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Fellowship with God in Christ - 1 John 1:1 - 10

 Monday, November 23 –

It is the beginning of a new week, and we also begin reading new books in John’s letters – 1, 2, & 3 John.  This morning we begin with 1 John 1:1 – 10.  After reading, please come back. Our second look is a little longer than normal, but I wanted to share some background to this challenging letter.


John has lived a long life, much longer than the rest of his friends among the twelve Apostles.  Peter and Paul have been dead for fifteen to twenty, or more, years.  John has lived through the first waves of Roman persecution, and spent most of his years pastoring the church in Ephesus.  The fourth-century St. Jerome, the translator of the Latin Bible, recalled that “when the aged apostle John became so weak that he could no longer preach, he used to be carried into the congregation at Ephesus and content himself with a word of exhortation. ‘Little children,’ he would always say, ‘love one another.’ And when his hearers grew tired of this message and asked him why he so frequently repeated it, he responded, ‘Because it is the Lord’s command, and if this is all you do, it is enough”. [1] We know that John died as an old man in approximately 98-100 a.d.  There are three letters in the New Testament that are ascribed to John, the Apostle.  The first is the lengthiest, and the second and third are more like postcard letters.  All of these letters would have been circular letters – that is, letters that were sent from church to church, from Ephesus.  John’s chief disciple was a man named Polycarp, and Polycarp’s chief disciple was the famous early church theologian Irenaeus (I ra nee us).  It was in Irenaeus famous “Against Heresies” that a note is referenced that John died in the reign of the Emperor Trajan (98-117 a.d.).  That would have made John (assuming he was a very young man when Jesus called him), a man of about 90 years old.

Why did he write these letters?  By the end of the first century a heresy (that in different forms is still present today) began to threaten the truth of who Jesus Christ was.  We already noticed by the end of John’s Gospel that the Apostle was very clear about the physical nature of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection.  False teachers had begun to enter the various Christian churches teaching false teaching we know as “Gnosticism”.  Gnosticism took Greek (Plato) philosophy of the immateriality of the being, and the “higher knowledge” (gnosis) that was available to the truly spiritual people.  In short, they denied the physical human aspect of Christ Jesus, saying he only “seemed” to be physical.  It is a false teaching that is still present in modern heretical movements that identify with Christianity including Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Christian Science. 

The nature of 1, 2, 3, John are – as many commentators admit – difficult to understand.  Paul’s letters move along in logical order, arguing from one issue to a conclusion.  Peter’s letters are down to earth – like talking about the Gospel with a farmer – nothing fancy, but you certainly understand they know Christ.  John’s letters are – as one writer said – more like a dance in which there is movements that change every few verses.  I liken it to a symphony – beautiful, but not simple – each instrument adds to the overall beauty, but no one instrument can stand alone.  Therefore, as you read 1, 2, 3, John keep in mind that the larger overall picture is of greater value than the individual parts, and, I add, don’t let the individual parts get you bogged down in trying to make sense.  Keep the big picture in mind.

What is it that 1 John is trying to communicate?  John’s epistle written at the end of the first century is so valuable to us because he is aware that being a Christian is difficult in a spiritually confused world?  Like our world today, John’s world threatened to engulf the church in a morally confused and intellectually false worldview.  It is not unusual to hear from people today, “there are many roads to God – if there even is a God”.  The proclamation of the Gospel, the exclusivity of Jesus as the only way to salvation, and eternal life was abhorrent to the Romans, and their massive culture, as it is to our western world today.  John had written in the Gospel (we just finished reading) that to know God is to know Jesus Christ who God sent (John 17:3), and John made it clear knowing Jesus is the only way to God for Christ alone is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6).  It takes a lot of courage to stand in the river that flows massively and strongly against you.  What is more, as in John’s world, in our world the tide is turning against Christianity and the Gospel with each generation.  Which is all the more reason to be absolutely sure of the message of Christ, in the Gospel.

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon 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—  that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed 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” (1:1-4).

The first three verses are one sentence in the original language and the first verb does not appear until verse 3 when he says “we proclaim also to you”.  The language is similar to the way in which he began the Gospel, “in the beginning”.  What it is that was “from the beginning”?  It is “the word of life”.  This “word of life” was made “manifest”, i.e., visible, and is the source of eternal life.  This “word” was “with the Father” and John saw him, heard him, and it is Him – Jesus Christ – the “word” he proclaims.  The word is the “logos”, the word that John proclaimed at the beginning of the Gospel of John (1:1-4).  As Chuck Swindoll makes note, “logos” was a very significant word to the Greeks and Romans.  “In Greek philosophy, logos referred to the uncreated principle of reason that gave order and structure to the universe. In the Old Testament, the “word” was both God’s means of revelation—His message to humanity—and, on occasion, a divine presence that took some kind of physical form, indistinguishable from God (Jer. 1:1-14). In the early first century ad, the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria seemed to merge these Greek and Jewish concepts. One author notes, “Philo of Alexandria puts a great deal of emphasis on the notion of logos, making it the mediating principle between God and the world.” By the end of the first century a.d., when the apostle John was writing, Christians had no doubt about who this one mediator between God and men was—not an immaterial logos, but the Word made flesh, “the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5).[2]  John had “seen”, recalling that John entered the tomb to “see and believed” (John 20:8). 

He is stating the issue in reasoned form:  We proclaim “what we have seen”, “who we looked at and touched”, “what we heard”, and “who was from the beginning”.  This is John, the Apologist, refuting the Gnostic heresy that Jesus was not a human, but only “seemed” to be a human.  It is in Christ Jesus that John and the church have “fellowship” (1:3), even as the Father and the Son share in that fellowship in the church.  Referring back to Jesus’ own words in the Upper Room, it is only in Christ Jesus that this fellowship can exist, and it is in Christ Jesus that our Joy may be full (1:4).

Shifting metaphors, and again, borrowing from Christ Jesus’ teaching, he explains the truth in terms of “darkness and light”.

“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1:5).

He had said that “God is life”, now the metaphor shifts to “God is light”.  God is not merely the creator of light, or the source of light, He IS light!  What he is saying is that there is “no darkness”, no evil, no sin, or untruth in God.  As the Roman culture developed their system of “gods” from the Greek gods, there was no perfection in the gods, just power.  The false gods of the Greeks were not worthy of being compared to the one true God.  The Romans kept their gods at arm’s length.  Their gods were never personal, and always capricious in their responses, but the God of the Bible revealed in both the Old and New Testament was personal, always loving, kind, good, but also full of justice, unwilling to overlook the sin of fallen mankind.

Now in a series of “If we say” statements, John keeps us focused on the reasoned faith that Christianity proclaims and further makes it clear why Christ Jesus had to physically come in the flesh, die on the cross, and be raised from the dead.

“If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice 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 his Son cleanses us from all sin.  If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1:6-8).

Fellowship with God, in Christ, is not possible in lies, deception, and unwillingness to acknowledge the truth about our Sin.  Putting it another way, it is in confessing our Sinfulness, our fallen nature, that fellowship with God in Christ is made possible.  It is not possible in denying our sin - that only leads to self-deception, and the lies of the enemy that we don’t need a Savior.  We live in a culture that openly denies the substitutionary atonement of Christ.  Religion accepts the idea of the spiritual, even the next world, but does so apart from any acknowledging of Sin.  “I’m okay, you’re okay” … “God is a God of love, and everyone will find their way to Him, regardless of how to try”…  “God looks at our goodness and sees that as the grounds of our being worthy of eternal life”.  They are all popular, but in fact, all are wrong! 

God has made “the way” in Jesus through his death on the cross.  There is “life” for all who acknowledge their need for Christ Jesus as their Savior. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1:9-10).

Think about this.  If we confess our sins”, the word for “confess” is the Greek word, “homologeo”, translated it means, “to say the same thing”.  When we honestly come to God acknowledging what he has said…acknowledging that we need a Savior for our Sin…acknowledging that Christ Jesus is the one and only way… then, “he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins”.  That is good news…better yet, that is “great news”!  This is the antidote to dead religion…to self-deception…and hollow faith.

Peace



[1] David Jackman, “The Message of John’s letters”,  The Bible Speaks Today Series, page 11.

[2] Chuck Swindoll, Living Insights Commentary - 1 John, page 23

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