The Apostle John starts out his letter in 1 John emphasizing both the deity and humanity of Christ together because we can have no relationship, no fellowship with God, apart from confessing that Christ is indeed the Son of God.
This confession, this whole hearted conviction that Jesus Christ is indeed the Son of God, is the first step towards God, because no one who denies the Son has the Father but whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. (1 John 2:23) Whoever hates me hates my Father also. (John 15:23) To reject Jesus as the Son of God, is to reject God the Father and to call Him a liar.
“Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. (1 John 2:22-23)
A relationship with God, starts with God. Man would have no ability to know God apart from God revealing himself to us. This is a vital truth. God is self-revealing.
A cousin of mine was visiting at my house one afternoon and she was sharing with me what she was learning in one of her world religion classes that she was taking. She was not a Christian at the time and she was proud of her new found understanding of religion that she had gained in college that she could talk about religion intellectually. I had shared the gospel with her several times and she knew where I stood when it came to Christianity. She was sharing with me that Christianity was a cultural religion that was simply passed down from one generation to the next. If there was a generation that was not familiar with the bible and the idea of God then Christianity would die out. Her argument sounded good and she fully believed it. I could only shake my head because of this one simple fact. God is self-revealing. If something happened to our bible and an entire generation rose up and did not know God, God would still be God regardless of if we knew Him. God is self-revealing. He is not an idea that dies out but a real living person who reveals Himself at will. God does reveal Himself through the bible to us but He is not dependent upon the bible to reveal Himself, He is not trapped within the bible as a mere character, He exists outside the Bible. He has chosen to reveal Himself through his Son Jesus Christ so that we might know Him fully.
What is God, the Father like? Sometimes it may seem that God is a big blank face in the sky and we can paint any face on Him that we like according to our culture, according to our experiences, according to popular opinion, according to our personal opinion. This makes the opinions of what God looks like as numerous as we are because each one of us decorates God differently in our mind. Most of us wouldn’t argue about the existence of God, unless we were atheists. Acknowledging the existence of God or a “Higher Power” is one thing, knowing what God is like is another. The problem with this is that since no one has ever seen God how do we know who is right in their description of Him?
If God exists inside of us, in our heads and imaginations only, then how we each decorate Him is a personal matter. He becomes nothing more than an idol, a wooden doll that we each cut and shape however it pleases us. We can give him a big happy face with a cheesy grin or we can give him a big scowling face, that glares. Whatever makes us happy. He becomes our puppet. We can even make him dance if we like or pound him against somebody else’s custom designer God to see who wins like we use to do as kids as we played with GI Joe dolls. That is about the extent of God’s power when he only exists inside us as an idea or theory. He is as limited as our own abilities, imaginations and resources. He only moves when we move him. He is a dead God. A dead imaginary doll that we carry around in our heads and only nods like a bobble head figurine doll as we go about our daily business.
But if our God is a living God, then he must exist apart from us. He must have a life apart from us. He must have the ability to move on his own according to his own will. He must have his own thoughts. His own likes and dislike. His own emotions. His own life that is separate from ours. If we die, He still lives because He exists outside us and apart from us. We don’t define him, he defines himself.
God can be known. He is not an idea, he is a person and we were created in His image, according to His will for his purposes. If we are to know Him, we must look up outside of ourselves and not down at the small cute pet God who we hold in our hands or in our heads. We must accept him as he reveals Himself to be to us, even if we don’t initially like Him, agree with Him or understand Him. We cannot redefine him or give him a makeover according to what we ourselves think he should be like. We must wrestle with the reality of Him as he reveals himself to be to us through his written word and living word, Jesus Christ, the exact image of God. (John 14:9, Col. 1:15, 2 Cor. 4:4) God exists. He already is. Any attempt for us to change him, redefine him and limit him is ignorance and denial on our part of him. It is our rejection of the real living God, for the creation of our imaginations.
Do you want to know what God the Father is like? Jesus both asks and answers. I alone, am the only person who can tell you what God the Father is like because I alone am the only person who has seen Him. (John 1:1, 18, John 3:11-13, 31-43) I have been with the Father since the beginning of eternity. (John 1:1, John 8:56-59, John 17:5,24) I was sent by God the Father to reveal him to you so you could know Him as I know Him. (John 17:6-8) No one knows or has seen the Father except through me and who I reveals Him to. (John 17:25-26, Luke 10:22).
No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known. John 1:18
If you want to know God, the Father we must first look to Jesus. God has chosen to reveal himself to us through Jesus Christ. Jesus came
And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. – John 17:3
There is no relationship to God, the Father without a relationship to Jesus Christ first. Jesus is the beginning. This one simple truth is what separates and distinguishes Christianity from all other world religions. This one person, Jesus Christ, who called himself the Son of God, and taught that no one comes to the Father except through him. (John 14:6) It is not the existence of God that world religions deny, it is the authority of Jesus Christ, who makes God known to us, that is called into question. What are the works that God requires from us? To believe in him who he sent. (John 6:28-29) Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. (John 5:23-24)
This is what the apostle John emphasizes in 1 John Chapter 1:1-2.
“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have gazed up and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life – the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the father and was made manifest to us.”
John’s testimony in 1 John, echoes his testimony in the Gospel of John:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:1-4, 14) And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. (1 John 4:13-15)
The apostle John leaves us no doubt of his testimony, Jesus is the Son of God.
That which was from the beginning,
The letter of 1 John kicks off with an interesting start. It’s a bit difficult to read because instead of starting with your normal subject/verb/predicate basic sentence format, this verse starts off with a subjective clause: “That which was from the beginning.” Immediately we are thrown into something that John is describing. It is like entering into a room in the middle of a conversation. We missed the subject. Our first question would be “What?” What was from the beginning? “That which was from the beginning.” John continues to describe, “That which was from the beginning” tall the way through verse one until we reach the end of it and discover he is speaking about, “The Word of life.” The Word of life is that which was from the beginning which they heard, which they seen, which they looked up and with their hands touched. The Word of life. Now we have a subject. Now we are caught up on the conversation.
The Word of life is from the beginning. Immediately, we are reminded of the opening of the gospel of John:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:1-4,14)
The next phrase is just as important, “from the beginning” This is not a new word, this is the same word as from the beginning. This emphasizes the pre-existence of the Word of life. He is from the beginning. Jesus is from the beginning. He was with God in the creation of the world and the Word was God.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities – all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:15-23)
57 So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” 58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” 59 So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. (John 8;57-59)
The deity of Christ must be established. Christ existed before he entered our world. In this very first sentence we are already hitting rock hard doctrine. The Word of life, who we know to be Jesus Christ, was from the beginning. He was before the beginning. He was the Word of God and here we come to even more doctrine, what is called the Incarnation. The word incarnation means embodied in flesh or taking on flesh. “
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)
This is a great verse. This is our Christian faith and a great mystery that we can never fully comprehend. The Word of God, became flesh and dwelt among us. We were able to see his glory. The incomprehensible came in a form we could comprehend and yet many still did not and could not comprehend him.
And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. (John 1:5 KJV)
The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. (John 1:9-11)
John the Baptist himself said he would not have recognized Jesus if the Spirit of God had not revealed Jesus as the Christ to John.
And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33 I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God. (John 1:32-34)
Once again we see apart from God revealing himself to us, we have no hope and no possibility of knowing him. It is not a matter of intellect or the science of discovery or of our explanations of the gospel even though God does often works through these. God reveals himself.
We are still on 1 John 1 and already we are buried in doctrine. Important doctrine of our Christian faith that must be taught and emphasized as John is stressing it now to those he is most fond of.
John goes on to write emphasis the incarnation of the Word of life, the intangible which became physical and tangible placing himself in reach of the three of man’s five senses. The Word could be heard, seen and touched. “that which is from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled.”
John doesn’t say “I”, but “we”. John was not the only eye witness. All the disciples were and all those who Christ ministered to witnessed the word become flesh. We have heard, we have seen, we have looked upon and our hands have handled.
The disciples heard the word the word of God. This is miraculous in itself. The word of God was often heard through the prophets who spoke on behalf of God. The disciples heard the word of God directly from the Word.
Not only did they hear the word of God, but they saw him with their own eyes. This wasn’t just a passing glance but they looked upon him. They stared long upon him. They were intimately familiar with him.
They touched him with their hands. John himself had leaned against his breast. This was not a phantom form. Jesus Christ had truly taken on human form and came in the flesh and died in the flesh.
There was teaching at this time called Gnosticism that John is battling against its strong holds. It taught that Jesus was a phantom without physical form because Gnostics believed that all things material where inherently evil. They could not conceive that a holy God could take on an evil form. It would appear that they were trying to protect the holy nature of God, however, they would not allow their idea about God and the way he works or should work according to their own opinions and understanding come into submission with the reality of God and Christ. They could not comprehend him. They did not comprehend him.
The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it , and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.
John emphasizes that life was made manifest, the invisible was made visible, the unknown was made known. Life was made readily apparent and exposed to our view and senses to be recognized and known by us. This is an amazing verse. This was no ordinary life.
What was it that made Jesus so extraordinary? It was the eternal life he held within him. “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” (John 1:4,9) For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. (John 5:26) As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will not hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst. (John 6:57, 35) “…the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us. (1 John 1:2)
The life within Christ was no ordinary life. It was eternal life.
Through his relationship with his Father, who supplied all his needs, Jesus was quite independent of the world around him and dependent on his Father alone for all his physical needs. He had a separate life source then that world provided, and as a result he was complete within himself. His life source was eternal. The world’s life source was temporary.
Christ knew who sustained his life and who held His time in his hands. It wasn’t the world, or anything the world had to offer. He trusted in his Father alone to maintain the life he embodied until the appropriate time came for him to lay it down. The threats of the world through various circumstances never threatened or dictated his life.
Instead, he ordered them and submitted to them according to his Father’s will. He commanded the waves to be still and the diseases to be gone. He walked on the water. [John 6:19] He was the Bread of life, the Living Water [John 4:10, 13-14 6:33-35, 57] No one took his life, he willingly laid it down. [John 10:11, 17-18] He knew he would pick up his life again for His life wasn’t temporary, it was eternal. It was without beginning and without end. It could never be broken or snuffed out prematurely.
Without this basic truth, Christ would have been an ordinary man like anyone of us. He would have lived and he would have died. His life would have been temporary as our own. The life he held within himself, wasn’t temporary, it was and is eternal.
People had been raised from the dead before, by prophets and even by Jesus Himself. Those were indeed miracles, but unlike those miracles, nobody beside Christ ever had the ability or authority to raise themselves from the dead and ascend straight to Heaven. Everyone else who had been raised eventually died again submitting to the final authority of death. Their life was still as temporary as ours, and their resurrections were only temporary reprieves.
However the life inside of Christ was eternal life. His resurrection was an eternal resurrection. His authority is now an eternal authority. Everything about Christ is eternalized. This is what makes his life so extraordinary; everything about his life is eternal, unbroken, whole, complete and unlimited because he himself is eternal life. This is what he offers us, to those who believe in him, eternal life. (1 John 2:25, 5:11 Romans 6:23, John 6:40) But it only comes to us through an abiding relationship with God and Jesus Christ who he has sent. (John 17: 3)
To live without Christ, without any relationship and attachment to God the Father, means that we are temporary. To be temporary means, we have a beginning and an end, we are broken, we are limited, we can never know unity, and we can never know what it means to be complete, because everything about our lives is incomplete, broken and temporary. Our joy, our love, our relationships, our work are all things in our life that were meant to be eternal. Our suffering comes from our temporariness, as those things which we love are continually taken away from us through their own temporariness because of sin in this world.
God has put eternity into the hearts of men. (Ecc. 3:11) When something is broken, you know it’s broken. You may not know exactly what is wrong with it. You may not know why it is broken or what it was intended to do. But you know it is broken and something is wrong. You know there is something more to it. It was designed for more. You were designed for more. Your life was designed for more, to hold more joy and more love then your earthly mind can fathom, but your more is only found in connection to eternal life through Jesus Christ, without him, everything in life, everything in this world is limited, temporary and incomplete.
Christ still lives today, and because He lives He ensures that those who believe in him and attach themselves to him in a dependent relationship will live also. “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only son into the world, so that we might live through him. ” (1 John, 4:9) As Christ depends on the father, we depend on him to meet all our needs and he becomes our life source. The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. (1 John 2:17)
We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete – 1 John 1:3-4
Why does John and the other apostles find it so important to tell us what they have seen and heard regarding their interaction with Jesus? So important that they would constantly risk their lives and eventually lay down their lives to make sure we heard their testimony?
All the apostle except for one, John suffered violent deaths. They had an easy method of escape, simply recant and renounce their testimony. However, all of the apostles choose martyrdom, intense horrific torture rather than recant their testimony. Both Andrew and his brother Peter were crucified, with Peter being crucified upside down. The apostle James, John’s brother was beheaded as was Mattias & Paul. Bartholomew was skinned alive and later beheaded. Although the apostle John, who wrote this book, is believed to be the only apostle who died a normal death from old age, it wasn’t from a lack of trying to kill him. He too faced horrific torture but miraculously survived being boiled alive in oil. Since this didn’t kill him, he was then imprisoned on an island.
Why? What was so important and valuable to them that not just one of them but all of them would endure such suffering and not just once but continuously? This wasn’t a onetime event for them, but a chosen lifestyle of suffering for a message to be heard by us and for a person to be made known to us.
In verse 3 of 1John chapter 1, John tells us his goal, his purpose and dream for us that enables them to endure such suffering, that we might have fellowship with them, by sharing in their fellowship with God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. Our sharing in the sweet fellowship they had with God the Father and Jesus Christ his Son not only enabled them to endure such suffering, it made their joy complete.
Have you ever known such a relationship with another person that was so sweet, so magnificent that you would willingly suffer such torturous deaths rather than renounce it, and so that others might experience the same joy that was found in that relationship themselves? This is what we see in the apostles and even in Christian martyrs today.
Is this your view of Christianity?
To become a Christian is to be brought into a family relationship with God the Father, Jesus Christ his Son and share a relationship with them along with many, many other adopted brothers and sisters; whose joy is increased every time a new child of God is brought home to be loved on.
Many of these brothers and sisters remember. They remember what life was like before they knew God. Others met Christ in childhood and just can’t imagine what life would be like without knowing God, as their Father caring, protecting and providing for them. They see others hurt and struggling and beg them to come and meet their Father who heals and meets all their needs. There is no jealousy here. They are not territorial. They know their Father’s house is large, his love is abundant, his resources are endless and his mercy and grace cannot be contained but continually overflow and reach out to all those who are drawn near to him.
They know their Father loves justice. He is a strong protector, a defender of the weak and ally to the humble. He will save all those who call out to him and be their refuge and shelter. As a result, these brothers and sisters actively go out and seek the lost, the lonely, the broken and rejected of the world to show them the love of the Father and the love of Christ so they might enjoy Him too. They seek more fellowship, deeper relationships with others and hate anything that separates them from God and each other: anger, bitterness, impatience, resentment, hatred, lying, jealousy, pride, arrogance, lewdness, drunkenness, murder….
They love anything that draws them closer to God and to each other, forgiveness, patience, compassion, mercy, grace, hope, honesty, humility, meekness, authenticity, faithfulness, and unconditional love. It is these attributes that God calls us to continually practice and put on as his children and as imitators of Him because it through the practicing of these attributes, even if it results in adversity and suffering to us, that prevent the severing of our relationships. God not only invites us into a relationship with him, but he also seeks to restore our relationships with others.
It is God the Father, the God of relationship, who designed the family unit who teaches us how to relate to him and one another through our relationship to Christ. When God enters our relationships, he makes them holy and eternalizes them as he eternalizes everything else he touches. Our temporary relationships become eternal relationships. Our broken relationships become reconciled relationships through forgiveness and grace. Our conditional love because unconditional love as God shows us our own weaknesses and teaches us to bear with others as they grow and to practice forgiveness.
Our unsafe relationships become pruned relationships that are torn from us because of the damage they inflict on our hearts. However, many of these relationships God in his great mercy, salvages and brings back into our lives restored and made whole because of our desperate prayers for God to remember and love them as he has loved us. In this way, God makes our own joy full and complete when others come to share in the fellowship we have with Him and with his Son Jesus Christ.
Our wishful thinking and impossible dreams becomes miraculous realities when we are able to enjoy new relationships with others. Our mothers no longer manipulate or criticize. Our fathers no longer abuse and leave. Our brothers are freed from prison and no longer drink. Our sisters learn how to be loved and to trust again. Our own selfishness is put away as we seek out to live for the best interest of others. God restores our relationships to us and makes our joy complete as we are able to enjoy him and others we could not fully enjoy before. We no longer fear separation because Christ offers us unity in him.
God makes our joy complete through our fellowship with Him and with his Son Jesus Christ. It was this relationship the apostles found to be worth dying for – in order that you might hear their testimony and have an opportunity to know God through Jesus Christ too. It was this relationship with God the Father and with Christ himself that Jesus died for, so that we might know his love and have our joy fulfilled.
O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them…And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent… But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves” John 17:25-26, 3,17
It is this goal, that makes Christianity different from every other religion in the world and it is for this reason true Christianity is not about religion, but all about restoring and reconciling relationships – first with God and then with others. Some things in life are worth dying for. I am dying for you to know Christ and to know you through Christ who restores all things and holds all things together, especially our relationships. Col. 1:15-20
Jesus is the Beginning
For Christians, this truth is basic and foundational and I am not pointing out anything new. Jesus is the beginning. If you want to know God – Jesus is the beginning. If you want a new life, Jesus is the beginning. There is no other beginning but him. There is no other way for us to approach God but through him. There is no way for us to please God except by believing in him as the one whom God sent.
“Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true. For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the spirit without measure. The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” (John 3:33-36) “
And this is his commandment that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.” (1 John 3:23)
