1 John 1:1-4

[ryan]

Okay, let's get this started. The first section for this study is 1 John 1:1-4 which reads:

1) - What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld, and what our hands touched, as regards the Word of Life.

2) - And the Life was revealed, and we have seen, and we bear witness, and we announce to you the everlasting Life which was with the Father, and was revealed to us.

3) - We announce to you what we have seen, and what we have heard, that you also may have fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.

4) - And we write these things to you, that your joy may be full.


Please study these verses and become acquainted with them. Also, reply with any questions or commenets about what you are learning or not understanding. Hopefully we can all grow together through this study. ;D

[ryan]

Here's a little background on the book of 1 John:

- It was written by the apostle John who also wrote the gospel of John and the book of Revelation

-It was written in the late 80’s or early 90’s A.D. which was about 60 years after John walked with Christ on the earth, and some 20 years after the apostle Paul died.

-It is believed to be written to the same 7 churches in Asia Minor that are mentioned in the book of Revelation.

-This letter was written against GNOSTICISM, which means “Special Knowledge”

-John’s name is not in this letter. The early church attributed it to him.

[T]

Who are the "we" and the "us" in these verses?

[Justin]

Great question T. Clearly it was those who "saw, heard and touched Christ" but who were they specifically and were they present with John at the time of his writing this?
Especially interesting since he mentions the reader "having fellowship with US".

[ryan]

Okie Doke. Here are some of the things that we discussed this morning:

- Are the “Whats” in verse 1 referring to Christ Himself or the message?

- Verse 2 – The word "manifested" means “To make known that which already exists”. The word for "Was" is in the imperfect tense (Continuous action in the past) showing that Jesus was continuously with the father in the past. He always existed, yet he had to be manifested.

- Verse 3 – We are saying these things to you IN ORDER THAT (Purpose) you may have fellowship with us. Fellowship has to do with "Commonality". Two people can’t have true fellowship unless they are both saved because the "Commonality" amongst believers is that they have the same Spirit dwelling inside of them. As we get later into the book it becomes pretty clear that John is writing to a "Mixed Bag" of people. He is writing to the church but at the same time seems to have some doubts that everyone he is writing to is actually saved. John is possibly bringing up true fellowship at the beginning of the letter because he is establishing this point.

- Verse 3 – John is making it clear that the fellowship that he and those with him have is the TRUE fellowship that is with The Father and The Son.

- Verse 3-4 – Two purposes for Johns “Declaring” or “Writing” to them. 1. That they would have true fellowship and 2. that their joy would be full.

- And a question that was posed about verse 4. What does it mean "That your joy may be full?"

[Justin]

The 'whats' or 'that which' in the KJV - are not in question are they? I think we've well established that they are indeed refering to Christ.

[ryan]

Yeah, I think that I am the only one who still needs to check into it. So that one was pretty much for me! So just pretend that one's not there I guess....

[retzev]

I think we can better understand (1 John 1: 4 "...and these things we are writing to you in order that the joy of you may be having been fulfilled") from looking at John 16:24 where Jesus' said this same phrase to the disciples. We know that the noun form is being used and is the same joy that is produced by the Holy Spirit in Galatians 5:22. We talked about 1 John being about fellowship and I am thinking that there is a correlation with John's gospel and how Jesus was explaining the work of the Holy Spirit. Any ideas folks?

[Justin]

The Gospel of John chapter 12 is a great presentation of the light (as well as John 3). Great support for 1 John.

[Justin]

Upon further study of vs 1, especially the word LOGOS (for word) which relates directly to a message, I'm leaning toward the "that which" (KJV) being about the message of Christ. Then vs 2 is referring to Christ, and 3 is back to the message, then the father and son.
Still waiting on grammatical confirmation of this from someone with those skills but to the best of my ability it appears to be this way.

[ryan]

Okay, here is a recap:

- In verse 1 all of the "What's" are referring to the message, and where it says "The word of life" this is also referring to the message. Then in verse 2 we have a parenthetical statement that talks about "The Life" which IS Christ, then in verse 3 John starts to talk about the message again. Then in verse 5 John begins to break down exactly what this "Message" is.

- The word for "Observed" in verse 1 represents "Observing something over a long period of time".

- The purpose for John and those with him declaring/writing these things is that they would have true fellowship and that their joy would be full.

- The two remaining questions that we came up with (and if anyone else still doesn't understand something or has a different question please post it here) are:

1. How could they have "Touched" this message with their hands? Is this referring to a literal physical tangible message (like a letter or something?) or is it referring to the RESULTS of the message of Christ? For example, if someone has been healed they can “Feel” or “Have touched” it. Like they touched the walking proof of this message of Christ. If they shook hands with Lazarus, for example, they could say that they had “Touched” these results. John himself went into the tomb when Christ was resurrected.

2. What exactly does it mean to have your "Joy full"? The Greek word for "Full" here has to do with "Filling the inner faculties". When other verses say that people were "Filled" with the Holy Spirit this word is used to show how The Holy Spirit filled their inner faculties and used them for His purposes. So how does that apply to "Joy" here?

Other than that, I think we are pretty good with this first section.

[ryan]

Okay, well after a LONG time it seems as though we now have the answers to these final two questions of this section.

1) - What they "Touched" WAS Christ Himself. All of the "What's" in verse one are referring to the message, but Jesus WAS the message. The focus is not Christ here but the message. But since Christ IS the message, they touched Him, heard from Him, etc. I hope that makes sense! ^_^

2) - The Greek word for "Joy" used in verse 4 DOES indeed mean "To fill the inner faculties". The word for "Joy" has to do with "Satisfaction", not a "Happy feeling". The "These things" in verse 4 refers back to ALL of verse 3 (which talks about fellowship). And John is writing these things for the purpose that their joy may be "Full". So basically what John is saying is "We are writing (about fellowship) in order that joy (Satisfaction) would fill your inner faculties." JOY is a fruit of the spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) and the spirit is always dwelling within a person who is saved. Whenever the Spirit that is dwelling within us "Fills our inner faculties" with any of the fruit of the Spirit, this is how we experience these things. Philippians 1:11 goes right along with this very nicely. So basically John is praying that they would experience true fellowship in order that they would experience satisfaction.

[T]

Who are the "we" and the "us" in these verses? Like Justin said, "Especially interesting since he mentions the reader 'having fellowship with US'."

[ryan]

Since they have "Touched", I would say that it must be those who were alive during Christ's earthly ministry? John and the other apostles?

[Deleted]

Regarding the "what" from a grammar point of view.

Beginning Greek teaches us to look for antecedents that match in gender and number when we see a relative pronoun. Just like in verse 2 where we read “everlasting life, which...”. That is nice and neat with a noun, an adjective and a relative pronoun all matching in number and gender. But that is not the only way relative pronouns are used. Sometimes the antecedent is implied and in certain cases, the antecedent will not match in gender or number. There are a lot of proposed reasons as to why this happens, but we are probably safe to say that when it does happen, it is by the inspired choice of the author. I tend to think that by using the neuter gender, John created room for humanity and deity.

Now re: 1John 1:1 - 1st notice that the relative pronoun -“what”- in verse 1 is in the nominative case. It is a relative pronoun functioning as the subject of the clause and this clause is the primary clause. The next set of “what”’s form 4 secondary clauses under that clause. In other words, 1)what we have heard 2) what we have seen 3)what we beheld and 4) what we touched all DEPEND on that primary relative clause of “What was from the beginning”. In other words, what they heard is what was from the beginning and what they have seen is what is from the beginning and what they beheld is what was from the beginning and what they touched was what was from the beginning. That is how primary and secondary clauses relate to each other. 4 secondary clauses depending upon the primary clause to complete their meaning.

The sentence runs all the way through the middle of verse 3 where the main verb “announce” is located. Everything else is filler for lack of a better word or a side elaboration about some other word. Remember how Greek works, the author can put the verb anywhere he wants and if it is last in the sentence then you should be realizing that whatever came first was put there for the purpose of importance or emphasis. In this case John in not emphasizing that it is John who is announcing but the importance or emphasis is on WHAT he is announcing.

Now we need to connect the main verb with the subject by creating a simplified sentence. It would read as - We announce “what” to you - the “what” in verse 3 refer’s the primary clauses “what” and the 4 secondary clause “whats” of verse 1. (Remember that the primary and it’s secondary clauses of verse 1 are all working off of this verb in verse 3). So in verse 3 the “we” would be the subject and “announce” would be the verb and “to you” would be the indirect object. So how would “what” be functioning in the simplified sentence? It is functioning as a Direct Object. We now have a relative pronoun that is the subject of verse one "functioning" as a direct object to it’s main verb in verse 3. Because “what” opens the primary clause and the subordinate clauses open with relative pronouns, the entire primary clause along with the 4 secondary clauses are all functioning as a direct object clauses (taking the direct action of the verb). That is another way that relative pronouns are used in Koine Greek. (of course this comes with the disclaimer - as best as I understand it)