2.07 - The Manifested Life
Chapter 7 The Manifested Life
Construction of the Passage—The Eternal Life unveiled—Gnostic Dualism of Nature and Spirit—“In the beginning” and “From the beginning” — Actuality of the Manifestation — Competence of the Witnesses—Fellowship of Men in the Testimony—Fellowship with God through the Testimony.
―—―♦——— That which was from the beginning.
That which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes,
That which we beheld, and our hands handled:
Concerning the word of life. And the life was manifested, and we have seen it;
And we testify, and report to you, the eternal life,
Which was with the Father, and was manifested to us. That which we have seen and heard, we report to you also,
That you also may have fellowship with us;
Yea, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write, that our joy may be fulfilled.
―—―♦———
WE adopt the revised translation of the above verses, preferring however, in 1 John 1:1, the marginal “word of life” without the capital. For it is on life26 rather than word that the stress of the sentence lies (“for the life was manifested,” St John continues); and Word must have stood alone to be recognized as a personal title, or could at most be qualified as it is in the Apocalypse (Revelation 19:13): “His nameis called The Word of God.” St John’s “word of life” resembles the “word of life” that St Paul bids the Philippians “hold fast” (Php 2:16), “the words of life eternal” which St Peter declared his Master had (John 6:68), and “all the words of this life” which the Apostles were bidden to “speak in the temple to the people” (Acts 5:20). It is synonymous with “the Gospel,” the message of the new life which those bear witness to and report who have first “heard” it and proved its life-giving power. “Concerning the word of life” stands in apposition to the four preceding relative clauses (“that which we have heard . . . our hands handled”) and states their general subject-matter and import; while the first clause, “That which was from the beginning,” stands alone in sublime completeness. The verse should be read by itself as a title to the writing, a statement of the great matter of the writer’s thoughts, of that on which his relations with his readers rest. By construing the first verse thus (see the text as printed above), we dispense with the brackets enclosing the second verse in the English Version. Parentheses and involved constructions are not much in St John’s way. The common punctuation treats the second verse as an eddy in the current, an idea that strikes the writer incidentally and by the way, whereas it belongs to the mid-stream of his thought. It constitutes, in fact, the centre of the passage. While verse 3 links itself with verse 1 by repeating its second line, it does so with a difference, with a scope beyond the intent of the former sentence. St John reiterates “what we have seen and heard” not by way of resuming the thread of an interrupted sentence, but striking once more the key-note, on which he plays a further descant. We observe here, at the outset, the peculiar manner of our author. His thought progresses by a kind of spiral movement, returning continually upon itself, but in each revolution advancing to a new point and giving a larger outlook to the idea that it seeks to unfold.
“Declare” in 1 John 1:2 and 1 John 1:3 should rather be “report” (ἀπαγγέλλομεν). The original verb signifies the carrying of tidings or messages from the authentic source: we are the bearers to you of the word we received from Him (compare 1 John 1:5; also 1 Corinthians 14:25, 1 Thessalonians 1:9, for ἀπαγγέλλω). When St John writes in 1 John 1:2 “we bear witness and report,” in the former expression (as Haupt acutely says) the emphasis lies on the communication of truth, in the latter on the communication of truth.
Readers of the Greek will note the expressive transition from the perfect to the aorist tense and back again, that takes place in 1 John 1:1-3. In the words “that which we have heard and have seen with our eyes,” St John asserts the abiding reality of the audible and visible manifestation of the eternal life in Christ. This revelation is now a fixed possession, the past realized in the present; to its immovable certainty the Apostle reverts once again in 1 John 1:2 and 1 John 1:3. The sudden change of tense in the middle of 1 John 1:1, which is missed by our authorized rendering, transports us to the historical scene. We stand with the first disciples before the incarnate Son of God, gazing with wonder on His face and reaching out our hands to touch His form, as St John writes, “that which we beheld and our hands handled.” This turn of phrase is a fine trait of genuineness; it is the movement of personal remembrance working within and behind historical reflection. The same witness speaks here who wrote the words of John 20:19-20: “Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you! And when He had thus said, He showed unto them His hands and His side.” In this wondrous human person, through its flesh and blood reality, the Apostle affirms in the name of all the eye-witnesses: “The life was manifested, the eternal life that was with the Father was manifested to us.” While ἐθεασάμεθα (we beheld) signifies an intent, contemplative gaze, ἐψηλάφησαν (occurring in the New Testament only in Luke 24:39, Acts 17:27, and Hebrews 12:18, beside this passage) denotes not the bare handling, but the exploring use of the hands that tests by handling. So much for the verbal elucidation of the passage. Let us look now at its substantial content.
1. St John had witnessed, as he believed, the supreme manifestation of God. The secret of the universe stood unveiled before his eyes, the everlasting fact and truth of things, “that which was from the beginning.” Here he touched the spring of being, the principle that animates creation from star to farthest star, from the archangel to the worm in the sod: “the life was manifested, the life eternal which existed with the Father, was manifested” to us. If “the life” of this passage is identical with that of the prologue to the Gospel, it has all this breadth of meaning; it receives a limitless extension when it is defined as “that which was from the beginning”; it is “the life” that “was in” the Eternal Word, and “was the light of men” from the dawn of human consciousness. The source of spiritual life to men is that which was, in the first instance, the source of natural life to all creatures. Here lies the foundation-stone of the Johannine theology. It assumes the solidarity of being, the unity of the seen and unseen. It rules out from the beginning all dualistic and Doketic conceptions of the world. Gnostic metaphysics guarded “the eternal life” —the Christ or Son of God—from entanglement in the finite, by supposing that the Divine element descended upon Jesus at His baptism and parted from Him on the cross; St John affirms, as matter of historical certainty, in the strongest and clearest terms possible the identity of the two—the fact that “the eternal was manifested,” that it took visible, palpable form of flesh and blood in Jesus the Son of God (compare 1 John 1:7). This life of life, he tells us, the essential offspring of the Deity, became incarnate that it might hold fellowship with men; it was slain, that its blood might cleanse them from iniquity. The sublime prelude of St John’s Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word,” is not repeated here; it is presumed. In the beginning gives the starting-point of revelation, from the beginning carries us along its process. Throughout the creation and course of the natural universe, through the calling and history of ancient Israel, the word wrought and spoke “from the beginning,” shaping itself into a message of life for men; and the incarnate revelation was its goal. It is the fourth verse rather than the first of the Gospel, which supplies the text for the Epistle: “that which hath come to be, in Him was life; and the life was the light of men.” A stream flowing underground, with the roots of a thousand plants drinking of its strength and with verdure and beauty marking out its hidden course, the electric current running silent, unsuspected, through dark and winding channels till it reaches the carbon-points where it bursts into splendour—these are images of the disclosure of God in Christ, as St John views it in relation to anterior dispensations. This was “the mystery,” as St Paul conceived it, “hidden from times eternal”—God’s secret lying deep at the heart of time, lodged and wrapped up in the world from its foundation, till it “was manifested” in the Only-begotten. Such was the life coming from the Father that appeared to the eyes of the witnesses of Jesus, the one life and love pervading all things, the source and ground of finite being.
2. In the second place, observe the energy with which the apostle asserts the actuality of the revelation of the life of God in Jesus Christ. Thrice in three verses he reiterates “we have seen” it, twice “we have heard,” and twice repeats “the life was manifested.” The stupendous fact has always had its doubters and deniers. In any age of the world and under any system of thought, such a revelation as that made by Jesus Christ was sure to be met with incredulity. It is equally opposed to the superstitions and to the skepticisms natural to the human mind. The mind that is not surprised and sometimes staggered by the claims of Christ and the doctrines of Christianity, that has not felt the shock they give to our ordinary experience and native convictions, has not awakened to their real import. The doubt which, like that of Thomas at the resurrection, arises from a sense of the overwhelming magnitude, the tremendous significance of the facts asserted, is worthier than the facile and unthinking faith that admits enormous theological propositions without a strain and treats the profoundest mysteries as a commonplace.
St John feels that the things he declares demand the strongest evidence. He has not believed them lightly, and he does not expect others to believe them lightly. This passage goes to show that the Apostles were aware of the importance of historical truth; they were conscientious and jealously observant in this regard. Their faith was calm, rational and sagacious. They were perfectly certain of the things they attested, and believed only upon commanding and irresistible evidence—evidence that covered the full extent of the case, evidence natural and supernatural, sensible and moral, scriptural and experimental, and practically demonstrative. But the facts they built upon are primarily of the spiritual order, so that without a corresponding spiritual sense and faculty they are never absolutely convincing. Already in St John’s old age the solvents of philosophical analysis were being applied to the Gospel history and doctrine. The Godhead incarnate, the manifestation of the infinite in the finite, of the eternal in the temporal—this was impossible and self-contradictory; we know beforehand, the wise of the world said, that such things cannot be. And so criticism set itself to work upon the story, in the interests of a false philosophy. The incarnation, the miracles, the resurrection, the ascension—what are they but a beautiful poetic dream, a pictorial representation of spiritual truth, from which we must extract for ourselves a higher creed, leaving behind the supernatural as so much mere wrappage and imaginative dress! This rationalism loudly asserts to-day; and this the Gnosticism of the later apostolic age was already, in its peculiar method and dialect, beginning to make out.
The Apostle John confronts the Gnostic metaphysicians of his time, and the Agnostic materialists of ours, with his impressive declaration. Behind him lies the whole weight of the character, intelligence and disciplined experience of the witnesses of Jesus. Of what use was it for men at a distance to argue that this thing and that thing could not be? “I tell you,” says the great Apostle, “we have seen it with our eyes, we have heard Him with our very ears; we have touched and tested and handled these things at every point, and we know that they are so.” As he puts it, at the end of his letter, “we know that the Son of God is come; and He hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true.” The men who have founded Christianity and written the New Testament, were no fools.
They knew what they were talking about. No dreamer, no fanatic, no deceiver since the world began, ever wrote like the author of this Epistle. Every physical sense, every critical faculty of a sound and manly understanding, every honest conviction of the heart, every most searching and fiery test that can try the spirit of man, combine to assure us that the Apostles of Jesus Christ have told us the truth as they knew it about Him, and that things were even as they said and no otherwise. Ay, and God has borne witness to those faithful men through the ages since and put the seal to their testimony, or we should not be reading about these things to-day.
3. In the third place, there is founded upon the facts attested by the Apostles, and derived from the eternal life revealed in Christ, a divine fellowship for men. To promote this end St John writes: “that you also may have fellowship with us.” To communicate these truths, to see this fellowship established amongst men, is the Apostle’s delight, the business and delight of all those who share his faith and serve his Master: “these things we write, that our joy may be fulfilled.”27
We have a great secret in common—we and the Apostles. The Father told it to Jesus, Jesus to them, they to us, and we to others. Those who have seen and heard such things, cannot keep the knowledge to themselves. These truths belong not to us only, but to “the whole world” (1 John 2:2); they concern every man who has sins to confess and death to meet, who has work to do for his Maker in this world and a pathway to find through its darkness and perils. The Apostle John is writing to Greeks, to men far removed from him in native sympathy and instinct; but he has long since forgotten all that, and the difference between Jew and Greek never appears to cross his mind in writing this letter. The only difference he knows is between those who “are of God” and those who “are of the world.” In St John’s teaching the idea of the Church catholic as a spiritual brotherhood is perfected. He heads the procession of the confessors of Jesus, which marches unbroken through the centuries, gathering into its swelling ranks all that earth holds of purest and greatest. In that glorious array we rejoice to find a place; in our turn we sing its songs and repeat its witness, —” that our joy may be fulfilled.” But “our fellowship” is not with them alone—with prophets, apostles, martyrs, saints of God. St John’s communion with his Lord was not such as that one holds with the great minds of the past, or that we cherish with our beloved dead—a fellowship of common thought, of memory and of hope. If the facts the Apostles attest are true, they are just as true for us as for them. If the life manifested in the Lord Jesus was eternal, then it is living and real to-day. As it “was from the beginning,” it will be to the end. Jesus Christ had brought His disciples into fellowship with the living God. He had shown them the Father; He had made them individually children of God, with Himself for Elder Brother. He had passed away from their sight, to be with them eternally in His Spirit. In this way He had really come to them, and the Father with Him, when He seemed to be going (John 14:18-23: R.V.). They felt themselves to be in direct communion and communication every day with the Almighty Father in heaven, and with His Son Jesus Christ whom they had known and loved on earth. To this fellowship they invite and summon all mankind. The manifestation of God in Christ makes fellowship with God feasible, in a new sense and in a deeper way. Does not the very distinction revealed in the Godhead make such communion conceivable, as it scarcely could be otherwise, and capable of realization? The children in the house understand father and mother better than they could do either of them alone ; they learn to know each through the other. “Our communion,” writes St John, “is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ,” —with each distinctly, with each in and through and for the other. We have fellowship with Christ in the Father. He has explained the Father (John 1:18), and talked to us about Him ; and we enter into His views. We share Christ’s thoughts about God. We begin to think and feel, in our poor finite, struggling way, about the Almighty Father as He did in His grand and perfect and everlasting way. “My Father, and your Father!” He condescends to say. Believing this assurance, we have fellowship with Jesus Christ, God’s Son. God is to us, and life is to us, in some degree, what they were and are to our adorable Redeemer.
On the other hand, we have fellowship with God in the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is God’s; but He is ours as well ! God has told us what He thinks about His Son, and wishes us to think with Him (see 1 John 5:9). Showing Him to the world. He says: “This is My Son, the Beloved, in whom I am ever well pleased.” And we agree to that : we are well pleased with Him too ! We solemnly accept “ the testimony of God concerning His Son.” So we are at one with God in respect to Christ. All harmony and peace centre there. So far as we know and can understand, there is nothing that occupies the mind of God so deeply and touches so vitally all His relations with mankind, as the kingdom and honour of His Son Jesus Christ; there is nothing that pleases Him so much as our attachment to Christ. “The Father himself loveth you,” said Jesus to His disciples, “ because you have loved me, and believed that I came out from God “ (John 16:27). In Him God is reconciling the world to Himself. Upon faith in Him our individual destiny turns, and the fate of society and nations. Only when we think aright of Jesus Christ, are we in unison with God. Only when we think aright of Him and are rightly disposed toward Him, can we have fellowship with each other ; only on this condition can we work together with God for the world’s redemption (see John 6:4-5, and Chapter 22).
Life, manifestation, fellowship—three words resume the teaching of the first paragraph of the Epistle.