First John 1:1-7

The Apostle John wrote in First John 1:1, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life.” John is talking about the basis for his teaching. John taught about Jesus Christ. How could John teach the things that he taught about Jesus Christ? From where did John obtain his information? John obtained it from first hand experience. Faith is not based upon nothing. Faith is based upon something substantial. Faith is based upon truth. Faith is based upon that which really happened. That makes sense. That which is true must have evidence to support it, or it would not be true. If you think that something is true, and then there is never any evidence to support it, then that means it cannot be true.

I believe that Jesus Christ is. Jesus Christ came to the earth. Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world. Jesus Christ rose from the dead. I believe that to be the truth. If it is the truth, there must be some evidence to support it. John gives some of the most important evidence: his personal testimony. If Christ came to the earth, and walked upon the earth, and lived and breathed and talked, then there must have been people who saw him and who knew him. Who were those people? John was one of them, and this verse is a great statement of what he says that he experienced. John says that he heard the Christ, that he saw the Christ, and that he touched the Christ. Of course, not only did John say that, but many others said the same thing. Are the eye-witnesses and are the written records left by the eye-witnesses evidence? Of course, they are very good evidence.

This is the kind of evidence that is accepted in a court of law. When you have many eye-witnesses, and especially when the eye-witnesses are of the highest character, you have the best case you can possibly have. It is interesting that even though the Apostle John spoke of the human life of Christ by mentioning hearing, seeing and touching Him, still John made it clear that he was talking about more than just a human because John said, “that which was from the beginning.” Before Jesus had a human life, He shared the eternal existence with the Father.

The eternal God took upon Himself the form of a man. This is the man about whom John was writing. John continued in First John 1:2, “For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.” In the first verse John said that Jesus was “from the beginning.” Now John says that Jesus is “the life.” Jesus called Himself, “the way, the truth, and the life.” If there is any question about what kind of life that the Bible is speaking of, a little bit later in verse two makes that clear. It says, “eternal life.” The greatest problem of mankind is death: and after that eternal death. Jesus is the solution to that problem.

If you solved all of the problems of mankind, but did not solve the death problem, then you would not have solved much at all. The Holy Spirit moved the Apostle Paul to write about the problem of death in First Corinthians 15:55-56 that says, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.” Of course, Paul also wrote about the solution to this great and universal problem. He wrote in First Corinthians 15:57, “But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The reason that Christ has the power over death is because of who He is. One of the things that John is saying very clearly in his writings in First John is that Jesus is God. Jesus has the attributes of God. Anyone who is a true believer of Jesus has believed in the divine Jesus. Such a conclusion about the person of Jesus does not ultimately come from human logic: it comes from the teaching of the Word and is understood and accepted by those to whom the Spirit has revealed it. An important word is used twice in verse two by the Apostle John, the word “manifested.” Jesus was manifested to mankind in general and to the apostles in particular. Before Jesus was manifested, he was “with the Father.” An interesting truth about the Father is that the Father is invisible. “No man hath seen God at any time.” This is speaking of the Father. Think of the Father. He is the great, Almighty God. He is holy. He is true. He is power. He is light. If any man were to look on the Father, perhaps that man would die instantly. Perhaps his flesh would melt off his bones because of the light and the power that would emanate from God.

God said to Moses in Exodus, 33:20, “Thou canst not see my face; for there shall no man se me, and live.” That is a problem. We need God. We need to know Him. But God is a God who hides Himself. He is all around us: “In Him we live and move and have our being,” but how shall we ever come to know this invisible God? Jesus Christ is the answer. When Jesus was born, the angel said that Jesus was Emmanuel, which means “God with us.” Without Christ all that you can know about the invisible God is a small amount concerning some of His attributes. With Christ you can know everything that is knowable about God. Jesus is God manifest in the flesh.

That is exactly the message that John was giving in First John 1:3 where John wrote by the Holy Spirit, “That we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that you may also have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” Concerning man, it is all about Jesus. Jesus was with the Father, and then Jesus was manifested to the human race. Since Jesus was manifest to the human race, the only way to have fellowship with the Father was to have fellowship with the Son. If you were to attempt to have fellowship with the Father without the Son, then you would have no fellowship at all because Jesus is the One who was manifested to the human race. On the other hand if you have fellowship with the Son, automatically you gain fellowship with the Father because Jesus and the Father are one. Jesus said when He was on the earth, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”

It is interesting to think about the word “fellowship.” The word that is translated as fellowship is the word that is used for the closest of relationships. A good synonym of the word is “intimacy.” John was saying, “that you also may have intimacy with us: and truly our intimacy is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.” Only through Jesus can a human being have an intimate relationship with God. If you are close to God through Christ, then you will also be able to fellowship with others who are close to God through Christ. These are the last days. Many go to church, but not many walk in fellowship with Christ. If you come into contact with someone and their spirit is against you, and you are in fellowship with Christ, then that only proves that they are not in fellowship. They cannot be in fellowship with you because they are not in fellowship with Christ. True Christianity is not a religion. It is a relationship with the Almighty Son of God, and it is also a relationship with everyone else who is rightly related to the Almighty Son of God.

Knowing Jesus personally is the most important circumstance of life and is the ultimate spiritual experience. Do not settle for a substitute. Jesus is risen from the dead. He is alive. John tells us what the impact is that this truth should have on our lives in First John 1:4 where John writes, “And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.” Some Christians do not have the joy that they can have. What is missing? Perhaps reading these great things about Jesus and thinking about them and understanding them is what is missing. John said that was the reason that he was writing these things.

John writes about the wonderful fellowship that we can have with God and with Christ in verses one through four, and then John begins writing about the hindrance to fellowship: why we needed Jesus in the first place in order to know God. The Bible says in First John 1:5, “This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” Darkness is a problem that man has: spiritual darkness. The only One that can fix that problem is God and Christ. Jesus is the Light of the world. When the light of the gospel of Christ shines into your heart, then you are delivered from the darkness.

The thing about darkness is that there are certain types of behaviors that go along with the darkness. Someone who is walking in the light will not be doing the deeds of darkness. Jesus said, “By their fruits you shall know them.” John wrote in First John 1:6, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.” Are there human beings who claim to be true believers, but whose lives and actions and behaviors are of the darkness of sin? Yes, there are. We read about such people sometimes in the newspapers. Sometimes such people are leaders of supposedly Christian organizations. Talk is cheap. Anyone can claim anything, but the proof is in the pudding. If you do not have a life that backs up what you say, then something is terribly wrong. Get it fixed. Turn from your wicked ways.

The problem that every person has is the sin problem. How can sinful man be in fellowship with the holy Christ? It would be impossible if it had not been for what Christ Himself had done. There is a means of being cleansed from sin. The Bible says in First John 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 Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” The idea of having a sacrifice for sin was God’s idea. The only way that God could forgive sin was for there to be a substitute, and the substitute would give His blood for sinners. “The life of the flesh is in the blood.” “Without the shedding of blood there is no remission.”

The thing to note about First John 1:7 is that it is talking about Christians who are walking in fellowship with Christ. Some might conclude that they are walking in the light because of accomplishments on their part. But look closer at this verse. Yes, they are walking in the light, but the last part of the verse says that the “blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.” Even when walking in the light, there is a necessity of continual cleansing from sin because God is holy and man is sinful. Walking in the light does not change that fact. Even the best of Christians at any given moment is prideful, selfish, or faithless. Without the cleansing from sin, we could not walk in fellowship with Him no matter what our supposed accomplishments might be.

This is the principle of the requirement of daily cleansing from sin by the Lord Jesus Christ. This is exactly the principle that Jesus was teaching when He washed the feet of the disciples. They were clean, but they still needed to have their feet washed every day. The same is true about every Christian: the truth of their continued sinfulness. Yes, we can walk in fellowship with Christ, but only because of His great mercy towards us. The importance of the forgiveness of sins does not apply just to the day of salvation. It applies to every single day in the life of the believer. We owe everything to Jesus because of the forgiveness of sins that He gives us. Christianity is all about Jesus and His forgiveness every day.

Of course, First John 1:7 says, “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” That means that He will forgive us of all quantities of sins and from all types of sins. Some people become discouraged because of their sins in that they think that maybe they will not be forgiven this time. They have sinned so many times perhaps God will not forgive them this time. No, that is not true because “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” Other people might think that perhaps God will not forgive them because of the severity of some particular sin. They know that God will forgive them of what they might call “white” lies or some other supposed minor sin, but now that they have gossiped and ruined someone’s career or now that they have committed adultery or murder, perhaps God will not forgive them. No, that is not true either because “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”

There may be someone who does not want to confess their sinfulness every day. There may be someone who thinks that they have come to the point where they no longer have sinfulness to confess. Verse eight is written to them. It says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” Everyone has some sin because we are all human and humans sin. If you made a list of the characteristics of human beings that are true of all humans, then you would put on that list the fact that human beings commit sin. For every person everywhere, no matter who they are or what they have accomplished, this is true: they commit sin. They are sinners, and the way to victory over any sin must start with truth. Anyone who will not admit their own sins, cannot find forgiveness for those sins. Jesus is truth. To come to Him and get forgiveness of any sin, you must say the truth about yourself. Anyone who denies the truth about a particular sin that they have committed will never fix the problem. The question is this: what did you do wrong, not what did someone else do wrong. If you are willing to say the truth about yourself, then you can go to Christ and ask for forgiveness; and He will forgive you every time. It is wonderful to be a Christian. Through Christ Jesus our Lord, we have a solution to the sin problem.

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