1 John 1
LenskiJohn’s Pivotal Statement, Centering on God’s Son Jesus Christ, 1:1–4
1 John 1:1
1 When the structure of this epistle is understood, as we attempt to sketch it in the last part of our introduction, we no longer expect the common ancient form of a letter which has the name of the writer, a designation of the readers, and a greeting. Such a beginning would be incongruous. We also do not say that the heading of the letter was lost, or that John wrote these four verses as a substitute for it. Preamble, exordium, preface, and the like are also terms that do not fit these four verses. They constitute no less than John’s basic, pivotal statement on which he builds the thoughts of the epistle in ever-widening circles. Verses 1–4 are the first, the essential, the concentrated piece of the whole.
That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we did behold and our hands did handle concerning the Logos of the Life—and the Life was manifested, and we have seen and are bearing testimony and are declaring to you the Life, the eternal one, who as such was with the Father and was manifested to us—that which we have seen and have heard we are declaring also to you in order that you, too, may have fellowship with us, and this fellowship, moreover, of ours is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ; and these things we on our part are writing in order that our joy may be as having been filled full.
All this is thetical, positive: the deity of Jesus Christ, the Logos who was with the Father before time began, he being the Life who was manifested in time; him the apostles heard, saw, beheld, touched with their hands, they were the direct witnesses who testify, declare, write all this in order to have also John’s present readers in the fellowship with them, this fellowship with the Father and his Son, to the joy of John and the other witnesses. Yet a cutting edge against a terrible negation underlies every word. Cerinthus and his supporters are not witnesses, have heard, seen, beheld, touched nothing; deny the deity of Jesus, the Life eternal; destroy the fellowship of the believers with the Father and his Son; contradict what the apostles testify, declare, write, and attempt to turn their joy into grief.
Read historically with the eyes of the first readers, the full significance of every line appears. Every repetition is freighted with power. All the clauses combine in a mighty basic unit that is impressive, convincing, uplifting, encouraging the readers to stand solid in the divine fellowship against any little antichrist who may have appeared (2:18).
The voice is that of John; it is the same voice that testifies in the Fourth Gospel. The simplest words convey the deepest, the loftiest thoughts. Καί is the great, simple connective. This prologue involuntarily recalls the greater one found in the Gospel.
Why the five neuters (the fifth occurs in v. 3): ὅ, “that which”? Besser has given the correct answer: That which was from the beginning was He, the Logos of the Life, God’s Son Jesus Christ; that which we have heard, seen, beheld, handled was He. The neuter conveys more than the masculine would, namely in addition to the person all that this person was and is and ever will be for us. Throughout these neuter relative clauses speak of the person plus the grace, the power, the salvation, etc., that are conveyed to us by this person. Jesus Christ cannot be separated from what he was and is for us. Both belong together like the sun and its glorious light. The 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.
Like scores of such phrases in the Greek ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς needs no article. This is the same “beginning” as that mentioned in Gen. 1:1 and John 1:1. In Gen. 1:1 “in the 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 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.” John looks forward from the beginning because he would call attention to the point that the Logos of the Life existed long, long before his manifestation in the fulness of time.
The four neuter relatives are identical: “that which was in the beginning” is “that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we did behold and our hands handled.” All four are made plain by the added phrase περὶτοῦΛόγουτῆςΖωῆς and the parenthetical, elucidative statement that follows. John does not use the simple accusative τὸνΛόγοντῆςΖωῆς, for this could mean “the Word of life” or the gospel as preached and taught. He uses περὶ, “concerning,” which excludes such a meaning, no one preaches concerning the Scripture Word but preaches that Word itself. What the apostles heard, saw, beheld, handled was the personal Word, the person who is “the Logos of the Life.” How they were able to do this verse 2 tells us twice: He was manifested, he was incarnated, the Logos became flesh and tented among us, and so we beheld his glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14).
Thus we object to the introduction of various objects: we have heard the words of Christ; we have seen with our eyes the miracles of Christ; we have beheld the glory of Christ; our hands handled the resurrection body of Christ. John’s verbs have one object: “that which,” and they do not divide this. This object is made clear by the phrase “concerning the Logos of the Life.” We do not reduce this to mean the gospel or anything less than the Logos himself in his whole manifestation.
The genitive in “the Logos of the Life” is appositional. “In him was life,” John 1:4. “This is the true God and eternal life,” 1 John 5:20. “I am … the life,” John 14:6; “the resurrection and the life,” 11:25. Absolutely and in himself he is “the Logos of the Life” (John 5:26). This “Life” is not a mere idea, an abstraction such as we get by induction or deduction when we study living creatures. It is the divine essence itself in its personality and its activity. Yet “the Logos became flesh” (John 1:14), “the life was manifested,” in the fulness of time the Son was born of a woman (Gal. 4:4, 5). The Logos of the Life became “the Bread of life” so that those who receive him shall not hunger, those who believe on him shall not thirst (John 6:35); it likewise became “the Light of life,” that whosoever follows him shall not walk in darkness (John 8:12). “Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God has sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we may live through him” (4:9). “The Life” is repeated three times: ὉΛόγοςτῆςΖωῆς-ἡΖωή-τὴνΖωὴντὴνΑἰώνιον, emphasizing the term, re-emphasizing it; for he who is “the Life” eternal and in eternity was manifested as the Bearer of life to us who were dead in our sins.
John alone uses the term Logos; he uses it here, later in his Gospel, and in Rev. 19:13. This is the second person of the Godhead who is called “the Word” because he is the complete and final Revelator of the will and the thought of God. Rev. 19:11: “Faithful and true,” v. 13: “and his name is called The Logos of God.” He is the “Amen, the faithful and true Witness” in Rev. 3:14.
See further on John 1:1 and note that John did not borrow “Logos” from Philo, that the idea expressed by this name is found throughout the Old Testament. Like other titles of the Savior, the instructed church has always understood this one, for she is taught about the Savior.
The four asyndetic clauses with which John begins are most impressive. Four is the number of common rhetorical completeness. This is complete testimony; testimony that offers the completest assurance for the readers; testimony that stands for the truth and against any and all contradiction of that truth. The plurals “we” refer to the apostles; they are not editorial plurals that refer to John alone. The witness of one man is not accepted in court; there must be at least two, preferably three witnesses (Matt. 18:16; Deut. 17:6; 19:15; John 18:17, 18). Jesus himself follows this principle; in John 5:31–39 he appeals to two other witnesses besides himself. 2 Cor. 13:1; Heb. 10:28; Matt. 26:60.
John here appeals to at least twelve witnesses. In 1 Cor. 15:5–8 Paul appeals to more than five hundred to establish the resurrection of Jesus. The facts are incontrovertible.
The four statements are cumulative, the evidence is piled up mountain-high. Each added verb says more than the one that precedes it; the four progress, form a climax. To see is more than to hear; to behold more than to see; to handle more than to behold. Four direct contacts constitute these witnesses as true and competent witnesses. Any one of these contacts would be sufficient to make one a witness; the four contacts are exhaustive. Ears, eyes, hands, all were employed.
John has two perfects and two aorists. The perfects convey the thought that what “we have heard,” what “we have seen,” has its continuous effect on us. John’s Gospel uses a number of such significant perfects. Beside them John places two decisive aorists of fact: “we did actually behold,” “we did actually handle.” As the perfects stress the continuing effect, so the aorists stress the actuality. John wants both just as he uses four clauses.
The second and the fourth verb have additions. “We have seen with our eyes,” i.e., with our own eyes; “our hands did handle,” i.e., our own hands actually did so. These additions are placed chiastically. Seeing and beholding are not the same. What these witnesses saw they examined with all care at close range in order to see fully so that their eyes should in no way deceive them; thus they actually beheld. Their eyes were not enough, they used their hands to substantiate the experience of their ears and their eyes; they actually touched and handled. In John 1:14 all this is summed up: “we beheld his glory,” etc. Among other passages that deserve notice are John 2:11; 6:68; 20:27, 29; Luke 24:39; Acts 10:41.
Can Cerinthus or can any of the antichrists (2:18) offer counterwitness? What have they heard, seen, beheld, handled? Nothing. They have absolutely nothing to offer but their own imaginations and delusions. That is true to this day with regard to all who deny the deity of Jesus, the efficacy of his blood for our sins, etc. The case is plain even for people who have only common sense and ordinary judgment: on the one side, competent witnesses in solid array—on the other, no witnesses at all, nothing but perverted men who with brazen boldness contradict the completest testimony. John gives them the right name in 2:22 as he does in 2:10 and 4:20.
1 John 1:2
2 John adds a parenthesis that is introduced by καί; he might have used a subordinate clause with γάρ. John chooses to coordinate, it is his method of expressing his thought, which is at once simple and direct. “And” makes the statement an independent statement, which is the more effective: “and the Life was manifested,” the aorist states the past fact. “The Life” is “the Logos of the Life” who is now named more briefly as he is in John 1:4b and in 14:6. The verb includes the whole manifestation from the incarnation to the ascension but especially from the baptism until the ascension, the time when the apostles beheld his glory (John 1:14).
For the second time John says “and we have seen” and lets this one verb suffice; he uses the perfect to indicate the extent of their seeing the manifestation. But John now adds “and we are testifying and declaring to you the Life, the eternal one.” The object is to be construed with all three “we” verbs. Not for themselves alone have they seen, but they have seen as witnesses who are ever to testify and to declare what they have seen. “You shall be my witnesses … to the end of the earth,” Acts 1:8. We do not know whether any of the other apostles were still living when John wrote this letter; but like Abel, though dead, they still testify (Heb. 11:4); they do so to this day. In v. 4 John adds “we write these things” and shows in what form his readers have the apostolic testimony and declaration.
For the third time John names the Logos, and now he designates him as “the Life, the eternal one.” It is true that elsewhere ζωὴαἰώνιος means “the life eternal,” either the life which we now have (John 3:15, 16, but minus the article) or the glorious life which we shall have (Mark 10:30; Luke 18:30). Here both “the Life” and “the Life, the eternal one,” have the article of previous reference which refers back to “the Logos of the Life.”
Still more decisive is the relative clause “who as such was with the Father,” ἥτις is qualitative. The feminine gender is only grammatical; the predication is that of a person, and hence we translate “who.” John names the Son once more; he adds “eternal” because he wants us to understand that Christ the Life was a person whose distinctive quality it is that he was with the Father even in all eternity. We have πρὸςτὸνΠατέρα; in John 1:1 it is πρὸςτὸνΘεόν. Our English “with” conveys the idea of πρὸς rather inadequately. R. 623 calls it the “face-to-face” preposition and in 625 adds that it is employed for living relationship, intimate converse. We take this in the highest sense. It is not predicable of angels or of saints but of deity, of the Son alone.
In all eternity the Son asarkos, who was to be manifested and was manifested in the fulness of time ensarkos, was with his Father, was with God. In both the Epistle and the Gospel John puts this infinite fact into the simplest words. Only an inspired mind could do this. Speculative minds attempt to say more but fail and say less and thus what to that extent is not true.
John says once more: “And he was manifested to us,” the apostles. But the full light now falls upon the simple statement: he who was with the Father, in interpersonal communion with the Father in all eternity, he “the Life,” “the Life, the eternal one,” was manifested to us, became flesh, tented among us, allowed us to behold his divine glory (John 1:14). John again has the simple καί, which indicates only the juxtaposition of the two statements, but for this reason they are clear as crystal. Like Cerinthus, all deniers of the full deity of Jesus will reject what John declares.
1 John 1:3
3 Fault should not be found with John’s construction. The parenthetical statement (v. 2) is essential and is also lucid; John even continues as he began in verse 1: “that which we have seen and have heard,” the continuity being smooth and unbroken. But this relative clause is not a mere repetition of the clauses of verse 1 for the sake of emphasis. The repetition is now illuminated by all that verse 2 adds. All that verse 1 conveys is thus revealed in verse 3. Seeing is here placed before hearing because the two verbs “was made manifest” match seeing more directly than they do hearing; even such things do not escape John. Hearing is mentioned for the third time, for it refers to the words and the teachings of Jesus which are supreme in his entire manifestation.
John says once more, “We are declaring,” but he now adds not merely “to you” but “also to you.” This might mean that the apostles declare their entire testimony to many others and thus also to the many readers for whom this letter is intended, which fact is entirely true. Yet from the next clause: “in order that you, too, may have fellowship with us,” we see that John is not thinking of his readers and of other Christians but of his readers in relation to the apostles. “Also to you” means that you may have what we apostles have.
“We are declaring” should be left as comprehensive as it is; it includes this letter as well as all oral preaching. This does not mean that all of the twelve apostles in person now or at any previous time preached the Logos of the Life to the readers of John’s letter. “To declare,” ἀπαγγέλλω = melden (G. K. 65) and in verse 2 is paired with witnessing. How the testimony of the apostles reached and reaches John’s readers, whether by actually hearing one or more of them, by reading their written testimony, or by having it told them as apostolic testimony by other men, is entirely immaterial. It is unwarranted to say that the testimony was one although its form was now Pauline, now Petrine, now Johannine.
John does not say “in order that you, too, may know what we apostles know”; he advances at once to the blessed effect of the testimony: “in order that you may have fellowship with us” (John loves μετά). The present subjunctive “may have” is as comprehensive as is “we are declaring.” Whenever and wherever the apostolic testimony is properly declared, its purpose is always fellowship with the apostles. This is also true with regard to all of John’s readers.
John adds at once: “and this fellowship, moreover, of ours is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ”; καί adds this, δέ marks it as being another point. The article with “fellowship” is that of previous reference; its repetition with the possessive adjective makes it appositional and emphatic (R. 776), the adjective ἡμετέρα is stronger than a pronoun in the genitive would be: “this fellowship (of which I am speaking), the one that is our own,” i.e., that of us apostles. John does not say that the fellowship of the apostles “may be” with the Father, etc., but that it is. Since the copula is omitted, the assertion is made more terse.
Why does John not say at once “that you, too, may be having fellowship with the Father and his Son”? Why does he insert the apostles and say with whom their fellowship is to be enjoyed? Because of the antichrists, Cerinthus and his separatist following. In the first advanced circle of thought (v. 5–10), in v. 6, 7 the true fellowship is set over against the false claim of fellowship with God. Cerinthus repudiated the testimony of the apostles regarding the Logos and the efficacy of his blood and thus scorned fellowship with John and with any of the apostles. Cerinthus claimed fellowship with God without the cleansing blood of Jesus, in his estimation only a man died on the cross. That is why John introduces the fellowship already here.
Our own fellowship as witnesses of the Logos incarnate is most emphatically “with the Father,” that Father with whom the Life, the eternal one, was in all eternity, “and with his Son Jesus Christ,” pointedly calling “Jesus Christ” the Father’s Son, he being the one manifested here on earth to the apostle witnesses. The fellowship of the apostles is not with God alone but with both the Father and the Son. There is no other fellowship; all claim to the contrary is false. Apart from Jesus Christ no man is in fellowship with God. Thus only those who have fellowship with the apostles have fellowship with God and with his Son, and that Son is “Jesus Christ” in his whole manifestation, also on the cross, in his cleansing blood (v. 7), in his expiation for sins (2:2), in his coming in connection with blood (5:5).
Throughout the past centuries even as today those who reject the testimony of the apostles have no fellowship with them, have no fellowship with the Father and with his Son, who is none other than Jesus Christ. Although they may preach God and fellowship with God as much as they please they are antichrists (4:3) and deny the Father as well as the Son. “Everyone denying the Son, neither has the Father” (2:23), may he claim what he will. “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him, and he in God” (4:15), which alone is fellowship with God. All this is basic for the entire epistle and thus appears in John’s basic statement (v. 1–4).
1 John 1:4
4 Καί adds the last thought: “and these things we on our part are writing in order that our joy may be as having been filled full.” Misunderstanding scribes altered the text. They thought that John should say: “These things we are writing to you in order that your joy may be full” (A. V.). Grammars like B.-D. 280 and R. 406, 678 support this thought by asserting that γράφομεν is the literary plural. This has “we are writing” = “I am writing” in 2:1. It has John speak of what he is writing right now; some say that he has in mind only these four verses. In one sentence there are no less than eleven “we” verbs, to say nothing of the “we” and “our” pronouns, and now one of these “we” forms is to be regarded as editorial for “I.” This does not seem likely.
“These things we are writing,” Zahn rightly says, includes the entire New Testament literature, especially that which was written directly by the apostolic witnesses but also that which is based on their witness, the literature to which John is now contributing this letter and will contribute his Gospel and his Revelation. “We are writing these things” expounds “we are testifying and declaring to you”; for the readers of John much of this testimony of the apostles is in the form of writing. How many apostles they heard orally is immaterial. It was the calling of the Twelve “to disciple all nations,” and that included also the nations of all future ages. The promise made in Matt. 28:20 extends far, far beyond the lifetime of the Twelve. They are discipling the nations now by these writings. We who now believe their testimony and their writings are in their fellowship, which is the fellowship with God and with his Son Jesus Christ.
The purpose the apostles have in doing this writing is “that our joy may be as having been filled full.” The perfect passive participle is not a part of a periphrastic tense but the predicate of the copula (it is used like an adjective). In the case of John this is the same joy that he speaks about in 3 John 4: “Greater joy I do not have than these things, that I keep hearing my own children walking in the truth.” So Jesus said: “My food is that I do the will of him that did send me, and that I finish his work,” John 4:34. Paul exclaims: “Woe is to me if I do not evangelize!” 1 Cor. 9:16. The writing of the apostles, like their oral speaking, could not be in vain. The cup of their joy is, indeed, “as having been filled full” to the brim, all antichristian opposition notwithstanding.
The First Circle of Facts, Centering on the Fellowship with God, 1:5–2:2
1 John 1:5
5 On the structure of John’s letter see the introduction. From the basic statement (v. 1–4) John advances to the fellowship as his first expansion. The sum and substance of true religion is fellowship with God. Hence any number of men claim to have such fellowship, in particular the heretics who deny that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that his blood alone places us into and maintains us in fellowship with God. That is true to this day. John’s encyclical rightly lays the circle of facts centering on fellowship with God upon the great fact that Jesus Christ is the Logos of the Life, the Son of God, to which fact the apostles are witnesses.
The presentation is simple, clear as crystal, complete as a unit. John ranges the facts that are pertinent to fellowship with God together so that the readers may at once see that they are truly in this essential fellowship and may also note who is and who is not in it. The presentation of this group of facts is an assurance to the readers and at the same time strikes at the liars who deny the deity of Jesus and the power of his blood.
And this is the report which we have heard from him and are reporting back to you, that God is light, and in him there is not a single (bit) of darkness.
Jesus Christ, God’s Son, revealed God to the apostles. Here belong John 1:18, and Heb. 1:1–3. In the Old Testament, God revealed himself through the prophets; but the fullest, completest revelation came through his own Son. The feature of this revelation that is pertinent to John’s present purpose is the truth that God is light without even a trace of darkness. This is the great fact with reference to God which must be noted when fellowship between sinners like ourselves and God is considered. This fact regarding God is revealed already in the Old Testament, but it is revealed in its finality by God’s own Son who “was with the Father” (v. 2), “who is in the bosom of the Father” (John 1:18).
The most terrible delusion results when this fact regarding God is in any way ignored when we consider our fellowship, our κοινωνία or communion with God. To think that we can remain in darkness and yet be in fellowship with him, in whom there is no darkness whatever, is the height of delusion, the saddest contradiction. It is elementary, axiomatic: “What communion has light with darkness?” 2 Cor. 6:14; John 3:19–21.
John connects this statement with the preceding one by means of a simple “and.” We consider at the same time the two ἀπαγγέλλω used in v. 2, 3 and the ἀπαγγέλλω and ἀγγελία occurring in this verse. The second verb occurs also in John 16:14, 15. Add ἄγγελος to this group. G. K. would also add εὑαγγέλιον, which is, however, a specific term for “good report or message.” We may translate the noun “report” or “message.” The first verb, which is compounded with ἀπό, indicates that the reporting comes “from” the reporters (who are witnesses, v. 2, 3); the verb that is compounded with ἀνά states that they report “back” to others what they have received (C.-K. 25). John uses the perfect “we have heard” for the third time, and the tense again indicates the lasting effect.
“From him” must mean from his Son Jesus Christ (v. 3). This would be in accordance with the verbs that are used in verse 1 and with the two other “we have heard.” “From him” presents the final and the absolute source of all information. The present “we are reporting back to you” is identical with the present tenses used in v. 2, 3, plus “we are writing” in v. 4, and refers to all the reporting of all the apostles throughout their apostleship.
“This is the report which,” etc., emphasizes the specific fact mentioned in the appositional clause “that God is light, and darkness in him there is not one,” i.e., not a single bit; the double negative is very strong in the Greek. The anarthrous predicate “light” is qualitative. Some reduce its meaning to “warmth, health, sight,” or to the fact that God can be known; others call it ethical light. Light, life, love, etc., are attributes of God; and every attribute of God is only the very being and essence of God viewed from one angle because our finite minds cannot take in the whole of God with one mental grasp. The Scriptures condescend to our weak ability and speak now of one, now of another side of God’s infinite being, yet they never divide him. Nevertheless, every attribute is infinite and incomprehensible to finite conception.
Try as we may to understand even a single revelation of God’s being, the reality towers above our comprehension. We can but bow in the dust, worship, and adore.
Aspiring minds strive to know more but do so vainly and with great danger to themselves. The very works of God such as creation and providence and the giving of his only-begotten Son are incomprehensible; how much more God himself! A God that is not infinitely above finite comprehension is not God. To reduce God to the range of finite thought is to produce a mental idol.
The very being of God is absolute light. This is one of God’s transitive attributes like his omnipotence and his love, which ever reach out from God and do not merely rest quiescently in him. Neither “light” nor “darkness” are figurative; all physical light and darkness are trivial compared with what is here said about God. John does not define “light” when he attributes it to God; nor can we furnish an adequate definition. Christ is called “the light of the world,” which means the saving light that delivers us from the darkness. We are to be light and the children of light, to love and to walk in the light, to hate and to keep from the darkness. From these effects in us and from the terms which John uses with reference to us we may grope upward a little in order partially to understand what God is as light.
In v. 6 and 8 John uses “truth,” ἀλήθεια, reality. Compare John 3:21. We have also the opposite word “liar” (v. 10). God is true, God is truth; and this helps us a little to grasp the thought that he is light. John says in v. 9 that God is “faithful and righteous.” When he is speaking of us John uses “unrighteousness” in v. 9. Light in God, we thus venture to add, is righteousness, holiness in the absolute sense. The whole revelation of God in the Word, in particular all that his Son has revealed of him, show him as light in the sense of truth, righteousness (holiness).
The placing of the negative statement beside the positive always emphasizes. It does so here in the strongest way, especially by adding οὑδεμία in the emphatic position at the end; there is absolutely no darkness in God, not even one small shadow that might dim his truth, righteousness, and holiness.
1 John 1:6
6 Since this matter about the very being of God was revealed to the apostles by the Son of God himself, and since this was conveyed to us by these witnesses, it follows inevitably in regard to communion with God: If we say that we are having fellowship with him and are walking in the darkness we are lying and are not doing the truth; but if we are walking in the light as he is in the light we do have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.
John has six ἐάν clauses, three of them with the aorist εἴπωμεν: “if we actually say.” The “we” is now broader than it was in v. 1–5 where there is a contrast between the apostles and John’s readers: “we—you.” In v. 6–10 “we” = John’s readers plus himself or any apostle; he no longer has a contrasting “you.” John might have said “if anyone,” indefinite and general (he does this in 2:1); by saying “we” he becomes definite and general only as far as true Christians are concerned; he would not include the antichristians (2:18) in this “we.”
If John had used εἰ with the indicative he would have stated a reality and would have left a wrong impression; by the use of ἐάν in both the negative and the positive statements the conditional clauses are made vivid. In the apodoses John uses present tenses and not futures (as is done in common cases of expectancy). John is not speaking abstractly and theoretically when he says: “If we say that we are having fellowship with him (who is absolute light) and are walking in the darkness,” for, although no apostle and none of John’s readers make such a preposterous, self-contradictory claim, Cerinthus and his following did claim this very thing. This is often regarded as a reference to ethics, walking in all manner of sins, but the apodosis says: then “we are lying and are not doing the truth.”
“Are not doing the truth” is more than an emphasis on “we are lying.” Not to do the truth is not to have it, for no one does it without having it in his heart; and not doing it is evidence that the heart is without the truth because of blank ignorance or because of hostility such as that of Cerinthus and his followers. Both “the darkness” and “the truth” are definite. In v. 5 and again in 2:8–11 (five times) John has σκοτία; we note that this is in opposition to “light” (v. 5, 8). In v. 6 John uses σκότος as an opposition to “truth.” We may call this a slight difference, the point that remains is the fact that τὸσκότος is often used as though “the darkness” is a power (“your hour and the power of the darkness”), the devil’s power of error, deceit, lie. To walk in this darkness is to believe and to hold to the lie, to reject and to fight the saving truth, to hate this light (John 3:20), to make God, the light, a liar (v. 10). The walk or conduct shows this clinging to the lie just as does not doing the truth, i.e., what the saving gospel truth tells us.
Ethics are included, but John has in mind first of all doctrine and faith, here false doctrine as opposed to the true. The whole claim to fellowship with God is a lying. John minces no words. Our modern considerateness toward heresies and heretics is unscriptural and dangerous.
1 John 1:7
7 On the other hand (δέ), if we keep walking in the light (believing and doing the gospel truth) as he is in the light (God who is light in his very being) then we do have fellowship with one another, namely in our mutual fellowship with God. This is more than the simple opposite of verse 6. This is no mere claim to fellowship. This is more than a claim, this is fact: “we do have fellowship.” Those who have no fellowship with God are the ones who are most apt to set up the claim to have it; those who have the divine fellowship need not make a claim to it. This is not: “We do have fellowship with him,” but more: “We do have fellowship with one another.” John adds the condition “if we are walking in the light”; the notation “as he (God) is in the light” thus places God and us in the light, which is certainly the true fellowship with him.
John does not forget that in verse 3 he speaks of the fellowship which his readers have with us, the apostles, who are the chosen witnesses and proclaimers of Jesus, the Son of the Father, and of all that he is. He now adds to this: all who are walking in the light as God is in the light (and are thus in fact having fellowship with God) by that very fact have fellowship with one another; their fellowship with God makes them one body, the Una Sancta, “the communion of saints” (Apostolic Creed). “In the light” is the bond of union between God and us. To call this merely ethical overlooks the fact that “the light” is more; it is certainly “the truth.” To walk in the light is above all to believe the light, the truth, and then also to obey it in word and in deed. What is in the soul will become manifest in the conduct; this is not a mere claim that contradicts open evidence.
When John says in verse 5: “God is light,” and now: “He is in the light,” there is perfect harmony between these two statements. For light shines forth. Whoever is light is eo ipso in that light. The sun is light and is in light. Jesus says of his disciples: “You are the light of the world,” Matt. 5:14. It is the same light, the essence and the very attribute of God who shined in our hearts for enlightenment of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, 2 Cor. 4:6.
Here we again have the strongest exclusion: none who are in the darkness, who only lie by claiming fellowship with God, are in the fellowship with us; they are without. John makes this so strong that he says we ourselves would be outside, mere liars, if we did not walk in the light. We observe that in the New Testament the word κοινωνία is used only in a good or sacred sense and is not used with reference to evil and to those outside. John does not speak of a “communion” of those who walk in darkness, who lie and do not the truth.
But are all of us not sinners; do our sins not separate us from God? What about this fact with reference to all that John says about our being in the light and having fellowship or communion with God? Here there lies the great gulf that separates us from all these liars. “And the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin!” It is John’s way of writing to state this great truth with “and.” This is the very truth that those earliest Gnostics denied. In their speculation the Logos did not become flesh; the Spirit or Logos (“the eon Christ” as they worded it) who descended upon Jesus left him before his passion; the “Christ” (“the eon Christ”) was impassibilis, could not suffer, which was a sort of Docetism. This heresy claimed a fellowship or communion without the sacrificial and cleansing blood, of “Jesus, his (God’s) Son.” This is the claim of all those who today scorn “the old blood theology.”
“The blood” is more specific than “the death” would be, for “the blood” denotes sacrifice. It is always the blood that is shed. The Lamb of God shed his blood in expiation. He is the expiation for our sins, moreover not for ours only, but also for the whole world (2:2). It is the blood “of Jesus, his Son,” of Jesus as a man who had the human nature and thus also blood but who is “his Son” (v. 2, 3), the Logos of the Life (v. 1), the second person of the Deity, who became flesh (John 1:14), whose blood, when shed, has the power to cleanse us from all sin.
It is said that καθαρίζειν does not have the same force as ἀφιέναι which is used in verse 9, which is partially correct. The Son’s blood “cleanses us from all sin” because all sin is filth. Rev. 1:5: he “washed us from our sins in his blood”; compare Acts 15:9; Eph. 5:26; Titus 2:14 on this cleansing. “To send away the sins” (v. 9) has reference to their guilt, to removing the sins with all their guilt as far as the east is from the west (Ps. 103:12; Isa. 43:25; 44:22; Micah 7:19). Both acts are the same in substance. They denote the sinner’s justification; but “from all sin” (“all” and “every” amount to the same thing with abstract nouns, R. 772) indicates that constant justification is referred to, including the fact that our sins are daily and richly pardoned.
Some would make this cleansing the sanctifying which prevents our sinning; others want this included. If our fellowship with God must wait until we are no longer sinners, then John himself was still outside of the fellowship according to his own confession (v. 8). The blood of God’s Son does sanctify us and counteract our sinning, but it establishes and maintains our fellowship with the all-holy God of light by removing all our filthy, abominable, damnable guilt.
The holy and precious blood of Christ alone brings us poor sinners into fellowship with God and keeps us there. Here belong all those passages that speak of “the blood,” which deserve a fuller treatment by some competent hand.
1 John 1:8
8 To claim fellowship, saving connection, with God without the cleansing of the blood of his Son is possible only when sin is abolished and there is no need of this blood of the Son. From what Irenæus (I, 6, 20) says about Cerinthus and the early Gnostics one may gather that by reason of a so-called “spiritual sense” in them, a special superior “spiritual knowledge” (gnosis), they claimed to do as they pleased without being contaminated by sin. Some went so far as to extol persons like Cain, Korah, and Judas and to regard them as being gifted with superior freedom of thought and with intrepidity of action. They also claimed that, since the soul attains perfection only by “knowledge” (gnosis), it was actually requisite to do all manner of evil so as to attain perfection.
Since John’s time sin has been abolished also in various other ways. The sinfulness of sin is denied. It is regarded as a natural, transitional stage in human development and is thus really not sin. Or man is really good, and what is called sin is a slight, negligible thing in the sight of God. At most, sin needs no expiation, the wrath of God is called a fiction. The idea of sin is reduced to a mistake of the mortal mind, and it should be recognized as a mere mistake on our part. Finally, the perfectionists and holiness people lay aside the Lord’s Prayer with its petition: “Forgive us our trespasses.” They claim that they have no sins to be cleansed away.
Thus John adds this second statement as a parallel to v. 6: If we say that we do not have sin we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. The force of the tenses is the same as it was in verse 6: the aorist denotes the actual claim, the present indicates what we are doing to ourselves and what is not in us. The claim is “that we do not have sin.” We see little difference between this and verse 10: “that we have not been sinning.” This latter statement reaches back from the present into the past and denotes the sinning while verse 8 speaks of sin. The claim that we do not have “sin” means “such a thing as sin,” and not having such a thing means that nothing of the nature of sin clings to us to stain us as filth or to blacken us as guilt so that we need cleansing or removal. It is debated as to whether John includes original sin or speaks only of actual sin as though actual sins were ever committed by us except as outgrowths of the depravity that is inherent in us.
In verse 6 John says: “We are lying and are not doing the truth”; he now states it in stronger terms: “We are deceiving our own selves,” i.e., are making our own selves the victims of our lying, are not only not doing the truth but are wholly devoid of it, “the truth is not in us.” This is the same ἀλήθεια that was mentioned in v. 6, the saving gospel truth or reality, the light that delivers from the darkness. When “the truth” is not in us, we are not by any means empty but are full of fictions, fables, myths, self-made fancies, notions that are not so. Already those early heretics called these things gnosis, already in First Corinthians Paul opposed such gnosis which paraded as “wisdom.” No advance has been made, today the word that is used is merely a Latin instead of a Greek word: “science,” “scientific religion.” Professing to be wise, they became fools. The greatest fools are those who deceive their own selves.
Note that the “we” used in v. 8–10 includes John himself. This great apostle here confesses himself a sinner, says that his sins are remitted by God, cleansed away by the blood of Jesus, the Son of God. Perfectionism receives its mortal blow here. Paul delivers another blow in Phil. 3:12–14; James 3:1a does the same.
1 John 1:9
9 If we keep confessing our sins, faithful is he and righteous to remit to us the sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This is what “doing the truth” when “the truth is in us” means: we shall ever confess our sins, admit, acknowledge them to God. Note the present, iterative subjunctive. John does not say how, when, where we do this confessing. To restrict it to private confession or, on the other hand, to public confession in the services of the congregation is unwarranted. John now uses the plural “our sins,” which only spreads out the details that are included in the preceding singular. “Our sins” are not restricted to our conscious sins. Ps. 19:12; 90:8. True Christians want and obtain remission of all their sin and of all their sins.
“Faithful is he and righteous” refers to God. John has just mentioned “his Son” and the fellowship effected by the blood of his Son and the fact that the remission of our sins is fellowship with God. “Faithful” means true to his promise, and this is placed first; “and righteous” with its forensic sense as it is here added to “faithful” and its connotation of promise states that, when he acquits us according to his promise, God, our Judge, is and remains “righteous.” John expresses the same truth that Paul writes about in Rom. 3:26. The God who is light acts as a faithful and righteous Judge when he acquits us and remits our sins for the sake of Christ. Our acquittal is not an act of partiality and favoritism for which God can be charged with injustice. He is as righteous and just when he is acquitting the confessing believer for the sake of Christ’s blood as when he is damning the non-confessing rejector of Christ’s blood. In every verdict of God on men there is involved a verdict on God himself. How Catholics can make “faithful” refer to peccata mortalia and “righteous” to peccata venalia is difficult for us to understand.
The charge of injustice is frequently raised when God damns some sinners and acquits other sinners. The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, (Rom. 3:24, 25, the ransoming of Christ and our faith in Christ’s blood) nullifies this charge and makes it recoil upon the heads of those who bring it. When they at last face this Judge they and the entire universe will be compelled to glorify all his acquittals as being absolutely righteous and just. John states this truth for the sake of the fullest assurance of his readers against all false argumentation of the liars who scorn the blood of God’s Son.
Our versions are more correct in translating the ἵνα clause with a dependent infinitive than is R. 961, 998 who regards it as a clause of result. In the Koine ἵνα crowded out many infinitives. We translate “faithful and righteous to remit to us the sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” by this remission. The aorists indicate actuality; we may call them effective. In verse 7 we have only “cleanses”; “righteous” adds the idea of the Judge, and thus “to remit” is added to the cleansing and explains that the remission effects the cleansing.
We have already explained ἀφιέναι in connection with “cleanses” in verse 7. This is the ἄφεσις which shines forth so gloriously in all of Scripture. Our English “to forgive” and “forgiveness” are inadequate translations. The sins “are sent away” as far as the east is from the west—do you know where the one begins and the other ends? To the depth of the sea—there are still unmeasured depths. Sent away as a cloud is dissolved, never to appear again.
When the sinner thus has his sins sent away from him he is, indeed, cleansed from all unrighteousness, from even the least shadow of it. “All unrighteousness” is the correct term, for the least “unrighteousness” would compel the “righteous” God to pronounce the verdict of damnation upon us. But forget not the blood of Jesus, God’s Son, nor the fact that we confess our sins, trust in that blood, and in this trust lay all our sins before the Judge.
To “all sin” (the mass) and “our sins” (the multitude) there is now added “all unrighteousness” as characterizing sin and sins: anything contradicting the divine norm of right; the abstract noun is not to be restricted to actual sins. To be cleansed so completely of all unrighteousness is to be declared righteous by the righteous Judge, is to be admitted to fellowship with God who is light. No man who is not so cleansed is in this fellowship, may he claim what he will.
1 John 1:10
10 As v. 9 amplifies v. 6, 7, so v. 10 amplifies v. 8: If we say that we have not been sinning, a liar are we making him, and his Word is not in us. The claim “not to have sin” is the same as the claim “not to have been sinning.” The difference in the form of the verbs is in accord with the difference between the idea of mass in “sin” and the idea of multitude in “our sins.” The perfect ἡμαρτήκαμεν looks back over the past life that continued up to the present moment and with its negative forms the claim: “We have not been sinning.” It thus says in another way: “We do not have sin” (verse 8).
The main point lies in the apodosis: “a liar are we making him, and his Word is not in us.” The emphasis is on the predicative “a liar” which is placed forward in the sentence. We are doing more than just lying (v. 6), more than deceiving our own selves by our lying (v. 8). These two statements are incomplete. The worst that we are doing by our false claim is really blasphemous: we are making God a liar! Some interpreters do not seem to feel the terrific impact of this word. If you and I philosophize or theologize our sins away and think that they do not need the blood of Jesus, God’s Son, we are making God himself a liar! No less. Let us face this fact! Let it frighten us away from such claims!
John continues with “and” although the clause explains: “and his Word is not in us.” This Word is called “the truth” in v. 6 and 8 (John 17:17), “the light” in v. 7. This truth and this light are the contents of “his Word,” and they come to us in “his Word.” We do not reduce this word to a reference to the gospel, to only the Old Testament, or to those parts of the New Testament that John’s readers had. The whole Word of God declares that we are sinners. It says so in a large number of places. From beginning to end it deals with us as with sinners. Its history, its law, its gospel present sinners, sinners: lost sinners, ransomed sinners, saved sinners, damned sinners, glorified sinners.
To have God’s Word “in us” is to have received it in the heart, to hold it in faith, to be governed by it and by all it says to us sinners. It is not in us when we close our hearts to it and believe, hold, follow something else. This is making God a liar. There is a formal acceptance of the Word, but this alone does not place his Word “in us,” the truth “in us” (v. 8). What John says about God’s Word as such applies to any part of it when this is rejected. To that degree it is not “in us,” to that degree we make God a liar.
God will be the Judge as to whether this is done in ignorance (vincible or invincible ignorance), from wrong motives (well or ill-meant motives), or wilfully, wickedly. Our generation condones a rejection of parts of the Word (the truth); it needs John to tell it what this really means so that none may deceive their own selves (verse 8) and others.
R. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, by A. T. Robertson, fourth edition.
G. K. Theologisches Woerterbuch zum Neuen Testament, herausgegeben von Gerhard Kittel.
B.-D. Friedrich Blass’ Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, vierte, voellig neu-gearbeitete Auflage besorgt von Albert Debrunner.
C.-K. Biblisch-theologisches Woerterbuch der Neutestamentlichen Graezitaet von Dr. Hermann Cremer, zehnte, etc., Auflage, herausgegeben von D. Dr. Julius Koegel.