Beholding the Lord Through His Word - III
1 John 1:1-4 · Vern Peterman · Mar 17, 2013
Beholding the Lord (2013), No. 03
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926346326571

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. We are in the third Sunday of our four-week series, Beholding the Lord Through His Word. And we summarize it this way, seeing the living Word of God in the written Word of God. And so we'll go into 1 John 1, 1-4 in order to do that. We first covered 2 Corinthians 3.18, but we all, beholding the glory of the Lord. We last week talked about John 1 out of the Gospel of John 1 through 18. We saw his glory full of grace and truth and today we look at 1st John 1, 1 through 4 and next Sunday we'll be looking at Hebrews 12, 1 and 2, fixing our eyes on Jesus. So 1st John 1, 1 through 4 goes like this, what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands concerning the word of life, and the life was manifested and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the father and was manifested to us what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also so that you too may have fellowship with us and indeed our fellowship is with the father and with his son Jesus Christ these things we write so that our joy may be made complete so here's how we're going to approach 1 John 1, 1-4 here. Our approach will be this way. First we'll take a look at the first verse there, as we just read it, and then the second verse, and we will look at verses 3 and 4 together. So that will be our approach, those three sections.

First, and you have this as the first slide in your handout, what we have observed, one of the things we see here in this passage is a repeated use of we. We have heard, we have seen, we have looked at, we have touched. Again, we have seen, we have seen, and we have heard. Repeated reference to the things, and these are physical senses that he's talking about here.

And then what we did. What did we do in response to those things? We have seen, and we turn around and testify and proclaim. We proclaim, and now, just as we're reading it, John says, we write. So John speaks of several different responses to what they saw and heard and touched. And then what we proclaimed and wrote so that you too may have fellowship with us.

This is why we're doing it. It was one of John's patterns. He did it in the Gospel of John, John 20 verse 31. He said, this is why I'm writing to you so that you may believe and believing you may have life through his name. Here he also gives his purpose that you too may have fellowship and so that our joy may be made complete."

Have you ever had something where something turned out just right? It doesn't happen very often in life, but something turned out just right and you say, ah, that's it. That's it. And that's part of what John's looking at. He says, spiritually speaking, if you have these fellowships and enjoy these fellowships, then we're happy. Our joy has been made complete. It's exactly as we want it.

So, in 1st John 1.1, as we said, we start there with that first verse, and it looks like this. What was from the beginning?

Now, it's a pattern we notice, John started off the gospel of John in the beginning, just like Genesis 1.1. He does something a little different here, what was from the beginning, okay? What was from the beginning?

So Genesis 1.1 and John 1.1, in the beginning was the time God spoke the present creation into existence and created everything through Christ. Here it points to the beginning of the introduction of the gospel.

John uses the same phrase in 1st John 2.7, 13, 14, 24, and 3.11. So John is certainly emphasizing this point. What was from the beginning? What was from the beginning? There's a beginning timing in John's mindset here. John is writing these things to believers. That's clear.

First John 5.13 makes that abundantly clear. What's interesting is John will often put his purpose and his target statements towards the end of the books that he writes. This is no exception.

First John 5.13 states that point. Now here you have a poetic form and it should be reproduced somewhat similarly at least in your handout there on the slide on page one.

What was from the beginning we have heard, we have seen with our eyes. We have looked at and touched with our hands. So at least two of those senses he brings up, and here's how he did it, right? So he isn't speaking just spiritually yet. Concerning the word of life. Now, so who is the we that he's talking about here?

By this was a drawing of me by Kaylee Kays about 10 years ago. Now, there's been an improvement, an update on that. Here's Poppy's rendition of me. July 2010, you know. This is Wayne Anderson's interpretation. Okay. So anyway, all right. So here's the poetic form. We're going to ask what we, who is we, have heard, seen, okay? We have looked at, okay? So that's who we is. Who? The ones John called we were the ones who had heard and seen and looked at and touched the things concerning the word of life.

They had been there. These guys were not telling us the gospel accounts by rumor. Hey, you know, I kind of heard this thing, you know, word of mouth, third-hand. No. We personally were right there. We saw it happen. We touched it. We felt it. We heard it. Right there. We were eyewitnesses, or you could put it this way, we were earwitnesses. We were right there. We were first-hand witnesses.

And it wasn't just, I kind of heard something around the corner. Boy, you got all these senses engaged. seeing Christ here. Touch the things concerning the word of life. These were the apostles, the ones who walked with the Lord day by day. And so John is expressing himself as one of those apostles. Now, heard and seen.

What's interesting, heard and seen here are in the perfect tense, and we don't want you to get perfectly tense about that, right? Let's explain what that is. So having heard and seen were completed, but the results were ongoing. They actually had been done, completed in hearing and seeing Christ. Why? Because Christ had ascended and gone. So the hearing and seeing were over. But the impact from hearing and seeing was not even close to over. And it's not even close to being over. Why? Because you and I are reading about it.

The impact is still there even though the hearing and seeing was long ago and done. John was saying that what Jesus had said was still ringing in the Apostles ears. Ever had something happen, not just because it was loud, but because something really impacted you? Somebody said something and that really stuck with you. That's the way John's writing here.

He says, what we saw, what we heard, what we touched, we will never, ever forget. And not only that, We're not going to be quiet about it either. We're not going to be quiet. We'll talk about it. We will proclaim it. We will write about it every way we can. If he could, he'd have emailed it.

Right? All right. What they had seen was still in their mind's eye and mind's ear and all those things. They could still see it. If you ever had something happen that was very memorable, this was all memorable. This was all very memorable. That's what John's saying. So then he talks about heard, seen with our eyes, looked at, and touched with our hands. He refers to these three senses here in this first verse, twice being very specific about with our eyes, with our hands.

This wasn't something mystical and we kind of dreamed it and weren't quite sure. No, that's not that kind of thing here. And the other thing is that seen here is acted. It wasn't like, you know, hey, I happened to glance and kind of saw this. No, we actively saw. We'd looked with intent. Wow, did you hear that? Did you see that? Yeah, I made sure that I did. That's what this means here. He deliberately listened and saw and touched. Actively beholding, looking closely and understanding the significance of what he heard and saw and looked at and touched.

Remember John 1.14 from last week? and the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw his glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."

The word in John 1.14 translated, we saw, and the King James is actually his beheld, which is actually even a better translation, is the same one translated, looked at, here in 1 John 1.1. So John is emphatic. He writes the Gospel of John, he says that. He writes 1 John, and he says, and he uses the same word.

But we looked at it and it wasn't just a happen to glance, happen to see it. We actively looked and saw and beheld it and we can't forget it. It grabbed our attention that intensely. The Word of Life. John repeatedly calls Christ the Word, varying the words that go alongside it, but he calls Christ the Word.

We saw last week, you also have it in this slide on page two of your handout, John the Apostle uniquely calls Christ the Word in John 1.1, John 1.14, and now here in 1 John 1.1 concerning the Word of Life. He continues to do that in the book of Revelation.

Revelation 19.13, his name was called the Word of God. His name was called the Word of God. So John is consistent. Why does he say the Word?

Does that mean Jesus is just one word and don't put Christ on it? No. What it means is he is the message from God. The message. See, the message comes in the form of a person. Christ. The Word of God. God's deliberate message. John was very clear about the character of the Word of Life. Jesus Christ. He was very clear. As John and the others in close company with Christ lived alongside him very closely, day by day, even witnessed Christ's death and resurrection and ascension into the heavenlies firsthand, John was emphatic that he was very real.

This is not just a dream that I had. This is not a rumor that I heard. And this is not a, you know, boy, I had some mystical revel... No. This was real. We touched it. We saw it. We heard it. And we cross-checked each other. Did you hear that? Yeah. Did you see that? Yeah. Did you touch that? Yeah. Here, Thomas, come put your hands in the wounds on my side. Touch it. This isn't a dream. This isn't a hallucination. This is real. This is real.

And John is emphatic about his way of putting it. The Greek at the end of verse one literally says, the word of the life. And when the Greek uses the definite article, it's specific. The word. The one. Are there other messages of God? Not like this one. Not like this one. This one's unique. The word of the life.

Can you find life in lots of places? Oh yeah. There are places that'll sell you a vacation, some really nice place down in the Caribbean. There's places that'll say, hey, come here and we'll get you life. Matter of fact, that's what marketing is, right? Marketing is to sell you on life. It's here, it's there, and it comes on the television, it comes on the billboards, comes over the internet. That's selling you life. This is the life, okay?

Not like the others. John understood Jesus Christ, the one with whom he and the other apostles walked and lived and talked and ate. And by the way, sometimes they ate miraculous food. Food that by any other standard wouldn't and shouldn't have been there. They said, hey, something very special is going on here, right? That is the singular expression, Christ is the singular expression of God himself who is also the source of spiritual life, true life, the real thing.

It's not marketing. It's not marketing. And by the way, I don't mean to speak ill of marketing. I went to school for all that, but this isn't that. It's not marketing. What was John talking about when he wrote that they touched the word of life? What would that mean? They go around holding on to them all the time? Let's take a look. One, didn't He wash the feet of every single one? Both feet. Every single one. Every one of them touched Him. Every one. Christ, after He was resurrected, appeared as told in John 20, 24, and 25. But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.

So the other disciples were saying to him, We have seen the Lord!" And of course they're very excited and he's saying, oh, I'm going to be skeptical here. But he said to them, unless I see in his hands the imprint of the nails and put my finger into the place of the nails and put my finger in his side, I will not believe, unless I do that.

So guess what? After eight days, his disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them, and Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and he stood in their midst and said, Peace be with you. Hi, pardon me, I just walked through the wall. Then he said to Thomas, knowing that Thomas does not believe, right? I will not believe. He said to Thomas, reach here with your finger and see my hands and reach here with your hand and put it in my side and do not be unbelieving willfully, but willfully believing." See, this is not believing by accident. You don't go, whoop, I believed.

Right? None of that. So Thomas' response? Ah, nah. No. My Lord and my God. Verse 28 and 29 says this, Thomas answered and said to him, My Lord and my God. And by the way, is Jesus deity? Yeah, otherwise he wouldn't allow this. Jesus said to him, because you have seen me, have you believed? Blessed are they who do not see and yet believed.

You have seen. I invite you to touch. See, here it all is. See it, touch it. Hear me. Here's the invitation. It's for real. It's the real thing. These other guys aren't lying to you. Luke 24, 36, and 43 also has an account like that. Now, in verse 2, here's the poetic form. We have that lined out in page 3 of your handout.

In 1 John 1-2, and the life was manifested to us, is the implication, and we have seen and implied, we testify and we proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father, and the life, that life, was manifested to us. So we look at 1 John 1-2 here. Notice in John 21-1, after these things, Jesus manifested himself again to the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias, and he manifested himself in this way. And we won't go into all that at this point in time, but Jesus repeatedly manifested and showed himself. Notice in this 1st John 1-2, the words testify and proclaim.

Now, as we see that, you might say, well, both testify and proclaim? Why both? Why not just pick one word and go with it? Well, both are verbal and written expressions. To testify is to tell the truth about something. To proclaim is to make the message quite public.

I might testify and yet have it be a fairly small gathering, right? I might testify about something. I don't know if you've ever done that, but I've done it sometimes in small depositions where you've got people sitting around a table, right? So here's the small group.

Here, in this instance, however, you make it quite public. You go out and you tell everybody. This is no secret, and I definitely don't intend to have this be a secret. I don't just testify, tell the truth to a few people. I proclaim it. I let everybody know. Because this is the kind of thing you don't want to keep a secret. These are the exact things that the Apostles did. We give references there.

We won't go into them, but Acts 9.20 and 1 John 4.14 both make those proclamation and testifying kinds of statements. The Apostles did, in fact, do both of those things. The life and then the eternal life are the words that show up here. The Greek text at the end of the second line there literally says, the life, the eternal. The life, the eternal. Having the idea of the life that is the eternal one. Why would he put it that way? Why not just leave it the life? Well, John wrote about life over a dozen times in this really rather brief letter. He recognized the unfathomable value of the real life.

Like we mentioned, the world likes to sell you things that they call life. Oh, by the way, some of the marketing terms are you deserve this. Ever hear that again and again? Well, if you deserve it, why don't they just give it to you, right? So that's marketing. Okay. Anyway, real life, real life. And by the way, do we deserve this? No marketing. We don't deserve it. but we're given it freely by grace.

When John says Christ is eternal, his meaning goes beyond just the infinite in time to convey that Christ is real life, He is enduring, He is changeless, He is a certain, that is an absolute fixed, and it's going to happen, hope. A certain hope. That's what we mean by that. A certain hope. God's not saying, you know, I sure hope it turns out this way. It'd be kind of nice. We'll see. It's not that kind of a hope, is it? This is a certain hope. Real, eternal life, and it's going to be that way absolutely. Absolutely. One of the things we keep seeing is the life.

1 John 1 one and two, the word of the life and the life was manifested and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the life that is the eternal one this is kind of expanded and explained a bit Christ who is the life of us this is going to Colossians 3, 3 and 4 for you have died and the life of you a little bit more literal translation there the life of you is hidden with Christ in God when Christ who is the life of us is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory."

So, would anyone like to worry for a while? Do you like that? Do you enjoy that? Some people seem to really enjoy that worrying thing. Anybody like to worry? I mean, there's plenty of opportunity. So it seems. Well, let's take a look at John 14, 1-6. And you have this on page 3 of your handout on the slide. Do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in Me.

In My Father's house are many dwelling places. For if it were not so, I would not have told you. For I go to prepare a place for you." And we point out otherwise that, I go to prepare a place for you. His words, they groom to be, would say to his bride to be. For if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way where I'm going. Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you're going. How do we know the way? Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me.

So, have you ever wished that somebody had posted a warning sign? Ever had something come up and, boy, I sure wish I had a little warning on that. Ever wish somebody had posted a warning sign, right? Yeah. Wow. All sorts of warning signs are out there, some of them a little strange. But yeah, you may have wished that somebody posted a warning sign, and what John is doing here is posting a warning sign.

John issued a critical warning, and it goes like this, saying that Christ is not actual and real, is a spiritual dead end. John is emphatic that what he saw and heard and touched is all real. It's all real. And he's trying to get away from those who say, well, you know, Jesus isn't real and actual. He's just sort of spiritually, ethereally there. He said, nope, that doesn't cut it. Saying that Christ is only spiritually or mystically true is a spiritual dead end. There are those who claim that the Bible is only spiritually true, but it's not historically true. And try to separate those out. He says, uh-uh. Nope. Sorry. This is the truth. have touched it, we have heard it, we have proclaimed it, and it's for real. It's the real thing. With our hands, with our ears, with our eyes.

Saying that Christ didn't actually die and resurrect physically in a real body is also a spiritual dead end. It's also a spiritual dead end. By the way, the Muslim teaching is that it was not Christ who actually died on that cross. Another man died instead. John saying, uh uh, I was there. I was close enough that Jesus could say, John, take care of Mary. Mary, there's your son. John was close enough that he could tell that was Jesus. I know it's him.

Saying that we can find life in anyone or anything else is a spiritual dead end. is a spiritual dead end and really if you think about it the world is trying to sell you the sin nature is trying to sell you on the idea that you can find life anywhere else as a matter of fact they don't really care where you try to find it as long as you don't try to find it in Christ when the reality is that's the only place you're going to find it all the things that the world tries to tell you you know if you just had this phone you'd be happy you know if you just buy this car you'll be happy until next year right? if you just eat at our restaurant I mean it doesn't get any better than that it's heaven right? and the reality is life is only found in Christ you can't go anywhere else don't be sold on a substitute there isn't any Now, verses three and four, which we said we'd take together. What we have seen and heard, we proclaim to you also so that you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.

These things we write so that our joy may be made complete. So now, here's the poetic form for those verses. What we have seen and heard, these things, repeats that same idea. We proclaim to you so that and so that. so that you too may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son Jesus Christ, so that our joy may be made complete." So the things that he's done in proclaiming and writing and the so that's. Let's take a look here. What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also.

These things we write. These are the responses that the Apostles had to the things that they saw and heard and touched. These words summarize the first two verses in order to tell us why are we doing this? Why are we doing this? The why are we doing this questions address the rest of verse three and four here.

So, now we have the so that's. The so that's. So that you may have fellowship. So that our joy may be made complete. Let's take a look at our joy may be made complete. Now, this is not one of those Clint Eastwood things. Go ahead, make my joy complete. That's not that. Not there. And good luck getting the Bible in his hand. Anyway, not that.

No, what we do have here, John's purpose in telling us is for fellowship among us who believe. Why do we have these things here in the Bible? So that you can go to Bible college and get a degree at Bible, is that what it's for? So that you can go to seminary and get your doctorate and then you're really certifiable, right? No. Fellowship. We wrote these things so that you could have fellowship. Fellowship. That's why... Why did we see it? Why did we hear it? Why did we touch it? Fellowship! Fellowship. Our joint fellowship is with Christ and the Father, for full and total joy. Full on, full out joy. So that you too may have fellowship with us. That's why we wrote it. That's why it was worth going through all this. That's why we apostles would put our life on the line so that you can have fellowship. You can join that fellowship with us.

John has invited us to join in the very same fellowship that the apostles themselves had with each other because of knowing Christ and having witnessed and seen these things and heard them themselves. He says, I want you to join me. I want you to have that kind of fellowship, the fellowship that we had, the things that we saw and heard and touched, we will never forget. And he doesn't want us to forget either. That's why I wrote it this way. The fellowship John invited us to, sorry about that. It's not gonna blow up, I don't think. There. All right. Okay.

The fellowship that John invited us to join is not only among humans, but with the Father and with Jesus Christ, his Son, in whom we are. fellowship with the One in whom you are. Are you in Christ? That's what the fellowship is about. Is Christ in you? Yeah, that's what the fellowship is about. We are intimately connected by being in Christ and He in us for fellowship. John 17, that's what Christ prayed for, right? This joy to which John has invited us is not simply a modest improvement. That's a little bit better, I think.

You ever go through one of these things? I'm glad I don't have to wear these things, let me tell you. Which is better, this or this? Whoa, it's better not to have these on, right? And a lot of times, which is better, this or this? Well, you can't really tell, right? Or at least I can. So anyway, I'm really glad I don't have to wear that. So this is a little bit better than that. Or I'm not quite sure, maybe this one.

He wasn't looking for a slight improvement. It is total and full and complete and not from any earthly circumstances. He's not talking about a slight improvement in our spiritual condition. He's talking about radical improvement. Radical improvement. So what's the point of all this? What's the point?

Paul wrote that we beheld the Lord through his written word, 2 Corinthians 3.18, and we're changed from glory to glory, transformed.

God's written word is his glory growth tool. His glory growth tool in our lives. You want glory growth? By the way, that's what God has in mind. Glory growth. God's written word is for that purpose. Not so you can get A's in seminary, not so you can get degrees, okay? God's glory growth tool is His word. We behold the Lord through His word.

John wrote that when Christ walked this earth and he and the apostles were there, they beheld His glory, that glory from which you grow. He says, we saw it, we're gonna tell you about it, you're gonna grow from it too. We are therefore changed from glory to glory as we read and hear of John beholding Christ. In the Gospel of John, in here, right here, we're changed. Spiritually, we're changed deeply, and we're changed forever. That's cool, really cool.

Let's pray. Lord, thank you for these marvelous and amazing things that you have spelled out for us. having the life. Imagine having fellowship, fellowship with the one who created the entire universe and brought it into existence. Imagine that. Imagine having fellowship with the one who paid the price for us all. That is astounding. We give you thanks. We give you praise. In Jesus' name, Amen.