1 John 1:1-4 Reflection
By Gerry Straker, 09 May 2020
The coronavirus is pretty awful isn’t it? But it’s not as bad as some plagues throughout history. The Black Death in the 14th century killed between 70 and 100 million, reducing the world’s population by 20%! A hundred years ago in 1918-1920, Spanish flu killed between 20 and 50 million people. They reckon HIV/Aids killed around 32 million.[1]
But a worse plague as we saw in 1 John on Sunday and Wednesday in our C3 teams, is the plague of what John calls ‘antichrists’ (1 John 2:18-22; 4:1-3). Not the horror film type character, but people who have left the church (2:19) who are against Christ, who deny that Jesus was the Son of God (2:22). They don’t call themselves antichrists of course, rather they teach that they know God (2:4), they have fellowship with him (1:6) that they are special and people should listen to them. They are dangerous and they are wobbling the believers (5:13). We’ll be seeing more of their teaching as we go through the letter together.
This is a plague that has threatened the Church and almost since the very beginning, and it always threatens the Church in times of peace and prosperity and in times of war and disease. It’s a bigger problem because it is not just life at stake, but eternal life. It doesn’t take people to death, but takes people to hell, eternal judgement!
And when this plague threatens the church, it threatens the world. False-teaching in a Church means that the Church is not offering truth to the world. And if a church is not offering truth, then it is not offering life.
And so John writes to reassure them. John wants them to know that they are in Christ (5:20); to know that they belong to the truth (3:19); to know that Jesus took away their sins (2:1-2); to know that God loves them in the cross of Jesus (4:9-10); to know that they have eternal life (2:25); and to know they are children of God (5:19).
And so John begins his letter with his own credentials. He is an eyewitness and he knows. He knew Jesus, he knows God, he knows the message. And John knows how we can know, and so we should listen to John’s teaching.
- Listen to the eyewitnesses about Jesus 1-2
Jesus is from the beginning (1:1), the Word of life (1:1), the eternal life (1:2) and was with the Father (1:2). And he appeared to ‘us’ – the apostles. John says: we heard him, we saw him with our eyes, we looked at him and our hands touched him (1:1) - probably a reference to Jesus’ resurrection body! [2]
And so in Jesus on earth, John heard the Son of God’s amazing teaching, watched the Son of God’s amazing miracles and John hugged and kissed the Son of God. John had breakfast, lunch and tea with Jesus. John walked, talked and chalked up three years of experiences with Jesus, the man who was God.
In Jesus, the Creator joined His creation; the Creator God takes on the created image of God. This is what C S Lewis called the 'Grand Miracle'. 'Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this.’[3]
And John as eyewitness has a Jesus-given job[4] to testify or bear witness, and to proclaim or announce ‘concerning the Word of life’ (1:2). John’s message is Jesus - a word about the Word. The life who brings life.
John really knows and John has the true experience of God; he’s an eyewitness of Christ Jesus and we should listen to him. This virus of false-teaching has plagued the church down the ages. There have always been antichrists. People are always making a Jesus in their own image. Their own version of Jesus. Their own idol (5:21). Remember in Exodus after they make the golden calf, breaking a number of the 10 commandments they had just heard. Aaron then says, that on the next day they will hold ‘a feast to the LORD’! (Exodus 32:4-5). In their idolatry, Aaron claims to be worshipping God.
Just like today when people craft a Jesus of their own; they build their own Jesus. And that leads to a religion of their own making too. Where sin is redefined, and judgement is removed, and the heart of Christianity, the Love of God for sinners displayed on the cross of Christ, is ripped out.
This is one of the greatest dangers in the Church: people talking about Jesus, but it is not the Jesus of the apostles; it is not the apostolic faith.
As Dick Lucas said in his sermon on 1 John 5:21 in 2007: ‘Satan’s masterpiece is not to tempt us with obvious evil and obvious paganism… a sophisticated version of Christianity that is agreeable and acceptable to the modern mind but in reality is the empty of the power of God…it therefore is idolatry.’ [5] A respectable kind of Chisriainity that the world doesn’t mind - it’s the kind of Christianity that we’ll see in 1 John, and we can see all around us today.
And so we need to be careful of some churches, of some ‘Christian’ books, of the internet, that great gift from God that can be abused by deceivers. We need to watch our own hearts to make sure we’re not building our own version of Jesus, and we need to watch our Church, to make sure our pastor, elders and preachers are not taking us away from the true Jesus.
We need to listen to the apostles, the eyewitnesses today, and stick with the New Testament, apostolic, faith: this is real Christianity.
- What wonderful things this means 3-4
This will mean fellowship with the apostles, and ‘indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ' (1:3). We often think about the privileges that the apostles had by meeting seeing, hearing touching Jesus Himself. But John says if we listen to him, we can enjoy fellowship with God the Father and God the Son. We can really know God, and truly experience him now, we can call God ‘Abba’ like Jesus did. If you want to know God in a deep, personal, spiritual, real, true way, then we need to listen to the Bible and faithful apostolic preaching!
Martin Luther said: ‘The Bible is the cradle wherein Christ is laid.’ When you (used to!) see people gather round a cradle or pram – they were looking at the baby. Well, when you see people gathered round the Bible – they are looking at Jesus!
And if we have fellowship in the apostolic Church then we have joy. John says ‘we are writing these things so that our1 joy may be complete‘ (1:4). Strange that he writes for his own joy. But it’s because his joy is in their joy. And also because his joy will bring them joy. A daughter loves to please her mother by doing a job at home without being asked: the daughter has joy when she brings her mother joy. Their joy is for John’s joy and if they bring John joy they will have joy!
And for us, there is great joy in church when someone turns to Christ; there is great joy when Christians keep going week by week; and there is great joy when Christians keep going through hardship.
In these times it can feel for many of us like we’re not doing that much to help, compared with Captain Tom and his 33 million pounds or perhaps an ordinary key worker. ‘Passive life-saving’ was Martin Peters’ phrase. But actually, listening to the apostles and faithfully working together to bring the true gospel to people is the most important life-saving work we can do together. People can truly know God and have true joy!