The Truth about Jesus
1 John 1v2-4
31st January 2020
As we read last week, John begins his first letter by saying that he's going to write about the word of Life - Jesus Christ:
1 John 1v1
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which
we have looked at and our hands have touched — this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.
He continues:
1 John 1v1-4
The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life,
which was with the Father and has appeared to us.
We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And
our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
We write this to make our joy complete.
Let's study this beautiful passage.
1 John 1v1-4
The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life,
which was with the Father and has appeared to us.
Jesus, whom John calls "the life" because He is eternally alive, and because eternal life can only be found in Him, appeared. He had existed for ever before He was born, living in heaven with His Father. He was born of a virgin, in a stable, and lived on earth for 33 years. He preached, healed, and died to pay for our sins. He rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven. John and the other apostles saw His ministry, His Crucifixion, His Resurrection and His Ascension. They saw His Person, His character, and they testified to all this, and now John, the last of the original apostles to die, was continuing to testify to it.
He was going to go on testifying about Jesus until his last breath, as should we.
Jesus appeared to us. He was not created, He was with the Father in Heaven, before He revealed Himself on earth.
John and his associates proclaimed the truth about Jesus, the Life. And in this letter, John intended to proclaim the truth about Jesus again. The churches that he loved were being torn apart by false teaching. John invoked his spiritual authority, and declared the truth about Jesus, who is the Truth.
He would preach the same message that was preached on the streets of Galilee and Judea 60 years earlier. And we're called to preach that same message 2,000 years later.
1 John 1v1-3a
We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard
John repeats that the Person, the message, the doctrine, that he taught is "what we have seen and heard". It's not a myth, not a nice religious story. John is saying here "I was there!". He's saying again that he knew what he was talking about, because he saw it with his own eyes.
We will all be tempted at some point to move away from the historical Christian faith. Sadly, many Christians and many churches have done so, to a greater or lesser extent. We must not. We all have to answer the question, are the books of the Bible, particularly those written by the apostles, true? Did John, Peter, Matthew, James, and the others write the truth? Did the Holy Spirit inspire them to write what they wrote? Can we trust their testimony? Or should we believe things that have been invented in our own generation, out of the imaginations of intellectuals who have not seen, witnessed or touched Jesus Christ?
Sadly, many Christians and churches get that question wrong. We must not.
I believe, and will continue to believe, so help me God, the testimony of the people who witnessed the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They were the people who truly knew who Jesus was! Many of them were imprisoned or executed for preaching the truth about Jesus, but they stayed faithful. The church has been persecuted for 2,000 years, but the message has not changed. We must continue to believe it as given to us, preach it, and live it out.
And John says that his motivation for preaching the truth about Jesus is:
1 John 1v1-3b
so that you also may have fellowship with us.
Those who deny the true gospel may or may not be very nice people, but they can't have much fellowship with those of us who hold to the truth about Jesus. They've believed lies about Jesus. They have believed lies about the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Creator and Saviour of the world. We can be good neighbours. We can be friends. But we're not in fellowship. Our world views are too different.
John says:
1 John 1v1-3c
And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
As we'll see as we study the rest of this letter, there are some things we need to believe if we're going to enjoy fellowship with God and with Jesus Christ. Such fellowship is possible, but it must be based on some level of understanding of who Jesus is and what God requires. Doctrine is important, at least about the fundamental truths of the Christian faith.
Jesus came to give us that understanding, that doctrine. and the apostles understood, and were committed to writing, the Truth - the Truth that we need to grasp and hold on to, which we have today in the New Testament.
If you've cut yourself off from the true faith, then you have cut yourself off from God the Father and from Jesus, and therefore from Christians.
John finishes the introduction to his first letter by saying:
1 John 1v1-4
We write this to make our joy complete.
Our joy as Christians cannot be complete if we're divided. Whether our divisions are over doctrine or personality, or ambition, or our preferences about the nature of Christian worship or mission, we're duty bound to seek to heal those divisions.
We're duty bound to forgive those who have sinned against us, and to bear with those whose behaviour doesn't meet our standard (and we should remember that our own behaviour doesn't meet our own standard either). We're duty bound to be patient with one another. We're duty bound to seek to draw together and work together.
If we have issues with any Christian brother or sister, we must do all we can to win that brother or sister back into fellowship. Sometimes we can't. We cannot be reconciled to somebody who refuses to be reconciled to us, but we're duty bound to seek unity between Christian and Christian, between church and church, and between denomination and denomination.
But the healing of our divisions must be on the basis of truth.
Rightly, the apostle John would not accept a rapprochement based on watering down the truth, or pretending that the truth is unimportant. He sets out the fundamental truths of the Christian religion in this letter: the truth about Jesus, the truth about God, the truth about faith, and the truth about morality. And he offers unity based on truth. We must do the same. We must try to achieve unity, but we must never compromise truth in an attempt to do so.
When one brother or sister is restored to the truth and to the church, we will rejoice with gladness, and welcome them back with open arms, and with no recrimination, no matter what they've done or said.
And we must do all we can to maintain unity in the church, so long as those efforts are based to truth, faith, and morality.
The unity of the church, to the degree that we achieve it, is glory to God, and joy for us. And the central truth of the whole universe is the Person and work of Jesus Christ.