Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters as we continue diving into the ocean of truth. Things are going well for me today as I believe I’ve had an epiphany of sorts concerning a trait I need to work on losing. I find I tend to be a perfectionist and there are things I need not worry about because they’re not worth it. I ask for your continued prayers in that. I also ask for prayers still for my financial situation as things are a bit tight here. Finally, I ask for prayers in the continued development in my life. Things are going well. For now, let’s go to the text. We’re in 1 John 1 and we’ll be looking at verse 2 today:
2The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.
John has just spoken about the life and now tells us that the life appeared. He has referred to it as the Word of Life and in his gospel he tells us that the Word became flesh. For John, this is the moment of that which is divine interacting with that which is earthly. In the ancient world, the divine had one sphere and the human had another and never the twain shall meet. In John’s view, Jesus Christ changed that drastically in that the divine and human interacted in the most intimate way possible.
John says that we have seen to it and testify to it. He is giving his testimony as an apostle that this life appeared to him. To say that he saw it and testified to it is to counter the gnostic teachers that were there at the time as he emphasizes that he has firsthand experience with that which he is talking about.
He is now stating that that is what he is proclaiming. This would also be counter to what was being taught. While the other teachers would say you needed to be initiated and have a mystical experience to see the truth of their message, John is coming right out and saying “I am going to tell you the truth of my message. You don’t need an experience to know it. I will show it to you through my testimony.”
John also states that this eternal life was with the Father, which would be a reference to the deity of the Son all in itself. The eternal life was with the Father, but was not the Father. There was one who has been eternally alongside the Father. Now the Father lives eternally, but here John is talking about someone who was the embodiment of eternal life who appeared and since it was not the Father, then based on John’s gospel, we are fair to believe it was the Son.
He then states that this life appeared. That which was eternal appeared in the world of the temporary. We saw him. We touched him. We heard him. For John, this is an absolutely fundamental truth. The divine and the human have intersected. Eternal life is not just a distant reality. It has dwelt right here with us in the person of Jesus. We are invited to join in.
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