The Undeniable Fact of Christ Text: 1 John 1:1-4
Introduction: Christianity is Not a Set of Ideas
We live in an age that wants its religion to be a private, spiritual, and ultimately abstract affair. Modern man is quite content to have a "Jesus" who is a fine moral teacher, a revolutionary sentiment, or a warm feeling in the heart. He will tolerate a Christ who is a metaphor, a symbol, or a personal guru. But the one thing he will not tolerate, the one thing that sends him into a rage, is a Christ who has hands and feet, a Christ who bleeds, a Christ who can be touched. He will not abide a Christianity that is grounded in the brute, stubborn, historical fact of the Incarnation.
The Apostle John, writing late in his life, is confronting the first wave of this very same error. A heresy that we now call Gnosticism was beginning to seep into the churches of Asia Minor. The Gnostics were the "spiritual but not religious" crowd of their day. They believed that matter was evil and spirit was good. Consequently, they could not stomach the idea that the eternal God would actually take on a real, physical, material body. Their "Christ" was a phantom, a ghost who only appeared to be human. He was an idea, not a man.
John takes up his pen not to debate a fine point of theology, but to declare war on this entire spiritualizing project. He does not begin with an abstract argument; he begins with a flurry of sensory verbs. He says, in effect, "We are not talking about a philosophy we devised. We are not sharing an experience we imagined. We are reporting what our ears heard, what our eyes saw, and what our hands felt." Christianity stands or falls on the historical reality of the Word made flesh. If Jesus was not a man you could touch, then the gospel is a fraud, our fellowship is a delusion, and our joy is a lie.
These first four verses of John’s first letter are therefore the bedrock of our faith. They are not simply a friendly greeting. They are an apostolic affidavit. They are a sworn testimony that the eternal God invaded time and space, and that the apostles were the unimpeachable witnesses of that invasion. This is the foundation upon which everything else is built: our fellowship with God, our fellowship with one another, and the fullness of our joy.
The Text
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, 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, 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. And these things we are writing, so that our joy may be made complete.
(1 John 1:1-4 LSB)
The Tangible God (v. 1)
John begins with a cascade of clauses, piling up evidence for the historical reality of Jesus Christ.
"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, " (1 John 1:1)
John opens his letter in the same way he opens his gospel: "In the beginning." He is deliberately echoing Genesis 1:1 to tell us that the one he is about to describe is none other than the eternal God, the Creator of all things. This is the Word who was with God and was God. He is not a created being; He is the uncreated source of all being. This immediately demolishes any attempt to reduce Jesus to a mere man or a created angel.
But then, having established His eternal deity, John immediately pivots to His undeniable humanity. This eternal one is someone "we have heard." They heard His voice teaching in the synagogues and on the hillsides. They heard Him cry out on the cross. This is not the silent God of the philosophers; this is a God who speaks in audible Aramaic.
He is someone "we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld." This is not a fleeting glimpse. The word for "beheld" implies a steady, deliberate, careful gaze. They watched Him eat. They saw Him sleep in the boat. They saw the spit and mud He used to heal the blind man. They stared at the nail prints in His resurrected hands. This was not a hallucination.
And most scandalously for the Gnostics, this is someone "we...touched with our hands." Thomas put his finger in the nail holes. The disciples handled Him after the resurrection to confirm He was not a spirit. This is the ultimate anti-Gnostic statement. You cannot touch a phantom. You cannot handle an idea. The eternal Word of Life became so real, so material, that you could put your arms around Him. The foundation of our faith is not a concept, but a corpus, a body. He is the "Word of Life," not the "Idea of Life." Life in the Christian sense is not an impersonal force; it is a person, and that person is Jesus Christ.
The Manifested Life (v. 2)
John continues by explaining the significance of this tangible reality. It was a deliberate revelation.
"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, " (1 John 1:2 LSB)
The life didn't just appear; it was "manifested." This was a purposeful unveiling. The eternal life that had been hidden in the fellowship of the Trinity from all eternity was deliberately put on display in the person of Jesus. Notice the repetition: "the life was manifested... and was manifested to us." John is hammering the point home. This was not an accident. God intended for His eternal life to become visible, audible, and tangible.
And because they have seen it, they now have a job to do. They must "bear witness and proclaim." A witness is someone who reports what he has personally seen and heard. He is not giving his opinion. He is not sharing his feelings. He is testifying to facts. The apostles are not therapists; they are court witnesses, testifying under oath to the central fact of history: that the eternal life which was face to face with the Father stepped into our world.
This eternal life "was with the Father." The Greek here implies a personal, intimate, face-to-face relationship. This is the eternal Son in fellowship with the Father. What was manifested to us was not a lesser deity or a divine emanation, but the very life of God Himself, a life that has always existed in loving communion within the Trinity. The Incarnation means that we were given a front-row seat to the inner life of God.
The Purpose: Fellowship (v. 3)
Now John states the purpose of his apostolic proclamation. Why are they so insistent on these historical facts? The goal is fellowship.
"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." (1 John 1:3 LSB)
The apostolic testimony is not intended to merely inform us, but to include us. They are proclaiming what they saw and heard so that we can be brought into the same circle of fellowship that they enjoy. The word for fellowship is koinonia, which means sharing, partnership, and participation. It's not just coffee and donuts after the service. It is a shared life.
But what life are we sharing? John immediately clarifies. This is not primarily a horizontal fellowship. It is not a human club. "And indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ." This is the crucial point. Christian fellowship is not something we create among ourselves. It is our shared participation in the eternal fellowship that has always existed between the Father and the Son. We are brought into their family circle. We are invited into the dance.
This means that our unity with other believers is entirely dependent on our unity with God. If we are not in fellowship with the Father and the Son, our "fellowship" with each other is just a hollow imitation. True Christian unity is supernatural. It is the overflow of a shared vertical relationship. This is why doctrine matters. We cannot have fellowship with those who deny the tangible, historical Christ, because in doing so, they cut themselves off from the Father and the Son, who are the very source of all true fellowship.
The Result: Complete Joy (v. 4)
Finally, John gives the ultimate result of this proclamation and the fellowship it creates: joy.
"And these things we are writing, so that our joy may be made complete." (1 John 1:4 LSB)
This is not a fleeting happiness that depends on our circumstances. This is a deep, settled, objective joy. The word is "complete" or "full." It's a joy that has reached its intended goal. What is the source of this joy? It is the certainty of the truth. It is knowing that our faith is not based on myths, feelings, or wishful thinking, but on the unshakeable reality of the Word made flesh.
The world seeks joy in abstractions: in power, in pleasure, in self-fulfillment. But these things are vapors. They cannot bear the weight of a man's soul. True, lasting, complete joy can only be found in what is true and real. The joy John speaks of is the joy of knowing that we are reconciled to the living God through a real, historical Savior. It is the joy of being brought out of isolation and into the eternal fellowship of the Trinity. It is the joy of having your feet planted on the solid rock of history, not the shifting sands of human opinion.
This is why the apostles write these things down. The written Word preserves the apostolic testimony. It ensures that every generation has access to the same foundational facts. And by believing these facts, by entering into this fellowship, our joy is made full. It is not a partial joy or a potential joy. It is a complete joy, because it is grounded in a complete and finished work, accomplished by a Savior who was real enough to see, to hear, and to touch.