WEDNESDAY
Today, let’s dive into the meaning of the big idea.
1 John 1:1–4 (HCSB) 1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have observed and have touched with our hands, concerning the Word of life— 2 that life was revealed, and we have seen it and we testify and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us — 3 what we have seen and heard we also declare to you, so that you may have fellowship along with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. 4 We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
The two things we will hone in on today are (1) the identity of “the life” and (2) the meaning of revealed.
First, the identity of the life. The simple explanation of the referent to “the life” being Jesus himself in his incarnation simply won’t work with the grammar, unfortunately. The what in verse 1 and 3 is in the neuter. If it were referring to Jesus in his incarnation alone or even the Word at the end of verse 1, it would have to be in the masculine form. If it were referring to life it would would be feminine. It’s annoying, I know. That being the case, the most likely referent that John has in mind here is the incarnate Christ along with the meaning of the incarnate Christ. This then includes his teaching on the Kingdom of God and the meaning of his atoning death and subsequent resurrection. The referent then is the gospel—the story of redemption that God has brought throughout history, culminating in Jesus. Although the word gospel doesn’t appear in these verses, it is a neuter noun and would therefore take a neuter pronoun. This also makes sense of the reference later in verse 2 to the eternal life as what John has “seen and testifies and declares.” I’ll support this idea more tomorrow and next week, but for now it’s important to keep that in mind.
It seems as if John was writing to the churches to correct erroneous teaching of the gospel. Some of these false teachers denied that Jesus came in the flesh (1 John 4:2). Some of these false teachers affirmed the physical life, death and resurrection of Jesus but had misconstrued the true meaning of his incarnation, teaching, life, death and resurrection (1 John 5:1). To be children of God, we must affirm both. We will talk about this more next week.
Next, let’s look at this term revealed. This term and its translation is the primary reason I’m reading out of the Holman Christian Standard Bible. Normally I teach out of the NIV or the ESV. I like the translation revealed better than the NIV’s appeared because appeared connotes an idea of “came into existence” and “quickly was visible then went away.” These are not connotations that John has in mind with this term. The ESV’s translates this term made manifest, which is simply too clunky. I mean, nobody says that. The Greek word means reveal, caused to become visible, made known, exposed publicly.
Reflection
Read over the text again and think of the “what” as the incarnate Jesus, but also the meaning of the incarnate Jesus and his teaching, life, death and resurrection—the gospel.