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The First Epistle of John Chapter 1 The Message of the Gospel 1Jn 1:1-3 This is what we proclaim to you: what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and our hands have touched (concerning the word of life --and the life was revealed, and we have seen and testify and announce to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us). What we have seen and heard we announce to you too, so that you may have fellowship with us (and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ). In his first epistle, the apostle John has a message to share with his readers; and if a message is to be conveyed, one might well wish to know who the message is from, who is the originator of it. As an apostle of Christ, John had no doubt as to the origin of the message which he had believed and which he preached. It was not the invention of a new religion or a message about a new God. Rather it was the manifestation of Him who was from the beginning. The New Covenant has continuity with the Old, for the Creator is also the redeemer. He who was from eternity, the creator of all things (Gen 1:1) is the same one who had recently appeared among men and whom the apostles proclaimed. The ancient of days is the baby of Bethlehem. Nowhere in his writings does John directly refer to Christ being born of a virgin – yet again and again he emphasises the result of that virgin birth; for John wishes to introduce his readers to a man, Christ Jesus, who had no human origin. Jesus did not derive his descent from any man, but was God’s son by eternal generation. Later in his epistle, John spells out the way in which this eternal creative Word was manifested – i.e. in the flesh (1 John 4:2), that is, in human form, as a man. It was as a man this Word who is God (John 1:1) was heard, seen, looked at and touched by the apostles – and yet at all times He remained the everlasting Word. John proclaims a Jesus who is both fully human and fully divine. As D. Martin Lloyd Jones puts it ‘In Christ is the fusion of two natures without confusion’. Jesus did not empty himself of divine attributes in order to become a man – the fullness of God dwelt in him in bodily form (Col. 2:9) and to see him was to see the father (John 14:9). At the incarnation Christ’s glory may have appeared veiled, but it was not diminished. Nor did Jesus the man attain to Godhead after his death and resurrection, for he was the Word from the beginning, that is, prior to creation. John could claim a personal experience of Christ, a close proximity to the Lord – yet he said that the reason he proclaimed the gospel was that others might share the same personal relationship with Jesus Christ which he himself had. Although we have not known Jesus walking, talking, eating and drinking with us in the way that John knew him, this is no barrier to our knowing him just as intimately as John at the time he wrote his epistle, for:
2Cor. 5:16 So then from now on we acknowledge no one from an outward human point of view. Even though we have known Christ from such a human point of view, now we do not know him in that way any longer.
John describes the Lord Jesus Christ as the life or the word of life – being the originator, sustainer and restorer of life. He created all life, for all life is in him, and continues in him, and it is he who restores men from a position of spiritual death (because of their sin) into the life of a relationship with God - to share in God’s life which is eternal life. Just as John began his gospel, and his revelation letter, focussing on the deity and eternity of the Lord Jesus Christ as the equal with God, so he begins his epistle. John describes the gospel as a making known of the life which is eternal, but for John eternal life is not a possession but a person. This person was eternally with the father, but became one of us that he might make himself known to the world in word and deed. The preacher’s principal aim is the making known of God, and he makes him known through the person of his Son Jesus Christ. Similarly, Paul said ‘We preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus the Lord’ (2 Cor. 4:5). Moreover, John takes the tone of an eyewitness, who wishes his testimony to be taken seriously. Hence the repeated ‘we saw we heard etc.’ The preacher is not the man who makes up stories; as Peter asserts, these are not cunningly devised fables (2 Peter 1:16). In his gospel, John endeavours to faithfully convey key elements of all that Jesus said and did, and finds it unnecessary to include any extraneous material. It was all about Jesus. It requires nothing else for us to have our needs met eternally than for us to know Jesus Christ.
The Fellowship of the Gospel John knew that only as others heard, believed and received the gospel message about Jesus Christ could they come into fellowship with God. Later John spells out how this bringing into fellowship with God is achieved. It is achieved by reconciliation and forgiveness which are made possible by the intervention of Christ as a propitiatory sacrifice on the cross. The message of the cross was absolutely central to John’s thinking and his message, as might readily be observed as it surfaces again and again in this epistle. Through coming into fellowship with God we are joined in fellowship with every other person who has fellowship with God. We become part of the church, a single body which has Christ for its head (Eph. 4:4), a building which has Christ for its foundation a temple which has Christ for its builder (Eph. 2:21-22). 1Jn 1:4 Thus we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. To have fellowship with God is to know fullness of joy; that is, the joy of sins forgiven, peace with God, peace with our own conscience, and freedom from the fear of death and judgment, the joy of security in the future and of eternal life.
A Life-Application of the Gospel 1Jn 1:5 Now this is the gospel message we have heard from him and announce to you: God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. It is by no means a clear summation of the gospel which John gives here; rather, it is an application of the gospel for his readers. All that we learn through the gospel demonstrates that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. There can be no aspersion cast on God’s love- for God has no ulterior motive in desiring to save sinners. Our salvation results in his glory, but that is not his motive – love for sinners is. Neither is there unrighteousness or partiality with God. When God loves he loves a world; when he offers forgiveness he offers it freely to all on the same conditions of repentance and faith. The application John wishes to make from the gospel is that our new relationship God is incompatible with our living a life of sin. 1Jn 1:6 If we say we have fellowship with him and yet keep on walking in the darkness, we are lying and not practicing the truth. That is why believers in Christ ought to live as those who are in the light – walking in righteousness and truth. Having fellowship with God involves more than a verbal confession, for it results in habitual action, living according to the teachings and example of Jesus Christ who is light. As Paul exhorts ‘you were once darkness but now you are light in the Lord, walk as sons of light’. (Eph. 5:89). 1Jn 1:7 But if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. From this verse we infer that our fellowship with God and with each other can become marred by sin. Paul remarks that those who commit sin do so in the dark (1 Thess. 5:7), by implication so as not to be seen. But it is vain to think we are not seen by the God who knows us fully. The answer to our sin problem is to be found as we come to God to experience his cleansing so that we may continue to walk in his light. The blood which Jesus shed on the cross as he bore away all our sin is completely able to cleanse us again and again so that we might keep walking in the way of righteousness. If we have gone astray from God, we can come back at once! Do not hide, like one in darkness, for there is no need. Although God knows all about your sin he will not judge you for it – he will cleanse you from it! 1Jn 1:8 If we say we do not bear the guilt of sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. We are all sinners (Romans 3:10, 12, 23). To deny the truth of which God has declared about this is to deceive ourselves. No one who denies the truth is allowing Christ the central place of their lives, for Christ is truth. 1Jn 1:9 But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous, forgiving us our sins and cleansing us from all unrighteousness. John shows believers the way to be constantly forgiven and keep up their relationship with God. This exhortation was not written for unbelievers. The gospel does not say that unbelievers should confess their sins to God and he will forgive them, it says they must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and they
will be saved. Believers, on the other hand, although saved are still imperfect and in need of constant cleansing. God has provided a means of cleansing for us –confession. As we draw near again to the Lord and admit our failures to him he remains faithful to those he calls his own, and as he remembers that our sin was paid for on the cross, he is able to forgive us again. The reason it is not to each other we confess is that only God can forgive. The only place the Bible tells us to confess and admit our faults to each other is when we have committed them against each other and so are asking each other for forgiveness. That is different. Before you ask me for my forgiveness I assume you have asked God for his, and if you have asked then you already have his forgiveness. 1Jn 1:10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us. To deny, even as believers, that we have a nature of sin and that we commit sinful acts is to call God a liar, for his word says otherwise, as Paul admitted in Romans 7:14-23. To reject God’s word is to not allow it to have its rightful place in our lives, and without his word cleaning is impossible (Eph. 5:26; Psalm 119:9). © Mathew Bartlett 2012 Bible Studies Online UK www.biblestudiesonline.co.uk You may copy, print or distribute our studies freely in any form, just so long as you make no charges. Sign up today for our FREE monthly Bible study magazine “Living Word” Scriptures taken from the NET Bible www.bible.org