Blessed reassurance. A series on 1 John Part 1. (1 John 1:1-4)




Read 1 John 1:1-4

John dives right into the heart of the matter. He starts his letter off by refuting the teachings of the Gnostics. The Gnostics believed that the body, and all physical matter, is evil. Only the Spirit can be good. They denied Christ's humanity, saying that Christ only seemed to be human or that the divine Christ came and was temporarily joined with the man for a short part of His time on earth. John refutes this right away by witnessing Christ's body and life. He tells the reader, "That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched - this we proclaim concerning the Word of Life." John calls Christ the Word of Life because He is the source of life and the Supreme ruler over life. John also says this in the book of John, chapter 1: 1-2, where he writes, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning." He goes on to attribute all creation to Christ, and in John 1:4, he says, "In Him was life and that light was the light of men." Similarily, 1 John 1 also goes on to talk about walking in the light.

John reiterates that Christ was truly man when he says, "the Life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it." Then again, in verse 3, " we proclaim to you what we have seen and heard." He wanted to make it very clear that Christ was not only true God, but also true man. Why does John write all this? Because his joy could not be complete unless the reader shared in the knowledge of Christ. John wanted his readers to see the heresy of the false teachers for what it was and reassure them about salvation. He bore witness to the life and works of Christ, who was both God and man. If He was not fully God and fully man our salvation would not be complete. He must be true man because "just as sin entered the world through one man," (Romans 5:12) so only a man can pay for those sins. "For if many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many." (Romans 5:15). He must be true God because no mere man could bear the wrath of God. We know He is true God because many times throughout the Bible, we are told that Christ is the Son of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21 tells us, "God made Him who had no sin, to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." 

John's testimony reassures us that our salvation is complete in Christ. What a blessed reassurance we have!

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