Join Dr. Marty Baker as we dive into the first four verses of First John to explore The Facts of Fellowship and how the truth of Jesus impacts our human and divine relationships.
Two former Christian Scientists, and I do speak of the cult, not the discipline, joined my church plant early on in California in the early 1990s. God had blessed them financially and intellectually they had bright, gifted minds. Both also enjoyed the gift of leadership, so it didn’t take long for them to get plugged into leading men and women.
Being an academic, the well-read wife enjoyed the deeper side of the Christian faith. One caveat was that she became enamored with an obscure and heretical side of the Messianic Jewish movement, which pitted Jewish believers (the enlightened ones) against Christian believers (the unenlightened ones) instead of uniting them. Therefore, it didn’t take long for her to guide our women in studies of this doctrinally erroneous position.
One day I received a call from one of our other mature Christian ladies. After she filled me in with her theological concerns about a book this woman had our ladies reading, I phoned the woman in question and expressed my desire for her to choose another book. She eventually agreed, but not long thereafter, she fomented dissension in the once unified, happy body of believers, seeking to get them to side with her against me. It took about a year to play out, but the woman and her husband left the church in a huff along with their devotees.
This modern story is but a reflection of the doctrinal dissension which occurred in the churches in Asia Minor John, the beloved disciple of Christ, was shepherded in his old age. From the second chapter of his first letter, we learn about heretical teachers in the churches who brought doctrinal division, resulting in numerous saints leaving with them to form other, more enlightened home groups (1 John 2:18-20). What was the result? Fellowship between saints suffered greatly. Unity went out the door. Heated arguments sadly became the order of the day. Evangelism was probably put on ice. And, of course, an intimate walk and sweet fellowship with Jesus suffered. Such is always the case with false teaching that subtly infiltrates a local church.
John penned his first epistle to counter these false teachers while also equipping believers in the various battle-weary churches to stand strong and true. Since his name is not attached to it, scholars believe it served as a circular letter meant to be disseminated to the churches located in western Asia Minor near Ephesus. Within the opening four verses of the prologue, John not only introduces us to the subject matter of the book, which is the true identity of Jesus Christ, he carefully discloses his over-arching purpose, which is concerned with teaching saints how to maintain and protect intimate relationship with each other and with the Lord. Couched with a subject/purpose statement, these opening verses give us this pivotal statement:
Truth About Who Jesus Is Should Impact Your Human And Divine Relationships (1 John 1:1-4)
This central motif readily arises from two sub-points in verses one through four. Without mincing any words, without offering the typical opening niceties of epistles like identifying himself or offering words of blessing to the readers, John gets raw and real about who Jesus is. Based on this approach, I call these enlightening and illuminating verses . . .
The Path of Christological Truth (1 John 1:1-2)
The path is merely John’s first-hand evidence that Jesus was, in fact, fully God and fully man, which were concepts the doctrinal revisionists opposed. For them, Jesus was not fully God. Their Gnostic view made Him merely a weak, diluted form of the full deity, God the Father. To counter them and set saints aright concerning the incarnation of God in the form of Jesus Christ (John 8:58: Ex. 3:15), John opened with this statement as if he was a witness in a courtroom:
1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled, concerning the Word of 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—
To embrace a false understanding of the incarnation of Jesus is to either lead people away from the one who can truly save (Rom. 10:9) or to destroy the rich fellowship saints have with each other and the risen Lord. Hence, John started where he must, theologically speaking; namely, identifying and understanding who Jesus was and is. To err here is to destroy and diminish fellowship between saints and between saints and their Savior. To nail this theological truth is to build strong Christian friendships/churches and to enjoy a thriving and intimate relationship with the Lord.
To fully appreciate John’s first-hand witness about the incarnation of the God-man, Jesus, we must first understand more fully the theological position of the progressive revisionists the aged disciple polemically opposed. Though we cannot say with total certainty that the groups we shall mention are the ones John dealt with, nevertheless, we can be relatively sure based on doctrinal heresy which swirled in the Asia Minor area around, or, at least, not long after, John’s day.
William Barclay gives us an astute and helpful introduction to Gnostic thinking:
The basic belief of all Gnostic thought was that only spirit was good and that matter, the material world, was essentially evil. The Gnostics, therefore, inevitably despised the world since it was matter. In particular, they despised the body, which, being matter, was necessarily evil. Imprisoned within this body was the human spirit. That spirit was a seed of God, who was altogether good. So, the aim of life must be to release this heavenly seed imprisoned in the evil of the body. That could be done only by a secret knowledge and elaborate ritual which only true Gnostics could supply. Here was a train of thought which was written deep into Greek thinking—and which has not even now ceased to exist. Its basis is the conviction that all matter is evil and that spirit alone is good, and that the one real aim in life is to liberate the human spirit from the vile prison house of the body.[1]
The logical conclusion of this progressive theological position was simple: Jesus could not have been God incarnate. He was just a faint version of deity combined with human flesh. How this position played out in a Gnostic world is two-fold.
On the one hand, Docetists, dokein means “to seem,” taught that Jesus only seemed to have body of flesh and blood. The apocryphal book the Acts of John (160 A.D.) argued that when Jesus walked, you could never see His footprints because He really did not have a body.
On the other hand, according to Eusebius, the ancient church historian (260-339 A.D.), Cerinthus taught a form of Gnosticism in John’s day. In his Ecclesiastical History, 4:14:6, he recounts a story where John fled a bathhouse when Cerinthus appeared. Why did John exit the building? He could not stand the false teaching this man had thrust upon the churches.
Again, Barclay gives us insight:
Cerinthus drew a definite distinction between the human Jesus and the divine Christ. He said that Jesus was a man, born in a perfectly natural way. He lived in special obedience to God, and after his baptism the Christ in the shape of a dove descended upon him, from that power which is above all powers, and then he brought news of the Father who up to that point had been unknown. Cerinthus did not stop there. He said that, at the end of Jesus’ life, the Christ again withdrew from him so that the Christ never suffered at all. It was the human Jesus who suffered, died and rose again.[2]
Teaching of this nature quickly divided the churches. One camp embraced the new enlightened and esoteric doctrine of Christ, which reduced Him to nothing more than a man with a diluted and temporary divine form. The other camp, composed of saints who held onto doctrinal truth handed down from the disciples, tenaciously defended the divine incarnation of Jesus. Show me a church in trouble, and I’ll show a church where sound doctrine is watered down, twisted, and distorted to the unsuspecting by “gifted” teachers like Cerinthus. Doctrinal deviation always results in doctrinal fights, division, and the establishment of the groups which possess intellectual insight into the progressive and finer points of theology versus the lesser saints who, well, just do not possess the cognitive acumen to “get it.” Concerning this, I like how Barclay puts it:
The aim of Gnosticism was the release of the pneuma from the sōma; but that release could be won only by long and arduous study which only the intellectuals who had time on their hands could ever undertake. The Gnostics, therefore, divided people into two classes—the psuchikoi, who could never advance beyond the principle of physical life and never attain to anything else than what was to all intents and purposes animal living; and the pneumatikoi, who were truly spiritual and truly akin to God.
The result was clear. The Gnostics produced a spiritual aristocracy who looked with contempt and even hatred on lesser mortals. The pneumatikoi regarded the psuchikoi as contemptible, earthbound creatures who could never know what real religion was. The consequence was obviously the annihilation of Christian fellowship. . . . Here, then, is a picture of these Gnostic heretics. They talked of being born of God, of walking in the light, of having no sin, of dwelling in God, of knowing God. These were their catchphrases. They had no intention of destroying the Church and the faith; by their way of thinking, they were going to cleanse the Church of dead wood and make Christianity an intellectually respectable philosophy, fit to stand beside the great systems of the day. But the effect of their teaching was to deny the incarnation, to eliminate the Christian ethic and to make fellowship within the Church impossible.[3]
Now you can see why this teaching became so destructive to local churches. Can’t you hear someone saying, “Please, can we just all accept each other’s interpretations of Jesus so we can all live in peace?” John will say this is not possible, wise, or biblical. You can also see why John, the spiritual elder of these churches, wasted no time discussing the true nature of the incarnation.
Do not think for a moment we have moved beyond Docetic and/or Gnostic thinking. A new study by the American Worldview Inventory 2022, along with the help of the George Barna and the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, presents some alarming facts and conclusions:
- “It seems that most pre-teen parents are unaware – or certainly unfazed – by the contradiction between calling themselves ‘Christian,’ but living in ways that repudiate the teachings of Jesus and the principles in the Bible.”
- “The polling reveals that not only are a majority of today’s parents Millennials (the adult generation in America least likely to possess a biblical worldview) but that 94% of parents of pre-teens possess a worldview known as Syncretism…” which is “a blending of multiple worldviews in which no single life philosophy is dominant.”
- Those include evidence that “the younger a parent is, the less likely they are to have a biblical worldview” and that “a majority of current parents of pre-teens—almost six out of 10— dismiss the Bible as a reliable and accurate source of God’s truth.”
- Further, “Just four out of 10 pre-teen parents believe the Bible can be trusted as God’s accurate words for humanity. Even so, fewer than half of those individuals (45%) read the Bible at least once a week.”[4]
What’s the result of this new progressive, enlightened thinking? A muddled, distorted, and erroneous view about who Jesus was and is. Churches who seek to create peace in the body by allowing these views to remain active among them court dissension and chaos. Like John did, those who decide to speak up and out in love regarding the true person and work of Jesus will build fellowships known for peace between each other and God and power to turn the lost to the true Christ.
Now, with all of this in mind, we are equipped to exegete John’s definitive statement about Jesus in verses one through two.
1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled, concerning the Word of 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—
Three relative clauses introduced by the relative pronoun, ho (Ὃ), “what” are purposefully couched as neuter forms, thereby stressing a comprehensive view of Christ. John could have pointed to Jesus’s person by starting with the word “who,” but this would not have given us the overarching view of Christ’s identity like the neuter.[5] On the other hand, John wants us to know from the outset that he is going to wax eloquently concerning the true meaning of Christ’s incarnation. “What was from the beginning,” is John’s way of saying, “from the beginning of when we, the disciples, came in contact with Christ leads me to give you my following eyewitness testimony about His person/incarnation. True, the phrase, in and of itself, causes us to think of John’s opening words in his gospel, “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1), which underscores the eternality of Christ. Jesus claimed at His incarnation he had descended from heaven to earth, thereby suggesting prior existence (John 3:13, 31). He also claimed equality with God’s nature (John 10:30), and equal glory with God the Father before the creation of the worlds (John 17:5). In John 8:58, He went so far as to claim that He was, in fact, the eternal God, Yahweh, of the Old Testament, or the great I AM. His eternality, therefore, is a given, and John knows this. In verses 1 and 2, he stresses the reality of the incarnation whereby the eternal God became a flesh and blood man, which ran counter to revisionist thinking.
In the following two relative clauses, John uses sensory language to describe the eternal Christ’s incarnation. And he ensures his readers know his statements about the Word of Life, Jesus, are from firsthand testimony. He did not receive this information second or third hand or pick it up from some itinerate Bible teacher. On the contrary, his understanding of who Jesus was and is came directly from daily exposure to Him. Amazing.
The “we” here speaks of the disciples and perhaps John’s inner circle of leaders who also had seen Christ. The relative clause “what we have heard” informs his readers, and us by proxy, they heard Christ speak, teach, and preach like a real man many times. As Jesus walked around the Sea of Galilee, challenging key fishermen to come and follow Him, he ran into James and John repairing their nets along with their father:
21 And going on from there He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and He called them. 22 And they immediately left the boat and their father, and followed Him (Matt. 4).
You do not just walk away from your father’s family fishing business to follow some unknown Jesus teacher/rabbi unless you have good reason. Perhaps prior information about Jesus had reached them, so he was not unknown to them. Perhaps the tone of His voice coupled with His leadership look captivated them. Whatever the case, they heard him speak and followed him. Right away, they heard Him teach, and the miracles He performed definitively demonstrated He was no mere man but the God-man.
23 And Jesus was going about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people… (Matt. 4).
Verses like this help us understand why John says “what we have seen with our eyes” we proclaim as witnesses. What had they seen?
- The God-man turning water to wine when it ran out at a wedding (John 2).
- The God-man giving the lame man at the Pool of Bethesda new legs (John 5).
- The God-man taking five barley loaves and two small fish into His hands and multiplying it to feed 5,000 people (John 6).
- The God-man walking on massive wind-swept waves on the Sea of Galilee to save their sinking boat (John 6:16-21).
- The God-man making eye packs for a blind man out of spit and mud. The result? The blind man received new eyes full of sight (John 9:1ff).
- The God-man weeping when He came to tomb of His best friend, Lazarus (John 11:35).
- The God-man taking a basin of water and a towel and physically washing their feet prior to their last Passover meal together (John 13:1ff).
When you see things like this, factual things, miraculous things, you never forget them, for they are the hard evidence that the incarnate Christ was none other than the Lord walking among mankind as the God-man, not some watered-down version of the Docetists or Gnostics.
The disciples, like John, did not just hear Jesus speak as a man and as God (even the wind and the tumultuous seas obeyed Him, Matt. 4:41), nor did they see a man of flesh and blood doing things only God could do, they touched Him because He was a man. They had the privilege of hearing, seeing, and physically touching “the Word of Life.” As John testifies: what we beheld and our hands handled, concerning the Word of Life—. Jaw-dropping, isn’t it? Who is this? The following clause tells you:
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—
Jesus was the eternal God who was eternal “with the Father,” He lovingly condescended to our low estate and became a flesh and blood man, really the God-man, or the only one suited to bear our sin (Heb. 9:11-15). And to think that He revealed Himself “to us,” as John says. He, the eternal God in fleshly form, revealed Himself to a rag-tag group of obscure, seemingly nobodies, to men with personal issues like John and his brother James who were known for their anger management problems. The God-man disclosed Himself to them first, and the had firsthand knowledge that he was every bit God and man because of their daily exposure to Him. They even nicknamed them Boanerges, which means “sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17). Amazing.
All of this is what I label as “the path of Christological truth” for it gives us eyewitness testimony concerning the identity of Jesus. He was and is the God-man who came to provide us with eternal life once He paid the penalty for our sin. No other savior could do what He did. Christology matters greatly, for it is the foundation stone of Christian belief and maturation. How is your personal understanding of Jesus? Have you become syncretistic in how you think about Him? Have you given into culture and other religious teachings and watered down His person? If so, today is the day to return to the true and foundational teaching of the apostles.
Theology is never meant to be just a head game for a saint. No. It should always move us to action. We find this truth laid out in the following two verses where John covers . . .
The Purpose of Christological Truth (1 John 1:3-4)
The person of Christ’s incarnation has a two-fold purpose denoted here by two hina (ἵνα )clauses, which are denoted by “that” and “so that.”
3 what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, that (ἵνα) you also may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. 4 And these things we write, so that (ἵνα) our joy may be made complete.
What a powerful conclusion to his opening words. What is John doing here?
First, John informs us how a sound understanding of Christ’s incarnation should lead believers to exhibit healthy fellowship with each other and rich fellowship with God the Father. This is how this works. If we are all on the same page about who Jesus was and is, we will not be arguing about this most fundamental concept of our faith, and we will, in turn, seek to live in light of His incarnational example. You might need to read that one more time. This time let it sink in your heart and mind. Show me a church, like ours, with great unity and wonderful care for each other, and I’ll show you one where they know who Jesus is and are willing to die for this timeless truth. And when you find that amazing and coveted unity among believers wedded to their understanding of who Jesus was and is, they, by definition, have an intimate, growing relationship with the Father because they are at peace with each other, and they are at peace with Him because they are not all wrapped up with false teaching.
Of course, the churches in Asia Minor were not experiencing rich fellowship with each other, and this meant many of them were not enjoying a great intimacy with the Father either . . . and it was all related to the heretical teaching allowed to percolate in their churches. Therefore, John wrote this letter to help them all understand how to safeguard and nurture this human and divine fellowship. Remember how a right understanding of Jesus is supposed to positively impact all of our relationships. May we learn from John as we live in a modern version of Asia Minor where false teaching and teachers seek to infiltrate churches with progressive doctrines that undermine sound theology.
Second, John wrote so that “[apostolic] joy, his joy, might be made full or complete.” Does this sound egotistical? No. My friend, this is the heart of an old pastor speaking. I know because I am also a senior pastor and can identify with his words here. Watching churches he loved, and some he founded, fight and split before his eyes caused him much pastoral pain. Seeing saints sever life-long friendships over the doctrinal understanding of the incarnation was almost more than he could stand. Seeing the churches in such a state of disarray, resulting in hardly anyone getting saved, burdened him and kept him awake at night.
What did John want as a pastor? He wanted to see His teaching about Christ take hold and change lives. He wanted to see saints grow in their love of the risen Christ. He wanted to see churches full of doctrinal stability followed by genuine love and acceptance of all saints. He wanted to see the fruits of His teaching pay off as the churches lovingly and courageously pushed back against false teaching. He wanted to see saints so in love with Jesus that there was no doubt they had an intimate, rich fellowship with Him. He wanted to see all the things I want to see in our church.
I am so glad he wrote this short letter; it is timely. May our study of this little book strengthen our fellowship with each other beyond where it is today, and may our fellowship with Christ be so tight that no novel teaching we encounter can tarnish it. And may our understanding of who Jesus was and is be so clear, concise, and committed that we will need to defend it to the world while also calling that world to come to Him, the Savior, in faith.
[1] William Barclay, The Letters of John and Jude, 3rd ed., The New Daily Study Bible (Louisville, KY; London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 5–6.
[2] Barclay, The Letters of John and Jude, 8–9.
[3] William Barclay, The Letters of John and Jude, 3rd ed., The New Daily Study Bible (Louisville, KY; London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 13–14.
[4] Bob Unruh, Survey: Christian Worldview in U.S. Being Supplanted by Syncretism, World Net Daily, March 8, 2022, accessed March 10, 2022, https://www.wnd.com/2022/03/survey-christian-worldview-supplanted-syncretism/.
[5] Gary M. Burge, Letters of John. The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996), 52-53.
