1 John 1.1c-The Word which is Truly Life
Wenstrom Bible Ministries
Pastor-Teacher Bill Wenstrom
Tuesday March 14, 2017
First John: 1 John 1:1c-The Word which is Truly Life
Lesson # 19
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)
“Concerning the Word of Life” is composed of the following: (1) preposition peri (περί), “concerning” (2) articular genitive masculine singular form of the noun logos (λόγος), “the Word” (3) articular genitive feminine singular form of the noun zōē (ζωή), “of life.”
The noun logos in 1 John 1:1 does not emphasize the doctrine or teaching of Christ or about Christ but rather is a title for Jesus of Nazareth echoing its use in John 1:1 and 14 since John asserts that He heard this logos and saw and observed with his eyes and touched with his own hands this logos.
One does not touch a message but rather a person.
John says that he and his fellow disciples were eyewitnesses to the fact that this logos was eternal life incarnate who was with the Father from eternity past.
One is not an eyewitness to a message but one can bear witness of a person possessing a certain character which is demonstrated by their words and actions.
The noun logos denotes that Jesus of Nazareth is the perfect personified expression of God since He is God.
The word indicates that Jesus perfectly explains the divine nature through His words and actions.
He is thus the perfect visible revelation of God in a human being.
The articular construction of the noun logos is monadic emphasizing the uniqueness of the word and thus a person described by the word.
Therefore, the article expresses the uniqueness of the person described by this word.
Thus, Jesus of Nazareth is unique among human beings and angels in that He is the perfect visible revelation of God.
He is unique among the members of the Trinity in that He is the only member who reveals their divine essence to human beings and angels.
The noun zōē means “life” and refers to eternal life which is an attribute of each member of the Trinity and thus an attribute of Jesus of Nazareth since He is the Son of God.
The article is also monadic meaning that the word is in a class by itself or unique.
Since the word is used to denote eternal life it expresses the idea that this life is unique to God since it is eternal making it distinct from human life or soul life.
It indicates that this life is unique in that it is eternal, the very life of God.
This word zōē functions grammatically, as a genitive of apposition or an epexegetical genitive which is defining or identifying for the reader who John is referring to by his use of the noun logos.
Thus, we can render this the expression tou logou tēs zōēs (τοῦ λόγου τῆς ζωῆς) “the Word which is truly life.”
It serves as another title for the Lord Jesus Christ and is another reference to the deity of Christ since it denotes the Son of God’s attribute of eternal life.
The noun logos is the object of the preposition peri which is functioning as a marker of reference.
Thus, this prepositional phrase peri tou logou tēs zōēs (περὶ τοῦ λόγου τῆς ζωῆς) indicates to whom the apostle John is referring to in the previous four relative pronoun direct object clauses here in verse 1.
It is the first of three parentheses contained in the prologue.
This first parenthesis contains the theme of the epistle, namely, Jesus Christ is the incarnate eternal life of God.
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)
“Concerning the Word which is truly life” is the first of three parentheses in the prologue.
It also alludes to the theme of the prologue and epistle which appears in 1 John 1:2, 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.”
This prepositional phrase at the end of 1 John 1:1 expresses the fact that Jesus of Nazareth is the perfect personified expression of God since He is God and thus the perfect personified expression of eternal life.
He perfectly explains the divine nature through His words and actions.
He is thus the perfect visible revelation of God in a human being.
It expresses the fact that Jesus of Nazareth is unique among human beings and angels in that He is the perfect visible revelation of God.
He is unique among the members of the Trinity in that He is the only member who reveals their divine essence to human beings and angels and is a human being.
The prepositional phrase asserts that eternal life is an attribute of Jesus of Nazareth.
Thus, John is affirming the deity of Jesus of Nazareth.
The purpose of these assertions is to protect the Christian community in the Roman province of Asia from false teachers whose teaching rejected the apostolic testimony concerning the person of Jesus of Nazareth and thus the gospel of Jesus Christ, namely that He is the God-man.
Ryrie writes “The opening testimony of the first Epistle is one of the strongest statements of the reality of the incarnation (1 John 1:1–3). The disciples had heard, seen, and handled Jesus Christ and so certain were they of the reality of this divine-human person that they were staking their lives on that truth, which they preached. It was no mere phantom or even theophany of which John testified in these verses. The incarnation was real; revelation was its consequence, salvation its climax, and Christian ethics its outcome.”
The warnings contained in this epistle to avoid the false teaching that was propagated in Asia regarding the person of Christ are designed to aid the recipients of the letter in fulfilling the purpose of the letter, which is maintaining fellowship with God.
This false teaching the apostle John was seeking to protect the recipients of this epistle from, were propagating an “incipient” form of Gnosticism since it was not a full blown threat to orthodox Christianity in the mid to late part of the first century as it did become in the middle of the second century.
Gnosticism is a system of false teachings that existed during the early centuries of Christianity.
Its name came from the Greek word for knowledge, gnosis.
The Gnostics believed that knowledge was the way to salvation.
For this reason, several writers of the New Testament condemned this incipient form of Gnosticism as false and heretical.
Gnosticism was the product of the combination of Greek philosophy and Christianity.
Its central teaching was that spirit is entirely good and matter is entirely evil.
From this unbiblical dualism emerged five important errors:
(1) Man’s body, which is matter, is therefore evil. It is to be contrasted with God, who is spirit and therefore good.
(2) Salvation is the escape from the body, achieved not by faith alone in Christ alone but by special knowledge (the Greek word gnosis, “knowledge,” hence Gnosticism).
(3) Christ’s true humanity was denied in two ways: (a) Some taught that Christ only appeared to have a body, a view called Docetism, from the Greek dokeo, “to seem,” and (b) Others taught that the deity of Christ joined the man Jesus at His baptism and left Him before He died, a view called Cerinthianism, after its most prominent spokesman, Cerinthus. This view is the background of much of 1 John (see 1:1; 2:22; 4:2-3).
(4) Since the body was considered evil, it was to be treated harshly. This ascetic form of Gnosticism is the background of part of the letter to the Colossians (2:21-23).
(5) Paradoxically, this dualism also led to licentiousness. The reasoning was that, since matter-and not the breaking of God’s law (1 Jn. 3:4)-was considered evil, breaking this law is of no moral consequence.
Gnosticism denied Christ’s true humanity in two ways: (1) Some taught that Christ only appeared to have a body, a view called Docetism, from the Greek dokeo, “to seem,” and (2) Others taught that the deity of Christ joined the man Jesus at His baptism and left Him before He died.
In contrast to these Gnostic claims, John demonstrates in 1 John that he, the other apostles and disciples were eyewitnesses to the fact that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed the incarnate Son of God or in other words, that He was God in the flesh.
John reveals that he and the other apostles knew the incarnate Word of life through experience.
They heard Him speak, they saw Him and touched His human body.
Thus, their testimony concerning the historicity of the incarnate Word of God refutes the Gnostic heresy.