Commentary - 1 John 1:1-4

Bird's-eye view

The apostle John begins his first letter not with a greeting, but with a direct, frontal assault on a pernicious lie. The lie, in its various ancient and modern forms, is that Jesus is a fine idea, a noble concept, or a spiritual feeling, but not a solid, historical, flesh-and-blood reality. This is the seed of Gnosticism, the notion that the material world is bad and only the "spiritual" is good, which necessarily means that God could not have truly become a man. John will have none of it. He opens his letter like a prosecutor making his opening statement, piling up courtroom evidence. He insists that the basis for all true Christianity is the objective, tangible, historical fact of the Incarnation. This Word of Life was not a phantom; the apostles heard Him, saw Him with their own eyes, stared at Him, and touched Him with their own hands. The purpose of proclaiming this undeniable reality is to bring others into a shared life, a fellowship, that is not just a human social club, but is a participation in the very life of the Father and the Son. The result of this proclamation and this fellowship is the completion of joy.

In these four verses, John lays the unshakeable foundation for everything that follows. All the tests of genuine faith he will later describe, doctrinal orthodoxy, moral obedience, and love for the brethren, are built on this bedrock: Jesus Christ came in the flesh. This is not a take-it-or-leave-it proposition; it is the central fact of all history. To get this wrong is to get everything wrong.

Outline

Context In 1 John

This opening serves as the prologue and thematic foundation for the entire epistle. John is writing to churches in and around Ephesus that were being troubled by false teachers. These deceivers were promoting an early form of Gnosticism, which denied the true humanity of Jesus Christ (a heresy called Docetism), claimed a secret, superior knowledge, and as a result, saw no connection between faith and moral behavior. John writes to assure the believers of the certainty of what they believe, to provide them with tests to distinguish true believers from false ones, and to call them back to the basics of the faith. This opening salvo, with its relentless emphasis on the physical, historical reality of Jesus, is the premise for all his subsequent arguments. If Jesus was not truly a man whom the apostles saw and touched, then sin in the body does not matter, the atoning sacrifice on the cross is a mirage, and the commands to love one another in tangible ways are meaningless. Everything hangs on the truth of these first four verses.

Key Issues

Christianity with Fingernails

The Christian faith is not a philosophy. It is not a set of abstract principles. It is not a warm feeling in your heart. The Christian faith is a report of something that happened. It is rooted and grounded in the dirt of human history, at a particular time and in a particular place. The apostle John, in the opening of this letter, goes to great lengths to drive this point home. He is not talking about "that which we have intuited" or "that which we have meditated upon." He is talking about what he and the other apostles heard with their ears, saw with their eyes, and handled with their hands.

This is Christianity with fingernails. This is a faith that is as solid as the wooden cross on which its founder died, and as real as the empty tomb He left behind. The heresy John was combating, an early form of Gnosticism, wanted a disembodied Christ, a spiritual phantom who only appeared to be human. This is a constant temptation for fallen man, we want a religion that doesn't make any demands on our bodies, on our wallets, on our schedules. We want a "spiritual" faith that floats above the messiness of real life. John says that any such faith is a damnable lie. The eternal life of God became manifest, tangible, touchable. And the apostles are the official, authorized, eyewitnesses of that great fact. Their testimony is not a suggestion; it is the non-negotiable basis for all true fellowship and all true joy.

Verse by Verse Commentary

1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life,

John begins with an echo of Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1. He is talking about the eternal Word, the one who was with God and was God "in the beginning." But he immediately brings this eternal reality crashing into our physical world. This one who was from the beginning is the same one "we have heard." The eternal Word spoke, and His voice registered on human eardrums. He is the one "we have seen with our eyes." This was not a fleeting glimpse, but a steady gaze, as the next phrase clarifies: "what we beheld." They stared at Him, studied Him, ate with Him. And most shockingly for the Gnostic mind, He is the one our "hands have touched." This is as physical as it gets. You cannot touch a ghost. You cannot handle a mere idea. John is piling up the sensory evidence. The foundation of our faith is not a subjective experience, but the objective, verifiable, historical person of Jesus Christ, whom he here calls the "Word of Life." He is the very expression and embodiment of God's life.

2 and the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us,

John now explains what he means. This "life," which is eternal, was manifested. That means it was made visible, public, and plain. The invisible was made visible. The eternal entered time. And the apostles' job description is threefold: "we have seen and bear witness and proclaim." First, they were eyewitnesses. Second, they are official, legal witnesses, testifying to the truth of what they saw. Third, they proclaim this testimony as public heralds. And what is the content of their proclamation? It is "the eternal life, which was with the Father." This points to the pre-existence of Christ and His unique, eternal relationship within the Trinity. Before the incarnation, the Son was face-to-face with the Father in glory. And this very life was the one that was made manifest to them. They are testifying to the arrival of God himself in human history.

3 what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you may also have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.

Here we get the purpose of the apostolic proclamation. Why are they so insistent on these historical facts? It is so that others, who were not eyewitnesses, might be brought into "fellowship" with them. The Greek word is koinonia, which means more than just friendship or camaraderie. It means a partnership, a sharing, a joint participation in something. But this is not merely a horizontal fellowship, a human club of like-minded people. The astounding claim is that "our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ." The apostles are inviting us into the shared life that they have, and that life is nothing less than a participation in the eternal fellowship of the Trinity. By believing their testimony about the historical Christ, we are grafted into the very life of God. This is the essence of salvation.

4 And these things we are writing, so that our joy may be made complete.

What is the ultimate goal of this proclamation and the fellowship it creates? Complete joy. Some manuscripts have "your joy," but "our joy" is likely original and carries a profound meaning. The joy of the apostles, the joy of the evangelist, is made full when his message is received and believed, and when he sees others brought into this glorious fellowship. There is no greater joy for a faithful Christian than to see others come to faith in the true Christ and begin to walk in the light. This is not a fleeting happiness based on circumstances, but a deep, abiding, and complete joy that is rooted in the truth of the gospel and the reality of fellowship with the Triune God. It is the joy of a mission being successfully accomplished. The proclamation of the tangible Christ leads to fellowship with the Triune God, which results in the fullness of joy.

Application

The modern church is haunted by the ghost of Gnosticism. We are constantly tempted to privatize our faith, to make it a matter of personal feeling and inward experience, detached from the rugged facts of history and the clear commands of Scripture. We like a Jesus who is a malleable spiritual principle, not a sovereign King who was born, bled, and rose again in a real body, and who therefore has total claim on our real bodies.

This passage calls us back to the foundation. Is our faith based on what we have heard from the apostolic witness in Scripture? Or is it based on what we have cooked up in our own hearts? True fellowship is not possible apart from a shared confession of the historical, biblical Christ. If we abandon the objective truth of the incarnation, we cannot have fellowship with the apostles, and therefore we cannot have fellowship with the Father and the Son. We are just left with ourselves.

And the result of this detachment from the real Christ is a loss of joy. A faith based on feelings is a rollercoaster of emotional highs and lows. A faith based on the unshakable fact that the eternal Word was touched by human hands is a bedrock. That is where true, stable, and complete joy is found. We must, therefore, continually return to the apostolic testimony. We must preach the real, historical, incarnate, crucified, and risen Christ. For in Him alone is life, and fellowship, and joy made full.