Laodicea: Lukewarm Religion

The Word of Life, 1

The Word of Life

1 John 1:1-4

November 22, 2009 – Grace Covenant Baptist Church

Steve Lawson recently made the following assessment, “The issue in Reformed circles today is not the gospel of John but the epistle of John.”[1] What he suggests is that while many have a grasp of the doctrinal content of the gospel they fail to live in a manner that demonstrates that those doctrines have truly made a difference in their lives. They have knowledge but not the knowledge that leads one to joyfully obey God in all things.

This pursuit of knowledge is not new. Satan’s temptation in the Garden was that Adam and Eve might know and this attack on the prideful intellect of man was full blown in John’s day, who was now an old man who had seen a lot of things. The concern for John was:

• Gnostic influence – Star Wars (battle between evil and good; darkness and light)

1. Knowledge (Greek, gnosis, hence the name), not faith, was the basis and the test for salvation.

— This knowledge was not available to everyone but only to those who were enlightened to the mysteries of Gnosticism.

2. All matter, everything physical, is inherently evil. Therefore the body is evil in and of itself. This led to two errors:

— Theological – The incarnation of God in Christ. Since the body is evil, God could

not have possibly become man. They denied the incarnation either by denying His actual humanity, claiming he only seemed to be human, that His appearance was only a phantom, an illusion, or by denying His deity, arguing that there was in fact a real, human Jesus, but that the heavenly Christ came upon the earthly Christ at His baptism and then left Him before the Cross. Christ, then, was not actually born nor did He really suffer.

— Practical – Asceticism (because the body is evil it must be subdued and denied any pleasure or satisfaction) & hedonism – the body is evil and doomed to sin, but the spirit is independent of the body and remains undefiled no matter what one does or how one lives. Nothing is sin so we are permitted to pursue any and all pleasure and passion.

The Apostle John wrote this epistle to counter the Gnostic influence that had begun to take root in the culture and in the church. He distinguishes between light and darkness (1:5), loving the world and loving God (2:15-17), truth and falsehood (2:20-21), and eternal life and eternal death (3:14). Certain doctrinal themes emerge: righteousness, love, faith, propitiation, adoption, assurance – all these play a part in John’s defense of what it means to live a life full of true joy. That is the theme, as we will see in a moment, of the entire letter.

Why preach this letter? Because I agree with Lawson—there is what I consider to be a disconnect for some people in what it means to hate darkness and love the light, to “not love the world nor the things of the world” (2:15) but to love God and the brethren, and to discern what is true from what is false. My concern is that some today in our churches demonstrate a real hatred of darkness with little or no love for the Light. Their effort to be “not of this world” sometimes lacks love for the brethren. This often begins as an honest and sincere effort to correct something in their lives or in the church, to bring balance in a particular area, but the pendulum swings too far in the other direction and they overcorrect.

These are the very things that John addresses head on in this letter. In his gospel, he was evangelistic. In this epistle, he is pastoral. His concern is that believers maintain balance—yes, hating darkness while at the same time loving light; not loving the world while demonstrating love to God and the brethren. And he begins with the foundation, the absolute necessity of a saving relationship, real union and communion, with the Christ of Scripture. What we see in these verses and in this letter is that true joy is found only in fellowship with God and in the assurance that Christ is the gospel for eternal life.

I. John’s Witness of the Word of Life (1:1-2)

Unlike other epistles in the New Testament, we find here no salutation or final greeting, no personal details (John does not mention his name), and there is no hint to whom the letter is written (though it was doubtless intended for the churches in the province of Asia). John begins abruptly with a testimony “concerning the Word of Life.” Immediately our minds are drawn to that great prologue we read earlier from John’s gospel, where he called Jesus “the Word.” John 1 and 1 John 1 must not be separated. Though writing to different audiences for different purposes, he grounds his message in Christ because Christ is the message, “the Word of Life.” He sets forth four important things about Jesus.

1. His pre-existent glory (v. 1) – “What was from the beginning” echoes John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word.” John was not writing about the birth of Jesus, the beginning of His life on this earth, or the beginning of His ministry. It is a testimony of the eternality of Jesus as the Son of God, the One who existed before the time began in Genesis 1:1. When everything else began to exist, Jesus already was. At no point did He come into being. He was, is, and ever will be the complete and perfect “Word of Life.”

We find these truths in the gospel of John. In John 8:58, “Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.’” Jesus took upon Himself the covenantal and eternal name for God established in Exodus 3:14. Of course, the religious leaders knew exactly what that meant. I have always been a bit dumbfounded in my few encounters with Jehovah Witnesses concerning Jesus’ use of this name. They contend that the Hebrew tense and the Greek tense are different and conclude that Jesus does not have the Exodus 3 event in mind and therefore He does not claim equality with God. I simply point out that the religious leaders must have misunderstood Him as well. Perhaps they had forgotten their Hebrew or didn’t know their Greek—so they mistakenly stoned Him? I don’t think so—they knew exactly what Jesus claimed. We see His explicit claim in John 17:5, “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.”

2. His eternal communion (v. 2) – John wrote that the “Word of Life,” which he calls “the eternal life” in v. 2 “was with the Father.” This again reflects John 1:1 – “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.” Jesus as the Son of God not only co-existed with God the Father before time, but “with the Father” suggests a close face-to-face relation, an intimate communion. His eternal existence was not a solitary one. “From the beginning” the Word existed alongside, “with the Father.”

Benjamin Warfield noted the wonder of this truth in considering that great Christmas text, John 1:14, “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth”:

The intimacy of the relation intimated is startlingly brought home to us… Here we are told in language of almost unexampled pregnancy that the Word—called on this occasion by the tremendous name of “begotten of the Father only,”—is ceaselessly, not merely in, but “into the bosom of God.” This is the expression for the closest and most intimate relation conceivable for persons; and the language which it is cast conveys the idea at once of a continuation of its unbroken continuity and of its ceaseless renewal. It is in this intimacy of communion that the Word is declared to have been eternally “with God.”[2]

Now why is this important? Because John wants those who truly know Christ to understand the intimate relationship they have with the Father, with Christ, and with one another, what he calls “fellowship” in v. 3. We will look at that in a moment. Here John simply asserts this communion in the Godhead as part of His witness of Christ, who is eternally “with the Father.” There is no hope for eternal life apart from or without that communion.

3. His earthly manifestation (v. 2) – Twice we read “and the life was manifested… to us.” The Word became flesh (Jn. 1:14), the eternal experienced the earthly. This manifestation of Christ speaks first to the incarnation. Remember the false teaching that John is countering in this letter. The Gnostic heresy denied the humanity of Christ because for them the body, the flesh, was evil. They did not deny the existence of a man named Jesus. He just could not be God in the flesh without being evil.

But notice the lengths that John goes to in demonstrating the physical presence of Christ. He appeals to the senses, not just his, but his fellow apostles as well. They were witnesses, and their eyewitness accounts are authoritative for the church based on this very testimony. John said, “We heard Jesus speak; we saw what he did, we observed how he lived, we even touched him with our own hands.” For three years they were with Him – and some of them even beheld His glory – a glory that had been revealed, manifested to them. The word means “to bring to light” or “to make known something that already exists.” Christ continued to be manifest to them the entire time He was on the earth.

John 19:35 – And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe.

Acts 4:18-20 – 18And when they had summoned them, they commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. 19 But Peter and John answered and said to them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge; 20 for we cannot stop speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

“Have heard” and “have seen” are in the perfect tense, indicating a completed action whose effects are felt in the present. What they heard and saw in their daily ministry with Christ left an abiding impression on them. However, with “we have looked at and touched with our hands” there is a sudden change in tense from the perfect to the aorist, designating an unnamed but specific event. While we can’t be dogmatic, it seems likely that this refers to the post-resurrection accounts of the disciples. Luke 24:39 – “See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” If this is what John is referring to then he is setting forth the manifestation of the body of Christ from the Incarnation to the Ascension to His return to all eternity. He is saying, “We have seen Him in a physical body. We have heard His physical voice, gazed upon Him and touched His physical body even after His resurrection. He became flesh and went again to be with the Father in a real body and it is in that real, physical body that He will come again.” So “the life was manifested” suggests the unfolding of Christ’s incarnate life.

4. His communication of life – While all of this is true, we must return to John’s use of the phrase “the Word of Life.” I have suggested that “the Word of Life” is to be equated with the incarnate Jesus. However, John begins with four neuter pronouns, “what… what… what…what.” “Word” is masculine. If “Word” is really Jesus Christ Himself it seems strange that John would refer to Him as “what” rather than “He who.” So we must ask, “What is “what” and what then is really manifest?”

Clearly John’s emphasis is on “life” in these verses and those which follow. It seems best to understand “of Life” in reference to “the Word.” What is that word or message then other than life in Christ Himself? We see this in John’s gospel in Jesus on testimony, “I am the life” (11:25; 14:6) and in John 5:26, “For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself.” And in John 1:4, “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.” We will look at that more fully next week.

What does all this mean? John wants to emphasize that the message of Christ, “the Word,” is identical to Christ, who is “the life.” The gospel took personal form in the person of Christ who could be heard, seen, looked upon and touched. In other words, as David Jackman suggests, “The historical Jesus is the Christ of faith. The gospel in which we believe and by which we are saved is the eternal Son of the Father… Christ is the gospel. The person and the message must be held together.”[3]

II. John’s Proclamation of the Word of Life (1:3-4)

John writes that all they had seen and heard “we proclaim to you also.” Given their experience with Christ, John desires others to experience this relationship as well. He gives two purposes for proclaiming these things, one particular to these verses and the other in general for the entire epistle.

1. Fellowship with others (v. 3)

John’s purpose in these verses that he will begin to unfold in the first two chapters is “that you too may have fellowship with us.” You will never experience true joy apart from this fellowship. However, we must know that Christian fellowship is not simply enjoying oneself at an annual Thanksgiving gathering or getting together as believers to watch a football game. There is nothing wrong with that in and of itself, but we must be clear as to what constitutes Christian fellowship. Fellowship concerns sharing at the deepest level; it speaks of partnership.[4] It is more than friendship and in one sense it is more than love because we are told to love all men, even our enemies (Mt. 5:43-48). Fellowship is distinct from those relationships. In 2 Corinthians 6:14 Paul wrote, “Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?” This strikes to the heart of John’s desire for them to “to have fellowship with us.” This speaks to the horizontal relationship we have with one another in the body of Christ.

But there can be no horizontal fellowship apart from the vertical fellowship between God and man. This is captured by John’s words, “Indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.” We can only have fellowship with someone if we ourselves are joined by saving faith to Christ and the other person also shares that same faith. Christians enjoy fellowship around the God-man Jesus Christ and the truth of His Word. This is an important point. A Christian does not have fellowship with other professing Christians and then decide what they believe. John said we have the apostolic truth first and then have fellowship on that basis. That describes the fellowship of the early church found in Acts 2:42, where they continued steadfastly in the doctrine of the apostles and in fellowship. We don’t simply want to know about Him; we want to know Him. And we do so in the day to day fellowship we have in Christ with others.

2. Fullness of joy (v. 4)

John concludes by giving the general purpose for the letter, “that our joy may be made complete.” Some translations have “your joy” and it is difficult to know which is correct. Regardless, it is clear that John says that the Christian life is to be a life of joy, a joy experienced by all who are united to Christ. John 15:11 – “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.”

It is this fullness of joy that serves as the theme for the letter. John gives two essentials for this joy, one being a conscious fellowship with God, the other the conscious possession of eternal life.[5] The fellowship with God is the topic in the first two chapters, with chapter three given to our assurance of eternal life. The final chapters show how we are to practice our conscious understanding of these things.

So John’s purpose is that we might experience true joy in the Christian life through our fellowship with God and hope of eternal life. So why don’t we have this joy at all times? If it is true that our salvation is secure in Christ, then what hinders experiencing this joy in its fullness? This is the work of our enemy. While Satan can’t rob us of our salvation, he can rob us of the joy of our salvation. John gives four ways our joy is affected in this letter:

1) Sin. 1 John 1:8 – If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

2) Lack of love for the brethren. 1 John 2:10-11 – 10 The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. 11 But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness.