-and the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us –
WHAT WAS FROM THE BEGINNING
Y’know what I like about the Bible? Well, I like lots of things about the Bible. But one thing I like about the Bible is how it just says the truth and leaves the reader to believe simply because it is truth.
It starts out that way. It doesn’t say, “In the beginning there was God. Now this is the proof that there is God…” It just says, “In the beginning God…”
And John starts his gospel that way. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”
So when we come to this letter of John to the church it shouldn’t surprise us that the tone is the same. After all, this is written, as we will go on to see, by someone who had seen with his eyes and touched with his own hands, talked to, ate with, traveled with, suffered with, was loved by and loved in return, the One he was anxious to talk about; so anxious that with not so much as a “Dear Church” salutation, he just jumps right in.
This is simply the truth, and here it is for you, the reader, to believe. “What was from the beginning,…we proclaim to you also”
An overview of this entire epistle reveals that John’s primary purpose in writing it to the churches is to encourage them concerning their walk in Christ and their relationship to one another and as believers toward the unbelieving world.
However as is evident in his Gospel, John clearly combats the teaching of the Gnostics who, as a cult, were very prevalent during that time.
Now it is simplistic to say that the Gnostics were a cult, since there were numerous groups who taught and believed the philosophy of Gnosticism in general.
The word ‘gnosis’ really means knowledge or enlightenment, and to define Gnosticism as a belief system as simply as possible, it is fundamentally a belief in salvation through knowledge.
I looked up the word on the internet and was overwhelmed at the available information there. If you are interested in searching that out in your spare time I can tell you it would be educational.
But it is my job to teach, so I’ll take a few minutes and give you some basic information I took from www.meta-religion.com website.
“Gnosis refers to a knowledge that is essential to free oneself from the evil material world and bodily existence. Gnostics believe humans err because they are ignorant, unlike the Christian belief that man is sinful by nature. Gnostics will receive salvation when they gain knowledge, gnosis. The knowledge must be of their inner self or soul. It is similar to the Hindu definition of meditation.
Some of the basic beliefs of Gnosticism are as follows:
“Between this world and the God incomprehensible to our thought, the ‘primal cause’, there is an irreconcilable antagonism.
The ‘self’, the ‘I’ of the Gnostic, his ‘spirit’ or soul, is unalterably divine. This ‘I’ however, has fallen into this world, has been imprisoned and anaesthetized by it, and cannot free itself from it.
Only a divine ‘call’ from the world of light loosens the bonds of captivity. But only at the end of the world does the divine element in a man return again to its home.”
Now there is a myth behind these beliefs concerning God the father and the Spirit (capital ‘S’) the feminine side of God, who they call Sophia. Jesus was a product of God and Spirit and joined them to make up the Trinity.
Sophia wanted to give birth to a being like herself (how messed up is this stuff?) so she proceeded without permission from God, and the result was imperfect so she hid it behind a cloud. This imperfect offspring of Sophia nevertheless had some powers and he used them to create the world.
So you can see where the Gnostics get the philosophy that the material world and flesh are bad, while the spirit is good and ultimately divine.
Because of this, as Gnosticism began to find its way into the early church, its proponents believed and taught that Jesus was not physical but that he came from God and the Spirit Sophia, and that his physical form was only an illusion.
They therefore would not participate in communion or baptism because they pertain to the body of Christ.
It’s important for you to know these things because these beliefs have become prevalent again in our day, primarily in the New Age movement but are on the upsurge; and again are finding their way into the church.
Here are a couple of examples:
“We believe that Jesus Christ came to the Earth in the Flesh. He underwent Baptism in water and Chrism in Fire (chrism = anointing or consecration). He established the celebration of the Eucharist before undergoing Baptism in the Blood through death by the Cross for the remission of our sins. (Christianity)
Three days after His Crucifixion, He came to Life again in a Spirit Resurrection from the dead. Jesus appeared to His Apostles repeatedly and continued to teach the Way to the Kingdom of God. Acts 1:3 mentions those Gnostic teachings left behind by the Apostles that then serve to guide us along the same path that He took to become Christs as well thereby attaining Perfection and returning to New Jerusalem, wherein repose the Bride and Spirit in anticipation of Gnosis with us, their Holy Elect!”
www.royalchrist.org Gnostic Disciples of Christianity
What is the Gnostic Church of Christ?
The Gnostic Church of Christ [GCOC] is a Gnostic denomination which welcomes people of all faiths into our spiritual community. The GCOC was founded in 2002 in Atlanta, Georgia, and is one of the first (if not the first) denominations, or spiritual traditions, to have been founded through the Internet. We are a modern fellowship, believing in the application of spiritual principles to everyday life.
Our history and our heritage
Having been founded in 2002, our history is indeed quite short. Our heritage, on the other hand, extends well into the distant past. We consider ourselves a revival of the ancient Marcionite sect, which was founded by the followers of Marcion to advance the idea of a supreme, and sublimely good, God.
http://gcoc.hollosite.com Gnostic Church of Christ
I wont’ take time to talk about First Gnostic Church of Long Beach, California or some of the others I discovered while surfing.
Just in case anyone is thinking, ‘well, it’s obvious they’re cults and they’re not really Christians’, let me tell you that unchurched people do not see the difference. These people are calling themselves Christians, and they are evangelizing the lost, who are staying lost because they aren’t learning the truth about Jesus Christ, and only true Christians can help them.
You must believe the truth, know what you believe and how to verbalize it, and then you must do so, Christian.
Jesus isn’t a product of anything. He is that which was from the beginning, and that must be understood first of all or there is no foundation on which to build.
Verse one of Genesis says “In the beginning God”, and in verse 26 we hear Him say “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…” Hold on to that! Remember that! Be prepared to use it when someone suggests to you that the material world is inherently bad.
God made it all and declared it to be good as He went along, and the crowning achievement of creation was that He made a physical man in His own image, and it was that man that introduced sin into the world.
But God already had a plan…
WAS MANIFESTED
I have been in error in the past when I have said along with others that God reveals Himself to man as Father Son and Holy Spirit. I repent of that, and explain to you now why that is at the very best an unfortunate terminology.
I, as one person, might ‘reveal’ myself to my wife as husband, to my children as father, to you as pastor. But I’m only one person.
God is three Persons. One God. He is the triune God; ‘tri’ meaning three and ‘une’ meaning united. Three distinct Persons, one in essence and perfect unity. It’s why we sing ‘God in three Persons, blessed Trinity”.
The trinity of God is probably the most difficult point of theology to grasp. In fact I would say it is impossible to entirely grasp it or explain it with the finite human mind. That’s good. I don’t want a God I can fully understand and explain. If I could He wouldn’t be any greater than I.
But if we go to the scriptures we easily see that the Bible clearly teaches the Trinity of God.
First there is Genesis 1:26 which I mentioned earlier. When God said “Let Us make man in Our image”, He could not have been talking to any other created being, and the Bible makes clear that only He is uncreated.
In John’s opening lines he said that the Word created all things and apart from Him nothing exists. While we’re there, note that John says ‘In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.
Now, a single person can’t be ‘with’ himself. It takes at least two to be ‘with’ each other. And since he goes on to say the Word was God, then that implies at least a 2 Person Godhead.
When Philip asked Jesus to show His disciples the Father, Jesus didn’t say “I am the Father”, He said, “If you’ve seen Me you’ve seen the Father” and “I and the Father are one”.
The Spirit of God is also a Person and manifests the attributes of Deity. In Genesis 1:2 He is first mentioned as active in creation.
In Romans 8:9-11 He is referred to as the Spirit, the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ, and as the Spirit of God who raised Christ from the dead; and we go back to Acts 17:31 where Paul says that God raised Jesus from the dead, and we conclude that the Spirit is God.
And before moving on to the point I’ll just refer you to I John 4:13, 14 where we see all three Persons of the Godhead mentioned:
1 John 4:13 (NASB95)
13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 14 We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
So when John starts with “What was from the beginning”, he can only be making reference to a Person of the Godhead. This successfully refutes any claim of the Gnostics that Jesus was a creation of God or that He came about as a result of some divine creative union. He was from the beginning.
Just was.
And John doesn’t waste any words getting to the meat of the matter (no pun intended) that Jesus was flesh.
WE SAW, HEARD, TOUCHED
Going back to his gospel again we remind ourselves that in verse 14 of chapter one he dropped the ‘other shoe’. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”
It doesn’t take him 14 verses here. “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled, concerning the Word of life – “
I won’t bog you down with a lot of text references; if you want them I can retrieve them for you later; here is a list of things the Bible says about Jesus that imply or establish his human existence.
Conception in the Virgin’s womb. Birth. Partaking of flesh and blood. Having a human soul. Circumcision. Increase in wisdom and stature. Weeping. Hungering. Thirsting. Sleeping. Being subject to weariness. Being a man of sorrows. Being buffeted. Being scourged. Being nailed to the cross. Death. Side being pierced. Burial. Resurrection bodily, (II Tim 2:8).
He who was from the beginning was made manifest. Visible The mystery revealed.
I have to move along so let’s talk about what these truths drove John to and why.
WE PROCLAIM
In our text John says “…and the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness…”
People of God, we need to just stop once in a while, in the midst of our days, during our quiet time, just whenever our Lord comes to mind, and consider the profoundness of what we’re reading when we study these epistles of the New Testament.
What we’re looking at today is a letter. Just like you might write to your favorite aunt or your child in the military or a friend in a far away town.
We’re reading the words of a man who actually walked and talked with Jesus our Savior. Think about it!
No matter what the Gnostics choose to believe in their stupendous folly, no matter what Godless men desire to be true in order to continue on their path of sin unchecked and unchallenged, no matter what so called scholars declare out of their ignorance of spiritual truth, this was a man who saw with his eyes, heard with his ears, and bore witness of in his letter, and we’re reading it today.
We’re reading it because his personal, physical encounter with a Man ultimately recreated his own life. Turned him upside down, inside out, every which way but loose; and it was his duty and delight to proclaim to the world and to the future, “the eternal life which was with the Father” and was made manifest.
If you believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, inerrant and infallible, protected by His Spirit through the ages and through translations and publications and still just as defined by Paul to Timothy as God-breathed, then you have to understand that as we read these words today it is as though I walked down to the mail box, pulled out this letter from our brother, John the Apostle, who mailed it directly to us just yesterday, and brought it back here and opened it just now.
Look! We’ve been hearing all these confusing things about Jesus being just a good moral teacher or that He wasn’t even really human; just a spirit giving us an illusion that He was in a body so we could relate to Him.
But here’s a letter I just got from one of those guys who was with Him for over three years, and he’s saying he heard Him and saw Him with his own eyes, and even touched Him with his own hands.
We have eyewitness testimony, which would be accepted as irrefutable evidence in any court of law.
He sent this letter to us as a proclamation that this One whom he heard and saw and touched was Himself eternal life sent from the Father. He calls Him the “Word of life”. And the Apostle’s joy, his excitement are almost palpable as we touch the page and see the words he wrote when he says “…what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, that you also may have fellowship with us;”
That’s why he wrote. That’s why he proclaimed. So that all who read these words may believe and be joined in the fellowship of eternal life with him.
Did you hear that? The Fellowship of Eternal Life. I like that. Someone should name their church that. Because that’s what we are. If you’re a born again believer in Jesus Christ you are part of that fellowship that John belongs to.
It is a fellowship of life, a fellowship of joy. How do I know?
COMPLETED JOY
Because John said so. Verse 4
“And these things we write so that our joy may be made complete.”
Warren Weirsbe says, “Fellowship is Christ’s answer to the loneliness of life. Joy is His answer to the emptiness, the hollowness of life#”
And it’s important to note that His disciples’ joy was prominent in His thinking just before His crucifixion.
John 16:22 (NASB95)
“Therefore you too have grief now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.
Christians, it is no wonder to me that joy seems to be lacking in the lives of so many in the church. If you do your own study and find out what a strong emphasis is put on joy and rejoicing in the New Testament, you’ll understand why the enemy would want to focus very intently on fighting against Christians having and expressing joy.
Now I’m not talking here about temporary happiness or some silly giddiness that is often the manifestation of a shallow mind. I’m not talking about a self-manufactured joy, a public show that shuts down as soon as we go home and close the door behind us.
What is meant here is a joy that comes from the heart of God to the heart of the believer who by the presence and enlightenment of the Holy Spirit has understood that he or she is now and forever member in perfect standing of the Fellowship of Eternal Life.
If you are a believer in Christ and what you know of Him has driven you to proclaim Him to others, you will know the joy that is completed in you as you witness new life in those you proclaim Him to, and you see this joy come alive in their eyes.
Have you ever been present when someone believes for the first time? Maybe some of you can remember the moment you believed for the first time? There is joy.
And Satan would want to douse that joy in any way he could. So we have to be on the alert for each other’s joy, and instead of allowing ourselves to be Lucifer’s bucket of cold water, we should be each other’s bellows of joy, stoking one another’s fire with encouragement and mutual love and true spiritual fellowship so the world will see the Christians around them as a fellowship of joy.
It all comes back to the things John has said in these opening words of His epistle.
Our eternal, inextinguishable joy and rejoicing flow from knowing that what was from the beginning has been manifested to us, that is the eternal life that comes down from the Father so that we might have fellowship with Him and with His Son Jesus Christ.
This fellowship, this joy, are impossible to attain and utterly unreachable apart from accurate understanding and belief in who He is. But once you’ve understood that the uncreated eternal Son of God became incarnate, walked among men as Man, suffered and died physically on a very real wooden cross, was buried and rose bodily from the grave never more to die, …
…and once you’ve appropriated to yourself the truth that He did that so that you might be a part of His eternal fellowship, you will be filled up with a joy that no one can take away. And you can have the power to infuse those around you with that joy through the proclamation that what was from the beginning became flesh and brought eternal life with Him.
Go, tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere…Jesus Christ is born.
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“And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding, in order that we might know Him who is true, and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.” (5:20)
John 14:9 (NASB95)
9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
1 John 2:22 (NASB95)
22 Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.
1 John 4:2-3 (NASB95)
2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.
JOY:
Of the disciples, when Jesus triumphantly entered Jerusalem, Matt. 21:8, 9; Mark 11:8–10. Of the women who returned from the Lord’s sepulcher, Matt. 28:8. The disciple, after the resurrection of Jesus, Luke 24:41. Of the disciples in the temple after the ascension of Jesus, Luke 24:53. Of the disciples in the temple because they had received the gift of the Holy Spirit, Acts 2:46, 47. Of the invalid, healed by Peter, Acts 3:8. Of Paul, when he went up to Jerusalem, Acts 20:22–24. Of Paul and Silas, in the jail at Philippi, Acts 16:25. Of Rhoda, when she heard Peter at the gate, Acts 12:14. Of the disciples at Jerusalem, when Peter told them about the conversion of Cornelius and other Gentiles, Acts 11:18. Of Barnabas, when he saw the success of the gospel at Antioch, Acts 11:22, 23. Of Paul and the Corinthians, because the excommunicated member repented, 2 Cor. 1:24; 2:3. Of Paul and Titus, because of the hospitality of the Corinthians, 2 Cor. 7:13, with 8:6;Rom. 15:32; 1 Cor. 16:18. Of the Macedonians, when they made a contribution for the Christians at Jerusalem, 2 Cor. 8:2. Of Paul, when he prayed for the Philippians, Phil. 1:4. Of Thessalonians, when they believed Paul’s gospel, 1 Thess. 1:6. Of Paul, rejoicing over his converts, 1 Thess. 2:19, 20; 3:9; Philem. 7. Of early Christians, when they believed in Jesus, 1 Pet. 1:8, 9.
