“…which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life…” 1 John 1:1
Christianity is not a blind faith. Due diligence in study will show that the accounts which we claim as truth were actually witnessed by hundreds of people. The detail and historical consistency of the reports of the Apostles and others is undeniable.
John made it clear in 1 John that he and his associates had credibility because they heard, saw, and touched Jesus. Theirs is no second hand account. They were there. They spent over three years with the man. They knew what they were talking about.
Reflect
Read the following scriptures. What did these first hand witnesses say about Christ?
The Life
1 John 1:1-2 refers to Jesus Christ as “the word of life— the life that was made manifest.” Jesus called himself “the bread of life” (John 6:35). There is no life apart from Christ. Without him, our spirits experience a long, slow starvation that ultimately leads to death.
2. Read the following scriptures. What are the implications for those who choose a life apart from Christ?
Fellowship and Joy
“…so that you may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.” (1 John 1:3-4)
This is one of the most astonishing, most beautiful, outlandish, and spectacular claims in all of Christianity. The great, majestic, high, sovereign, and holy Creator of this vast universe experiences joy when the creatures he fashioned in his image are folded into fellowship with him.
Jesus existed with God from all eternity. From Micah 5:2, to John’s Gospel, to Colossians, Hebrews, and Revelation, the Bible is clear that Christ preexisted with the Father. He predated history. He is the Master and Lord of time. John Piper called him, “The Spring from which all springs flow.”
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God” (John 1:1-2).
And he wants to fellowship with us.
God doesn’t need us. Within the Trinity, he is complete, and completely happy. The Father glorifies his Son, the Son enjoys perfect communion with the Father, and the Spirit radiates love and pleasure and absolute contentment in the utter completeness of the Three-in-One.
Joe Rigney, in his book, “The Things of Earth,” put it this way,
…from all eternity, God, has beheld his beloved Son with perfect clarity, and there has arisen between the Father and Son a love so pure and deep, so matchless and limitless, so boundless and infinite that the love stands forth as a full third person in the Godhead, the Holy Spirit…This is God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Knowing each other, loving each other, delighting in each other, from all eternity, with no needs, no wants, no lack. Complete and total and infinite happiness. This is who God is.
The Trinity is the zenith of intimacy. And God wants us to share in it! Not merely for us to know about it or bask in the afterglow of it. But to actually enter into it.
Peter put it this way in 2 Peter 1:3-4:
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us into his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature…”
Joe Rigney further explained,
The triune glory of the Father, Son, and Spirit is being extended to us so we participate in their knowledge, love, and joy. We are being invited into the fellowship of the Godhead so that we have the same union with God that the Father and Son have with each other.
And the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit so love the fullness of their shared life that they (thought) it fitting and right that such glorious knowledge and love and joy overflow. So they (made) a world to contain it. They (created) vessels to hold the fullness of their divine joy.
God wants us to participate in the supreme, perfect, blissful, ultimate, ineffable, unending, indissoluble intimacy that he shares with his Son through his Spirit. This grace, this joy-effusing offer is extended to anyone who has submitted to the saving work of the crucified and risen Christ.
3. Read John 17. Then take some time to meditate on the absolute truth that if you are a follower of Christ, you are invited to partake in the intimacy and fellowship enjoyed by the triune God. Can you see why John concludes that this will make our joy complete?
Write your thoughts or a response to God for this astounding gift.
Pray
Dear Father, thank you for the love you lavish on us as an overflow of the love you share with your Son, through your Spirit. The Psalmist said it best, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.” Keep us close and ever aware of your love, and compel us to extend that love so others may know the great joy that only you can give. Amen.