Well, this evening I invite you to turn in your Bibles to the book of 1 John. I'm going to begin a series through the book of 1 John this evening, so when I have the privilege of preaching, I'll be working through 1 John. If you're using the pew Bibles in front of you, 1 John can be found on page 1210, 1210. We're going to consider tonight from 1 John 1, verses 1 through 4, so just four chapters. Four verses. That is. 1 John 1, beginning at verse 1: "That which was from the beginning, 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, the life was made manifest, and we have seen it and testified to it and proclaimed to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us. That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you, so that you too 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."
Well, Jesus said at a certain point to His disciples, "Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. For truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people long to see what you see and did not see it, and to hear what you hear and did not hear it." Well, let me ask you tonight: Have you seen Christ? Have you heard Christ? Did you behold him or touch him as John says he and the other apostles did? Well, the obvious answer to that question is no. We have not. We did not hear, see, look upon, and touch Christ. And yet, we believe. How did that happen? How did that happen? Did it happen maybe as the world would expect through signs and wonders, visions, and dreams? Did it happen through the wisdom of man, through philosophical exploration and achievement or scientific exploration and achievement? No, it did not. And yet here we are. How did this happen? How did we come to believe? How is it that there is a church? And not just our church, but churches which make up the universal church, the one holy Catholic church, as we confessed just moments ago.
Now, ultimately, we know that it was through the work of the Holy Spirit. But the Spirit uses means, doesn't he? It was through testimony. Testimony. Apostolic testimony. It was through the testimony of the apostles a testimony handed down from the apostles to the churches via the pages of Scripture. Scripture passed on from one Christian generation to the next, a testimony, as I said, that we now have in Scripture, just as Scripture says in places like Ephesians chapter 2: "And now in Christ Jesus, you who were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ, and he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near." And Paul goes on to say that this preaching was built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being himself the chief cornerstone.
You see, the testimony that we have today in Scripture is founded upon that of the apostles and prophets, testimony to Christ. testimony about Christ. Just as Jude says when he calls the Christians to contend for the faith that was once and for all delivered, handed down to the saints. And that's exactly what we see John doing here in this opening section of his epistle. He's bearing testimony, testimony to Jesus Christ. And so I want to consider with you this evening the testimony of Christ by John by looking at two points that John brings up in this text. First, the content of the testimony, the content and second, the character. of the testimony, the character, the content, and the character.
John begins here in verse 1 by saying, "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands concerning the word of life." John is testifying to the person of Jesus Christ here, and he's doing so in an extraordinary way. Notice John begins by saying that which is from the beginning. What or who is the pronoun "which" referring to here? Well, it's referring to none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. It is Jesus who is from the beginning. It is Jesus who John and the other apostles heard, saw, beheld, and touched. It is Jesus who is the word of life.
Now, why would John refer to Jesus in this way? Why refer to Jesus as that which is from the beginning? Well, I'm sure to one degree or another, we're all familiar with the opening words of John's gospel. Maybe you even have it memorized, right? It has a kind of poetic tone to it. The Gospel of John begins by saying, "In the beginning." It's kind of alluding back to the book of Genesis, the opening verse of Genesis. "In the beginning, John says, was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God." You see, John here is continuing that train of thought from his gospel into this first epistle that he is writing to the churches: "that which is from the beginning."
Then, if you recall, John further says in his gospel, in that opening chapter, "And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son, from the Father, full of grace and truth." Well, here in the epistle, he says, "the life was made manifest. And we have seen it and testified to it and proclaimed to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us." So again, John is simply carrying over his thought from the opening section of his gospel. He's reintroducing that thought and connecting that thought to the thoughts that he has here in this epistle.
Now why is this important? Why is it important for John to do this? Why connect the two documents? Well, it's important for John to do this because he doesn't want the churches to which he is writing to to be confused, to misunderstand, or to be led astray by false teachings or false teachers. And so he connects Jesus that he testifies to in the gospel to the Jesus that he is going to testify to in this epistle. What he's essentially saying is the two are one. They're one in the same. The one that he wrote about in the gospel who was in the beginning with God and was God is the same one that he now is testifying to in his epistle as that which was from the beginning.
You see, friends, there were false teachers who had risen up within the churches at the time that John was writing these letters, men who claimed to be themselves apostles. And so they were trying to claim authority within the church and for their teaching, and they were doing that while teaching something contrary to what John and the other apostles taught. John refers to these false teachers as antichrists. Antichrists. We see John address these false apostles in passages like chapter 2, verse 18. Look with me at chapter 2, verse 18, where John writes, "Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many Antichrists have come. Therefore, we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us."
Today, we hear the word antichrist, and that brings a lot of eschatological baggage for us. We think of a figure at the end of the world. But what John is referring to here, as you see, is he's speaking of multiple people, men who are false teachers, men who claim to be apostles who are teaching anything contrary to what him or the other apostles teach. We see this again, a reference in chapter 4, verse 1: "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist."
And so those false apostles were teaching things contrary to what the other apostles or the apostles had written, testified, and preached concerning Christ. The false apostles were leading people astray by calling into question the divinity of Christ, by calling into question the incarnation of Jesus Christ. They were simply teaching a different Jesus. And so it's critical. It's critical that John addresses these teachers and teaching in the churches, because the reality is the Christian gospel hinges upon the person and the work of Jesus Christ. Both the person and the work of Christ are critically important to the gospel. One cannot embrace the life and death of Jesus Christ while denying that Jesus is God incarnate. You cannot say that you believe Jesus lived and died for your sins while denying that he is God Almighty.
Many people do this today, don't they? They believe they can accept the fact that Jesus lived and died for sins, and yet at the very same time deny the fact and reality that he is God in the flesh. But as I said, the Christian gospel is founded upon the reality of the person of Jesus Christ, that he is indeed God. Our own Heidelberg Catechism asks in Lord's Day 6, "Why must he also be true God?" And the answer is: "So that by the power of his divinity, he might bear in his humanity the weight of God's wrath and earn for us and restore to us righteousness and life."
See, brothers and sisters, Jesus had to be divine. He had to be divine in order to fully deal with the wrath of God against our sin. The divinity of Christ and the doctrine of the incarnation are not just teachings that seminary professors in ivory towers spend their time on. The divinity of Christ and the doctrine of the incarnation is really they are really street-level theology when you think about it. Take away the divinity of Christ from the gospel, and we're still in our sins. We're still in our sins, since no mere man could endure the wrath of God, just as our catechism says. No mere man could bear in his humanity the weight of God's wrath. No mere man. No created being. Not even an angel could bear the wrath of God. The only one who could bear the wrath of God is God himself.
And that's why the lambs and the goats and the bulls used in the Old Testament sacrificial system were themselves insufficient for the forgiveness of sins. They could not propitiate God's wrath. Those sacrifices could not satisfy the wrath of God against our sin. Only Jesus Christ, the God-man, could do that. And so, thanks be to God, Jesus is God. He is God, just as John testifies to here, that which is from the beginning.
So, if and when those nice people come knocking at your door on, say, a Saturday morning, and they want to tell you about the gospel and they tell you that Jesus is not God but he is an angel, the archangel or some created being, the firstborn of creation, tell them compassionately and gently that there's no good news in that. There's no good news in that. Jesus had to be divine. Without the gospel of the God-man Jesus Christ, there is no good news because we would still be in our sin.
And that's why it's so critical for John to speak of the existence of Jesus Christ as an eternity past. He has always existed. He is indeed from the beginning. That is to say, he is God, the eternal second person of the Trinity. He is the Alpha, the Omega, the first and the last, as John will record Jesus saying to him in just a couple of books later, the book of the Revelation.
So John begins here by testifying to the truth of who Jesus Christ is. He is God. But then notice, secondly, the character of John's testimony. John doesn't simply speak of the divinity of Christ. He also mentions that Jesus was made manifest. Jesus, the second person of the triune God, became man. Again, John, keeping with what he testified to in his gospel when he said, "And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth," says here in verse 1: "We have heard him. We have seen him with our eyes. We have looked upon and touched him with our hands concerning the word of life. The life was made manifest, and we have seen it and testify to it."
You see, John realizes the magnitude of the claim being made here. He realizes that the reality of the incarnation could be difficult for many to accept. So notice John doesn't just tell his listening audience, "Just believe." Just believe as if blind belief and faith is the point in themselves. No, John points us to someone to believe in. He points us to Jesus Christ, a real historical Savior. And so he builds a case for his testimony here, a testimony based upon what has been revealed to him and the other apostles, what they saw, what they heard, what they beheld and touched.
Or as the apostle Peter says, "We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty." John is saying with Peter here: It wasn't a trick that we followed. It was not a dream, a hallucination, a vision. John is saying my testimony is that of firsthand eyewitness testimony. John and the other apostles had firsthand experience with Jesus, the God-man.
Now, first of all, that John and the other apostles had this kind of testimony to give really sets them apart as apostles when you think about it. You see, they aren't just simply claiming to be apostles. They aren't just throwing that term and that title, that name, that office around in order to gain fame or prestige or authority for themselves over people. They're not like those who John is writing against, who are doing that very thing.
See, it's interesting. Today, some people still do that, don't they? There's a whole tradition today where people still claim to be apostles. Upon what authority they make such a claim is beyond me, but nevertheless, they still make such claims. That's not what John is doing here. His apostleship is not based on a claim. It's based on his life and experience. He saw Jesus. He heard Jesus. He touched Jesus.
See, John and the other apostles really heard Jesus speak, teach, preach. They They heard him command the wind and the sea while the storm was going on, the Sea of Galilee. Jesus said, "Be still." They heard it. They saw the storm be still. They heard Jesus teach, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." They heard Jesus say and teach, "God was his father," thus making himself equal with God. They heard Jesus teach, "Before Abraham, I am."
John and the other disciples heard all of that and more. They heard Jesus say, "I am the bread of life." They heard Jesus say, "I am the light of the world." life, the true vine. Apart from me, you can do nothing. They heard Jesus say, and teach all of these things. Furthermore, they saw Jesus. They saw his life and his ministry. They were with him. They saw him change water into wine. They saw him heal the blind, the sick, the lame. They saw Jesus walk on water. They saw him do and perform many signs and wonders. they even saw him on three occasions, raised the dead to life by the power of his word. They saw all of that. They were there. They were there with him But maybe most noteworthy is what John says here, that They looked upon and touched him The words that John uses here to say that They looked upon and touched him isn't your typical looking upon and touching. They refer to more than just the kind of seeing that. John refers to in just the phrase before. This is a more investigative kind of looking and seeing that John is speaking of here. One commentator says John is suggesting here a deeper, more contemplative observation, like a careful, intentional investigation and examination of the life and ministry and work of Jesus Christ. When I think of careful examination, as John is referring to here, it brings to my mind that of Thomas, the disciple Thomas. Thomas, the careful skeptic. Some of us are just a little more skeptical about things than others, right? We're a little different. Thomas was a little different. He was a true skeptic. If you remember, Jesus appeared to the disciples, and the disciples report to Thomas that Jesus had appeared to them. Interestingly, John uses the same word, seeing, that we had seen the Lord that he uses here in the phrase, we saw him.
But it wasn't good enough for Thomas. Remember what Thomas said in response to the other disciples saying that they saw The Lord after his resurrection? Thomas says, unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails and place my finger into the mark of the nails and place my hand into his side, I will never believe. I will never believe. Thomas was a true skeptic. He will never believe unless he looks and touches, as John says, the resurrected Jesus Christ. So then, eight days later, they're all together, right? They're all together in the upper room. Jesus appears to them. and Jesus, knowing all things, gets straight to the point with Thomas. He goes to Thomas and he says, put your finger here. See my hands. Put your hand here. Place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe. What a powerful display on the part of Jesus here. Jesus wasn't hands-off to the disciples by any means. He didn't say, you can't touch me. You must simply believe based on blind faith. No, Jesus compassionately and gently says to the doubt and skepticism of Thomas, touch me, see, believe. How powerful a moment that must have been not only for Thomas, but for all of the disciples. Brothers and sisters, we are called to believe in Jesus Christ. We're called to believe in the One who is from the beginning, from eternity past, God himself. We're called to believe in the one who lived and walked the earth, the one who was fully man, the one who was born of a virgin, who grew up among men as all men do. He ate, he drank, he slept, he had physical needs, he was fully man. We're called to believe in the one who suffered and died upon a cross for us and our sin. You see, we don't believe in some cleverly devised plan to deceive the whole world into following some myth. No, we believe in a Savior who is indeed the way, the truth, and the life. We believe in the Savior who is both God and man. And that's exactly what Thomas acknowledged after seeing and touching Jesus Thomas, the true skeptic, responds to seeing and touching Jesus by confessing, my God, my Lord and my God, he says. With those words, the skeptic, Thomas testifies to Christ. the person, and the work. And that's what John reports here, and testifies to here. that he and the rest of the apostles looked upon touched with their hands the very one who was and is and is to come who was dead and behold is alive the one who suffered for our transgression paid the penalty for our sins the one who atoned for our sins by offering himself as a propitiation for our sins. Now, yes, all of this suggests that John and the other apostles were truly apostles of Jesus Christ. Their credentials as apostles were based upon being with Jesus, living with him, hearing him, seeing him, touching him. But this also suggests something else. It suggests that the truths of the person and work of Jesus Christ are not founded upon some mystical, secret knowledge or experience that just a few have. But that the truths of Christianity are real, verifiable, historical truths and facts. At the time of John and the other apostles, one could go and verify the very things that they testify to. One could go and hear from those who really saw Jesus. who saw the resurrected Lord. You see, if this was a court of law, these would be the facts of the case. Jesus was from eternity past. He was God. He became man. He walked the earth, lived a life of suffering, performed many miraculous signs and wonders, lived according to all that his Father commanded him. He was wrongfully accused. charged and crucified. He died for the sins of his people. He was buried, resurrected on the third day, ascended into heaven, and will literally return one day to judge the living and the dead. These are all truths that we are familiar with. In fact, we confess them. on a regular basis. And they should be familiar to us. they make up the basis of our Christian faith. We don't believe in a mystical, mythical Jesus. "we believe in the Jesus of the Bible, a real man, a man who suffered for us and for our sins. After Thomas. confessed about Jesus being his Lord and God, do you
Remember what Jesus replied? He says, have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe. Do you believe tonight, brothers and sisters? Do you believe, friends? I believe you do. And because you do believe, you are blessed. as Jesus says. You are blessed. John refers to that blessing in verse 4 here when he speaks of the joy of knowing Christ. He says, that he writes these things to make our joy complete. To make our joy. Now when John says our joy, I don't take him as just simply referring to himself and the apostles. I take that to be an inclusive our. It includes those who are reading, those who are hearing his epistle read to them. It's our joy, the joy of knowing Jesus Christ. There is joy in knowing Christ, because in knowing Christ, we know that we have eternal life. See, that's the point and purpose for which John writes this letter. He tells us in chapter 5, verse 13, he writes these things so that we might know that we have eternal life. If you know Jesus Christ, if you believe in him by faith, Jesus, the Jesus of the Bible, then indeed you have eternal life. And you have the joy of eternal life. It is indeed joyful to know Christ. We are the blessed people. Those who are blessed, as Psalm 1 describes, the blessed person. That's you. That's me. Because we know Jesus Christ, the God-man, the one who lived and died. for us let's pray Lord we thank you for this testimony of John testifying to Jesus Christ the person and the work we praise you tonight Lord that indeed by your grace and mercy you have opened the eyes of our hearts we know Christ our Lord we pray and ask Lord by your spirit that you would continue to enable us to know more and more Christ Jesus, our Lord. And we pray, Lord, that through that knowledge, you might well up joy in our hearts and continue to make us a thankful people. We pray this all in Jesus' name. Amen.