PROLOGUE – CHAPTER 1. VERSES 1-5

Verse 1    “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life.”

John begins the epistle by setting forth the fact that eternal life was once present in nature, in human form. It is “that which” rather than “He who” that he speaks of first of all, the form which God’s life assumed in creation. God had been in creation before, in Spirit, but particularly in the midst of Judaism, where He was hidden behind the types and shadows of the law. This, the Old Testament, was the form which then contained the divine presence. Now, however, from the beginning of that which resulted in Christianity, eternal life appeared in the world in the form of a Man in the flesh.

God’s presence, in purposeful revelation of Himself in creation, assumed this new outward form at the incarnation. This heralded a change in God’s ways in creation for the realising of divine purpose. It was a new beginning, as spiritually significant as the beginning of time and creation and then of Judaism. These previous beginnings now became purposeful by the coming of God Himself into humanity: they were necessary steps and stages for the procession of God in all His fulness into creation in flesh. Creation began. The written Word mediated by Judaism began. Eternal life in flesh began.

Eternal life thus became embodied in a form which could be heard, seen, looked upon and handled. In “we” are the disciples, who subsequently became the apostles of Christianity. They were men alive in the flesh with ordinary human faculties which they used to hear, see and handle the outward form in which the eternal life was manifested. This state of affairs characterised the beginning, the first relationship and contact with God manifest in flesh. It was a fleshly contact originally, with the emphasis upon the body of the Lord Jesus and the human faculties of the disciples.

This original state of affairs existing between God and man at the incarnation and in the life of Christ in flesh, is said to be “concerning the word of life”. Not only was there a Man from the beginning but also a Word, the Word of life, God’s life. He was, though in human flesh, still the Mind of God and its expression. Christ brought a full revelation of God, the Word of the life, into creation despite the limitations imposed upon Him in His fleshly humiliation. In Christ, God broke through all the natural barriers of time and sense and the powers of evil to reach man in the state in which he was found in creation.

God came into creation and Deity laid hold upon humanity in such a way that the One could not be separated from the other. God proceeded forth in this form to realise His ultimate intentions. It was a means toward this end in which there was no weakness. Unlike God in creation, or God in the symbolic forms of Judaism, He now existed in a form which could not be overcome by evil.

Verse 2    “For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.”

The form which God took in His life in flesh was one by which He could communicate His life. The lift was manifested and the apostles saw this, bore witness to it and announced it. Though they saw and touched a man, yet they saw more than this in Christ; they saw the life of God. They did not see this with their eyes or handle it with their hands for, of course, it was intangible. The Lord Jesus was God manifest in flesh but not to flesh.   Such was the effectiveness of the ministering of the Word of life by Christ in the flesh that they acquired the spiritual ability to see God in Him. “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father also”. Christ evoked a spiritual response in man who received His Word. Flesh and blood did not reveal it to them but the Father which is in heaven.

This new spiritual faculty begotten in the disciples qualified them to become the apostles of Christianity. As a result of their being able to see the life which was manifested in the Christ in flesh, they subsequently bore witness and announced the eternal life. So, at the beginning, eternal life was lived in by the Man Christ Jesus. This was seen by men who were called and prepared, whose subsequent witness was the means of establishing Christianity on earth. A new sort of life came into being in the world. In the case of the Lord Jesus it was God alive in human nature. This was, however, to produce certain effects afterwards by the message which the apostles preached. One of these effects is that men who accept the message subsequently live in divine life.

It is important to understand what is involved in this, to see it from God’s viewpoint. We must understand why God created, why there is a world, what purpose there is in man’s existence. God is self-existent and self-sufficient. For His continued existence He does not need any other thing or being to minister to Him. He deliberately and purposefully chose to create. The ultimate reason for creation is that the Father so loved the Son that He desired to create other beings like Him, possessing His life and bearing His image eternally. God could not reproduce divine life merely by the word of His power: He had to act in the fulness of all His attributes – love, power, wisdom, holiness, etc. to produce such life. It took evil and even the circumstances of the cross itself to create the necessary conditions for God to act in the fulness of these attributes.

God could not merely say, ‘Let there be other sons, other gods’. It is a spiritual impossibility for there to be more than one God. So God had first to form that which was not God, that which is created. He created angelic beings and then human beings. It was His will and became His declared intention to reproduce His own eternal life in human beings. He originally created man in His own image and likeness but this transient form of god-likeness, man’s transitional state of existence, is not the ultimate form of life in creation. He created man in the flesh to prepare for God, Christ Himself, coming into flesh so that subsequently all might live through Him. In Adam all die; so also all that are in Christ shall be made alive again, unto God. This is what being born-again really means and consists of.

This eternal life, which was with the Father, was manifested by Christ in the world so that thereby the work of God in full display of His attributes might be accomplished. This work was what the apostles saw and heard being done in the life of the Christ in flesh. To those whom the Father gave to the Son in His performing of this work, He gave eternal life, John 17:2. This caused them to see the eternal life in Christ and so to realise the significance of its coming forth.

Verse 3    “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.”

The next step or stage in the production of the desired effects from the coming of eternal life into humanity is then set forth. That which the apostles saw and heard they announced to men. What they saw, as disciples who became apostles, was the humanity and Deity of Christ, the God-man. What they heard was the revelation He brought and the message which results from and proclaims His finished work. God manifest in flesh has completed the work in creation whereby divine purpose is being accomplished. By it, He is bringing many sons unto glory.

The life, the revelation, the work manifested and completed, is announced by these spiritually qualified men in a message which comes from God. The virtue of the work is set forth for man’s reception in the message. It is a message that saves when it is received. Eternal life has been manifested, is made available for and is offered to man in this message delivered by this divinely appointed means. Thus the work of God was continued by the preaching of the apostles and, in the present time, in the Word of God completed by apostolic ministry.

The present purpose for which God offers eternal life is to bring those who accept it into a fellowship which was already formed by the Lord Jesus when He conferred eternal life upon the apostles. This fellowship, which eternally existed amongst Deity exclusively, has now been extended to man in creation, man in possession of eternal life. This fellowship, based upon possession of eternal life, God’s life, is with divine Persons – the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. It is not the humiliation of the Son of God in fleshly humanity which is now set forth but His glorification in Humanity with the Father. This is what Christianity is concerned with. He is now the Son of God but still Jesus Christ.

So, it can be unequivocally stated that our fellowship with God is dependent only upon our possession of eternal life. Fellowship, or communion with God could only be broken if eternal life could be taken from us and that would require a power greater than God’s power, which has already given us that life. Sin does not break our fellowship with God, though it may break our fellowship with one another as will be seen later.

Verse 4    “And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.”

The Word of God communicated by the apostles did not stop at the announcing of eternal life, which can be received by men as a result of the Christ’s manifestation, finished work and present glorified exaltation. John was writing an epistle – which was to form part of the Word of God – to christians who already possessed eternal life, so that by this apostolic communication their joy might be full. Eternal life is given to the people of God for their present enjoyment of it. It is not enough for God’s purpose that man receive salvation. God’s will is that we know in the present all that is involved in having and enjoying divine life now rather than waiting until we get to heaven. Fulness of joy is attainable in Christianity only by means of the apostolic writings. God was fully revealed to the apostles by the Christ on earth and now He is making that revelation available to us. The Son glorified the Father by His ministry on earth, which benefited the disciples. Then the Holy Spirit proceeded forth into them to confer apostolic ability. This was to glorify the Son in His Sonship. The means by which this was accomplished was by the writing of the New Testament, which completed the Word of God. Fulness of christian joy comes from the laying hold upon the Son, knowing Him as the Holy Spirit has presented Him to us in the Word. God has given man a completed revelation and His purpose in having a people who appreciate it fully is to glorify the Son. God created and then revealed Himself so that there might result a people, and ultimately a world, who could enjoy Him in all His fulness. Fulness of joy is the present reward for God’s people for effectively fulfilling their purpose. This is no natural joy or subjective emotional fervour. His joy is spiritual and objective. Man comes to realise the truth of the announcements of the apostles.

Verse 5    “This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.”

John then proceeds to tell us that the christian message is a declaration of the life and character of God come forth in manifestation of Himself. It declares the spiritual demands which His presence makes upon those who would be in it. “God is light and in Him is no darkness at all”. This is the essential truth which the apostles have mediated and by which they established Christianity on earth so that man might receive the whole truth of God.

God deliberately chose to give forth His message and to establish the people of God into true spiritual order by means of apostles, rather than by the Christ Himself directly on earth. The message is not concerned with a Christ on earth but with One who once lived here and is now being glorified as a result of that life. On earth He fully revealed the Father to His companions and now they were causing this light to become appreciated by those who received the life. “In Him was life and the life was the light of men”.

The message now being disclosed universally in the world, rather than just in Israel as with the Old Testament, is that “God is light and in Him is no darkness at all”. God is now in creation in full revelation of Himself in a spiritually powerful way. What God is, His Word of revelation fully and exactly declares Him to be. He is the Spirit contained in the letter. So a true conception of God can only come from an effective appreciation of His Word. In Christianity there is no question of man using his natural talents and philosophies to know God. He has to appreciate the true significance of a completed message.

The second part of the message is that “in Him there is no darkness at all”.  We have a message unadulterated by evil in its coming forth from God.  There is no darkness in the God of Christianity, in contrast for example to the thick darkness associated with Mount Sinai.  The revelation given to man there was necessarily clothed in darkness, for the fellowship to which it was given, Israel after the flesh, was not one based upon the possession of divine life.  The veil has been rent in the rending of Christ in flesh, Heb.10:20, so that man in possession of the life can go immediately into the light of the divine presence.  The darkness associated with God’s presence with Israel declared that something better was to come.  This better thing is the revelation given to those who, in a spiritual sense, left the fold of Judaism and entered into a better relationship with God than the one they enjoyed when they heard and touched the fleshly form He assumed.

Some observations regarding the first Section

In the introduction to his epistle, vs.1-5 (the Prologue), John has declared that the important thing about Christianity is that it contains a message from God, the ultimate communication from God to man. Now, in the first Section of the epistle from chapter 1:6-3:9 John sets forth the character of the Christ in Christianity.

Chapter 1:7 “He is in the light”.

Chapter 2:12 “He is ¨ advocate with the Father”

¨ Jesus Christ the righteous”

¨ a propitiation for our sins”.

Chapter 2:22 “He is the Christ”

Chapter 2:29 “He is ¨ righteous”

¨ glorified”

¨ pure”.

His being in the light sets forth what He is in glorified humanity toward God in His presence. He being the advocate is what He is toward a people still in the midst of present earthly conditions. His still being the Christ is what He remains for the world in His present state of glory. His being righteous, glorified and pure is what He is in glory and what He will be as to the full realisation of divine purpose in the future.

Christianity is a divine system established on earth which has to do with a Man, Christ, glorified in heaven. The message arising from this, and its acceptance by men, results in the acquisition of a people on earth for divine purpose in the midst of the present spiritual and natural conditions in which creation is found. So John first of all presents what Christ is in Christianity. Unless the spiritual facts concerning Christ in glory are known, the true significance and practise of Christianity will not be realised. Christianity has wholly to do with heavenly things and nothing to do with secular things, despite what now passes for Christianity. The world may seek to use Christianity to improve human nature and the present world order but God has established it to beget a Christ-like people on earth for future reference. 

John sets forth the true response of the people of God to their receiving the Word and thereby being involved in divine purpose in creation. This is connected with the phrase used three times in this chapter, “If we say …..”. John puts everything to the test for God desires only true spiritual reality. The response which God seeks is that His people enter into the full and true christian fellowship. This is to be their profession, what they say in response to God. John uses the aorist tense in the phrase “If we say”, signifying an action complete in itself. It is not our continued practising of Christianity that is in view but our profession of it constitutionally. We have to be rightly orientated, that is toward the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, for Christianity has to do with the revelation of the Father and of the Son given to His people.