XXXIV - 9(01) Excerpt

“Watchman,

what of the night?”

"The hour has come, the hour is striking and striking at you,
the hour and the end!"        Eze. 7:6 (Moffatt)

JOHN'S FIRST EPISTLE

[Excerpt from wwn9(01)]

"This letter is plainly polemical. Dangerous heresy called it forth. In this letter the writer emphasizes the deity of Christ and pronounces a severe verdict on those who deny the deity" (R.C.H. Lenski, Commentary on the New Testament, Vol. 11, p. 364). The word "deity" means simply, "the state of being a god." Paul had written to the Church at Colosse that in Christ "dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (2:9). The Greek word translated, "Godhead" (qeothV) can also be translated, "deity." The Apostle John late in the first century faced this heresy in Ephesus, the Church to which this Epistle is addressed. We face the same heresy today in the community of Adventism in a revived form.

This Epistle has no introduction as the Epistles of Paul and Peter. There is no preface or preamble, but a basic statement about Jesus Christ upon which the whole letter rests. It begins - "That which was from the beginning" The words - ap archV - need no article. "This is the same 'beginning' as that mentioned in Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1. In Genesis 1:1 ' in beginning ' marks the moment when time began for the acts of creation that followed; in John 1:1 ' in the beginning ' marks the same moment but in order to tell us

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that already at that time the Logos was. 'From the beginning' looks forward from that moment to all time that follows; but the verb ἦν (it is not 'became' ἐγένετο, and not 'has been') leaves all eternity open to 'that which' already then 'was.'" (Lenski, op.cit., p. 371)

There are five neuter clauses in this basic statement: That which was; 2) That which we have heard; 3) That which we have seen; 4) That we have looked upon; and 5) In the third verse, seen and heard are restated. All of this is "concerning the Word of life." Why the five neuters, when the Word (λόγος) is used referring to the Person, Jesus Christ? Lenski explains:

Jesus Christ cannot be separated from what he was and is for us. Both belong together like the sun and its glorious light. The same theme of this letter is the same as that of the Gospel: the eternal Son incarnate for our life and salvation to the confounding of all antichrists. (p. 370-371).

The parenthetical second verse needs to be carefully considered. It reads:

For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.

Observe carefully. In verse one, John specifies that the One of Whom he is speaking, which he had seen, heard, and handled is the Logos - the Word of life. This life - "that eternal life" - was not derived from the Father but was "with the Father" from all eternity. The same preposition, πρὸς, "with" is used here as is used in John 1:1 - "the Word was with God." This is a clear declaration of the eternal Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is these pronouncements concerning the Deity of our Saviour Jesus Christ that need to be made basic in any formulation of the doctrine of God, instead of ignoring them, and eisegetically interpreting other Scriptures in the light of our human experience. In other words, the relegating of Jesus Christ to the status of a lesser Being is one of the deceptions of these last days, and many "are going in thereat." The matter of "position" is one thing, the matter of "Being" is another.

Another heresy on which John makes pronouncement is whether Christ came in the flesh. He specifically warns:

Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets have gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: for this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. (I John 4:1-3)

Of so great importance was this doctrine that John returns to it in his second Epistle, writing:

Many deceivers are entered in the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist (ver. 7)

Then John adds a basic concept which is too often overlooked:

Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son (ver. 9).

In Ephesus at the time John was writing was one by the name of Cerinthus. He taught that Jesus was the physical son of Joseph; that the "eon Christ" was united with Jesus at his baptism but left Jesus before His passion and His death. He was a former Jew from Egypt and combined Jewish ideas with what can be called the beginnings of Christian Gnosticism. He sought to produce a spiritualized Mosaism, which was to be a universal religion. In his variant from truth, Cerinthus retained circumcision and the keeping of the Sabbath.

The issue today in regard to the Incarnation is not that Christ came in the flesh but what "flesh" did He assume in becoming human. There is no denial that the Word was manifest in the flesh per se, but was there a divine intervention so as to control the nature of the flesh that the Word took upon Himself? While we cannot define certain aspects of the mystery of godliness - the manifestation of God in the flesh, - the Scripture clearly states that the nature Christ took was the fallen nature of Adam. He "condemned sin in the flesh" (Rom. 8:3). He was "made... to be sin for us" (II Cor. 5:21). He was "made of the seed of David according to the flesh" (Rom. 1:3). "He took not on Him the nature of angels; but He took on him the seed of Abraham" (Heb. 2:16). Emptying Himself, He "took upon Him the form of a slave" (Phil. 2:7, Gr.)This then is "the doctrine of Christ" and to have this doctrine is to have both the Father and Son. This is life eternal (John 17:3) (Red font added.)