It is his wish to produce fellowship with the community and fellowship with God (verse 3). The pastor’s aim must always be to bring people closer to one another and closer to God. Any message which encourages and leads to division is a false message. The Christian message can be summed up as having two great aims – love for one another and love for God.
(2) It is his wish to bring his people joy (verse 4). Joy is the essence of Christianity. A message whose only effect is to depress and to discourage those who hear it has stopped half-way. It is quite true that often the aim of the preacher and the teacher must be to awaken a godly sorrow which will lead to a true repentance. But, after the sense of sin has been produced, men and women must be led to the Saviour in whom sins are all forgiven. The ultimate note of the Christian message is joy.
(3) To that end, John’s aim is to set Jesus Christ before them. One great teacher always used to tell his students that their one aim as preachers must be ‘to speak a good word for Jesus Christ’; and it was said of another great man that, wherever his conversation began, it cut straight across country to Jesus Christ.
The simple fact is that, if we are ever to find fellowship with one another and fellowship with God, and if we are ever to find true joy, we must find them in Jesus Christ.
THE PASTOR’S RIGHT TO SPEAK
1 John 1:1–4 (contd)
HERE at the very beginning of his letter, John sets down his right to speak. It consists in one thing – in personal experience of Christ (verses 2–3).
(1) He says that he has heard Christ. Long ago, Zedekiah had said to Jeremiah: ‘Is there any word from the Lord?’ (Jeremiah 37:17). What people are interested in is not someone’s opinions and views, but a word from the Lord. It was said of one preacher that first he listened to God and then he spoke to men and women; and it was said of John Brown, the eighteenth-century minister of the Scottish town of Haddington, that, when he preached, he often paused as if listening for a voice. True teachers are those who have a message from Jesus Christ because they have heard his voice.
(2) He says that he has seen Christ. It is told of Alexander Whyte, the great Scottish preacher, that someone once said to him: ‘You preached today as if you had come straight from the presence.’ And Whyte answered: ‘Perhaps I did.’ We cannot see Christ in the flesh as John did; but we can still see him with the eye of faith. As J. G. Whittier’s hymn ‘Immortal love’ has it,
And, warm, sweet, tender, even yet
A present help is he;
And faith has still its Olivet,
And love its Galilee.
(3) He says that he has gazed on Christ. What is the difference between seeing Christ and gazing upon him? In the Greek, the verb for to see is horan, and it means simply to see with physical sight. The verb for to gaze is theasthai, and it means to gaze at someone or something until something has been grasped of the significance of that person or thing. So Jesus, speaking to the crowds of John the Baptist, asked: ‘What did you go out into the wilderness to look at [theasthai]?’ (Luke 7:24); and in that word he describes how the crowds flocked out to gaze at John and wonder who and what this man might be. Speaking of Jesus in the prologue to his gospel, John says: ‘We have seen his glory’ (John 1:14). The verb is again theasthai, and the idea is not that of a passing glance but of a steadfast searching gaze which seeks to discover something of the mystery of Christ.
(4) He says that his hands actually touched Christ. Luke tells of how Jesus came back to his disciples, when he had risen from the dead, and said: ‘Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have’ (Luke 24:39). Here, John is thinking of those people called the Docetists who were so spiritually minded that they insisted that Jesus never had a flesh-and-blood body but was only a ghost in human form. They refused to believe that God could ever degrade himself by taking human flesh and blood upon himself. John here insists that the Jesus he had known was, in truth, a man who came among them; he felt there was nothing in all the world more dangerous – as we shall see – than to doubt that Jesus was fully human.
THE PASTOR’S MESSAGE
1 John 1:1–4 (contd)
JOHN’s message is about Jesus Christ; and of Jesus he has three great things to say. First, he says that Jesus was from the beginning. That is to say, in him eternity entered time; in him the eternal God personally entered our world. Second, that entry into the world was a real entry; it was real humanity that God took upon himself. Third, through that action there came to men and women the word of life, the word which can change death into life and mere existence into real living. Again and again in the New Testament, the gospel is called a word; and it is of the greatest interest to see the various connections in which this term is used.
(1) More often than anything else, the gospel message is called the word of God (Acts 4:31, 6:2, 6:7, 11:1, 13:5, 13:7, 13:44, 16:32; Philippians 1:14; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; Hebrews 13:7; Revelation 1:2, 1:9, 6:9, 20:4). It is not a human discovery; it comes from God. It is news of God which men and women could not have discovered for themselves.
(2) Frequently, the gospel message is called the word of the Lord (Acts 8:25, 12:24, 13:49, 15:35; 1 Thessalonians 1:8; 2 Thessalonians 3:1). It is not always certain whether the Lord is God or Jesus, but more often than not it is Jesus who is meant. The gospel is, therefore, the message which God could have sent to men and women in no other way than through his Son.
(3) Twice, the gospel message is called the word of hearing (logos akoēs) (1 Thessalonians 2:13; Hebrews 4:2). That is to say, it depends on two things – on a voice ready to speak it and an ear ready to hear it.
(4) The gospel message is the word of the kingdom (Matthew 13:19). It is the announcement of the kingship of God and the summons to render to God the obedience which will make us citizens of that kingdom.
(5) The gospel message is the word of the gospel (Acts 15:7; Colossians 1:5). Gospel means good news; and the gospel is essentially the good news about God.
(6) The gospel is the word of grace (Acts 14:3, 20:32). It is the good news of God’s generous and undeserved love for all; it is the news that we are not saddled with the impossible task of earning God’s love but are freely offered it.
(7) The gospel is the word of salvation (Acts 13:26). It is the offer of forgiveness for past sin and of power to overcome sin in the future.
(8) The gospel is the word of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:19). It is the message that the lost relationship between human beings and God is restored in Jesus Christ, who has broken down the barrier which sin had erected.
(9) The gospel is the word of the cross (1 Corinthians 1:18). At the heart of the gospel is the cross, on which is shown to all the final proof of the forgiving, sacrificing, seeking love of God.
(10) The gospel is the word of truth (2 Corinthians 6:7; Ephesians 1:13; Colossians 1:5; 2 Timothy 2:15). With the coming of the gospel, it is no longer necessary to guess and feel our way in life, for Jesus Christ has brought to us the truth about God.
(11) The gospel is the word of righteousness (Hebrews 5:13). It is by the power of the gospel that we are enabled to break from the power of evil and to rise to the righteousness which is pleasing in the sight of God.
