1 John 1:1-4

The apostle introduces this catholic Epistle by a compendious description of the object, nature, and design of the apostolical announcement concerning the Incarnate Word of life. Its object is the Eternal Logos who was manifested as the life; its nature is the testimony of personal witnesses of the incarnation; and its design is the establishment of fellowship with the Father and the Son. The immediate purpose of the present communication is the perfecting of the common joy of writer and readers. This Introduction resembles the Prologue of the Gospel; but with such variations as the one writer of both would himself be likely to make, when addressing readers of both. The construction is peculiar, but perfectly regular: its peculiarity being that the whole mystery of the incarnation, and its evidence to the apostles, is poured forth in one long contemplative sentence, which has the secret of the incarnation itself as the manifested life in its heart as a parenthesis. But over the whole sentence as well as the parenthesis hovers always the idea that the apostles are witnesses: the Gospel Prologue being in this respect altogether different.

1 John 1:1. The object of the apostolical announcement may be said to be complete in the first verse: what is added afterwards in the parenthesis limits that object or more closely defines it by expanding one term which occurs in it, ‘the life.' Remembering that ‘we declare' rules the paragraph in the distance and is coming, we must begin with the words concerning the Word of life: the Logos who is Himself the life eternally and to the creature imparts life. In the Prologue of the Gospel there is no ‘concerning,' because the Person of the Incarnate is there the immediate subject: here and throughout our Epistle it is not so much His Person as the blessedness and benefits of fellowship with Him which are the immediate subject. Again, remembering that the parenthesis is also coming with its closer explanation, we distinguish the announcement as twofold. First, concerning the eternal being of the Logos, that which was from the beginning: the' was' is really, as in the Gospel, opposed to ‘became flesh,' though this latter is here unexpressed; ‘from the beginning' we shall find used in various senses, but here its meaning is determined by the first words of the

Gospel, as also by ‘with the Father' in the next verse: it is ‘from the depths of eternity,' as in St. Paul's ‘chosen from the beginning' (2 Thessalonians 2:13), and St. John is as it were unconsciously looking back from the moment of the incarnation. In chap. 1 John 2:13 we have ‘Him that was from the beginning,' but here the neuter ‘that which' is used because the thought of the supreme mystery combines the whole verse into one great object of contemplation. Secondly, concerning His whole historical appearance on earth, seen of men as well as of angels, of which the apostles were the ordained and special witnesses, we read: that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled. These clauses must be taken together, and viewed in their various relations. The first two refer to the entire manifestation as one great permanent whole, in the perfect-present; the other two refer to certain express manifestations which were in the apostles' memory for ever, such as the special revelations of the ‘glory as of the Only-begotten' before and after the resurrection. Then we must note the ascensive order: from hearing to seeing with the eyes, to contemplation of the deeper mystery behind, and the actual contact with the Incarnate One. Yet the testimony rises and falls as an arch: it springs from the simple hearing, which certainly includes the testimony of others such as the Baptist, to the much higher seeing with the eyes and beholding as it were without the eyes, and then descends again to the touching, which was limited to individuals and limited generally.

1 John 1:2. We term this a parenthesis; but the ‘and' must suggest that it is not a parenthesis in our modern sense, as it includes and condenses the whole subject in its completeness. And the life was manifested: it is not here ‘the Word became flesh;' but the life which inheres eternally in the Logos, as the fountain of existence to the universe, came forth into visibility as the eternal life, so called to distinguish it from the life simply that had been manifested apart from the incarnation. The two are one, however, in the personal Logos, for the latter, the eternal, is even the life, the same life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us. The three verbs of testimony, if carefully allotted, explain this more clearly. We have seen and bear witness refer to the ‘Life' absolutely: the apostolic complete eye-witness becomes an official testimony to the Person of Jesus. The chief thing, however, here is not that, but the announcement which follows: and declare unto you the eternal life. Our Lord is never once called ‘eternal Life,' but ‘the Life.' ‘Even the life which was with the Father' singles out the life from the compound term, and expresses, as nearly as human words can express it, an eternal relation of personality to the Father corresponding to His temporal relation to us. ‘With God' in the Gospel becomes ‘with the Father' here, to mark the personality of that relation.

1 John 1:3. The great sentence goes on by selection. All that precedes is resumed and summed up as that which we have seen and heard seen coming first, because of the word in the previous verse declare we unto you also, as it was manifested to us. There is no reference yet to his readers specifically. Witness, testimony, declaration, either generally by the Gospel or by writing in particular, are the order: much of the declaration is universal; and out of that rises the special Epistle. The object of the universal announcement, which these readers had already heard and rejoiced in, was in order that ye may have -not obtain or hold fast or increase in, but have generally fellowship with us. Fellowship is union in the possession or enjoyment of something shared in common: that common element being variously viewed as God Himself, imparted through the knowledge and eternal life and hopes of the Gospel; or the external seals of communion of the Church; or even the spirit and gifts of its charity. In our Epistle we have only the first; and in this sentence it is fellowship with the apostles in their experience of the manifestation of the Son, in their enjoyment of the supernatural, true, eternal life which united them with God.

But, as if to preclude any perversion of this thought, it is added: and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. It is evident that the apostle does not linger for a moment on any fellowship that falls below the highest. ‘Our fellowship,' still spoken generally of all Christians, is with the Father through His Son Jesus Christ, that is, His Son as Mediator, and therefore common to the Father and to us. He is the element as well as the bond of the communion; and ‘the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ' (1 Corinthians 1:9) is through His Spirit, common to Him and to us, of whom mention will be made in due course, whose common possession by believers is ‘the communion of the Holy Ghost' (2 Corinthians 13:14). But all this is not in the text. That simply expresses the Saviour's prayer in another form: ‘that they may all be one, as Thou Father art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in us.' What is common to the Father and to us, and common to the Son and to us for the ‘and' introduces a distinction is not here said; but in the Lord's Prayer we read, ‘All Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine;' and again, ‘I in them, and Thou in Me;' and once more, ‘That the love wherewith Thou lovedst Me may be in them, and I in them' (John 17:21; John 17:23; John 17:26). It is observable, and the observation is our best comment, that the term ‘fellowship' in this supreme sense occurs no more; but always reappears in the form of the mutual indwelling of the Trinity and the believer who ‘abideth in Him, and He in him. And hereby we know that He abideth in us by the Spirit which He gave us' (chap. 1 John 3:24). Here are all the gradations of the fellowship in God and among the saints with God.

1 John 1:4. Now follows the specific design of this Epistle. And these things we write, that our joy may be fulfilled. ‘Our' joy, our common joy, as in the same prayer: ‘that they may have My joy fulfilled in them' (John 17:13). Joy is the utmost elevation of ‘eternal life' viewed not as purity or strength, but as blessedness; and here again the best comment is the fact that the word never recurs, but we find, where that might have been expected, always ‘eternal life.'