1 John 1:1–4

1:1 In verses 1–3, the explicit focus is Jesus. He is the referent of the repeated relative pronoun “which.” He is the “word of life,” the “eternal life” (v. 2), “that which” John proclaims (v. 3). The essential thing said about Jesus here, though, is that John (and those with him) has personally witnessed the reality of his incarnation.

“We” could simply be a way for John to refer to himself, but more likely it refers to his participation in the apostolic band that together bears this witness. Thus John emphasizes that this witness is not of one man alone but of the apostles as a whole. John stresses that he and others have “seen” (also vv. 2, 3; “looked upon”; v. 1), “heard” (v. 3), and “touched” Jesus. The fact that Jesus “was from the beginning” (cf. John 1:1–2) suggests his deity. The fact that he has been seen, heard, and touched shows that he has truly visited his people in bodily form, pointing to the reality of his humanity.

1:2 John breaks his list to make an assertion, the first complete sentence in the letter. “The life” who is also the “eternal life” refers to Jesus, as John says this life “was with the Father.” Thus John is speaking of Jesus as the ultimate life, who is himself the source of eternal life for others (similarly in John 1:4). Jesus was “made manifest” (twice in this verse) or revealed in the incarnation when John, as he says in his Gospel, beheld “his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). In addition to continuing the stress on John’s status as eyewitness to this reality (“we have seen it”), verse 2 also notes John’s continuing role of proclaiming this truth to others (“testify . . . and proclaim to you”).

There is a note of grandeur in the last part of this verse: That which was “with the Father” has now been “made manifest to us.” Jesus has come from the Father to us. OT saints knew of the Messiah dimly, but now Jesus has come directly from the Father to us. This is grace incarnate. Familiarity with such verses must not blunt the awe of such reality.

1:3 This long sentence (vv. 1–3) finally comes to its main clause: “we proclaim.” The point of this opening is to ground the authority of John’s preaching: he has preached what he has seen and heard. Those who deny the incarnation deny what they were not there to experience. John asserts himself as a counterwitness to the incarnation-deniers, and a better witness: he was there; they were not.

Furthermore, this verse includes the first purpose statement of the letter: John proclaimed this truth so that his readers “may have fellowship with us,” the apostolic witnesses, who are in fellowship with God. The issue addressed by the letter, as we discover in 2:19, is that a group who deny the incarnation have left the fellowship of the church. John declares his eyewitness authority in order to keep the people in fellowship with him and other orthodox believers because they, not the dissenters, are truly in fellowship with God.

Jesus, who has been referred to throughout these verses, is now named for the first time, climactically, at the end of this verse: the Father’s “Son Jesus Christ.”

1:4 John’s second purpose is directly related to the first. John writes to ensure the joy of his readers and himself.¹ Their joy will be complete if they hold fast to Christ and one another, persevering through this current trial, finding the fulfillment of their faith and thus hearing, on the final day, the invitation to enter into the joy of their Master (Matt. 25:23). John’s joy will be completed as he sees these people whom he loves (e.g., 1 John 2:7; 4:1, 7) persevering in the faith, as he says in 2 John 4 and 3 John 3–4.