1 John 1:1-10
Key verse 1:3
“We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.”
Today’s passage talks about Christian Koinonia. Apostle John was eager to share the Word of life with other Christians. The incarnated Word, Jesus, had fellowship with John and brought him out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once John had fellowship with Jesus, he was born again to walk in the light, walk in love, and walk in faith. People want to have fellowship with others because they are lonely. People lack true fellowship. In this selfish and individualistic society God allows us to have true fellowship based on love and truth. This is “Christian koinonia.” I pray that God may change the world through Christian koinonia. May God bless our 1 John Bible study so that we may have fellowship with Jesus, the Son, God the Father and other Christians. Let’s pray that God may bless us to have wonderful fellowship through the feast of God’s word during our summer Bible conference.
PART I THE INCARNATE WORD OF LIFE IS PROCLAIMED (1-4)
Look at verses 1,2. “That which was from the beginning, 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. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.” This verses look like the combination of John 1:1 “In the beginning was the word…” and Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God…” John talked about “the Word of life which was from the beginning.” “The Word of life” is Jesus Christ. The fact that the Word was from the beginning shows the eternity of the Word. Jesus is eternal God who was from the beginning. But he appeared to us in a human form. Let’s define the word “incarnate.” According to Webster’s dictionary, “incarnation” means “the embodiment of a deity or spirit in some earthly form” or “the union of divinity with humanity in Jesus Christ.” Simply, it means that God became man. We cannot go to holy God as sinners. So God sent his Son Jesus to us in order to have fellowship with us. John 1:14a says, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” This is Jesus’ Incarnation.
John confirmed the certainty of the Incarnation by saying, “which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched.” The Apostles physically encountered the Incarnated Word of life, Jesus. John directly heard and saw “the Word of life” through having common life together with Jesus. Here, “to see” is “Horao”( ) in Greek and means “to see and understand.” “To look at” means “recognize,” “observe.” This shows that John closely observed who Jesus was. To touch him with his hands was the most intimate experience among all experiences. John touched Jesus, leaning on his shoulder at the Last Supper (Jn 21:20) Jesus not only performed his ministry with his body on earth but also rose from the dead with his body, overcoming the power of death. The disciples were afraid of the Risen Jesus, thinking that he was a ghost. So Jesus said to them, “Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”(LK 24:39) And he ate a broiled fish in front of them. (Lk 24:41-43) All this shows that Jesus is both perfect God and perfect man. The verbs, “hear, see, look, and touch” confirm personal experience, responsible affirmation, and authoritative announcement.
Why did John testify with certainty that he saw, heard, looked at and touched Jesus? It is because at that time Gnosticism threatened the truth of the Gospel. Gnostics claimed dualism, that the world is ultimately divided into two opposite forces, that is, good and evil, and that the visible world and flesh is evil while the invisible, spiritual world is good. And they claimed that only those who received mystic, supernatural and superior intuitive knowledge could be saved from the evil material world. They denied salvation by faith as well as Jesus’ incarnation. They asked how a holy God could be clothed with the sinful flesh. So they emphasized the theory of “pseudo-appearance” that Jesus did not have real human flesh, but only appeared to have the human body. Some Gnostics believed that the eternal God came into Jesus and did the ministry when Jesus was baptized with water and departed from Jesus just before he died on the cross. The cult of Gnosticism shook the gospel faith in the early Christians and provoked division in the church. Acceptance of Gnostic dualism made the Christian doctrine of the incarnation unthinkable. John defended and confirmed the truth of the Incarnation of Jesus by testifying that he heard, looked at with his eyes and touched Jesus with his hands.
Look at verse 3. “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.” The reason why John wrote this letter was that he wanted to have “fellowship” with them. Here “fellowship”, or “koinonia” in Greek, is derived from ‘koinonos’ meaning ‘fellowship, communion, participation, share a common life, partnership, friend, friendship, coworker’. So koinonia means mutual fellowship. The koinonia in this passage means ‘Christian fellowship.’ Hellenistic literature uses it to describe partners in business, joint owners of a piece of property, or shareholders in a common enterprise. In the NT it refers to Christians who share a common faith (Philem 6), who share possessions (Acts 2:44), or who are partners in the gospel (Phil 1:5) Christian fellowship was so beautiful that even Communists tried to copy it by sharing possessions. But they failed because they removed God from their fellowship. Man needs fellowship. Tom Hanks in the movie, “Cast Away” missed fellowship with others so badly. Our fellowship is called “University Bible Fellowship.” It is beautiful because we have fellowship based on the Bible. There are many fellowships in this world; sport fellowship, internet fellowship, drinking fellowship, dancing fellowship, chatting fellowship, shopping fellowship, fishing fellowship, and eating fellowship. The old people in the senior apartment make fellowship. Those who have the same hobbies make club fellowship. But these kinds of fellowships are based on individual benefit so they cannot have deep personal relationships, and the fellowship can be easily broken whenever they fail to get along with each other. However, “Christian koinonia” is essentially different because it is fellowship that has spiritual meaning. Christian koinonia is a spiritual and holy fellowship with God the Father as well as God the Son. Because Christian koinonia is the fellowship in which God the Father and Jesus Christ is the center, there is no danger of division or being destroyed. Worldly fellowship is easily broken when there is animosity among its members. The reason why the divorce rate is increasing is that couples hurt each other because there is no mediator between them. But those who marry in God can reconcile with each other because they know to turn to God, repenting of their sins whenever they have trouble. The husband says first, “Honey, forgive me if I hurt you with my word.” Then wife says too, “It was my mistake to ignore your desire to have a quiet time. I am sorry.” Christians can have deep spiritual fellowship in spite of differences in personality, social status, culture and nationality.
The koinonia between God and man began in the Garden of Eden. God created man in His image giving him freewill, and he wanted to have a personal love relationship with man. Since the fellowship is the Creator-creature fellowship, there should be a spiritual order. So God set the spiritual order by commanding man not to eat the forbidden fruit. Man could live an eternal life of happiness in the Garden of Eden, having fellowship with God, through obedience. However, because the first man, Adam, disobeyed God, being deceived by Satan, the fellowship was broken. From that time on, man’s tragedy began. The man who had a broken relationship with God quickly became corrupted and useless like a branch that is cut off from the vine.
But God, in his compassion, wanted to have new koinonia with man by calling one man, Abraham. When Abraham lived before God by faith, obeying His Word, God made Abraham his friend, having an intimate relationship with him. God, through the fellowship, wanted to bless Abraham, making him a source of blessing for all nations. In addition, God chose the Israelites and wanted to have fellowship with them. At that time, the Israelites were slaves as well as low class people. It is very hard to have a relationship with those who are very carnal and emotional. But God had a great hope for the Israelites, redeeming them by the blood of the lamb, to become a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. For this God talked with them, revealing His glory. The book of Exodus talks about the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt through Moses and the life in the wilderness in the first part, and the “Tabernacle” in the latter part, chapter 25-40. The Tabernacle is God’s dwelling place; it is the place where God met with the Israelites. (Ex 25:8,22) The holy and glorious God wanted to have fellowship with low- class slave people, the Israelites. God, through this fellowship, wanted to make the Israelites a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
God’s koinonia fellowship with man reached its climax when he came down to this world as incarnate Jesus. Jesus gave up all His glory and majesty in heaven and came down to this world in the form of a lowly man. And he served all kinds of sinful people, one by one, by being as low as them. Jesus had deep, personal koinonia with a Samaritan woman who was thirsty due to husband problem by talking with her at the well. And by this koinonia He gave her the living water, becoming her true husband. The tax collector Matthew was a hopeless person full of greed and selfishness. People spat on him. But Jesus chose him as his disciple and had personal koinonia with him. Matthew was healed and became a light and the salt of the world by having koinonia with Jesus. Jesus had spiritual koinonia with many lost people, teaching the word of God and giving them the gift of eternal life and the kingdom of God.
In the 18th century, England developed industrial capitalism through the industrial revolution. But as a result, the gap between the poor and the rich became huge and many people denied the Word and became corrupted. Even the church became corrupted, comprising with materialism. At that time, there was a small meeting of the “Holy Club’ at Oxford University. The meeting was started by Charles Wesley and later his older brother John Wesley and George Whitfield joined. They loved and studied the Bible. At first, they met once on Sunday evenings, but later they met twice a week and then every evening from 6:00 to 9:00 P.M. When they met they prayed first and studied the Bible in Hebrew and Greek in order to understand it deeply. And twice a week they had fasting prayer. They shared holy Christian koinonia through the word and through prayer. The small holy club became a power source, awakening England, the USA, and the whole world. Likewise, truth- based koinonia has power to change family, campus, nation and later the world. When we began “YDJ” meeting, I suggested to name it the “Holy Club”. But they were uncomfortable, they named it “Young Disciples of Jesus.” Since then they had wonderful fellowship among young Christians. The Livingstone team is having wonderful koinonia through Romans Bible study and is growing in faith because they love Jesus’ word. Praise God.
Look at verse 4. The reason John wrote this letter was not to burden them but to complete their joy. People have a tendency to avoid Christian koinonia thinking that there is no fun. But that is not true. Spiritual koinonia gives us true joy. When we study the word and pray we receive heavenly joy and rest and comfort. This can be understood only by those who have experienced it.
PART II WALK IN THE LIGHT (5-10)
So far John mentioned koinonia with God the Father and Jesus Christ. Now he talks about how we can have such koinonia. In order to have koinonia with God we have to know who God is. Look at verse 5. “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you; God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. “ The message John heard and preached is that God is light and there is no darkness at all. Therefore, we have to remove darkness in order to have fellowship with God.
Look at verse 6. “If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.” The first false claim-to have fellowship with God and yet walk in darkness- probably belongs to Gnostics who have no love for one another, hate their brothers, claim to be sinless, and deny that Jesus came in the flesh. John called them liars and they did not live by the truth. Here “walking in darkness’ means sinning habitually. Though we have sinful habits, we can grow spiritually through holy discipline. Those who walk in darkness live by flesh not by spirit. They regard sin lightly and sin habitually and live a double life. Such a person does not fear God and sins in secret. Such a person is a person who does not know God and has no koinonia with God. In order to have koinonia we have to dispel darkness. It means to proclaim ‘war against darkness’ and fight actively against darkness. There is no middle ground in our spiritual battle. Every man has an element of darkness. Negative thoughts, fatalistic complaints, hatred, slander, false accusations, lust, and selfishness are all elements of darkness. We have to fight against these elements. If we don’t fight against them, we will be caught by the power of darkness and become slaves of darkness. Augustine became a slave of darkness when he enjoyed his lust. But when he held on the word of God, fighting against darkness, he was changed and became a new man and a great servant of God who shone the light in a dark age. He wrote the book called “The City of God” and defended Christianity from false attacks.
Look at verse 7. “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” We cannot have koinonia with God when we hide darkness in us because koinonia with God is personal and intimate. In order to have koinonia with God we have to walk in the light just as God is in the light. What does it practically mean to walk in the light? First of all, it is a life of repentance. We cannot avoid sin since we live in the body. There is no righteous person in the world.(Rom 3:10) We are sinners who were born in sin and live in sin and die in sin.(Ps 51:5; Jn 8:24) But the problem is that people do not recognize what miserable sinners they are. In order to recognize our sinful nature, we have to meet the holy God. Even the most righteous person cannot but recognize that he is a terrible sinner before the Holy God. The prophet Isaiah met God in the temple when he criticized the corrupted world. At that time he cried out, “Woe to me. I am ruined!” recognizing himself as a sinner.(Isa 6:5) Peter could not recognize himself as a sinner because he lived a good life. But when he met the holy Jesus, he couldn’t but confess, “Lord, go away from me, I am a sinful man.” (Lk 5:8) Paul thought that he was righteous, blamelessly keeping the law. But when he met the Risen Jesus he found himself the worst sinner among all sinners.(1 Tim1:15) We have to look at ourselves before the word like a mirror and recognize and repent of our sins. When we truly repent of our sins, sin is exposed to the light and loses its power. I attended Transformation America 2007 conference at Mayflower hotel near the White House for three days. There were 100 pastors and spiritual leaders who attended this conference. I was surprised to find out that the first day agenda was to repent of their sins. They all confessed that they neglected their spiritual duty to keep America as God’s nations. They did not boast their works but repented of their sins before the Holy God.
What kind of blessing can we receive when we walk in the light? Look at verse 7. “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” We should not neglect to have fellowship with one another. We should not say, “O! I have fellowship with God and I am holy. But I don’t need fellowship with others. I just keep my own faith.” That’s wrong. We need fellowship with one another because we belong to the community of believers. Sin is the biggest hindrance in having Christian koinonia. When we sin, the Christian koinonia with God as well as with others is broken. Therefore, in order to have Christian koinonia we have to truly repent of our sins before God. In other words, each of us must focus on having a personal relationship with God. When we truly repent of our sins, the blood of Jesus will purify us all our sins. Sin, as the obstacle of fellowship, is removed by the blood of Jesus Christ. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and truth is not in us. And we make God out to be a liar. But if we truly confess our sins, God will forgive our sin and cleanse all our unrighteousness. Look at verse 9. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” The Bible does not say that it is impossible to have fellowship with God because of our sins. Rather, if we claim that we have no sin, the fellowship with God is broken. It is only by the blood of Jesus that we can have fellowship with God even though we are in sin. God makes fellowship with us not because we are humanly righteous but because we come to him, depending on the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has power to cleanse the sin of the world. There is no sin that cannot be cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ.
We could not trust in God if God condemned us even when we truly and sincerely repented of our sins. God is not like that. God is a faithful and righteous God who always keeps his promise. Therefore, if we come to Him through the blood of Jesus, He forgives us, cleansing our sins. God will forgive all our sins and purify us from unrighteousness if we come to Him by faith, although we sin a lot, repeating the same sin again and again. When people confess their sins in court, they are condemned and judged. If we confess our sins, God is so faithful and merciful that he forgives all our sins and makes us new. When we are forgiven, our souls can be truly satisfied, tasting true joy and peace and happiness. Then we obtain inner strength and wisdom to overcome the world. After we study the word of God, we share our personal testimony before God repenting of our sins. God blessed our testimony sharing for last 40 years and raised up many spiritual leaders. We should not neglect our personal testimony writing but grow in God’s word through confessing our sins.
Christian Koinonia is not human fellowship. It is holy and spiritual fellowship with God the Father and God the Son. In conclusion, we must consider our fellowship very precious and lead our fellowship to a God-centered and Word-centered fellowship. I pray that our fellowship may be a spiritual spark to set a fire among young people and to bless our upcoming Summer Bible conference. Let’s read the key verse 3.