1 John 1:1-4 - The Word of Life

•     The subject-matter of the Gospel employed in the Epistle (i. 1-3).

•     The purpose of the Epistle (i. 4).

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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. "From the beginning." As in John i. 1, before the world was. But in ii. 7, 13, 14, iii. 11, it signifies from the commencement of preaching the Gospel.

The first verse of the Epistle declares the reality of Christ's body, as attested by all the special senses which in the nature of the case can be applied. Taste and smell are not related to this demonstration. But the eyes, the ears and the hands are summoned as witnesses in proof that the important witness is emphasized by the use of two verbs, that which we have seen with our eyes and continuously, calmly and intently "contemplated" or surveyed. The phrase "with our eyes" is not redundant, for it accentuates the direct, outward experience of a matter so marvelous in itself and in its basal relation to vital Christian truths. It was no mere trance or vision of the soul alone. "Your eyes have seen" is the formula for assured certitude in Deut. iii. 21, xi. 7, xxi. 7.

"Ye Know Him"

The declaration of Christ is, "Ye know him, for he abideth with you, and shall be in you."

We see no form. We hear no sound. We feel the touch of no hand. The Spirit does not address any one of the five senses when He creates the soul anew. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned by minds quickened into spiritual life by the omnipotent Spirit, the giver of life. In regeneration the Spirit is inscrutable, His act of new creation is to the subject a fact, a something done in an unfathomable depth below his consciousness. This fact is recognized only by its effects. He knows that he is a new man, that he is fundamentally changed in all his tendencies, that he is released from his accusing conscience, that his past sins are forgiven and that he is no longer cowering beneath the wrath of God, but basking in the sunshine of His love. He no longer thinks of Him as a police judge sentencing him to a deserved punishment, but as a loving Father. The filial feeling has been suddenly and mysteriously inspired in his bosom, and he hears with his spiritual ear new words sounding in his heart, "Abba, Father." Almost involuntarily he utters them with his lips. He is conscious of a spiritual transformation. The personal agent he does not perceive. In fact the personality of your most intimate friend you have never directly seen. Personality is spiritual and is recognized only by its effects — words, smiles and other actions. You may therefore know the Holy Spirit's personality by His works in your own consciousness, as certainly as a son may know his father with whom he has daily intercourse. We say this to show that spiritual knowledge has the same certitude as our knowledge of men and things around us.

Delitzsch writes in  "Biblical Psychology," pages 418, 419:

It happens sometimes that the indwelling of Christ and God and His Spirit signalizes itself with such an energy in the believer that the human individual life is overflowed and swallowed up by the divine as a river of delight. . . . In other cases it is certified that the walk of the Christian is in heaven actually ( Phil. iii. 20, compare Zech. iii. 7 ), by the fact that the future glory is not merely revealed to his perception as a subject of hope ( I Cor. ii. 9, 10 ), but is given him for a moment to see and share in by way of foretaste.

This is a state of ecstasy, the highest experience of heavenly blessedness and of a knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. The recipe for the attainment of this knowledge is found in Matt. v. 8, Luke x. 22.

— from The Gospel of the Comforter, Chapter 22.

"My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?"

QUESTION: Explain the words of Christ on the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" — Matt. 27:46.

ANSWER: It is said that Martin Luther, after several hours' meditation on these words, exclaimed, "God forsaken of God! I cannot understand it. I cannot understand it." I sympathize with the great reformer. The personality of Christ in whom two natures are blended is unique and beyond our poor philosophy. Still more unfathomable is the unique act of atonement for sin which he was making when this dereliction took place. But we must believe that Christ, "the fullness of the Godhead bodily," ever had the inner consciousness of union with his Father indestructible and that there was no objective withdrawal of the Father and much less was he hurling down the thunderbolts of wrath upon the head of his beloved Son as a vicarious malefactor enduring punishment. Calvary was a scene of suffering but not of punishment. It is reasonable to believe that in the intensity of the unspeakable physical and mental agonies of Jesus, the pain and loss of blood so affected his brain as momentarily to interrupt communion with the skies, that — to use a modern illustration — the receiver of his telephone was out of repair so that the uttered love of the Father was not heard. Dr. A. Clarke inclines to the theory that the word "why" is capable of being translated. thus: "To what kind of men have you left me?" thus reflecting upon the cruel ingrates who were murdering him, rather than on the withdrawal of his Father. There is some ground for this exegesis, but to most Greek scholars it must appear to be strained.

— Steele's Answers pp. 213, 214.

The Spirit Testifies to Christ

"Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth: for he shall not speak from himself; but what things soever he shall hear, [these] shall he speak: and he shall declare unto you the things that are to come He shall glorify me: for he shall take of mine, and shall declare [it] unto you" — John 16:13, 14 (Revised Version).

If the Paraclete had come to testify of Himself and to do an independent work irrespective of Christ, His mission would not have conserved the memory of Christ, but would have eclipsed it. If He had come in the name of the Father to maintain the meager unity of God in the bare and simple sense taught by so called liberal Christianity, the outcome would have been the final oblivion of Jesus Christ following the denial of everything supernatural in His birth and ministry.

But He proceeded from the Father and the Son specially charged with the office of testifying of the Son, yea, of glorifying Him, not only in the gospel record, which He should inspire, and in the doctrines to be unfolded in apostolic sermons and epistles, but by His indwelling presence in the consciousness of believers, revealing Christ in them in a manner wholly indescribable but blessedly real and certain. We do not wonder at the tenacity with which western Christianity has insisted on the "Filioque" (and from the Son) in the creed respecting the procession of the Holy Ghost. This enlargement of the creed not only conserves the dignity of the Son of God and harmonizes with His Trinitarian address in John xiv. -xvi. and with other texts in which the Paraclete is called the "Spirit of Christ" (Rom. viii. 9), the "Spirit of Jesus" (Acts xvi. 7, Revised Version) and "Christ" (Eph. iii. 17), but it is confirmed by the experience of all who testify that the Comforter "has taken up His lasting abode in their hearts." (Alford). These rejoice in a wonderful magnifying of Christ and in an inexpressible increase of love to Him. If troubled before by doubts of His divinity, their doubts are forever dispelled, and "in the Holy Spirit" they gladly and spontaneously say, "Jesus is Lord" (I Cor. xii. 3, Revised Version). They are as sure of his Godhead as was Thomas in the presence of his risen Master when he exclaimed, "My Lord and my God" (John xx. 28).

— The Gospel of the Comforter, Chapter 9.

The Three Convictions of the Holy Spirit

"Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I go, I will send him unto you. And he, when he is come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they believe not on me; of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye behold me no more; of judgment, because the prince of this world hath been judged." — John 16:7-11 ASV

The discussion of the three convictions which the Paraclete effects in men, especially men who are enlightened by gospel truth, shows in what way He glorifies the Son of God. The first question is, Why does He not glorify the Father? He does. If the Father and Son are one in nature, as the Son asserts (John xiv. 9), it follows that honors ascribed to the Son glorify the Father. "He that acknowledgeth the Son Hath the Father also" (I John ii. 23). There can be no jealousy between them, because they are one in divinity, and in their distinct personalities they aim at one purpose in the scheme of redemption.

Father, Son, and Spirit

The best statement of the Scriptures about God is that He is one in nature with a threefoldness which we call personality, that He has a Son who is not a creature, whose existence is grounded not in the divine will, as our existence is, but His being is grounded in the divine nature so that He has all the attributes of God. His sonship, dates not from His human birth but from eternity, being the I AM before Abraham was born (John viii. 58, Revised Version, margin). The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, having their nature; the Father is self-existent. The Son's being is grounded in the Father, and the Spirit's existence rests on the Father and the Son from whom He proceeds.

The Trinity, dimly disclosed in the Old Testament, is clearly revealed in the New Testament after Pentecost, when the Third Person came with power as the successor of the Son in the administration of the kingdom of God on the earth.