CHAPTER I
TEXT AND EXPOSITION
CHAPTER 1
1. PROLOGUE (1:1-4)
1:1 That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands handled, concerning the Word* of life (1:2 and the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare unto you the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us); 1:3 that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you also, that ye also may have fellowship with us:
* Or, word.
The structure of the sentence covering the first two and a half verses of chapter 1 (with the parenthesis in verse 2) is unusually complicated for the Johannine writings, and an English version will be more readily intelligible if it takes four sentences to say what the Greek text says in one:
Our theme is that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we beheld and our hands handled. Our theme, in short, concerns the word of Life—that Life which was made manifest. Yes, we have seen and we bear witness; we make known to you the Eternal Life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us. What we have seen and heard we make known to you also, in order that you in your turn may have fellowship with us.
The opening words of the epistle, “that which was from the beginning (Greek ap’ archēs),” resemble the opening words of the Gospel of John, “In the beginning (en archē) was the Word.” It is not necessary, however, to conclude that the two “beginnings” are identical; more probably they are not. The “beginning” of John 1:1 is the beginning of time, the “beginning” of Genesis 1:1, in which God created the heaven and the earth. At that time, says the Evangelist, when the material universe came into being, the Word already existed. The world had a beginning, but the Word had none.51 The phrase “from the beginning” in 1 John 1:1 is best understood in the sense which it occasionally bears later in the epistle. For example, in 1 John 2:7 John reminds his readers of the “old commandment which you had from the beginning,” and in 1 John 2:24 he urges them to adhere to “what you heard from the beginning.”52 The “beginning” in this sense is the beginning of the gospel—in 1 John 2:7, 24, the beginning of the gospel so far as their acquaintance with it was concerned, while in 1 John 1:1 it is the beginning of the gospel absolutely, the beginning as it was known to one who was present at the time and directly witnessed the saving events.
The neuter gender of “that which was from the beginning” points to the gospel rather than to the personal Christ, although indeed the gospel is so completely bound up with the personal Christ that what is primarily true of the one may be said of the other. It was the personal Christ who was heard, seen and touched by John and his fellow disciples, and if it is maintained that, despite the neuter gender of the relative pronoun, He is the one who is said to have been “from the beginning,” an analogy to this use of the phrase could also be found in chapter 2, where mention is made of God or Christ as “him who is from the beginning” (verses 13, 14).
John’s authority to speak about “that which was from the beginning” is the authority of first-hand knowledge. He could be described, in Luke’s language, as one of “those who from the beginning (Greek ap’ archēs, as here) were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word” (Luke 1:2). This, he says (including his fellow disciples along with himself), is the reality “which we have heard…which we have seen with our eyes…which we beheld, and our hands handled.”53 They were the men to whom Jesus said, “blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. Truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it” (Matthew 13:16, 17; cf. Luke 10:23, 24). The language John uses is the language of apostolic witness: “we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard” was the reply of the apostles Peter and John to the Sanhedrin when they were ordered to give up speaking or teaching in Jesus’ name (Acts 4:20). If we ask who it was that they heard and saw, the answer is that they heard and saw Jesus; if we ask what it was, the answer is that they heard His words and saw His works.
But in addition to seeing with the eyes, John speaks of “that which we beheld”. Here the Greek verb (theaomai) is the one used in John 1:14, where the Evangelist tells how, when the Eternal Word became flesh and tabernacled among men, he and his companions “beheld his glory.” So in the present passage the implication of this rather “elevated” verb of seeing may be that they penetrated beyond what was accessible to outward vision to discern the inward glory. And as for the further statement that “our hands handled” the reality of which he speaks, it can hardly be overlooked that this verb (Greek psēlaphaō) is used in reference to the risen Christ, not indeed in the Gospel of John (although the Thomas incident of John 20:24-29 springs to mind in this connection), but in Luke 24:39, where the disciples, frightened at the sudden appearance of the Risen One, are bidden, “handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have.”54
From the compiler of the Muratorian canon55 onwards, many commentators have treated the eyewitness claim of these verses as a reference to the contents of the Fourth Gospel, as though this epistle were a covering note sent out with the Gospel and certifying the authenticity of its record. But there is nothing in the present context to suggest this. It is better to understand the eyewitness claim as the author’s way of emphasizing the authority with which he writes on “that which was from the beginning.”
“Our theme, in short, concerns the word of life.” These two terms, “word” (Greek logos) and “life” (Greek zōē), are keywords of the Gospel of John. Of the Eternal Word the Evangelist says, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4). But whereas in the Prologue to the Gospel it is the term “Word” rather than “life” that is used personally of the One who was in the beginning with God, here it is the term “Life” rather than “word” that is so used. The “word of life” is the message of life (that is, the gospel). But the life which forms the subject matter of that message is “the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us.” If the Gospel speaks of the incarnation of the Eternal Word, the Epistle speaks of the manifestation of the Eternal Life. “The Word was God,” says the Gospel; “this is the true God and eternal life,” says the Epistle (1 John 5:20). When it is said that the Eternal Life was “with the Father,” the same preposition (Greek pros) is used as in the repeated statement of John 1:1, 2, that the Word was “with God.” There is no theologically profound significance in the preposition itself, except as it borrows some such significance from its context. The same preposition is similarly used in a quite non-theological context when the people of Nazareth, astonished at the power and wisdom of their fellow townsman Jesus, say “are not his sisters here with us?” (Mark 6:3).
This epistle, then, is justly called “the epistle of eternal life.”56 It shows how and in whom that life was uniquely and perfectly manifested; it shows how the presence of that life in men and women may be recognized. John’s own experience of that life entitles him to speak of it with assurance and communicate his assurance to others. This, he says, we have seen; to this we bear witness; this we make known to you.
It has been argued that this language is not necessarily to be understood as the language of an eyewitness. Christians of every generation have entered into the fellowship of the first Christian generation, and take the language of its witness on their own lips:
What we have seen and heard
With confidence we tell.
So here, it may be said, the “we” is the corporate “we,” just as a twentieth-century Englishman (recalling the death of Joan of Arc in 1431) can speak of
That old, undying sin we shared
In Rouen marketplace
or just as in Amos 2:10, half a millennium after the Exodus, the corporate “you” is used in God’s words to the Israelites: “I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and led you forty years in the wilderness.”57
But the antithesis between “we” and “you” in 1 John 1:3 makes this interpretation improbable. John tells his fellow Christians to whom he writes of what he and his contemporaries had seen and heard, because his readers had not seen and heard it. We must sometimes distinguish between the inclusive “we” (meaning “you and I” or “you and we”) and the exclusive “we” (meaning “we and not you”). And in 1 John 1:3 “we” is exclusive: we had this experience, you did not have it, but we are sharing it with you in order that you may share it with us—“in order that you in your turn may have fellowship with us.” This language is most naturally understood if a surviving member of the first Christian generation is addressing members of a later Christian generation, who could not have that unmediated contact with the beginning of the gospel that he himself had. (We should compare the inclusion in the dominical petition of John 17:20 of the next generation which will believe through the original disciples’ witness.)
But the implications of their sharing what John had to impart to them were more far-reaching than they might have expected. They were called to follow the steps of their predecessors who, after the first Christian Pentecost, “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship” (Acts 2:42). And they were to learn that perseverance in the apostolic fellowship58 involved fellowship with more than the apostles and their successors.
1:3b yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ:
John desires his readers to have fellowship with himself and his associates by sharing their experience of the manifested life; but fellowship with John and his associates meant at the same time fellowship with the Father and with the Son. The word “fellowship” (koinōnia) and its cognates are absent from the Gospel of John, but the idea which they express is not absent. It is present in Jesus’ words to Peter, “if I do not wash you, you have no part with me” (John 13:8).59 It is present in the parable of the Vine and the Branches (John 15:1-16). It is present in Jesus’ prayer for the disciples: “as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us…I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one” (John 17:21, 23). It is present also in a form which comes quite close to what John says here in Jesus’ answer to Judas (not Iscariot) in John 14:23: “If a man loves me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”
True believers are those who dwell in Christ—that is to say, in the fellowship which embraces all the members of Christ. Since the apostles were the first to enter this fellowship, anyone who adhered to the apostles’ fellowship had, by that token, fellowship with Christ. And since Christ is the Son of God in whom the Father dwells (John 14:10) and who in turn dwells in the Father’s love (John 15:10), so those who dwell in Him dwell in the Father (1 John 2:24). In other words, those who have fellowship with Him have fellowship with the Father through Him. There is nothing vague or merely sentimental about this fellowship; it involves obedience to the commandments of Christ and faithfulness to His teaching communicated through His apostles. Those who abandoned the apostolic teaching and fellowship severed themselves from fellowship with the Father and the Son.
Nothing is said here of the part played by the Spirit in this fellowship, but elsewhere in the epistle it is made plain that those to whom the Spirit of Christ has been given know by that fact that they dwell in Christ and He in them (1 John 3:24; 4:13). For Christian fellowship, in Paul’s language, is the “fellowship of the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 13:14; Philippians 2:1). It is the fellowship into which believers are introduced and in which they are maintained by the indwelling Spirit of Christ.
1:4 and these things we write, that our* joy may be fulfilled.
* Many ancient authorities read your.
There are two textual variants in this verse. The bulk of later manuscripts read “to you” (hymin) in place of the emphatic “we” (hēmeis) of the first clause (meaning “we as distinct from you”), and “your” (hymōn) in place of “our” (hēmōn) in the second clause.60 Neither of these variants is important. If “to you” is not expressed in the first clause, it is in any case implied; and if “our” is the possessive pronoun in the second clause, it is the inclusive “our” (meaning “our joy and yours together”), not the exclusive (“our joy, not yours”). John certainly sought his readers’ joy, but their joy would be his, and that joy would be filled brimful if they were firmly established in Christian faith and fellowship. The same theme of fullness of joy appears in the upper room discourses (John 15:11; 16:24).
2. WALKING IN LIGHT (1:5-2:2)
(a) The Character of God (1:5)
If they are to have fellowship with the Father and with the Son, they must know the character of the God who has called them into fellowship with Himself.
1:5 And this is the message which we have heard from him, and announce unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
Light in Genesis 1:3 is the beginning of God’s creation. In Psalm 104:2 it is God’s garment-like covering.61 The light of God is frequently found as a metaphor for the life or salvation that He imparts. “In thy light do we see light” (Psalm 36:9) has as its parallel clause “with thee is the fountain of life.” When, by a bolder use of metaphor, God Himself is described as light in the Old Testament, the intention is the same: “The Lord is my light and my salvation” (Psalm 27:1) stands in synonymous parallelism with “The Lord is the stronghold of my life.” Similarly, when the Servant of the Lord is given “as a light to the nations” in Isaiah 49:6, the purpose is, in God’s words, “that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
So, in the prologue of John’s Gospel the Eternal Word is “the true light that enlightens every man” (John 1:9); it is the life that resides in the Word that is “the light of men” (John 1:4). In the body of the Gospel, Jesus accordingly says, “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life”62 (John 8:12). While life is the central thought in this use of “light,” however, there is in this Gospel the further thought of the spiritual illumination which comes when God reveals Himself in His Word, and this carries an ethical emphasis with it. If, despite the entry of the true light into the world, men love darkness rather than light, it is because their deeds are evil (John 3:19-21).
Jesus, in His final utterance to the Jewish public during Holy Week, urges them to believe in Him and so become “sons of light,” else the darkness will overtake them (John 12:35 f., 46). This ethical sense of “light” appears elsewhere in the New Testament, especially in Ephesians 5:8-14, where the readers, who were once “darkness” but are now “light” in the Lord, are encouraged to live as “children of light” and bring forth the “fruit of light” rather than participate in the “unfruitful works of darkness.” Outside the New Testament, the ethical use of the terms “light” and “darkness” is specially marked in the Qumran literature, where men are ruled either by the Prince of Light or by the Angel of Darkness, and practice truth and righteousness or falsehood and iniquity accordingly.63 Such phraseology plays a prominent part in the series of affinities of concept and language which have been traced between the Qumran literature and the Johannine writings.
It is in the ethical sense that John here affirms that “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” God, that is to say, is the source and essence of holiness and righteousness, goodness and truth; in Him there is nothing that is unholy or unrighteous, evil or false. He revealed Himself thus in the age of preparation before Christ came, and when the age of fulfillment dawned in Christ, this was the character of God as unveiled in the life that was the light of men. This being so, those whose “fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ” will in their lives reflect the character of God. for they will “walk as children of light.”64 Here, then, the first of a series of “tests of life” is laid down.
(b) Three antithetic tests of life (1:6-2:2)
1:6 If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in the darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:
Three tests are here laid down in the form of a false claim introduced by the clause “if we say,” each of these false claims being followed by the truth which is its antidote. The first of the three false claims is the claim to have fellowship with God at the same time as one’s life is marked by unrighteousness. “He who does what is true comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God” (John 3:21); but “every one who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed” (John 3:20). It may well be that the false teachers against whom John puts his readers on their guard were wide open to criticism in this respect, but it is equally necessary for those who adhere to the apostolic teaching and fellowship to be reminded that orthodoxy of doctrine is no substitute for righteousness of life. “Truth in the inward being” (Psalm 51:6) is what God desires in His people, and where that is present, it will manifest itself in all the ways of life.
This ethical use of the verb “to walk” (peripateō) in the New Testament is particularly common in the Pauline letters but is also characteristic of these three Johannine letters, especially when we consider their brevity (cf., in addition to verses 6 and 7 here, 1 John 2:6, 11; 2 John 4, 6; 3 John 3, 4). Similar language occurs in the Qumran texts. For example, the “sons of righteousness” are said to “walk in the ways of light” while the “sons of wickedness” “walk in the ways of darkness.”65 In the Gospel of John there are a few passages which mark a transition from the literal sense of the verb to its denoting one’s manner of life. Jesus says, for instance, “If any one walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world; but if any one walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him” (John 11:9 f.); and again, “Walk while you have the light, lest the darkness overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light” (John 12:35 f.).66
1:7 but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
Those who walk in the darkness do not know where they are going and cannot coordinate their courses; they stumble against one another and fall into confusion. On the other hand, those who walk in the light can see one another and avoid such clashes. Where spiritual light is concerned, much more than this can be said. Those whose environment is that light in which God dwells are not only preserved from getting in one another’s way, but actively and positively they enjoy fellowship one with another because each enjoys fellowship with God Himself.67 This is the antithesis to the evil conduct and false claim which John has just exposed. The children of light are those whose behavior reflects the character of God; they share with one another the fellowship which each enjoys “with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” By contrast, those who have opted out of this divine fellowship have abandoned the realm of light. Most serious of all the consequences of their apostasy is this: the blood of Jesus, which is constantly accessible for the cleansing68 of those who remain within the fellowship, is not available for those who show a persistent preference for “walking in darkness.”
The statement that “the blood of Jesus…cleanseth us from all sin” (1:7) is the subject of an Additional Note in B. F. Westcott’s commentary, entitled “The idea of Christ’s Blood in the New Testament,” in which it is argued that the significance of blood in sacrifice is not restricted to the laying down of life but embraces “the thought of the life preserved and active beyond death.”69 Westcott expresses his indebtedness to an extended note in William Milligan’s Croall Lectures for 1879-80, in which the classical passage on this subject, Leviticus 17:11, is taken to mean that the blood sprinkled on the altar is still “a living thing, brought into the most intimate relation with the grace of God in its greatest potency.”70 This interpretation of the shedding of the blood to mean the release of life rather than the sacrifice of life is open to criticism.71 What John has in mind here is that cleansing of the conscience from guilt and moral defilement which is so insisted on in the Epistle to the Hebrews,72 and which takes a leading place among the saving benefits of the redemptive self-sacrifice of Christ. These saving benefits are permanently available to those who are united to Christ, but not to those who sever themselves from Him. To be severed from the fellowship of Christ’s people is to be severed from the fellowship of Christ Himself, so closely are He and His people joined.
1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
But, say some of those against whom John’s polemic is directed, what is it to us if the blood of Jesus is not available to cleanse us from sin? We have no sin! Here is the second false claim in the present series. If people claim—perhaps on the ground of their possession of the Spirit73—to have gotten beyond good and evil, to have reached a stage of spiritual development where moral principles are no longer relevant, they are self-deceived. The words “the truth is not in us” are reminiscent of what is said of the devil in John 8:44, “there is no truth in him.” Those in whom the truth resides—and we may recall that in the Johannine writings the truth is embodied in Christ (John 14:6)— will exhibit it in their lives; they will practice the truth (verse 6).
1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Here is the antidote to the second false claim. Those who deny their sin will feel no need of recourse to the cleansing power of Christ; those who, conscious of their sins, confess them have in Christ a Savior from whom forgiveness and cleansing from every sinful act may be freely received—not because He is indulgent and easy-going but because He is “faithful and righteous.” He is faithful in that His promise is sure: those who put their trust in Him will not be let down; those who come to Him will not be cast out. The relevance in this connection of His being righteous appears clearly in 2:1, where His righteousness is associated with His advocacy. We need not press too fine a distinction between “unrighteousness” and “sin,” for “all unrighteousness is sin” (5:17).
1:10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
The third false claim is similar to the second but not identical with it. To assert that one has never sinned is to contradict the consistent witness of divine revelation and human experience. God makes provision for men as sinners. The acknowledgement of honest men confronted with the holiness of God takes the form, “I have sinned.” “He who does not believe God has made him a liar” (5:10), whether the divine testimony to which he refuses credence concerns his own sin or the provision of life eternal in Christ. There is perhaps a slight difference between “his word is not in us” at the end of verse 10 and “the truth is not in us” at the end of verse 8. If John is moving to a climax, the situation described here is even more serious than that described in verse 8, but in the light of John 17:17, “thy word is truth,” the distinction must be a fine one. In John 5:38 Jesus says to His hearers in reference to the Father’s witness, “you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe him whom he has sent.” Again, in John 8:37 He charges His opponents with seeking to kill Him “because my word finds no place in you.” Such expressions in the Gospel indicate how the analogous language of the Epistle is to be understood.
51 See A. Ehrhardt, The Beginning (Manchester, 1968), pp. 193 f.; he thinks it was pre-eminently Micah 5:2, LXX (ap’ archēs), that was in John’s mind.
52 Cf. Polycarp, To the Philippians 7. 2: “let us turn back to the word which was delivered to us from the beginning (ex archēs).”
53 It has been suggested that, in addition to stressing the eyewitness testimony on which the gospel was based, these words might be calculated to refute agnostic misuse of the saying quoted in 1 Corinthians 2:9—perhaps in a form like that occurring in the Gospel of Thomas (Saying 17): “I will give you what eye never saw, what ear never heard, what hand never touched…” (A. Ehrhardt, The Framework of the New Testament Stories, Manchester, 1964, pp. 28 ff.).
54 Cf. Ignatius: “I know and believe that he was in the flesh even after the resurrection. And when he came to Peter and his companions he said to them, ‘Take, handle (psēlaphaō) me and see that I am not a bodiless phantom’” (To the Smyrnaeans 3.1 f.).
55 See pp. f.
56 As in the title of G. Goodman, The Epistle of Eternal Life (Pickering and Inglis, 1936). On “eternal life” see also commentary on .
57 Cf. C. H. Dodd, The Johannine Epistles (London, 1946), pp. 9 ff.
58 See , for the relevance of the term “apostolic” in a commentary on documents from which it is absent.
59 Cf. NEB: “you are not in fellowship with me.”
60 The principal witnesses for “our” are Codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. This textual variation between the pronouns of the first and second persons plural is one of the commonest in the New Testament because by the first century AD there was little, if any, difference in pronunciation between them.
61 If some places the Old Testament speak of God as dwelling in “thick darkness” (e.g. Exodus 20:21; 1 Kings 8:12; Psalm 97:2), that is because His radiant light is so unapproachable (cf. 1 Timothy 6:16) that it must be hidden from men behind the cloud of the shekinah. Cf. E. R. Goodenough, By Light, Light (New Haven, 1935), p. 267.
62 For the phrase “the light of life” cf. the Qumran Rule of the Community 3.6 f.: “Through the spirit of God’s true counsel atonement is made for a man’s ways, even for all his iniquities, so that he may see the light of life.”
63 Rule of the Community 3.13 ff. Cf. commentary on .
64 Cf. Ephesians 5:8. See also commentary on
65 Rule of the Community 3.20 f.
66 Cf. John 8:12 (); 12:46; 1 John 2:11.
67 The words “one with another” may mean believers with fellow believers or believers with God. It is unnecessary to insist on the one meaning as against the other, since the one implies the other.
68 In the Old Testament to be “cleansed” from sin is synonymous with having one’s sin “atoned for;” cf. Leviticus 16:30, with reference to the Day of Atonement: “on this day shall atonement be made for you, to cleanse you; from all your sins you shall be clean before the Lord” (LXX has the same verb for “cleanse,” katharizō, as John uses here). This is relevant to the NEB rendering of Greek hilasmos in 1 John 2:2 and 4:10 as “remedy for the defilement (of our sins).” A. T. Hanson draws a parallel between Psalm 130 (LXX 129) and 1 John 1:7-2:5. He points in particular to verse 4 of the psalm, “with thee is forgiveness (LXX hilasmos),” and verse 8, “he will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.” His suggestion is that Psalm 130 “was considered in the early Church to refer to Christian baptism and that John had this psalm in mind as he wrote this passage in his First Epistle” (Studies in the Pastoral Epistles, London, 1968, pp. 91 ff.).
69 The Epistles of St. John (London, 1902), pp. 34 ff.
70 W. Milligan, The Resurrection of our Lord (London, 1894), p. 280. A similar view of the significance of sacrificial blood shedding in another context is presented in W. R. Smith, The Religion of the Semites2 (London, 1894), pp. 269 ff., 317 ff., 338 ff.
71 Cf. A. M. Stibbs, The Meaning of the Word “Blood” in Scripture (London, 1947); L. Morris, “The Biblical Use of the Term ‘Blood,’” JTS n.s. 3 (1952), pp. 216 ff.; The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross (London, 1955), pp. 108 ff.; F. J. Taylor, in A Theological Word Book of the Bible, ed. A. Richardson (London, 1950), pp. 33 f. (s.v. “Blood”). “The interest of the New Testament is not in the material blood of Christ, but in His shed blood as the life violently taken from Him. Like the cross, the ‘blood of Christ’ is simply another and even more graphic phrase for the death of Christ in its soteriological significance” (J. Behm, in TDNT i, Grand Rapids, 1964, p. 174, s.v. alµa).
72 Cf. Hebrews 9:14; 10:2, 22.
73 Cf. commentary on .