, not how we walk, that he is speaking of. It is not a moral condition in us, however much this is produced by it. It is the power of a revelation made known to us, and which faith receives. Thus, "if we say that we have fellowship with Him (with God) and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not practise truth." The darkness, therefore is not simply moral, -although in this darkness all things evil abide, -but -but it is a darkness which is, first of all, ignorance of God Himself, and which is the great primal evil, the evil which entails all other evils. For fellowship with God, He must Himself be known; and this is what the Person and work of Christ have done for us. Our need has been completely met. Love has intervened for us. Love has let out the light, and to enjoy the love we must be in the light. That will reveal us also to ourselves. That will reveal the world and all things else; and thus the holiness of truth is secured for us, sin becomes sin -stands out in all its hateful reality. We are brought into fellowship with God about it. The practical state necessarily answers, as the effect to the cause, to the revelation which has been made to us; and this is Christianity, and nothing else is.
3. The apostle immediately proceeds to test all Christian profession by these principles. He is always testing. He must have the truth, and nothing but the truth; and thus the conditions here apply to the whole of this profession, the true and the false. "If we say," "if we confess." The apostle puts himself along with all others. He distinguishes the true from the false simply as they are manifested by their fulfilment or not of the conditions. To walk in darkness, in ignorance of God, is to walk in ignorance of ourselves also. "If we say that we have no sin" (here is the ignorance belonging to the darkness), "we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." If, on the other hand, we are in the light, our sins are manifest. There is neither possibility nor desire to hide them. "We confess our sins;" and "if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." "If," on the other hand, "we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar," for God has positively told men that they have sinned, and therefore "His word is not in us." We can see therefore a necessary difference between this assertion that "we have not sinned" and that "we have no sin." The one speaks of acts committed; the other may go deeper, to search out the sin which is in our nature. How can we be ignorant of it if we are Christians indeed? There are, alas, as we know, those who not only profess Christianity, and have, no doubt, more than the profession, who yet manage to deceive themselves in such a way as to seem to say what is here: "We have no sin." Sin, they say, was indeed our past condition, and we needed grace to deliver us from it; but that grace has perfectly delivered us, and we have none of it remaining now. That is self-deception surely; and it is only by refusing to call sin what is really sin that they are able to carry it out. Evil thoughts, with them, are from the devil; they are something outside themselves, -the power of the enemy, -but not the corruption of their nature. Their standard is not what the scriptural standard is. Scripture makes no abatement in its demands upon us in answer to any plea as to damaged powers, and such like things. "He that saith he abideth in Him," says the apostle, "ought himself so to walk even as also He walked." Maintain this standard, and who will measure himself by it and say there is no coming short? Who will look down into the depths of his soul and say that there is positively no reflection of anything there but of Christ Himself, as in the purest of mirrors? Let only such things be uttered, and they will soon meet their answer; nay, it will be impossible for themselves, if the light has indeed wrought upon them, to keep up the deception. They are justifying themselves with words, and their own conscience is against them when once they get the focus of their vision adjusted. This, then, is what the apostle gives us as to the darkness; it is the effect of being in the darkness. On the other hand, if we are in the light, we confess our sins. It is a general principle, no doubt, which goes with us through our Christian lives; nevertheless, that is not exactly what is before the mind of the apostle here. He is thinking of the soul that has just come out of the darkness into the light, in whom the first element of fellowship with God is found in the realization of its own condition. Sins are there too plainly to be hidden, extenuated, or in any way got rid of. God is the only refuge. Blessed be His name, He receiveth sinners; and thus, "if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins."
How near, in such a saying as this, does John come to Paul! He does not speak of justification as Paul does. He speaks of forgiveness simply. Justification, as we have seen elsewhere, is one of the truths characterizing Paul’s gospel, as to which he asserts himself that he had a special ministry; but if Paul says God is righteous to justify, John says here He is righteous to forgive. The one statement has not the fulness and boldness of the other, yet this fundamental element is in both, that it is God Himself who is manifested in the gospel to men, to sinners, and that He is not only merciful to forgive, but "faithful and righteous" in doing it. "Faithful," notice; that must be to His pledged word, or rather, let us say, in view of what the apostle is putting before us here, faithful to Christ who has died for men -faithful to that precious blood which is here seen as on the mercy-seat. The blood declares His righteousness; to the blood, too, He is faithful; and thus the one who comes into His presence as a confessed sinner is met with perfect assurance.
But there is more here, also, than the forgiveness of sins. He is faithful and righteous to cleanse as well as forgive us, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness; that is, from all that lack of uprightness before Him which is of the essence of the natural, fallen condition. So could the psalmist say of the blessedness of the man "whose iniquity is forgiven, whose sin is covered," "to whom the Lord will not impute sin, and in whom," therefore, "there is no guile." We can see by all that is stated here that he is giving us what is fundamental to the Christian condition. He is distinguishing between the one in darkness and the one in the light, between the true and the false in Christian profession; and thus he is not dealing with sin into which a Christian may fall, but with that which he brings to God as all that he can bring Him when he comes first to Him who has revealed Himself in Christ. We shall find that he goes on immediately to the question of sins that a Christian may commit after being that; and while there is confessedly here what as a principle will apply to the Christian through his Christian life, (because he never ceases to be in that light which dealt with him when he first entered it,) yet at the same time we shall find that the apostle deals with this in a different manner.
4. We come now immediately to this, the apostle distinguishing between what he has written and what he is now going to write: "My children," he says, "these things write I unto you that ye may not sin." It is the power of this revelation of God in Christ which is indeed to be power against sin for the future; yet he contemplates the possibility of a Christian sinning. "If any one sin," he says. We might think, perhaps, that he would rather say, " when any one sins;" but he does not, for he will not put it as if it were necessary that one should sin, whatever the facts as to ourselves which we have to acknowledge. With the Spirit of God in us, is there not abundant power against all commission of sin, whatever it may be? We are witness to ourselves that we are responsible for every act of this kind. We can never say that we were left in helplessness to do this. Not to condemn ourselves would be to dishonor God; so that he puts it conditionally altogether, "If any one sin;" but what then? What is the remedy? That we confess our sins, so as to be forgiven? That will come in due place, but he cannot begin with that. The first and fundamental necessity here is Christ. It is Christ in whose hands are the basin and the towel. It is Christ who says: "Except I wash thee, thou hast no part with me." Our necessary recourse, therefore, is first of all to Christ Himself. No cleansing of ourselves can there be, no accomplishment of anything in this way, until we have our feet in His hands; and back even of this the apostle goes here. "If any one sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins." Thus, whatever the repentance needed, whatever the need of the confession of what we have done, the thing that the apostle would remind any one of who is conscious of wrong done is that "we have an Advocate with the Father." It is not, if any one repents, we have an Advocate; but, "if any one sin." How would it be with us if Christ held us not still in that embrace with which at first He received us? If He did not hold us fast to God, how surely indeed should we drift away! The word "Advocate," "Paraclete," is the same as that used by the Lord Himself with regard to the Holy Spirit, and in the same sentence He speaks of Himself in the same character. "I will pray the Father," He says, "and He shall send you another Advocate," even the Spirit of God. Thus we are intended to compare these. The Spirit is now the Advocate on earth, in place of Him who has gone from earth. Christ is the Advocate with the Father, the One ascended to Him and in His presence for us. If we think of the Spirit as the epistle to the Romans speaks of Him, we shall understand this term "Advocate" with more clearness. The apostle there tells us that "we know not what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." That does not mean that the whole prayer to which He leads us is such a groaning, but that there is something in the prayer to which He leads incapable of being uttered even by the person who prays. He cannot realize just what he needs. He knows not what to pray for as he should. The Spirit not only brings him into the consciousness of needs which can be expressed, and are expressed, but adds to them, after all, as from Himself, that which is an intercession according to God: something which He who searches the hearts knows as the mind of the Spirit, while to the person who prays it is but an unintelligible groan. How beautiful it is to see thus the Spirit becoming our Advocate, going beyond even all that we are capable of, in order that our prayers may be complete and according to His mind who is to answer them! In this way, although this does not cover all that is meant by the word, we can yet understand how the Spirit becomes an Advocate for us, how He takes up our cause and pleads it before God. We can see here that as to Christ, His advocacy has the same meaning. He is an Advocate with the Father, suited entirely to all that is in the Father’s heart. He is Jesus Christ the righteous, One who can never abate, therefore, that which is due to the character of God -to His glory. On the other hand, He is One completely for us, and having title to be for us by the propitiation which He has made for our sins. Thus, we are completely provided. But notice that it is with the Father also that He is Advocate. The apostle does not say, with God; but with One in definite known relationship to the people whose cause Christ has taken up; and this is the character of the epistle before us all the way through.
Thus we have, as uniformly in Scripture, a living Person for all our necessities; not something to be done or gone through by us, but One who has undertaken our cause and in whose hands we are. There follows, as the corollary of this, that as we are in His hands, so, practically, the blessing lies for us in allowing ourselves to be in His hands -in realizing this in the way in which the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel presents Him to us. He is there the girded Servant of our need, with the basin and the towel. The absolute necessity for us is that He should wash us. Except He wash, we have no part with Him. Communion is necessarily interrupted if we are not washed according to that which is His thought, clean as He would have us, and thus He becomes our resource entirely. We cannot wash ourselves. We are not to set ourselves right first, in order to come to Him. We come as we are, not washed, but to be washed, surrendering ourselves into His blessed hands that He may show us all that is amiss with us -the secret roots and principles which have led to failure, as well as the failure itself. And the first thing for us is to realize this nearness to Him, to allow no distance, and, on the other hand, to realize that there must be the absolute putting ourselves into His hands, not dictating to Him as to what He is going to set right, but letting Him search us out, letting Him put His hand upon that which needs to be set right, not content with partial cleansing, but with that perfect one which alone can be according to His mind. Thus, there is perfect grace, but perfect holiness. The presence of the Lord is that by which alone we escape from the defilement of evil -that having to do with Him which is indeed a daily necessity for us. All this we have had indeed before us in the Gospel, as has been said, but we can realize by it that what has been already stated, -that "if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins," -while it is a principle that always applies, yet at the same time it is not the proper remedy for failure, whatever the failure may be. Christ Himself is the remedy; but we need Him that the confession of our sins even, which will surely follow, may be according to His mind; that we may see in His light what sin is, what our sins are, and find in the grace of His presence that which is indeed ability to pour out all our hearts before Him. Then we shall find that there is indeed a forgiveness governmentally, most necessary for communion, and for which we must have been with Him. But the first point, and in a true sense the whole matter, is to have had our feet really in His hands, with the understanding how thoroughly He is for us, and that He alone is capable of even making us aware of the failure, as in Him alone is the grace that meets it.
It is added that "He is the propitiation for our sins;" and then, after John’s manner entirely, "Not for ours only, but also for the whole world." There is not, as in our version, the "sins of the whole world." Nevertheless, we need not hesitate to speak of this, as it is surely implied. When the apostle says: "Not for ours only," he necessarily infers that it is for the sins of others also. This does not mean that they are put away. He is a propitiation, as is said in Romans, "through faith, by His blood." It is for believers, therefore, that all this becomes effectual, and only for these. Yet so thoroughly sufficient is the perfect Sacrifice that has been offered, and so plainly is it available for every soul that honestly desires it that we can say: "For the sins of the whole world," without the least trouble or question. Beautiful it is to realize that it is just in John’s Gospel, where the deepest things of divine grace are told out, that there is the fullest going out in heart to all. The call and the provision are for all. The sin of rejection is upon him who rejects, and he shall never be able to say that there was not a remedy, or that he was not able to avail himself of the remedy.
The apostle proceeds now to that which he is constantly about, the practical testing of those who by profession are in the light. Every Christian is really there, and we must not understand the "if we walk in the light" as if it meant something less than this. The opposition to walking in light is the walking in darkness, and the walking in the darkness is in no sense Christian, as we see all through here. It is not even an exceptional state into which a Christian may get. That is not the way in which it is presented here. It is not true that a Christian may be practically in darkness. There may be a want of singleness in his eye which causes this, but the walking in the light points out where he walks, not how he walks. It is walking, indeed, of which John speaks: walking on the one hand in the light, or, on the other, in the darkness. He has always the idea of living activity, whether the life be true life from God or not; still, it is a living, active, responsible man of whom he is speaking, who, in fact, is moving in some direction. If in the darkness, how great the peril of it! If in the light, there is a responsibility attaching also to this, not as to being in the light, but as to having it practically in him, because he is in the light. If we are in the daylight, we are responsible to see our way. If we are in the darkness, that is not exactly the responsibility. We can see no better with our eyes open than with our eyes shut; but if we are in the light, then we have the responsibility, and the privilege also, of knowing that we are to have our eyes open in order to be able to discern the path before us, not without exercise, necessarily. That is not implied. We may have to use our eyes to find the path, in the light as we may be; but we must be in the light to find it. John has before him, as we have seen, from the beginning of his epistle, the opened holiest, and the light streaming out through the rent veil, the light carrying with it the power of the blood which has let it out. Thus the whole question for us is, if we are in the light. At least, that is the fundamental question with which he is here concerning himself. All the way through we shall find that he is testing profession. He does not hesitate to test it thoroughly. He is not putting us upon the ground of the blood as shed for our sins, but testing whether we are on the ground. If we are in the light, he has already said, the blood avails for us. If we are in the light, the consequences of being in the light will be seen, and there will be for those who consciously are walking there the assurance which results of necessity from a practical walk with God. It is the first great primary assurance, which we find as sinners, not as saints; but it is one very necessary for us to know, and which we need exhortation about. As the apostle Peter has said, we need to make our calling and election sure, not to God, but to ourselves. We need to walk in such a way that the witness of the Spirit can be clear and positive with us. The apostle is writing to those who profess to have this confidence of which we are speaking. He is not afraid, therefore, of producing legality by testing it. "Hereby," he says, "we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him." The apostle has no idea of separating these things from one another -the knowledge and its practical results. As he says afterwards, "He that sinneth hath not seen Him, neither known Him." He is clearly not thinking of that which a Christian may fall into or be overcome by. He is thinking of what is the characteristic state. If we have not this character of keeping His commandments, then it is simply a false profession with us, and not the truth. "Whosoever keepeth His Word, in him verily is the love of God perfected." That is to say, that love which he has had manifested to him in Christ has come to fruition.
And here he says, let us notice, not simply, "whoso keepeth His commandments," but "whoso keepeth His Word." There is a difference which we have already had before us in the Lord’s last discourse with His disciples, as John himself has given it to us. We cannot but see how, all through the epistle, his heart goes back to those last words of his Lord -how he reproduces and emphasizes them. The very style and language are those of the Gospel, a sweet and wonderful characteristic of the one who was the disciple whom Jesus loved, who lay on His breast and drank in His words. So he says here, "keepeth His Word," because the true believer is not under a code of commandments simply, and he does not ask himself, what must I do? which the command implies; but rather, what may I do? how can I show to Him the desire I have to serve and please Him? Thus all Scripture becomes, in reality, a necessity to such. Alas, it is at best but feebly realized, that is true; nevertheless, he that knows Christ aright can not do other than understand that the whole Word of God is what has been provided for him, to form in him the mind of Christ, and that he may realize communion as God would have it. Alas for the failure and the imperfections! Still, the merely legal soul is either one that is not truly in the grace which is our whole sanctification, or he does not understand the sweetness and the power of that grace. We cannot but remember that in that epistle to the church of Philadelphia, communicated once more by John himself, and the very last discourse, as we may say, to His now fully Christian disciples, the emphasis of our Lord’s approval is in this: "Thou hast kept My Word." Whatever is in Christ’s mind for us, it is ours honestly, as He enables us, to act upon and carry out; and it is as we are thus practically walking with Him that we learn the full reality of knowing that we are in Him, for "He that saith he abideth in Him," says the apostle, "ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked." No less a measure is laid down -no less perfect a standard must be accepted. Here is again the testing of profession. "He that saith he abideth in Him;" but the abiding in Him itself is what is absolutely necessary to Christianity. It is the branch abiding in the vine, so that the sap abides in the branch, and we rightly look in such a case for flower and fruit.
The apostle is not afraid of the word "commandment." He knows well that is not a word uncongenial to the heart of a true disciple. He would not be without commandments -the manifestation of an authority to which he is subject, and subject in delight, finding it his truest freedom. Thus, then, what he is writing is "no new commandment," as he says. It is but an old commandment, which they had from the beginning. We see at once that he is dating here, as ever, from Christ’s life and words on earth. The old commandment is the word which he heard. What he says now is nothing new in that sense, and yet there is something new about it, and in a very important way new: "Again a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light already shineth." That is what makes the commandment "new." It is a commandment written now in the heart, according to the full character of the new covenant, and with all the power of the true light come, before which every element of darkness is passing away. He does not say here that it is passed, but it is passing. We are all conscious, however desirous in our hearts to be true to Him, that there is, after all, obscurity remaining with us; that there are things in ourselves which hinder the light, and which we have never been able yet to detect so that they should have perfect removal; but the true light shineth, and the soul, conscious of this, draws ever more fully into its beams, rejoicing in the light, willingly hiding nothing of it from itself; for it is in the light that all things get their true character; evil is seen in it with horror, and all the loveliness of that which is right and true comes out. Thus, to be in the light is no mere cold, clear knowledge. It has the blessing of warmth in it, and the vitalizing power under which all the precious fruits of the earth spring up and ripen. Thus the "thing is true in Him and in you." Christ is the light; and this light is in us also, by His grace. We are in communion with Him, as He has already assured us.
On the other hand, "he who saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in the darkness until now." Notice, he does not say merely, as some would seem to have it, that he is in the darkness now. That is true, but not the whole truth. He is in the darkness, and he never was out of it. He is in the darkness until now. That does not allow the possibility of a soul having been in the light, in the sense in which John is speaking here, and getting out of it again. On the other hand: "He that loveth his brother abideth in the light." He stays there, and there is no occasion of stumbling in him; but, "He that hateth his brother (notice that it is profession ever, and therefore he tests it as such; the brother by profession is counted as a brother, there is responsibility of the relationship professed, whether true or not true, and he that hateth his brother then) is in the darkness, and walketh in the darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because the darkness hath blinded his eyes" -a terrible condition, surely, and which seems by the language used to be distinguished from that of which the prophet speaks where men "sit in darkness, and have no light." In this case the truth has not been known, and there is nothing that one can speak of as activity at all; although surely there is in another way activity, as we all know, and plenty of evil deeds that go with such a condition. But here the light has come; the soul has the responsibility of that light; he has a walk which is estimated in its character as in the light or in the darkness, as the apostle has said in Philippians, "even weeping," of those (many they were) who walk, yet as "enemies of the cross of Christ," "whose God is their belly, whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things." Here is the darkness in which already many professing believers were found according to the testimony of the apostle; and this is it of which John is speaking here.*
{*It is to be remarked that the apostle, in testing the profession of those who say they know God, does not speak of negative absence of evil, nor of the more general characteristics of what is known as a moral life. He seeks for love, a thing which in its true nature and energy is from God alone. If this be absent, or if in its place there be hatred, it shows the absence of life. Paul in the 13th of first Corinthians speaks in somewhat the same way -all gifts, no matter how brilliant, are valueless apart from that which is the "fulfilling of the law" -which in fact is "the Spirit’s law of life in Christ Jesus." -S.R.}
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On v7 1 John
1 John
WALKING IN THE LIGHT
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1Jn 1:7.
John was the Apostle of love, but he was also a ‘son of thunder.’ His intense moral earnestness and his very love made him hate evil, and sternly condemn it; and his words flash and roll as no other words in Scripture, except the words of the Lord of love. In the immediate context he has been laying down what is to him the very heart of his message, that ‘God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.’ There are spots in the sun, great tracts of blackness on its radiant disc; but in God is unmingled, perfect purity. That being so, it is clear that no man can be in sympathy or hold communion with Him, unless he, too, in his measure, is light.
So, with fiery indignation, John turns to the people, of whom there were some, even in the primitive Church, who made claims to a lofty spirituality and communion with God, and all the while were manifestly living in the darkness of sin. He will not mince matters with them. He roundly says that they are lying, and the worst sort of lie--an acted lie: ‘They do not the truth.’ Then, with a quick turn, he opposes to these pretenders the men who really are in fellowship with God, and in my text lays down the principle that walking in the light is essential to fellowship with God. Only, in his usual fashion, he turns the antithesis into a somewhat different form, so as to suggest another aspect of the truth, and instead of saying, as we might expect for the verbal accuracy of the contrast, ‘If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with God,’ he says, ‘we have fellowship one with another.’ Then he adds a still further result of that walk, ‘the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin.’
Now there are three things: walking in the light, which is the only Christian walk; the companions of those who walk in the light; and the progressive cleansing which is given.
I. Note this ‘Walking in the light,’ which is the only Christian walk.
In all languages, light is the natural symbol for three things: knowledge, joy, purity. The one ray is broken into its three constituent parts. But just as there are some surfaces which are sensitive to the violet rays, say, of the spectrum, and not to the others, so John’s intense moral earnestness makes him mainly sensitive to the symbolism which makes light the expression, not so much of knowledge or of joy, as of moral purity. And although that is not exclusively his use of the emblem, it is predominately so, and it is so here. To ‘walk in the light’ then, is, speaking generally, to have purity, righteousness, goodness, as the very element and atmosphere in which our progressive and changeful life is carried on.
Note, too, before I go further, that very significant antithesis: we ‘walk’; He is--God is in the light essentially, changelessly, undisturbedly, eternally; and the light in which He is, His ‘own calm home, His habitation from eternity,’ is light which has flowed out from Himself as a halo round the midnight moon. It is all one in substance to say God is in light, or, as the Psalmist has it, ‘He covered Himself with light as with a garment,’ and to say, ‘God is light.’
But, side by side with that changeless abiding in the perfect purity, which is inaccessible, the Apostle ventures to put, not in contrast only, but in parallel {as He is}, our changing, effortful, active, progressive life in the light {God is}; we walk.
So, then, the essential of a Christian character is that the light of purity and moral goodness shall be as the very orb, in the midst of which it stands and advances. That implies effort, and it implies activity, and it implies progress. And we are only Christians in the measure in which the conscious activities of our daily lives, and the deepest energies of our inward being, are bathed and saturated with this love of, and effort after, righteousness. It is vain, says John, to talk about fellowship with God, unless the fellowship is rooted in sympathy with Him in that which is the very heart of his Being, the perfect light of perfect holiness. Test your Christianity by that.
Then, still further, there is implied in this great requirement of walking in the light, not only activity and effort, and progress and purity, but also that the whole of the life shall be brought into relation with, and shall be moulded after, the pattern of the God in whom we profess to believe. Religion, in its deepest meaning, is the aspiration after likeness to the god. You see it in heathenism. Men make their gods after their own image, and then the god makes the worshippers after his image. Mars is the god of the soldier, and Venus goddess of the profligate, and Apollo god of the musical and the wise, etc., and in Christianity the deepest thing in it is aspiration and effort after likeness to God. Love is imitation; admiration, especially when it is raised to the highest degree and becomes adoration, is imitation. And the man that lies before God, like a mirror in the sunshine, receives on the still surface of his soul--but not, like the mirror, on the surface only, but down into its deepest depths--the reflected image of Him on Whom he gazes. ‘We all with unveiled face, mirroring glory, are changed into the same image.’ So to walk in the light is only possible when we are drawn into it, and our feeble feet made fit to tread upon the radiant glory, by the thought that He is in the light. To imitate Him is to be righteous. So do not let us forget that a correct creed, and devout emotions, ay! and a morality which has no connection with Him, are all imperfect, and that the end of all our religion, our orthodox creed and our sweet emotions and inward feelings of acceptance and favour and fellowship, are meant to converge on, and to produce this--a life and a character which lives and moves and has its being in a great orb of light and purity.
But another thing is included in this grand metaphor of my text. Not only does it enjoin upon us effort and activity and progress in the light and the linking of all our purity with God, but also, it bids us shroud no part of our conduct or our character either from ourselves or from Him. Bring it all out into the light. And although with a penitent heart, and a face suffused with blushes, we have sometimes to say, ‘See, Father, what I have done!’ it is far better that the revealing light should shine down upon us, and like the sunshine on wet linen, melt away the foulness which it touches, than that we should huddle the ugly thing up in a corner, to be one day revealed and transfixed by the flash of the light turned into lightning. ‘He that doeth the truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest.’
II. So much, then, for my first point; the second is: The companions of the men that walk in the light.
I have already pointed out that the accurate, perhaps pedantically accurate, form of the antithesis would have been: ‘If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with God.’ But John says, first, ‘we have fellowship one with another.’ Underlying that, as I shall have to say in a moment, there is the other thought: ‘We have fellowship with God.’ But he deals with the other side of the truth first. That just comes to this, that the only cement that perfectly knits men to each other is their common possession of that light, and the consequent fellowship with God. There are plenty of other bonds that draw us to one another; but these, if they are not strengthened by this deepest of all bonds, the affinity of souls, that are moving together in the realm of light and purity, are precarious, and apt to snap. Sin separates men quite as much as it separates each man from God. It is the wedge driven into the tree that rends it apart. Human society with its various bonds is like the iron hoop that may be put around the barrel staves, giving them a quasi-unity. The one thing that builds men together into a whole is that each shall be, as it were, embedded in the rock which is the foundation, and the building will rise into a holy temple in the Lord. Sin separates; as the prophet confessed, ‘All we like sheep have gone astray, every one to his own way,’ and the flock is broken up into a multitude of scattered sheep. Social enthusiasts may learn the lesson that the only way by which brotherhood among men can become anything else than a name, and probably end, as it did in the great French Revolution, in ‘brothers’ making the catacombs of their brethren under the guillotine, is that it shall be the corollary from the Fatherhood of God. If we walk in the light, not otherwise, we have ‘fellowship one with another.’
Then, still further, in this fellowship one with another, John presupposes the fellowship with God for each, which makes the possibility and the certainty of all being drawn into one family. He does not think it necessary to state, what is so plain and obvious, viz., that unless we are in sympathy with God, in our aspiration and effort after the light which is His home and ours, we have no real communion with Him. I said that sin separated man from man, and disrupted all the sweet bonds of amity, so that if men come into contact, being themselves in the darkness, they come into collision rather than into communion. A company of travellers in the night are isolated individuals. When the sun rises on their paths they are a company again. And in like manner, sin separates us from God, and if our hearts are turned towards, and denizens of, the darkness of impurity, then we have no communion with Him. He cannot come to us if we love the darkness. He
‘Can but listen at the gate,
And hear the household jar within.’
The tide of the Atlantic feels along the base of iron-bound cliffs on our western shores, and there is not a crevice into which it can come. So God moves about us, but is without us, so long as we walk in darkness. So let us remember that no union with Him is possible, except there be this common dwelling in the light. Two grains of quicksilver laid upon a polished surface will never unite if their surfaces be dusted over with minute impurities, or if the surface of one of them be. Clean away the motes, and they will coalesce and be one. A film of sin separates men from God. And if the film be removed the man dwells in God, and God in him.
III. That brings me to my last point: The progressive cleansing of those who dwell in the light.
‘The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin.’ Now if you will notice the whole context, and eminently the words a couple of verses after my text, you will see that the cleansing here meant is not the cleansing of forgiveness, but the cleansing of purifying. For the two things are articulately distinguished in the ninth verse: ‘He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’ So, to use theological terms, it is not justification, but sanctification that is meant here.
Then there is another thing to be noticed, and that is that when the Apostle speaks here about the blood of Christ, he is not thinking of that blood as shed on the Cross, the atoning sacrifice, but of that blood as transfused into the veins, the source there of our new life. The Old Testament says that ‘the blood is the life.’ Never mind about the statement being scientifically correct; it conveys the idea of the time, which underlies a great deal of Old and New Testament teaching. And when John says the blood of Jesus cleanses from ‘all sin,’ he says just the same thing as his brother Paul said, ‘the law of the spirit of life in Jesus Christ makes me free from the law of sin and death.’ That is to say, a growing cleansing from the dominion and the power of sin is granted to us, if we have the life of Jesus Christ breathed into our lives. The metaphor is a very strong one. They tell us--I know nothing about the truth of it--that sometimes it has been possible to revive a moribund man by transfusing into his veins blood from another. That is a picture of the only way by which you and I can become free from the tyranny that dominates us. We must have the life of Christ as the animating principle of our lives, the spirit of Jesus emancipating us from the power of sin and death.
So you see, there are two aspects of Christ’s great work set before us under that one metaphor of the blood in its two-fold form, first, as shed for us sinners on the Cross; second, as poured into our veins day by day. That works progressive cleansing. It covers the whole ground of all possible iniquity. Pardon is much, purifying is more. The sacrifice on the Cross is the basis of everything, but that sacrifice does not exhaust what Christ does for us. He died for our sins, and lives for our sanctifying. He died for us, He lives in us. Because He died, we are forgiven; because He lives, we are made pure. Only remember John’s ‘if.’ The ‘blood of Jesus will progressively cleanse us until it has cleansed us from all sin,’ on condition that we ‘walk in the light,’ not otherwise. If the main direction of our lives is towards the light; if we seek, by aspiration and by effort, and by deliberate choice, to live in holiness, then, and not else, will the power of the life of Jesus Christ deliver us from the power of sin and death.
Now, my text presupposes that the people to whom it is addressed, and whom it concerns, have already passed from darkness into light, if not wholly, yet in germ. But for those who have not so passed, there is something to be said before my text. And John says it immediately; here it is, ‘If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for our sins only, but for the whole world.’ So we have to begin with the blood shed for us, the means of our pardon, and then we have the advance of the blood sprinkled on us, the means of our cleansing. If by humble faith we take the dying Lord for our Saviour, and the channel of our forgiveness, we shall have the pardon of our sins. If we listen to the voice that says, ‘Ye were sometime darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord. Walk as children of the light,’ we shall have fellowship with the living Lord, and daily know more and more of the power of His cleansing blood, making us ‘meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Fellowship with God in Light
Fellowship with God in Light
1. Observe the grammatical form of 1Jn_1:1-3. In 1Jn_1:1 a sentence is begun which, interrupted by the parenthesis in 1Jn_1:2, is continued in 1Jn_1:3. The sense is, 'We declare unto you that which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, etc., concerning the Word of Life.' From the beginning] cp. Joh_1:1. Heard.. handled] the evidence of eyewitness. The Docetists taught that Christ was a mere phantom: cp. Luk_24:39. Of the Word of life] RV 'concerning the Word of life': cp. 'bread of life,' Joh_6:35. For 'the Word' (Logos) see on Joh_1:1.
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2. This v. is parenthetical, reiterating the fact that the preëxistent Eternal Word was manifested to men. In 1Jn_1:3 this manifestation is said to determine man's relation to God.
3. Declare we unto you] RV adds 'also,' Fellowship with us] i.e. union with us in Christian fellowship. And truly] RV 'yea, and.' Fellowship with Christian teachers involves fellowship with God in Christ.
4. That your joy may be full] RV 'that our joy may be fulfilled.' 'Fellowship with Christ and with the brethren is the measure of the fulness of joy' (Westcott).
5. Light.. darkness] The one suggests truth and goodness, the other falsehood and evil. All truth and goodness emanate from God. To walk in the light, therefore, i.e. to possess and practise these, is to have fellowship with Him. On the other hand, to be without these is to be without God (1Jn_1:6).
7. One with another] i.e. with other Christians, the result of fellowship with God. The blood of Jesus Christ] RV omits 'Christ.' Only those who 'walk in the light' can appropriate the cleansing efficacy of the life laid down upon the Cross. Cleanseth] The present tense denotes a continuous process—the progressive sanctification of the believer's soul: cp. Joh_13:10.
8. Deceive ourselves] lit. 'lead ourselves astray.'
9. Just] RV 'righteous.'
Forgive.. cleanse] 'Forgive' refers to the remission of punishment, 'cleanse' to the removal of pollution.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv1, 7 grace Grace (imparted). Summary (see "Grace,") (See Scofield "Joh…
grace Grace (imparted). Summary (see "Grace,") (See Scofield "Joh 1:17") grace is not only dispensationally a method of divine dealing in salvation
(See Scofield "Joh 1:17") but is also the method of God in the believer’s life and service. As saved, he is "not under the law, but under grace" Rom 6:14. Having by grace brought the believer into the highest conceivable position. Eph 1:6. God ceaselessly works through grace, to impart to, and perfect in him, corresponding graces; Joh 15:4; Joh 15:5; Gal 5:22; Gal 5:23.
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Grace, therefore, stands connected with service Rom 12:6; Rom 15:15; Rom 15:16; 1Co 1:3-7; 1Co 3:10; 1Co 15:10; 2Co 12:9; 2Co 12:10; Gal 2:9; Eph 3:7; Eph 3:8; Eph 4:7; Php 1:7; 2Ti 2:1; 2Ti 2:2; 1Pe 4:10 with Christian growth; 2Co 1:12; Eph 4:29; Col 3:16; Col 4:6; 2Th 1:12; Heb 4:16; Heb 12:28; Heb 12:29; Heb 13:9; Jas 4:6; 1Pe 1:2; 1Pe 3:7; 1Pe 5:5; 1Pe 5:10; 2Pe 3:18; Jud 1:4 and with giving; 2Co 4:15; 2Co 8:1; 2Co 8:6; 2Co 8:7; 2Co 8:19; 2Co 9:14
grace Grace (imparted). Rom 6:1; 2Pe 3:18.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On vv1, 5 Analysis and Annotations
Analysis and Annotations
I. THE LIFE MANIFESTED
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CHAPTER 1:1-4
The opening verses of this Epistle are very precious and are the key to the whole Epistle. Three Scriptures speak of what was in the beginning. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen 1:1). This is the beginning of all things which God called into existence out of nothing. “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (Joh 1:1). This takes us beyond the first verse of the Bible. It reveals Him, by whom and for whom God created all things, in His eternal existence with God and as God.
The third Scripture is the first verse of John’s Epistle. “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, the Word of life.” This is a different beginning from the beginning in Gen 1:1 and Joh 1:1; it means the manifestation of the Son of God in incarnation among men. He, who is the true God and the eternal life, the life and light, was manifested as man here below. This truth is stated by John in his Gospel in the fourteenth verse (Joh 1:14)of the first chapter: “And the Word was made flesh and tabernacled among us (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth.” To this John refers in the first statement of his Epistle. John and his fellow-disciples had walked with Him and talked with Him.
It must be noted that the apostle speaks of Him as “the Word of Life”; he does not say therefore “who was from the beginning” but, which was from the beginning. First he mentions what they had heard; but one may hear a person and not be near to that person. But they were closer to the Word of Life, he writes, “which we have seen with our eyes”; yet one may have seen a person without being close to that person; but they had more than a passing vision “which we have contemplated” which is more than a mere seeing, it denotes gazing with a purpose, with a desire and with admiration. A statement of still greater nearness follows, “our hands have handled”--John and the other disciples had known Him, the Word of Life, intimately.
“And the Life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and hath been manifested unto us.” He whom they heard, with whom they were in touch, whom they knew and gazed upon is the eternal Life which was with the Father. It is more than that He spoke of eternal Life and promised eternal Life; He Himself is eternal Life. He was with the Father and came into the world, to manifest what that life is. While He manifested the Father, as He witnessed “whosoever seeth Me seeth the Father,” He also displayed as man what eternal life is in His blessed and perfect life He lived on earth. And this eternal life is communicated to all who believe on the Son of God. This life which was with the Father, manifested in the Lord Jesus on earth, is the life which is in us. (“The life has been manifested. Therefore we have no longer to seek for it, to grope after it in the darkness, to explore at random the indefinite, or the obscurity of our own hearts, in order to find it, to labor fruitlessly under the law, in order to obtain it. We behold it: it is revealed, it is here, in Jesus Christ. He who possesses Christ possesses that life.”) To know then what life we possess as believers, we must not look in ourselves, or to other believers, but to Christ and the life He manifested on earth. As another has said, “When I turn my eyes to Jesus, when I contemplate all His obedience, His purity, His grace, His tenderness, His patience, His devotedness, His holiness, His love, His entire freedom from all self seeking, I can say, that is my life. It may be that it is obscured in me; but it is none the less true, that it is my life.”
“That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.”
What they had seen and heard they have declared unto others, to those who also believe on Him, so that they too might share in the same fellowship, the fellowship of the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. The life which believers possess, the eternal life given through grace, the life He manifested on earth and which is in us, fits us for fellowship with both the Father and the Son. What such a fellowship demands and the tests of it are developed subsequently. To have such fellowship, bestowed through grace, is the blessed calling of all the saints of God. Such fellowship is eternal life and there is nothing beyond that in heaven itself, while we enjoy it here the fullness of it will be enjoyed in glory. But what is fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ? It is but little understood in its real meaning. Fellowship means having things in common. The Father’s delight is in Him who pleased Him so perfectly. For the Father, His blessed Son is the One altogether lovely.
Believers knowing the Son also find their delight in Him; He is for our hearts the One altogether lovely. As we then delight ourselves in Him, in His obedience, in what He is in love and devotion to the Father, we share the same feelings and thoughts with the Father, which is fellowship with the Father. Whenever the believer praises and thanks the Father for His Son, tells the Father of his deep appreciation of Him, how he loves Him, longs to be more like Him, walk even as He walked, then he is in fellowship with the Father. And the Son has given to us the knowledge of the Father. “No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him” (Mat 11:27). It is the Gospel of John where the blessed words of the Son concerning the Father are recorded. He manifested unto His own the name of the Father.
In the five chapters in the Gospel of John, beginning with the feet-washing and ending with the great intercessory prayer of our Lord (13-17) the word “Father” occurs fifty times. It is in this part of the Gospel the Son makes known the Father. Through the Son we have the knowledge of the Father and the knowledge of the Father’s love. His delight was to glorify the Father in a life of devotion and obedience. And as the believer delights Himself in the Father, honors Him and yields obedience to Him, he has fellowship with the Son, has the same thing in common with the Son. Fellowship with the Father and with the Son is therefore not a feeling or some extraordinary experience.
“All this flows, whether in the one or the other point of view, from the Person of the Son. Herein our joy is full. What can we have more than the Father and the Son? What more perfect happiness than community of thoughts, feelings, joys and communion with the Father and the Son, deriving all our joy from themselves? And if it seem difficult to believe, let us remember that, in truth, it cannot be otherwise; for, in the life of Christ, the Holy Ghost is the source of my thoughts, feelings, communion, and He cannot give thoughts different from those of the Father and the Son. They must be in their nature the same. To say that they are adoring thoughts is in the very nature of things, and only makes them more precious. To say that they are feeble and often hindered, while the Father and the Son are divine and perfect, is, if true, to say the Father and the Son are God, are divine, and we feeble creatures. That surely none will deny. But if the blessed Spirit be the source, they must be the same as to nature and fact.
This is our Christian position then, here below in time, through the knowledge of the Son of God; as the apostle says, “These things write we unto you, that your joy may be full” (John N. Darby).
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 5, 8 Christ’s Person and Office.
Christ’s Person and Office.
Concerning the person of Christ:
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v. 1. 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, of the Word of Life,
v. 2. (for the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us,)
v. 3. that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us; and, truly, our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.
v. 4. And these thing’s write we unto you that your joy may be full.
The apostle here announces the topic, or subject matter, of his letter: Jesus Christ, the eternal Word, became flesh for the salvation of mankind. In the form which shows his intimate knowledge of the subject he writes: What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our own eyes, what we inspected and our hands touched, concerning the Word of Life. The Word of Life is his theme, the eternal, essential, personal Word, which was in the beginning with God and was God, Joh 1:1-14. It is Jesus Christ, called the "Word," because in Him, God has revealed Himself, has made Himself and His entire counsel of salvation known to men. He is the "Word of Life," because He, as the true God, has the fullness of true, everlasting life in Himself, because He is the Source and Fountain of all true life, and because He gives eternal life to all those that come to Him in truth. Of Him St. John says that He was from the beginning; He did not come into existence at the beginning, at the creation of the world, at the period when time first began to be reckoned, but He was. He already existed: He is from eternity. The eternal Son of God became man, for John says that he heard Him, that his own ears received the doctrine of life from His lips; that he saw Him with his own eyes. Yea, more: he had opportunity enough to gaze upon this wonderful God-man, to inspect Him closely, to note everything that He did: his hands even touched and handled Him, because he was the beloved disciple, and the evening of the Passover meal in the upper room was undoubtedly not the only time when he leaned on the breast of Jesus.
John has still more to say of the incarnation and its purpose: And the Life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and declare to you the eternal Life, the very one which was with the Father and was manifested to us. The Life, He who is the Life, the embodiment of all true life. was manifested, revealed, to men. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, Joh 1:14. John purposely speaks of their seeing as having taken place for a long time. They were with the Lord long enough to know that they were not dealing with a phantom, but with the personal revelation of the second person of the Godhead. They had every reason, John and his fellow-apostles, to be so certain of their declaration and of their witness. They saw His glory, the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father. They knew that Jesus Christ was the true God and eternal Life. As such, as the eternal embodiment and source of all true spiritual life, as Him who was with the Father from eternity and was made flesh, was manifested to us, lived among men, God and Man in one person, John had proclaimed Him and was proclaiming Him.
The apostle also states the purpose of this emphatic proclamation: What we have seen and heard we declare also to you, that you also may have fellowship with us. John and the other disciples made that the work of their entire life, to preach the wonderful Gospel-message, to tell the wondrous story of Jesus and His work of redemption, in order that other people also might learn to know Christ, to believe in Him, and thus to enter into the most intimate spiritual fellowship with the apostles and with all true believers. By faith all believers on earth, regardless of race and social position, are united in the communion of saints, in the Christian Church. This fellowship, moreover, involves still more: But our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. By faith the Christians are not only united in an association holding the same tenets and held together by the same profession, but they thereby become members of the body of Christ and enter into intimate relationship with God the Father Himself. For as the eternal Father of Jesus Christ, His Father also after the incarnation, as He Himself repeatedly testified, He is also our Father by virtue of the redemption of Christ. The Savior has removed all cause of enmity by bearing both our sins and their guilt and atoning for them with His blood, thereby reconciling God the Father to us. Thus we are all children of God by faith which is in Christ Jesus. It is a wonderful, a glorious relationship in which we stand. No wonder the apostle is constrained to add: And this we are writing that your joy may be complete. This assurance of the sonship of God, of the fact that all causes for apprehension and fear have been removed, will ever have the same effect upon the Christians, namely, that of making their joy in faith complete and perfect, of causing them to rest their salvation in Christ and their heavenly Father without the slightest hesitation or doubt, of imparting to them that inexpressible happiness of faith which no man can take from the believers, which they retain in the very midst of misery and tribulation. That is John’s introduction to his letter, a remarkable example of the comforting quality of the Gospel-message.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 5, 8 General Information:
General Information:
The apostle John wrote this letter to believers. All instances of "you," "your," and "yours" include all believers and are plural. Here the words "we" and "us" refer to John and those who had been with Jesus. (See: Forms of You and Exclusive and Inclusive "We")
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General Information:
In verses 1-2 many pronouns like "that," "which," and "it" are used. They refer to "the Word of life" and "the eternal life." But, since these are names for Jesus, you can use pronouns that refer to a person like "who," "whom" or "he." (See: Pronouns)
That which was from the beginning
The phrase "That which was from the beginning" refers to Jesus, who existed before everything was made. AT: "We are writing to you about the one who existed before the creation of all things"
the beginning
"the beginning of all things" or "the creation of the world"
which we have heard
"which we have heard him teach"
which we have seen ... we have looked at
This is repeated for emphasis. AT: "which we ourselves have seen" (See: Parallelism)
the Word of life
"Jesus, the one who causes people to live forever"
life
The word "life" throughout this letter refers to more than physical life. It stands here for Jesus, the eternal life. (See: Metonymy)
the life was made known
This can be stated in active form. AT: "God made the eternal life known to us" or "God made us able to know him, who is eternal life" (See: Active or Passive)
we have seen it
"we have seen him"
we bear witness to it
"we solemnly tell others about him"
the eternal life
Here, "the eternal life" refers to the one who gives that life, Jesus. AT: "the one who enables us to live forever" (See: Metonymy)
which was with the Father
"who was with God the Father"
and which has been made known to us
This was when he lived on earth. AT: "and he came to live among us" (See: Active or Passive)
translationWords
word
life
testimony
eternity
God the Father
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1–10 1:1-4 This poetic prologue reflects the message of the…
1:1-4 This poetic prologue reflects the message of the prologue to John’s Gospel (John 1:1-18). • The we that occurs throughout the prologue refers to John and the other apostles, and perhaps to other Christians who had seen and touched Jesus Christ. The apostles were among the eyewitnesses of Jesus and had personal fellowship with God through him. John, representing the apostles, now invites readers to join in that fellowship.
1:1 We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning: That is, from before time began, eternally (John 8:58). When Jesus came in the flesh (John 1:14), the apostles saw him . . . and touched him. This affirmation that they actually touched the Word of life is important because Gnosticism and Docetism (early Christian heresies) denied that Christ was truly a human being (see 1 Jn 4:2-3). Jesus, the Son of God, is the personal expression of the invisible God, and the giver of eternal life (John 1:1-4).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.