The Word of Life

Introduction

I’m sure that most if not all of us have at one point or another run into a “know-it-all.” The kind of person who at least thinks that they know everything, and is very proud to show you just how much that they know. The kind of person who can’t resist correcting people constantly and who is very proud of their credentials (or sometimes lack of credentials).

John the apostle on the other hand was dealing with people who put most know-it-alls to shame: the Gnostics. In fact the Gnostics and their belief, Gnosticism, actually are named after the Greek word for knowledge, Gnosis. This is because they believed that they had access to a secret knowledge that no other person possessed, and that salvation was found in knowing all there was to know about secret knowledge.

So far this is nothing of particular concern to John the Apostle, just one among many systems of Greek belief. The problem is that some who converted to Christianity didn’t leave these kinds of ideas behind them. Instead they sort of molded Christianity to fit the gnostic worldview. So we end up with a group of Christians who believe in a secret knowledge needed to truly be saved, and that this secret knowledge included the fact that all matter including our bodies is evil and that the only good is in the spirit. This idea seems to have made its way into one of the churches that John had a close relationshp to, eventually leading to a fallout where the gnostic teachers left the church but were still trying to influence it from the outside.

So John writes a letter. For the next few months we will be looking together at John’s Epistles (or letters) and what they can teach us about how to be better disciples and how to better make disciples. Knowing that background information about the gnostics will help us better understand the context of John’s letters and why he wrote what he did. Today we will start off this series by looking at the first four verses of 1 John, what many consider to be the “prologue” to his letter.

1 John 1:1–4 CSB

What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—that life was revealed, and we have seen it and we testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us—what we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may also have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

There’s a lot packed into these four short verses of Scripture! And this is just the prologue. I don’t know about you, but it took me a few read-throughs to really get what John is saying here. This is because he starts off in a bit of an unusual way. Instead of starting with a subject and a main verb he starts with a relative pronoun “what” and starts adding on relative clauses and even interupts the flow of the sentence with verse 2. Helpfully Marvin R. Vincent rephrases the first three verses in a format more familiar to English readers.

“We declare unto you that which was from the beginning, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled concerning the Word of Life.”

One quick thing before we dive into the meat of this sermon: when the writer, John, uses “we” here, he doesn’t mean himself and the reader, but either just himself, sort of like the royal “we” in english, or himself as a member of the apostles. I lean towards the second one.

In any case there are three things I want us to come away with from our study of this short passage of Scripture, namely:

The Importance of Eyewitness Testimony

The Nature of Eternal Life

The Sharing of Christian Fellowship

Eyewitness Testimony

Even before I became a parent I worked with children for a number of years. I worked 6 years at Circle Square Ranch, 2 years at Youth for Christ and almost a full year at Sonrise before we shut down for CoVid. One of the most frustrating things that you can deal with as someone supervising multiple small children is mediating conflicts. Worse still is mediating conflicts you didn’t see happen. For example you hear kids yelling in their cabin at summer camp and when you go in both of them are claiming that the other person started the fight, or that the other person took candy that belonged to them or something similar. It always frustrated me because I have an inate sense of justice like anyone, and I don’t like risking making a false judgment based on missing information. If only I could rewind time at witness whatever happened to make fair judgments.

Imagine the frustration that must have been experienced by elders and leaders in the early church dealing with up-and-coming heresies like gnosticism. By the time of this letter John is likely the only apostle still alive, and fewer and fewer eyewitnesses to Jesus’ death and resurrection are around. So when the gnostics start arguing that Jesus wasn’t really a flesh and blood human like everyone else, what is a church elder to do? Well in the case of the church or churches that John wrote to, they can appeal to His eyewitness testimony.

And that is what the gnostics were claiming by the way. Remember that they believed that flesh was evil, and only the spirit was good. So the idea of God becoming flesh was totally against their founding principles. So there were a couple alternate explanations. One group said that Jesus was an ordinary man who the Holy Spirit entered at His baptism and then left before His death. Another group said that Jesus wasn’t ever really human but only appeared to be. John schools them both in this letter. To start with the very first verse serves to refute the idea that Jesus never came in the flesh.

1 John 1:1 CSB

What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—

Notice the sensory language that John is using here. He has heard, seen with his eyes, observed and touched with his hands. John is appealing to his own eyewitness experience with Jesus. Clearly John didn’t experience a phantom. He and the other disciples experienced the Jesus who said this in Luke 24:39

Luke 24:39 CSB

Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself! Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.”

So without even getting into the philosophical arguments John has already defeated this version of gnosticism. Jesus wasn’t in the flesh? I spent 3 years with the guy, he was definitely flesh and blood.

You could be forgiven for asking at this point, “yes but what does that have to do with us? I haven’t run into anyone recently who claimed Jesus only appeared to be human.”

That may be true, but we still deal with a lot of strange ideas about Jesus today. The bigger concern in modern Christian life is people who teach the impossibility of miracles, and that Jesus didn’t rise from the dead. We can draw an important lesson from John’s opening words. You see when the apostles were challenged on what they were teaching they didn’t answer “just trust us and have faith.” They appealed to evidence. Primarily to their eyewitness testimony.

Paul does the same in 1 Corinthians 15:1-8

1 Corinthians 15:1–8 CSB

Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel I preached to you, which you received, on which you have taken your stand and by which you are being saved, if you hold to the message I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I passed on to you as most important what I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers and sisters at one time; most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one born at the wrong time, he also appeared to me.

Here Paul is appealing to not only his own experience of Jesus but to the eyewitness of over 500 people to the risen Jesus. This little section of scripture is probably the earliest written account of the resurrection in fact. Paul’s use of the phrase “I passed on to you as most important what I also received” as well as the poetic structure of what follows seems to make this a creed that Paul is passing on, which means that it predates 1 Corinthians which is one of the earliest written books of the New Testament. Some date this eyewitness account that Paul quotes to within a few short years after the resurrection!

So Paul is not only giving evidence for the truth of the gospel, but doing so in a most excellent way that is still high quality evidence even to this day. Why does he do this? Because as Paul himself says just a few verses later:

1 Corinthians 15:12–19 CSB

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say, “There is no resurrection of the dead”? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is in vain, and so is your faith. Moreover, we are found to be false witnesses about God, because we have testified wrongly about God that he raised up Christ—whom he did not raise up, if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Those, then, who have fallen asleep in Christ have also perished. If we have put our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone.

Giving evidence and defending the faith is one of the essential roles played by the apostles, and they have called us to do the same. Peter when talking about being imprisoned and persecuted for the sake of the faith exhorts his readers in this way: 1 Peter 3:13-16

1 Peter 3:13–16 CSB

Who then will harm you if you are devoted to what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness, you are blessed. Do not fear them or be intimidated, but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, ready at any time to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. Yet do this with gentleness and reverence, keeping a clear conscience, so that when you are accused, those who disparage your good conduct in Christ will be put to shame.

And Paul again says in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5

2 Corinthians 10:3–5 CSB

For although we live in the flesh, we do not wage war according to the flesh, since the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. We demolish arguments and every proud thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ.

So we should take John’s example and should defend the faith against heresies and those who would call it foolish or claim that what we say is impossible. We serve a real, living God, who spoke through the prophets and apostles and through His Son, and who acted in history and has spread abroad evidence of who He is.

Eternal Life

Has anyone here ever watched the tv series “Doctor Who”? I’ve watched a lot of it and to varying degrees I’ve enjoyed it. Lately with the lack of time I have for watching television it’s been a long time since I’ve watched the show. The main character of the show is simply called “The Doctor” and his real name is a closely guarded secret. He is an alien from a planet called “Galifrey” whose residents called “Time Lords” just happen to look exactly like human beings, which is a strange coincidence. They are called “Time Lords” because they can travel through time and they are essentially immortal. Whenever they would die instead they “regenerate,” which is very convenient for the tv show because it means they can hire a new actor.

The thing about this immortal “Doctor” is that he’s quite a tragic character. The longer he lives, the more tragedy he experiences and the more people he loses. The writers are very mean to this poor main character. He’s lost friends, spouses, children, and even grandchildren over the course of the show. Plus he likes to hang out with humans, who are not immortal.

You see any immortality that takes place in the world as it is right now is doomed to be tragic, especially for those characters who are immortal among mortals. There’s even a story about Superman that flashes forward to a future when all of Superman’s close friends have died and he still looks like he’s in his twenties.

Thankfully the eternal life that John describes is far from tragic. In fact actually the eternal life that John is describing in verse 2 is Jesus Himself. Verse 2 is a parenthetical statement, meaning it interrupts a sentence with another sentence. John breaks away right after “concerning the word of life” in order to clarify what he means by “word of life.”

1 John 1:2 CSB

that life was revealed, and we have seen it and we testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us—

So what does he say about the Word of Life? He says first that it was revealed visibly to them. He says the same in John 1:18

John 1:18 CSB

No one has ever seen God. The one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father’s side—he has revealed him.

Second that he and the other apostles have testified and declared this eternal life to the other believers. This has been their whole mission in fact, testifying to the death and resurrection of Jesus to make disciples of all nations. Third he says that this eternal life was with the father, just like he said in John 1:1

John 1:1 CSB

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Then he closes this sentence by reiterating that the word was revealed. Revealed, not born or created. Jesus has always been and always will be. He is God in Flesh, and according to the pop culture standard of immortals who live among mortals He should be a tragic character, right?

Not so. Because Jesus was born among us so that we could be immortals with Him. John 3:16-17

John 3:16–17 CSB

For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

When I was reading commentaries on these verses in preparation for this sermon there was some debate about what was meant by “Word of Life.” I’d say the majority of my commentaries said that there was good reason to believe that Word of Life is a specific title for Jesus that John is usuing here. A few argued that by “Word of Life” John doesn’t mean Jesus Himself but the message about Jesus, that the Word of Life is the Gospel. In the words of the little girl in the taco commercial, why not both?

Maybe one of the reasons John uses the more vague phrase “The Word of Life” over just using Jesus’ name is because He wants to at once bring to mind both the Eternal Life of Jesus and the Eternal Life that we now have access to through Him.

So now we can hope in the coming resurrection when all those who belong to Christ will live eternal life together with Him in the perfect world. I will resist quoting Revelation 21 again, because my sermon writing software tells me I’ve quoted it a lot. You get it, no more tears no more sorrow and perfect peace for all eternity. Jesus brings that to us.

Also as a bonus this talk of Jesus being equal with the Father before He was revealed also counters the argument of some gnostics that He was just a man who received a special anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Fellowship

How many of you folks have New Years Eve plans tonight? Katie and I were invited to share in some New Years Eve celebrations but we declined. Because we want to spend New Years Eve night the way we plan to spend our nights in 2024: Going to bed early.

All that being said I fully understand the drive to have a big get together on New Year’s Eve. There’s something special about beginning a New Year with people that you love. There’s something special about sharing a new beginning with others. I believe that even the most introverted human being have an inner desire to be in fellowship with others. This is inate in us from the beginning, and we get it from our Heavenly Father. We worship a God who is three-in-one, meaning that He has been in Fellowship since before time began. When He created Man it was immediately clear that we shared His inate desire to relate to another. Hence why God said in Genesis 2:18

Genesis 2:18 CSB

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper corresponding to him.”

True fellowship I believe is one of the chief casualties of the fall of mankind. Before the fall Adam and Eve had perfect communion with each other and with God. After the fall the relationship with God was broken, but so was our relationship with others. Because we all now sin we can never really fully trust other people. Jesus came to restore our relationship with the Father, but also to restore our relationships with one another. This is why John is writing this letter. He says as much in our passage this morning. Let’s look at verses 3 and 4 together:

1 John 1:3–4 CSB

what we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may also have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

Now we have in the modern Christian Church sometimes cheapened the word ‘fellowship’ so let’s talk about the Greek word κοινωνια. It comes from the word “common” and came to refer to partnership and community between people who have something in common. It’s actually where we get the word “coin” because it’s the “common” or shared currency.

Anyway, it’s this kind of sharing in common that John has in mind. When the New Testament talks about koinonia it gives it an even deeper sense than the dictionary definition. This is because what we share as Christian brothers and sisters is deeper than just a partnership or community. We share the presence of God between us. This is why John grounds this fellowship in the fellowship between the Son and the Father. The nature of our fellowship with one another should be the same kind of fellowship that the Son and the Father share with each other, which is intensely deep. This is why Jesus prayed in John 17:20-21

John 17:20–21 CSB

“I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe in me through their word. May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me.

And Paul describes the ideal of this oneness in Ephesians 4:1-6

Ephesians 4:1–6 CSB

Therefore I, the prisoner in the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope at your calling—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

Are we living that kind of oneness fellowship? Of course we believe, as John himself later emphasizes in this same letter, that we still sin. We mess up and we’re not perfect. But what John wants for us, and what God wants for us is a depth of relationship rarely seen on this earth. I believe we can reach for it even now, that we can show the world the kind of love that shocks them and makes them believe that we really are who we claim to be. That’s how people are supposed to know that we’re believers, by our love for one another.

John 13:35 CSB

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Catch that? Not if you love strangers, not if you love enemies, if you love one another. We are supposed to do all these things, yes, but Jesus emphasizes that our love for other disciples is what shows the world who we are. I mean, who isn’t inspired by the picture in Acts 2:43-47

Acts 2:43–47 CSB

Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles. Now all the believers were together and held all things in common. They sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all, as any had need. Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Isn’t this the church we want to be? It’s my earnest prayer that we should seek this, and seek it with all that we have. That we should do everything in our power to share in fellowship with the faithful, so that our joy may be full just as John’s was, and the churches he led.

Conclusion

Beloved, there is a great deal more waiting for us in John’s letters. My study into these books has been deeply enriching, and I’m looking forward to over the next few months sharing what insights I’ve gleaned in my study with you. I would encourage you to read through 1-3 John yourself, even multiple times as we go through the series, so that you can get the whole breadth of the letters while I zoom in on the particular passages.

For now let us reflect on what just this introduction has shown us about being disciples and about making disciples. In these four verses we have seen the importance of defending the faith with evidence. We’ve seen the beauty of Jesus’ eternal life, which He shares generously with us. We’ve also seen the call to deep joyful fellowship that is for our own benefit but also a testimony to the truth to everyone around us.

It will become increasingly clear through these letters that John’s vision of what the church should be on this earth is a shining becon of righteousness. One that kills two birds with one stone, that as we increase in our own discipleship, our very lives become a testimony to the world of what awaits them if they join us in this journey.