Sermon Tone Analysis

! Eternal Life Has Appeared in Christ

*1 John 1:1-4*

   The only letters in the New Testament which do not mention who wrote them are the three epistles of John and the epistle to the Hebrews.

The title over the letter in our Bibles ("The First Letter of John") was added by the church.

But there are three good reasons why we believe the apostle John wrote the letter.

*Three Arguments for Johannine Authorship *

*First,* because the earliest Christian writers acknowledge that John is the writer—Irenaeus (d.

200), Clement of Alexandria (d.

215), and Tertullian (d.

220).

*Second,* because the writer identifies himself as an eye-witness of Jesus' earthly life (1:1): "we have seen with our eyes . . .

we have looked upon and touched."

*Third,* the style and terminology are almost identical with the style and terminology of the gospel of John.

At the end of John's Gospel (21:24) we are told explicitly that the apostle who wrote it was the "the beloved disciple"—that is, the disciple who had the most intimate personal friendship with Jesus, the one who at the last supper reclined close to Jesus' breast (13:23), the one to whom Jesus entrusted his mother (19:26), the one who outran Peter to the empty tomb (20:2–4).

But the beloved disciple is never named.

He had to be one of the inner three, Peter, James, or John.

He can't have been Peter because he outran Peter!

And according to Acts 12:1 James was killed by Herod about ten years after the death of Jesus.

It's very unlikely that the gospel of John was written that early.

So the most likely conclusion is that the beloved disciple and the author of the gospel and the epistles was the apostle John.

Why Johannine Authorship Is Important 

   In one sense this is unimportant, since the author, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit did not tell us his name, and in the end the meaning of the book doesn't depend on being sure who the author was.

But in another sense it is important, because a rejection of the authorship of John almost always goes hand in hand with a rejection of his claim to be an eye-witness of the Lord.

Virtually no scholars say, "It wasn't John.

It was another of the twelve."

Everybody knows that if the author of this letter was close enough to Jesus to touch him, then it was John.

There are no other probable candidates among the disciples of those earthly days.

So the rejection of John is virtually always a rejection of the truth of the very first verse of the letter: "What we have heard, what we have seen, what we have touched with our hands . . .

" If it wasn't John, it wasn't an eye-witness and the integrity of the author (who claims to be an eye-witness!) is in doubt from the outset.

So the reason I begin with these thoughts on the authorship of this letter is to force the issue with which the author begins: he had heard, seen, and touched the Son of God.

*Come to the Light *

    On the judgment day God will ask people who have read this letter and not believed its testimony, "Why did you not believe the testimony of my servant John?

Did he manifest the traits of a liar or a lunatic?

Was his teaching not consistent with itself?

Did the message of his letter contradict reasonably established facts of history?

Did his insights into your heart and the ways of God not help make sense of ultimate reality?

Did his testimony not fit with the other testimonies to my Son?

Why did you not believe his testimony?"

On that day of truth there will only be one answer: /"Every one who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed"/ (John 3:20).

It is not because we lack reliable testimony to the truth of Christ that we are slow to believe.

It is because to believe is to be broken and to let the blackness of our hearts be exposed to the light of God's holiness.

So, as we lay ourselves open for the next 20 or so weeks of this testimony of John, I urge you not to shut the inner rooms of sin in your life, but to come to the light and ponder long and hard the fact that *in this letter* we have to deal with the message of one who actually saw and touched the Lord of glory.

*Five Assertions in John 1:1–4 *

   In order to unpack the meaning of these first four verses, I have tried to put in logical order the five main assertions that I see.

1.    Christ, our Life, has eternally existed with the Father.

2.    Christ, our Life, was manifested in the flesh.

3.    Through Christ's incarnation John has obtained fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

4.    Therefore John makes the proclamation of Christ the basis of his fellowship with other believers.

5.    John longs for the fullness of joy that comes when others share his delight in the fellowship of the Father and the Son.

The spring from which the river of this text flows is Christ who never had a beginning but has existed eternally with the Father.

And the ocean to which the river of this text flows is the joy of our fellowship with each other and with the Father and the Son.

So what I would like to do with you is to walk along the river of this text and take a brief drink at these five places.

My goal would be that God will use the water of his Word to refresh your confidence in Christ and intensify your desire for the joy of his fellowship.

*1.

Christ, our Life, has eternally existed with the Father.*

I get this mainly from verse 2: "/The life was made manifest, and we saw it, and testify to it, and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us/."

*Christ Is Our Life*

    First, notice that Christ is simply called "the Life".

"The life was made manifest."

It was Christ who was made manifest.

Christ appeared in human form.

But as 1 John 5:11–12 says, "/God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

He who has the Son has life; he who has not the Son of God has not life./"

So the Son of God, Jesus Christ, is our Life.

When we have fellowship with him, we share in life.

*This Life Is Eternal*

      Second, notice that this life is eternal.

"/The life was made manifest . . .

and we proclaim to you the eternal life./"

This is the best commentary on the first phrase of verse 1: "That which was from the beginning . . .

" "From the beginning" means, Christ our Life was there when creation began.

He is eternal.

He had no beginning.

He will have no ending.

He is not part of creation.

In the beginning he is the source of creation.

All life comes from him.

He is the spring, not part of the river.

"/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/" (John 1:1–3).

So the most fundamental assertion of this text is that Christ our Life has eternally existed with the Father.

Everything else flows from this.

We do well to meditate often and deeply on the majestic reality that Christ has existed without beginning from all eternity.

*2.

Christ, our Life, was manifested in the flesh.*

Again verse 2 makes this plain: "The life was made manifest."

That is, the eternal Christ became visible.

He appeared.

And the sense in which he appeared is made clear in verse 1: "That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands . . .

"

*The Stumbling Block of the Incarnation*

    The fact that John claims to have touched what was from the beginning, namely, the manifested eternal Life, shows plainly that the point here is incarnation.

The eternal Christ, who was with the Father from the beginning and indeed was God—this Christ appeared in flesh.

He became a man.

Here is a great stumbling block.

People have stumbled over it from the days of John until our own day (cf.

The Myth of God Incarnate).

John says in his second letter (v.

7), "/Many deceivers have gone out into the world, men who will not acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh; such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist."/

Many are willing to believe in Christ if he remains a merely spiritual reality.

But when we preach that Christ has become a particular man in a particular place issuing particular commands and dying on a particular cross exposing the particular sins of our particular lives, then the preaching ceases to be acceptable for many.

*When God Becomes Man . .

.*

I don't think it is so much the mystery of a divine and human nature in one person that causes most people to stumble over the doctrine of the incarnation.

The stumbling block is that if the doctrine is true, every single person in the world must obey this one particular Jewish man.