1 John 1-4

“When you hear the name Jesus, what is the first word or phrase that comes to your mind?”

Have the right belief in Jesus ( Truth )

right obedience to God’s commands (Obedience )

Right love for one another (love )

Four verses shape this book.

1 John 1:4 “4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.”

1 John 2:1 “1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

1 John 2:26 “26 I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you.”

1 John 5:13 “13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.”

1 John 1:1–4 “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.”

As we look at these verses we see who Christ is.

He is divine..

Jesus Christ is what was from the beginning , and is the eternal life that was with the Father.

The meaning in these verses are eluded to in other places.

John 8:58 “58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.””

Exodus 3:14 “14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ””

He is Human..

John wants to hammer that point home..

He says we have heard him with our ears.

He says we have seen him with our eyes. ( John was both an eye witness and a ear witness )

He says we have touched him with our hands ( real flesh and blood )

Many years ago I learned why these truths were so important and they were just highlighted again in my study this week..

All the commentaries I read this week has these similar on why John wanted to highlight the fact that we was both Divine, and Human..

Toward the end of the first century a philosophy began gaining influence that created real problems for the early church. It was called Gnosticism. The word comes from the Greek word gnosis, which simply means “knowledge.” Gnosticism blended pagan mysticism with Greek philosophy, and it was built on two main ideas.

First, it taught that salvation came through secret or higher knowledge given only to those who were initiated. Second, it taught that all matter is evil and only the spirit is good. In other words, the body is evil but the soul or spirit is good.

Some of the false teachers John is addressing in this letter had begun introducing early forms of this teaching into the churches. And it led to serious practical errors in how people lived. When people believed the body was evil and the spirit was good, they usually went to one of two extremes.

One extreme was asceticism, where people would punish or deny the body in order to free the spirit. If the body is evil, the thinking goes, then the more you suppress it, the more spiritual you become.

The other extreme was licentiousness, which means living however you want. If the body is evil and only the spirit matters, then it supposedly doesn’t matter what you do with the body. Rules don’t matter. Morality doesn’t matter. You can indulge in sin and claim it doesn’t affect your spirit.

And honestly, those ideas are still around today. Most people wouldn’t call themselves Gnostics, but the thinking is still alive. That’s why John addresses it so strongly. Early forms of Gnosticism had already begun creeping into the churches. First John was written as a circular letter to churches in Asia Minor to warn them about these dangers.

But Gnosticism didn’t just affect how people lived. It also produced serious doctrinal errors about Jesus Christ.

One error was called Docetism. The word comes from a Greek word meaning “to seem” or “to appear.” Since Gnostics believed matter was evil, they concluded that God could not truly take on a physical body. So they said Jesus only appeared to be human. According to them, He looked like a man, but He didn’t actually have a real physical body.

That means they denied the incarnation. They said Jesus was from God in some sense, but He was not truly God in human flesh. In their view, He was more like an appearance or a phantom.

This is why John begins his letter the way he does. Right from the start he says they heard Jesus, saw Jesus, and touched Jesus. John is saying, “What these false teachers are telling you is not true. I was there. I saw Him with my own eyes, heard Him with my own ears, and touched Him with my own hands. His body was real.”

The second error was called Cerinthian Gnosticism, named after a man named Cerinthus who lived during John’s time. Unlike the Docetics, Cerinthus believed Jesus had a real human body—but he denied that Jesus was truly God.

According to this teaching, Jesus was just an ordinary man born to Joseph and Mary. Then at His baptism the Spirit of God came upon Him, and that’s when the man Jesus supposedly became “the Christ.” The Spirit empowered Him during His ministry but left Him before the cross, because the divine Spirit, they said, could not be associated with suffering or death.

So in this view Jesus died only as a mere man.

But that completely destroys the gospel. If Jesus is just a man like us, then how could He die for our sins? These teachings led to two major denials in the churches John was writing to: the denial of the incarnation and the denial of the substitutionary atonement of Christ.

And those ideas are not gone today. They simply show up in new forms. Teachings that deny that Jesus is truly God in the flesh or that deny the saving power of His death are still very much alive.

That’s why John begins his letter the way he does. When he says “we have heard” and “we have seen,” he’s speaking as an eyewitness along with the other apostles. What they heard and saw during Jesus’ ministry remained vivid in their lives.

John even emphasizes that they looked upon Him carefully and touched Him with their hands. In other words, this is not philosophy or speculation. This is eyewitness testimony.

If John were standing in a courtroom, he would testify without hesitation that Jesus Christ was exactly who the apostles proclaimed Him to be—the real, historical, physical Jesus… God in human flesh.

He says this Jesus was with the Father

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.

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. Everything he says is law. Everything he did is perfect. And the particularity of his work and word flow out into history in the form of a particular inspired book (written in the particular languages of Greek and Hebrew) that claims a universal authority over every other book that has ever been written.

This is the stumbling block of the incarnation—when God becomes a man, he strips away every pretense of man to be God. We can no longer do our own thing; we must do what this one Jewish man wants us to do. We can no longer pose as self-sufficient, because this one Jewish man says we are all sick with sin and must come to him for healing. We can no longer depend on our own wisdom to find life, because this one Jewish man who lived for 30 obscure years in a little country in the Middle East says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." When God becomes a man, man ceases to be the measure of all things, and this man becomes the measure of all things.

This is simply intolerable to the rebellious heart of men and women. The incarnation is a violation of the bill of human rights written by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. It is totalitarian. It's authoritarian! Imperialism! Despotism!

Usurpation! Absolutism! Who does he think he is!

(Piper, "Eternal Life")

( We want to Invite others into the fellowship, and the family ) v3

God Is Most Glorified in Us When We Are Most Satisfied in Him

“If someone asked you how you know Christianity is true, what would you say?”

Head (What We Must Believe)

We must believe the true Jesus revealed in Scripture. John begins his letter by grounding everything in the reality of Christ. Jesus is not a myth, a spiritual idea, or a teacher we can redefine. He is eternal God who became a real man. The apostles heard Him, saw Him, and touched Him.

That means Christianity is not built on philosophy or secret knowledge like the Gnostics taught. It is built on historical truth. Jesus is the eternal Son who was with the Father, took on flesh, died for our sins, and rose again.

So the first application is doctrinal: we must believe the right Jesus. Our joy, our fellowship with God, and our assurance of salvation all stand on this truth. If we get Christ wrong, everything else collapses.

Heart (What We Should Love and Enjoy)

John says he writes these things so that our joy may be complete. The goal of knowing the truth about Christ is not cold theology—it is deep fellowship with God.

Through Jesus we are brought into fellowship with the Father and with one another. We are not outsiders anymore; we are brought into the family of God. That reality should shape our hearts. Christianity is not just believing correct doctrine—it is delighting in Christ.

Our joy grows as we treasure the gospel: that Jesus lived the life we could not live, died the death we deserved to die, and now gives us eternal life. When our hearts are satisfied in Him, we begin to experience the fullness of joy John is talking about.

Hands (How We Should Live)

Right belief and right affection lead to right living. John makes it clear throughout the letter that genuine faith produces a transformed life.

That means we pursue holiness, not to earn salvation but out of gratitude for what Christ has done. We begin to obey His commands, resist sin, and walk as He walked. And one of the clearest marks of that transformation is love for other believers.

It also means we help others enter this fellowship. John says he proclaims these things so that others may have fellowship with us. So we invite people into the same life we have found in Christ.

In other words, the truth about Jesus should move us to live differently and to bring others into the family of God.