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.

Witnesses to the Indwelling Spirit

In all the Christian ages there have been witnesses to the conscious indwelling of the Holy Spirit. These have been few and discredited in eras of rationalism, and stigmatized as mystics and fanatics in periods of formalism; but they have been numerous and received with credence in the most spiritual eras and sections of the Church. Their testimony is confirmed by their deadness to sin and self and fullness of joy. "It happens sometimes that the indwelling of Christ and God and his Spirit signalizes itself with such energy in the believer, that the human individual life is overflowed and swallowed up by the divine, as a river of delight" (Delitzsch, Biblical Psychology, p. 418). Delitzsch quotes the case of the "holy Ephrem who experienced such wondrous consolation that he often cried, 'Lord withdraw thy hand a little, for my heart is too weak to receive such excessive joy.'" John Fletcher at times offered a similar prayer. There are now on the earth witnesses to the conscious indwelling of the Holy Ghost in larger numbers probably than ever before. I know a man in Christ twenty-eight years ago — in the body, or out of the body, no matter which — into whose consciousness the Comforter came and took up his permanent abode, in a day and hour never to be forgotten either in this world or in that to come. Invisible himself he glorified Christ whom he revealed within as a bright reality, as he did in Paul, when God revealed his Son in him.

— Jesus Exultant (1899) Chapter 12.