Word Live: Jesus, God And Us
‘He talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us’ (Luke 24:32). Pray that this may be true for you too.
Bible passage
1 John 1:1–10
The incarnation of the Word of life
1 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. 2 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. 3 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. 4 We write this to make our joy complete.
Light and darkness, sin and forgiveness
5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.
Holy Bible, New International Version® Anglicized, NIV® Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Explore
It is sometimes hard to know how to begin a letter. John begins with his own experience of Jesus of Nazareth, whom he knew personally and lived alongside for three years. He saw him with his own eyes, heard him with his own ears and touched him with his own hands. All Christian faith rests on the testimony of those first apostles.
John introduces this Jesus Christ not only as a contemporary, but also as timeless: he was at the creation, no less (1:1), and is now standing with the Father as our representative (see 2:1). Remarkably, John still enjoys fellowship with this Christ and with the Father through the cleansing of Christ’s death (vs 3,4,7), and so can his readers.
Besides the Lord Jesus Christ, another fundamental of the Christian faith is the unchanging nature of God. God is light (v 5). Wrongdoing and evil are always incompatible with God. If it were not so, would he still be worth worshipping?
So all Christians need to keep a realistic view of themselves at all times. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves (though probably not other people). But God will forgive and cleanse us if we confess to him. Honesty about ourselves is another fundamental of the faith.
Author
Roger Combes
Respond
What does this rich passage say to you today about the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Father, the author – or yourself?
Deeper Bible study
Lord of all brightness, open my eyes to see the wonder of your glorious light, that all darkness, both within and around me, may fade away.
It’s hard to miss the parallels between the beginning of John’s Gospel and the beginning of his first letter. Both emphasise that God came into the world as a human. In both, Christ is the eternal ‘Word’. Both use the words ‘beginning’, ‘Word’, ‘life’ and ‘with’. In the epistle, however, John emphasises his unique credentials as an apostolic eyewitness – he has heard, seen, looked and even touched this Word of Life that was from the beginning. As he writes, he is quite probably the lone survivor from the earliest Jesus movement and this fact is not lost on his readers. It establishes a distinctive authority and sets the tone for the rest of his letter.
Yet John’s desire is to share his intensely personal revelation of Jesus with his readers, so that, through his ministry, they may also have fellowship with the Father and his Son Jesus. John’s purpose in writing is that they would also share in the eternal life of Christ; this is what would make his fatherly joy complete.
John then turns to his favourite image of God: light. In typical Johannine dualism, light represents all that is good, true and holy, while darkness represents all that is evil, false and sinful. He appeals passionately to his readers that they cannot claim to have fellowship with the Light and continue to walk in the darkness. Yet he is also quick to acknowledge that everyone sins; this passage hinges around the pastoral invitation to confess and be forgiven. The promise is extraordinary – if we confess our sins, God, the Light one, is both faithful and just, not only in forgiving us our sins but also in purifying us from all unrighteousness.
This passage invites us to get right with God, enjoying the light of God’s presence in our lives. Confess your sin, receive forgiveness, for this leads to lasting change.
Author
Daniel McGinnis
