1 John 1.1-Five Assertions Supporting the Historicity of the Hypostatic Union of Jesus of Nazareth
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Tuesday March 7, 2017
First John: 1 John 1:1-Five Assertions Supporting the Historicity of the Hypostatic Union of Jesus of Nazareth
Lesson # 16
1 John 1:1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life. (NASB95)
“What” is the accusative neuter singular form of the relative pronoun hos (ὅς), which is employed here five times in the prologue.
Now, in each instance, these relative pronoun clauses are functioning as the direct object of the first person plural present active indicative form of the verb apangellō (ἀπαγγέλλω), “we proclaim,” which appears in 1 John 1:2.
This indicates all of the relative pronoun clauses in verses 1 and 3 are the objects of the author’s proclamation to the readers.
Since we have already concluded that the author of 1 John was the apostle John, we are dealing here with the proclamation of apostolic testimony, which was thus also eyewitness testimony.
This is further confirmed by the contents of the second, third, and fourth relative pronoun clauses in verse 1, which describe the sensory experiences of the author in the areas of hearing, seeing, and touching.
The fifth and final relative pronoun clause in verse 3 summarizes and is resumptive addressing again the issue of the eyewitness apostolic testimony concerning the incarnation and resultant hypostatic union.
The statement apangellomen humin (ἀπαγγέλλομεν ὑμῖν), “we “proclaim to you,” which appears in 1 John 1:2 has been supplied here in our translation at the beginning of verse 1 to clarify the English.
In 1 John 1:1, the verb apangellō means, “to proclaim (from God)” and speaks of the proclamation that Jesus Christ is eternal life incarnate who was with the Father from eternity past.
The first person plural form of the verb refers to John who was the only surviving apostle at the time he wrote this epistle as well as the surviving disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Robert Yarbrough writes “Solemn testimony following an event witnessed by two or more persons was the mechanism God ordained in OT times for the establishment of facts (Num. 35:30; Deut. 17:6; 19:15). Jesus (quoting Deut. 19:15) counseled observance of this protocol among his followers: ‘But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that “every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses”’ (Matt. 18:16). Jesus commissioned his handpicked followers to serve as his ‘witnesses’ (Luke 21:13; Acts 1:8; 2:32; 3:15). A jurisprudence of multiple witnesses was maintained in the early decades of the fledgling church, whether at Corinth (2 Cor. 13:1) or at Ephesus in times prior to John’s residence there: ‘Do not entertain an accusation against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses’ (1 Tim. 5:19). As a result, when John writes ‘we have seen and testify’ (1 John 1:2), he is not making conversation but virtually swearing a deposition (Thompson 1992: 34). While in the modern setting matters of faith like the incarnation and matters of fact or truth cannot be equated (see the classic statement by Pfeiffer 1951; also Gilkey 1961), and while in post-modern thought even the knowable existence of truth of any stripe is disputed (Vanhoozer 1998), for John the multiple attestation of witnesses grounds the reality of admittedly surprising human perception and gives it binding force, as seen in the following list of verbs of perception in 1 John 1:1-3.”
The present tense of this verb apangellō is a progressive descriptive or pictorial present which says that “at this particular time” John is proclaiming the gospel concerning the unique theanthropic person of history, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The dative second person plural form of the personal pronoun su means “all of you” referring to the Christian community in the Roman province of Asia as a corporate unity and is used in a distributive sense emphasizing no exceptions.
John is concerned about each of these Christians.
The word functions as a dative direct object meaning it is receiving the action of the verb apangellō indicating that the Christian community in the Roman province of Asia is receiving the action of having the gospel message proclaimed to them by John in this epistle.
John puts the word in the dative case rather than the accusative case since he wants to emphasize the personal relationship that he possesses with each member of the Christian community in the Roman province of Asia.
The relative pronoun hos refers to the statement tēn zōēn tēn aiōnion hētis ēn pros ton patera (τὴν ζωὴν τὴν αἰώνιον ἥτις ἦν πρὸς τὸν πατέρα), “the eternal life, which was with the Father,” which appears in 1 John 1:2.
This interpretation is supported by the fact that each time the relative pronoun hos is used in this prologue, it functions as the direct object of the verb apangellō (ἀπαγγέλλω), “we proclaim,” which appears in this statement in verse 3.
Also, all of the relative pronoun clauses in verse 1 are describing how the eternal life which as always existed with the Father manifested Himself.
Therefore, the relative pronouns are in the neuter gender rather than masculine because John wants to emphasize with his readers that Jesus Christ is eternal life incarnate who was has eternally experienced fellowship with the Father.
He also wants to emphasize that he and his fellow apostles and disciples of Jesus Christ are eyewitnesses to this fact.
Thus, the neuter form of hos enables John to not only refer to Jesus Christ but also to emphasize with the Christian community that He is eternal life incarnate and that he is an eyewitness to this historical fact.
Therefore, if you plug this statement in verse 3 in place of the relative pronoun hos when it is used each time in verse 1, we would have the following statements: (1) The eternal life, which was with the Father was from eternity past. (2) We have heard the eternal life, which has always existed with the Father. (3) We have witnessed with our eyes this eternal life, which has always existed with the Father. (4) We have observed for ourselves this eternal life which has always existed with the Father. (5) We have touched this eternal life, which has always with the Father.
So we can see that John’s purpose for putting the relative pronoun hos in the neuter gender rather than the masculine gender when referring to Jesus Christ is that he wants to emphasize with the reader that Jesus Christ is eternal life incarnate who is equal with the Father.
Along with this, he wants to emphasize with the Christian community that he and other apostles and disciples of Jesus Christ are eyewitnesses to this historical fact.
1 John 1:1 We are proclaiming to each and every one of you at this particular time what has always existed from eternity past, what we have heard, what we have witnessed with our eyes, what we observed for ourselves, even what we touched with our hands concerning the Word which is truly life. (My translation)
In the prologue, the apostle John is emphasizing the eyewitness apostolic testimony concerning the historicity of the incarnation and resultant hypostatic union of the eternal Word of God.
This eyewitness testimony appeals to three senses: (1) Hearing (2) Sight (3) Touch.
In 1 John 1:1, the apostle John is emphasizing with his readers that Jesus Christ is eternal life incarnate who was has eternally experienced fellowship with the Father and he also wants to emphasize that he and others are eyewitnesses to this fact.
He is making five assertions about Jesus Christ in verse 1 with the first stating that the eternal life, which has always existed with the Father was from eternity past.
The second is that this eternal life, which has always existed with the Father was heard by himself and other people.
The third is that this eternal life, which has always existed with the Father was witnessed by himself with his own eyes as well as other people.
The fourth is that this eternal life, which has always existed with the Father was observed by himself and other people.
The fifth and final assertion is that he and others touched with their hands this eternal life, which has always existed with the Father.
The purpose of these five assertions at the beginning of the letter is critical since he wants to protect his readers from those teaching false doctrine about Jesus Christ, and namely that He was not really a human being.
In 1 John 2:18-19, John refers to these false teachers but does not mention what they were in fact teaching but in 1 John 4:1-6, the apostle addresses directly these false teachers and what they were teaching about the person of Jesus Christ.
In fact, in 2 John 7, he addresses these false teachers who denied that Jesus of Nazareth was a human being.
So in all these passages, John is demonstrating his concern for the Christian community in the Roman province of Asia with regards to this incipient form of Gnosticism which denied that Jesus of Nazareth was a human being.
Consequently, they were denying that Jesus of Nazareth was both God and man which is called in theology the “hypostatic union,” which is the basis for the Christian community’s eternal relationship and fellowship with the Father, Son and Spirit and this communicated by John in 1 John 1:3.
If a believer rejects that Jesus is both God and man, then they will not experience fellowship with God since the hypostatic union is the basis for fellowship with the triune God.
If the Son did not become a human being, then there would be no possible way for sinners to experience fellowship with a holy God since His death as a human being provides sinners the forgiveness of sins.
His death and resurrection as a human being provided sinners deliverance from eternal condemnation, enslavement to the devil and the sin nature, personal sins, physical and spiritual death, and condemnation from the Law.
It also provided the opportunity to experience an eternal relationship and fellowship with a holy God and none of this would be possible if the Son did not become a human being and die on the cross and rise from the dead three days later.
Furthermore, to deny that Jesus of Nazareth is both God and man is to deny the resurrection since the resurrection demonstrates that Jesus is God (cf. Rom. 1:1-4) and to deny the deity of Christ is to deny the doctrine of the Trinity.