The Word of God (2)

English Standard Version Chapter 1

1 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— 2 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— 3 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. 4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

Outline of the first four verses:

John’s claim to accurate historical knowledge

The appearance of the eternal life

John’s goal of fellowship

Making the joy of fellowship complete

Who wrote the letter?

Probably written by the same John that wrote the gospel of John

The author does not give his name within the letter, however John was very humble and wouldn’t want to draw attention to himself

Howerver, the author says that he was a first hand witness of Jesus’s works, which certainly qualifies John to be the author of this letter

Why did he write the letter?

Two false teachings going around at the time:

That the physical realm is bad and the spiritual world is good, that the physical realm is so dirty and polluted with human sin that God is far removed from us

This was later called ‘Gnosticism’, after the greek word ‘gnosis’, meaning knowledge, and this ‘knowledge’ is the key to escaping the physical realm and entering the heavenly realms

Another theory being spread at the time is that Jesus was only pretending to be human, that he didn’t really live and die and rise again, which would void Jesus’s connection between us and God

This would later be called ‘Docetism’, from the Greek word for ‘seem’.

But John insisted that Jesus was fully human, and he can testify about it because he saw and heard Jesus himself

The churches that would have received this letter would have been in crisis, having fallen under the influence of false teachings

Some people had left the Christian community and adopted these false teachings, and had started to spread their teachings to not only their own church, but to other churches

This created confusion in believers and turmoil in the churches

John’s goal was to remind them and draw them back to the truth of the gospel

John wanted to reassure the readers that they are God’s children. He wanted to reassure their faith and discredit the false teachers.

Verse by verse

That which was from the beginning

This fragment, when taken in the context of the rest of the sentence, point to Jesus’s preexistence: He didn’t start existing when he arrived in the manger

A similar phrase was used to refer to God later in this letter

‘the eternal life’ in verse two, also suggests that the author is referring to the fact that Jesus was at the beginning of all things

This also points to the gospel (good news) of Jesus: ‘… that (John) had seen, heard, looked upon...’: John was referring to the truth of his testimony (the beginning he spoke of)

that we have seen, touched, heard, looked upon