The Word of Life Declared (1 John 1:1-4).
‘That which was (imperfect) from the beginning, that which we have heard (perfect), that which we have seen (perfect) with our eyes, that which we beheld (aorist), and our hands handled (aorist), concerning the Word of life, (and the life was manifested (aorist), and we have seen (perfect), and bear witness (present), and declare to you (present) the life, the eternal life, which was (imperfect) with the Father, and was manifested to us (aorist)); that which we have seen (perfect) and heard perfect) we declare to you also (present), that you also may have fellowship with us (present): yes, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ: and these things we write, that our joy may be made full (or ‘fulfilled').'
The main verb in this complex sentence is ‘we declare to you'. This letter is a declaration, and John's purpose is to declare Christ in all His fullness. But the question is, what does he wish to declare? And his answer is, ‘That which was (imperfect) from the beginning, that which we have heard (perfect), that which we have seen (perfect) with our eyes, that which we beheld (aorist), and our hands handled (aorist), concerning the Word of life.'
1) ‘That which was from the beginning.' In the light of John 1:1 this can only signify the eternity of ‘the Word of life', of Christ and of His powerful and life-giving word. ‘In the beginning the Word was already in existence' he had said in John 1:1, and that Word had created all things, and in Him was life which was as a light to men (John 1:1-5). Now he declares again that from the beginning there was that which already in existence before the commencement of the beginning, that which began the beginning, the Word, the Source and Creator of all things, for He spoke and it was done (Genesis 1:3; Psalms 33:6), and the Source and Creator of all truth and life. And here his especial emphasis is on Him as the Word of life. He is thus about to speak of the Eternal Life Who is the source of all life, and Who gives eternal life to His own.
So from the beginning of all things there was that which already was, that which already existed before time began, that which still continues in being, and ever will, that which was, that which is, and that which will be (compare Revelation 1:4; Revelation 1:8). And it is that which John seeks to declare.
The use of the neuter pronoun ‘that' stresses the all-pervasiveness of what he is speaking about. ‘That' which is spoken of was all in all. It was everything. Apart from ‘that' there was nothing. The masculine pronoun (which would have indicated ‘the Word of life' as a person) would have drawn attention away from the fact that what he was describing was this all-pervasive ‘everything'. God was all. Prior to the beginning there was nothing apart from God and His Word and His Spirit. And he will now reveal and declare that which already existed when the beginning began, and has been ever since. And it is ‘concerning the Word of Life' Who also existed in the beginning.
So what John is telling us is that He Who was always in existence in the beginning, He Who was everything, came out of eternity into time, He came as the One Who ‘was continually in existence even in and before the beginning', and He came in Jesus. Thus he is declaring that this Jesus Christ of Whom he will write has eternal essence and existence, and comes from the Source of all things, because He is essentially in His being of the Source of all things. The use of the neuter pronoun ‘that' draws attention to the fact that he wants us to look at What Jesus is rather than just Who He is. Here is the Almighty, pre-existent One, the All-in-all, come as a Word from God bringing life, come from the Beginning, personally revealing God to man (John 14:6-11; Hebrews 1:1-3).
2) ‘That which we have heard (perfect), that which we have seen (perfect) with our eyes, that which we beheld (aorist), and our hands handled (aorist), concerning the Word of life.' But now he moves on to the wonder of it. ‘That which was from the beginning' has actually been heard and seen and gazed at and handled. The Eternal Word of Life has come and revealed Himself to man, indeed has become man and lived among them to be seen, heard, observed and handled.
John is bringing out two aspects here. The first that ‘we' (those who had been with Jesus) had heard Him and seen Him with their own eyes (1 John 4:14), and still did so. The perfect indicates something happening in the past and continuing into the present. He cannot forget the glory of it and it is still with him. We heard, and we still hear, we saw, and we still see. He is stressing that it was a real experience and that so it will ever be with them. There is both an emphasis on their actual hearing and seeing of Him as He was in the flesh (John 1:14), and on the fact that spiritually that hearing and seeing still goes on in a deeper way, for it is imbedded in their hearts, illuminated by the Spirit, and experienced daily in their lives because He is the living One, the Word of life.
To John and those who had been with Jesus, Jesus is ever present, continually heard, continually ‘seen', for though His physical presence has departed, His spiritual presence is ever more near, not just in memory but because He is with them always even as He promised (Matthew 28:20). And what was true for him and for them was true for all those who have walked with Jesus and are truly His, whether living or dead. And was in a very real sense true still for all those who now followed Jesus.
‘That which we have heard.' Throughout the ministry of Jesus they had heard His words, they had wrestled with them, and then finally through the Spirit's illumination those words had sunk deeply into their hearts, and they had finally understood them. And all that they had heard from Him he wishes to communicate, and all that they had come to understand that those words meant he wishes to communicate. Through hearing they had not only received the word of life, but had also come to understand and more fully appreciate He Who was the Word of Life (John 14:6), and they longed to communicate Him to others.
‘That which we have seen (perfect) with our eyes.' They had not only heard, they had seen. They had seen the wonder of His life, the depths of His love, the awe-inspiring holiness of His light (John 3:16-21). They had watched and they had wondered. They had seen His glory manifested in the Transfiguration (Mark 9:1 onwards). They had beheld His advance into suffering. They had experienced His self-revelation through His word in the Upper Room. They had seen and handled Him in His glorious resurrection body. And at last finally the Holy Spirit had illuminated it all in their hearts so that they were as men who saw clearly. And what he had seen he now longs to declare, to pass on, that others might see Him too.
The second aspect, lest we spiritualise too much, is to emphasise boldly the actual physical aspect of the seeing and the handling. We saw, and our hands handled. The aorists emphasise the once for all nature of the seeing and handling, and the handling stresses the physical aspect. It happened to us all (those who followed Jesus in His life on earth). We actually saw Him in the flesh, and we handled Him in the flesh, and He was truly flesh, He Who was from the beginning, God made man. Here the thought is of witness from the past rather than of continuation into the present, and the ‘handling' especially has in mind the words of Jesus to Thomas (John 20:27 see also John 20:20) and to His disciples, ‘see My hands and My feet that it is I Myself, handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see Me as having' (Luke 24:39). He can assure them that Jesus really was a man of flesh and bones, a true human being.
3) ‘Concerning the Word of life.' This is what it is all about. One had come Who was in Himself the Word of life. In the beginning He already was ‘Life', the Living One. And He Who was the Word had brought the word of Life from the Father, coming as His Word, as His self-revelation, and that life was given to those who received and responded to God's word (1 John 1:10; 1 John 2:5; 1 John 2:7; 1 John 2:14) and to Him Who is God's Word (John 1:4-5; John 1:14; John 1:18). Here was God's eternal Word to man, seen in a man, and heard and received from that man. For when we proclaim Christ we proclaim Someone and not just something. The word of God is so because it points to the personal, living Word of God. And to respond to His word, if meaningful, is to respond to Him Who is the Word.
In spite of some commentators it is not enough here to see but the message. The message was the Man. It was of Him that they heard, it was He Whom they saw, it was Him that they beheld and handled, both in day to day life and in His glorious resurrection body. And He was the bringer of life. He was the Word of Life, and was Himself the Life, and the great life-giver (John 14:6; John 11:25; John 5:21), communicated through the word of life.
We could spend hours just considering the significance of what it means that He is the Word of Life (John 1:4-5), for He is the life-giving Light of Life (John 8:12, compare 1 John 1:5 here), and the life-giving Bread of Life (John 6:35). He creates life within and feeds the souls of men. He spoke at creation and life came into being. He is thus the source of all life, and of all living things. But that, while wonderful, is here secondary. For now He has spoken in a deeper way and His word brings a greater and more wonderful life to men's hearts, a new creation, spiritual life, a life that is Himself (John 14:6), a life that comes from Him as the light of life (John 8:12), an ‘eternal' life (1 John 1:2). John wants them to see that they are to receive not only a teaching, but a life-giving Person. For when the word truly enters men's hearts so does the Word Himself (Ephesians 3:17). And then they too enjoy eternal life (1 John 1:2; 1 John 2:25; 1Jn 5:11; 1 John 5:13; John 5:24) as a present possession, a life imparted by Him Who is the Life, which will result in the final glorious resurrection of life (John 5:29; John 11:25).
‘(And the life was manifested (aorist), and we have seen (perfect), and bear witness (present), and declare to you (present) the life, the eternal one, which was (imperfect) with the Father, and was manifested unto us (aorist)).' Having mentioned the Word of life John now wants to emphasise in parenthesis what he means by that Word of life. It is not a teaching, but a Person. He was ‘manifested' in a once for all way in His life on earth and in His resurrection. The aorist stresses the fullness and completeness of that manifestation. And the Life consists of the Eternal Life Who had ever been with the Father, but Who came down to earth, and was seen, and can now be testified to by those who saw Him and knew Him, and who now declare Him to all. He indeed is ‘the Life' (John 14:6), the eternal Life (John 17:3), the source of all life (John 1:4), the provider of eternal life to His own (John 5:26), Who was with the Father but had now become Man.
‘The life was manifested (aorist).' There had been a fullness of manifestation once for all. In Jesus that Life had been made fully known.
‘And we have seen (perfect), and bear witness (present), and declare to you (present).' And now those who had been privileged to be witnesses of that Life, and were indeed continually so, were now continually bearing witness and declaring it to those who would receive it. And his hearers were to recognise that what they received they received from the testimony of eyewitnesses, and from the testimony of those who had continually experienced Him through hearing, sight and touch.
‘The Life, the eternal one, which was (imperfect) with the Father.' This is what is declared, He Who is the Life, the Life of the ages, Who was continually (imperfect) in existence in the closest of permanent relationships (pros ton patera - compare John 1:1, ‘pros ton theon') with the Father. He Who is therefore the Eternal Life par excellence, Who is the source of all life in His face to face and intimate relationship with His Father (John 5:26). (Pros with the accusative indicates intimate relationship).
‘And was manifested to us (aorist).' Here is the wonder to John He was not only manifested, He was especially manifested to His own disciples, ‘to us'. He was seen and known by those who heard Him, who saw Him, handled Him and touched Him. This was not brief manifestation of glory (although there had been that - Mark 9:1 onwards) but a continual daily manifestation over a period of years as true man, and yet as the One Who was the Life Who had come from God.
‘That which we have seen (perfect) and heard (perfect) we declare to you also (present), that you also may have fellowship with us (present): yes, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.' Having digressed in order to expand on his theme John now comes back to the main point. He has been declaring Christ as the Word of Life, the Word of life Whom he and his fellow-disciples had seen and heard, and Whom they still saw and heard in a different way, He Who is the Eternal Life. And his purpose was that through receiving from him that word and that witness which will bring home to them the Word of Life his readers too may be joined together with them ‘in fellowship', sharing all spiritual blessing in common, including the blessing of the eternal word of life, and being joined together with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ in the same ‘fellowship' in God that they, His disciples, had known with and through Him, and now knew with and through Him, a fellowship which brought them into sharing this life in common with God (see John 17:20-21). For in knowing the only true God, and especially as knowing Him through the One Whom He had sent, Jesus Christ, they would have eternal life. Indeed that was eternal life (John 17:3)
The word ‘koinonia' (fellowship) indicates a closeness of relationship. It can signify the marriage relationship, a true and working partnership, a oneness of many, and it can mean to be so close together that all is shared, that their aims and goals are shared, that they have all things that are important in common. It represents a mutual sharing, in this case of spiritual life. It is an enjoying of the oneness of the spiritual life, that sense of being bound together that all true believers enjoy because they have received life from God, and it is a ‘fellowship', a unity, that they will also share with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. Each enjoys individual life and yet in koinonia it is a shared life, a life that blends with other lives, a life that comes from the Word of Life, and makes all one (John 17:22). And through this we are made partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4), and know the Father and His Son Jesus Christ (John 17:3) in a similar shared relationship.
‘With the Father.' That is with the One Who is over all, the Father of lights (James 1:17), the One after Whom every fatherhood in Heaven and earth is named (Ephesians 3:14). ‘Of lights' may there be a plural of intensity signifying the fullness of light, or it may be signifying that of all the glorious lights on earth He is ‘the Father', enjoying in Himself an intensity of light that is greater than all, so that He Himself is the true light, so full and so glorious and so enduring that it is a light that cannot be limited by shadows, for He is the Unchangeable One, the Father after Whom every fatherhood in Heaven and on earth is named. In this is depicted His holiness and His great overall authority. Thus the calling is to the ‘fellowship' of the close knit spiritual family with and under the Father in His glorious light and authoritative and loving fatherhood.
‘And with His Son Jesus Christ.' Here ‘His Son' is specifically connected with the Father on the divine side of reality. Their essential oneness in essence is revealed here by the word ‘Son'. He is ‘the Son', the One Who comes forth from God and is of the very nature of God. And our being united with the Father is also our being united with His Son. For here especially He is ‘His Son' as over against us, and yet having fellowship with us. And that Son is clearly identified, He is Jesus Christ, the One Who walked on earth as a man among men. He is both God and man. So from the earthly hearing, and seeing, and handling, from the earthly relationship with the Word of Life, we move on into the enjoyment of a heavenly relationship with Him in a glorious spiritual relationship such as redeemed men can have with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
This title ‘His Son Jesus Christ' is the equivalent of Paul's ‘the Lord Jesus Christ'. Both signify Godhead, the former by relationship the latter by being exalted and given the name LORD (Yahweh).
‘And these things we write, that our joy may be made full (or ‘fulfilled').' Finally John declares that his reason for writing is that his joy might be made full, might overflow, as he sees his readers participating in and enjoying the same fellowship with God and with fellow-believers as he enjoys. Nothing was more joyous to John than to see others entering into spiritual blessing.
An alternative well attested reading is ‘that your joy might be full'. In this case the idea is simply that they too might know the joy that passes all understanding, joy in God and in Jesus Christ.