The Epistles of John
Listen to 1st John as a letter
Listen to 1st John as a letter
1 JOHN 1
INTRODUCTION OF JOHN’S FIST LETTER
John does not identify himself in this letter. However,
because of the close correlation between this letter and the gospel of John (compare
1 John
1:1 with John 1:1,
4, 14. I believe we can safely come to the
conclusion that John the beloved did write this letter.
John wrote this letter late in life, while living in
Ephesus. The letter is written as though
John were writing to his family. I
believe he considered the Christians in Ephesus to be his pastoral family.
John was concerned about the spiritual health of the
church. He observed many in the church
who were teaching false doctrine. For
example some were believing Jesus to be merely a man, while other believed He
was not a man at all. Still others
believed as the Gnostics ‘“The body is bad, but the spirit is good. True life is in the spirit. What
we do in the body does not affect the spirit.
So it does not matter how we live in the body.” [8] John felt compelled to set the record straight
once again.
The Incarnate Word
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—2 and
the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the
eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us—3
what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have
fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His
Son Jesus Christ. 4 These things we write, so that our joy may be
made complete.
(1) John is identifying himself as an apostle
which means he personally knew Jesus as a man and knew Him to be God incarnate;
he was appointed as such by Jesus Himself.
The Word (Jesus) existed before the world was created (John :1 1-5;
Proverbs
8:22, 23).
“Word” - translated from the Greek word logos and in John it
was translated to mean Jesus.
(2) “And the life was manifested” - Jesus was with the God
head from the beginning. John uses the
word manifested which was translated from the Greek phaneroo fan-er-o'-o
meaning; to render apparent. Jesus was
separated or rendered, to become flesh, rendered that is from the God
head. Jesus remained all God and All man
never being separated spiritually from the God head. His deity was made
apparent (made known) to His apostles.
“The eternal Life” - John refers to Jesus as the eternal
life. And so it was with John seeing
Jesus and saw eternal life so also can believers today. By knowing Jesus we too can be like John and
have eternal life; John wanted to share this with the people of Ephesus
(3) “what we have seen and heard” - John
once again, identifies that he was commissioned as an apostle of Jesus, having
seen Jesus, heard His words, and believing He was the Son of God.
“proclaim
to you” - the word proclaimed is translated from the
Greek word apaggello ap-ang-el'-lo meaning to announce, declare, or
report. John used this word to point out
that he was not merely repeating what Jesus said and did but proclaiming it as
a pathway to salvation.
“that
you too may have fellowship with us”
- Neaner writes: "Through Christ God closes up the chasm
that separated Him from the human race, and imparts Himself to them in the
communion of the divine life"
(4) “we write”
- Using the plural form, I
believe John was referring to the apostle Paul who also wrote to the
Ephesians. Their desire was to impart
the joy of fellowshipping with the Father and the Son. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice all who believe
may share in this communion.
GOD IS LIGHT
5 This is the message we have heard from Him
and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.
Beginning with this verse we see the first division of this
Epistle.
Allan Turner writes:
“God is light--What light is in the natural world, that God, the
source of even material light, is in the spiritual, the fountain of wisdom,
purity, beauty, joy, and glory. As all material life and growth depends on light,
so all spiritual life and growth depends on GOD. As God here, so Christ, in 1 John 2:8 , is
called "the true light."
John refers to Jesus as light, and indeed He is. The absence of light is darkness and the
absence of Jesus in our lives leaves us in the darkness of sin. Jesus dispels the darkness of sin and
hopelessness, and to all who believe and become His children; He enlightens, by
His teachings.
6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him
and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; 7 but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is
in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His
Son cleanses us from all sin.
Jesus has shown us the light of His salvation through His
word. We either walk in the light or
flounder in the darkness of sin.
Darkness and light cannot coexist; God is light so therefore there is no
darkness in God (1 John
1:5). Light and darkness cannot
coexist; sin (darkness) cannot exist in the presence of God (light). If we
declare we walk with Jesus and yet continue to sin we are living a lie. This is not to say that we who believe do not
sin, of course we do.
This is why we need
to go to Jesus daily, repenting of those sins known and unknown; asking forgiveness and enlightenment of those
unknown sins of commission and omission.
8 If we say that we have no sin, we are
deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.
If we were to delude ourselves, and say we are without sin,
we would in fact, be saying that we were equal to Jesus who was without
sin. We would then be committing a sin.
“confession
of sin, is necessary when “walking in the light”. Augustine writes: "If thou shalt confess
thyself a sinner, the truth is in thee; for the truth is itself light. Not yet
has thy life become perfectly light, as sins are still in thee, but yet thou
hast already begun to be illuminated, because there is in thee confession of
sins".
9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and
righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
“confess
our sins,” – can we just asked for forgiveness in our hearts or must we
also confesses with our lips? We first
must confess our sins in our own hearts, and with our lips to one that we may
have sinned against.
When we first came to God and asked for his forgiveness,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. He gave
us forgiveness; if we sin again, will He continue to save us?
The answer is yes. If you go to Jesus in prayer asking for
His forgiveness with a repentant heart. In Luke 17:
3,4; Jesus said that if your brother sins against you and he comes to you
with a repentant heart, you are to
forgive him.
Jesus is faithful in
for giving us again, and again. Can we do less for our brothers?
10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make
Him a liar and His word is not in us.
All of mankind carries the sin of Adam and Eve (Genesis
chapter 3). As we all know Adam and
Eve disobeyed God, this was the 1st sin.
Paul writes in Romans
3:23:
“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” man is carnal by his nature, and lusts
after those things of the flesh.
God declared Adam and Eve sinners because of their disobedience. We too, through Noah, inherited this same
disobedient sin. Even if we have lived a
righteous life by man’s standards we still bear the sin of disobedience and the
carnality of man.
Therefore by saying we have not sinned, we are in fact
calling God a liar. There is but one who
is without sin, Jesus, the Christ, Son of the living God.
Credits and Citations
[2]- Greek translation are derived from Crosswire.org/study
bible and Strong’s Exhaustive concordance
[4] – Wikipedia.org
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