I John, 1:1-2
Roger Henderson · Oct 9, 2005
1 John, No. 02
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262334212382

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

You know, we divided it into kind of two to four verse groupings of 1 John. And we may find that some parcels deserve more than just one week. And we'll have to see how that goes. OK. So I actually wanted to kind of start with a kind of a, this is a chart that I've used over the years from Hal back in 95, or maybe even before that he produced this chart. And I kind of wanted to point out part of what I'm going to try to do here is to basically I think observation is one of the key things that you want to do in scripture.

You want to observe what does the text say. And you use various tools. You read in the English. You read God's Word in English. But sometimes it's not as obvious sometimes what the subject of the sentence is, what the verb is, what are the objects, what are the modifiers. And it helps if you can look at the original language a little bit. And I'm not going to require that you know the original language. And I don't know. I know some. I have I know a little bit, which is, you can say, is dangerous sometimes. But I have some knowledge of that, of the original. And it can be helpful. First, John's a wonderful book because it's really very straightforward, as we're going to see. Many times it's easy to identify the subject and the verb and the object. So we're going to try to do that as we can.

And then actually, this correlation number three, in a sense, I think it's very valuable to up front look at other passages to see how they fit in to the overall, what is the text saying? So I kind of use three actually up above two. And then the question is, what does that mean? What does that mean from looking at what it says? What does it mean?

And in that process, the B part, beholding Christ, we're going to see there's wonderful truths about the Lord Jesus we're going to see today. And each time, wonderful truths about his character and his being here from all eternity, and so on. They're just wonderful truths. And that's part of what makes Bible study so wonderful. We get to focus on Him, our Savior, and understand Him.

And then the bottom line is, does it make a difference in your life? God's desire is that you take that truth and you live it out. And that's your part. I can encourage you. But that's the part that each believer has. So we'll walk by faith in the truths that we have. That's at the end of your handout. I gave you a full page guide there. So here's our two verses for today.

So if you notice, 1 John, especially his first two verses, and probably as we get into more of it, they're very succinct statements. Each portion, like what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen, what we've looked upon, our hands touched, touched with our hands, and so on. Very distinct. So my goal is to kind of go through and look at each clause, because a clause has a subject and a verb, and say, well, what's the subject of this? of this clause. What's the verb?

What is it telling us? So we're going to kind of grind through this. Hopefully, it's not too laborious. And then hopefully, we can pull out the truths and say, wow, this is what it's saying. This is what it's telling us. So in this passage, actually, let's just go back for a second here. I was going to ask a question here.

In this first passage, you notice the word what. What is what referring to? That's not good. Is there something else that you can replace what with in this passage? Just reading it, what you're saying, I haven't told you a word or your experience. The word what, is there some other word we could replace that with? Or maybe you can replace it from the context of that verse. Is there something we could put in place of what?

OK. All right. Any any thoughts? I mean, you know, it's tough. It says what? I mean, and actually it's used. It's a different it's used as a different. Different part of the sentence, what in each of these. There's some groupings, but I could say, right. I mean, OK. Okay, all right. How did you come to that conclusion?

Well, when you start seeing beginning and Word of Life and all that, you think of Christ as their beginning, on behalf of the Word of Life. Okay, all right. And actually, you know, the people that, you know, the translators, they've already made some interpretation. They've capitalized Word of Life. They've already kind of, okay. So, you know, and I think you're right. I think that is speaking of the Lord Jesus. I think what is, but we're going to see. Exactly.

And that's what we're going to see, that the word, what, could be, I think, in that context of verse 1, the word of life, it could be placed, because it goes through and it tracks out, it says, concerning the word of life, you could say, the word of life was from the beginning. And then you ask the question, what's the word of life?

And you go down that path. So that's kind of where I'm headed here. I may have jumped ahead here a little bit. But, okay. So, yeah, what's the usage in verse 1? So the Word of Life or Jesus Christ. So let's go on to the next one. And when does that work? All the time. There we go. Okay.

Could someone turn to read for me in the Gospel, John chapter 1 verse 1. Okay, and okay, in that verse you just read, are you clear? I mean, we've all been – this is a pretty familiar verse. The word here, if you look down farther, verse 14 uses that word, word. It says, the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. Glory as the only gotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. So the word, the word again is the Lord Jesus.

So we're going to, when we compare these two verses, we're going to see a remarkable similarity between 1 John 1.1, the first clause, and the Gospel of John 1.1, the first clause, they virtually say the same thing. But you have to look at them in terms of subject, verb, and object to see that. And hopefully I did a good job in doing that.

So there's 1 John 1.1, what was from the beginning. And then here's the Gospel of John chapter 1. And as stated in the text, it has this kind of prepositional phrase at the beginning of the clause. It says, in the beginning was a word. But if you rearrange it in subject, verb, and then that's a prepositional phrase after that, then if you compare it, you have what was from the beginning, what was in the beginning. Very similar statements. Very similar statements. And we're going to see that over and over again as we go through 1 John. We're going to see kind of matching phraseology in the Gospel of John. OK, and this word was, let me just go ahead here, is this verb amy. It's a state in which something or someone continuously exists. So from just that little definition there, if you took that kind of glob of words for was, What would you say?

How would you render those two to clauses? How would you expand the. And I'm gonna try to do. I'm gonna try to expand it. And I'm going to show you another Dr. Wiest who has done this and written it. You know, has it expanded translation. I'm trying to. help you to see is that you can look at that, understand what the words mean and where they are, subject convert, and you can expand the meaning in a wonderful way to understand it better. Not that you want to become a translator, but that you want to understand it.

So how would you expand those two clauses there? What was from the beginning and what was in the beginning? Based upon the fact that the word was has this idea of continual existence. Or is it or you say this is just too hard. OK. OK. And continue continues to exist. OK. That's good. That's good. OK, there's another piece of information that I haven't told you yet, which will help. OK. The Greek has, and I'm actually going to go ahead and just jump ahead here to this picture. And this is another chart I borrowed from Hal.

And this lists the tenses in the Greek language. And the Greek language is just wonderful. It has a variety of tenses. And the Lord has used the Greek language to really home in and expand and allow us to look more carefully into his word and understand it better. And it turns out that in this case, this word amy is what's called the imperfect tense, and it's basically One of continuously continuous duration and past time.

And he has a little. This has a little pointer thing. I guess it doesn't. Anyway, I have to bring my I have one at home and I didn't bring it. If you notice up here where it says representation, the imperfect tense is in past time. So. So what you could do, you could say you could render something like this. You know, let's just go back here. Oops, I'm going the wrong way.

You could say Jesus Christ, or what, was from the beginning. Words here. Jesus Christ continually existed in eternity past. Now, I'm taking another step. I'm looking at from the beginning. I'm interpreting that, too. So he has two statements. He was from the beginning or in the beginning. Very similar statements.

So we come away with this saying, well, okay, Jesus Christ was continually existing from the beginning. I think that's what this verse is trying to tell us. It makes a statement about Jesus Christ and his relationship to mankind. He continually existed from the beginning, and you have to ask the question, what's the beginning?

And that's kind of another study, but if you look at Genesis 1.1, it says, in the beginning, I think it refers to a different beginning that is talked about in the Gospel of John, because the Gospel of John is talking about from eternity past. I believe this also is talking about eternity past.

Okay, so let's just carry on here. Okay, so now what I'd like to do, I'd like to go through, let me just back up here again. That would be a better way to do this. Okay, I'd like to go through and just walk through, we've kind of gone through the first clause, and just walk through You know, the disciples here in John are talking about, you know, we have heard the Lord, we have seen the Lord with our eyes, we have looked at him and touched him with our hands. So they're trying to describe their encounter with the Lord Jesus when he was here on earth. So they're describing that. So I want to kind of go through and kind of show you some of the verb tenses here and try to point out, you know, there's some additional information that comes out when you look at the tenses of the verbs in the original. Yeah, it's not the best way, but sorry. I'll try to get this. OK. So the first word.

So if you think about it, he's going to talk about hearing, seeing and touching. I mean, that's three things. And actually, we're going to see that the seeing part he's going to describe in two aspects. There's kind of just the physical saying this is seeing with discernment. So there's two things he's going to. in terms of seeing. But we're going to look at heard first and the C part and the touching part. So this is the word a cool in the Greek to hear. It's a common word in the Greek for it to hear.

And it's in this perfect tense and the perfect tense. Basically, I go on to show you that. OK. It's past completed action with abiding results. So something occurred in the past, and this is one of the cool tenses, and Vern talks about this a lot in the auditorium.

It's something that happened in the past, but the results continue up into the present. So in this context, it's like we heard the Lord in the past, we have an encounter with the Lord, and we still continue to hear Him. We still continue to remember what He said. So John's describing having heard the Lord and now hearing him, and still continue to hear him. It turns out in this case that the word what is really an object here. It's what we have heard. I'm sorry. It's we have heard what. And what is referred to the Lord Jesus. So what we have heard and what we have seen, what we have touched, we're going to see that kind of pattern as we go through here.

And then what I did, I wanted to show you the, and this just shows the verb here, the perfect tense is completed action, as I mentioned, completed action in past time and continuing into the present time. And I wanted to show you here, and you'll see it in your handout, OK, here's the first verse from the Weiss translation. And so here's how he brings forward that one about hearing the Lord. It says, that which we have heard with the present result that is ringing in our ears.

So we're going to kind of step through this. I'm going to use this as kind of a benchmark at the end. We go through it. We think about how it should be translated and we look to see what what we've done. And I find that helps because it kind of gives me some confirmation. I'm not often never, never land. I made something up.

Now, you'll notice that he doesn't necessarily rearrange it in subject, verb order. He keeps the arrangement of the original. And I kind of notice that as a standard. I mean, I think the translators try to keep it in the same order from the original and not necessarily put it as you might do it for an English class, subject, verb, direct object. So I notice that Weiss will do that. He'll keep it in the order from the original.

OK, so now we have seen with our eyes, what we have seen with our eyes. And actually this word, let me go to the next one here. Hurrah is a word. And I think some of you are taking the Greek class. There's another word for see called blepo, and that's a common one. Blepo is the one that if you're taking the Greek class, you're going to have blepo a lot. It sounds like you have a disease, but you're going to see blepo a lot. I got blepo. I got blepo. I'm blepoing. I'm seeing you.

Well, this is a different word, which is a little more intensive. is to stare at, so it's saying, John is saying, we were staring at the Lord Jesus. And it gives, and Vine says, it gives prominence to the discerning mind. You're looking, they were staring at the Lord Jesus, you know, it was something important. a little bit added over the normal word for see. And this, again, is in the perfect tense.

They stared at him in the past. And in a sense, they continue to stare at him. You think, well, that's, you know, but we all have mental images. I mean, that's not so unusual, right, to have mental images. You remember something. In fact, some things are not a good mental image. Maybe it was an awful thing. And that kind of comes back to you.

So what John's saying is that I saw the Lord Jesus, I stared at him in the past, and I continue to remember those looking at the Lord Jesus. I did the same thing, putting subject, verb, and the rest of the sentence. We have seen, what, with our eyes, the Lord Jesus. OK, now let's look at, in some cases there are some good verses to look at. Let's look at John 6. Someone could read John 6 of 35 and 36. Then Jesus declared, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.

But as I told you, you have seen me, and you still do not believe. Okay. What kind of struck me about this, in this verse, it uses the same word. That's the same word in verse 36. It says, you know, you have seen me, but you still do not believe. And what we're going to see, we're going to see kind of the opposite result here with John. that they saw the Lord and they believed. Whereas in this, in this account here, the Lord saying, well, you saw me and you didn't believe. So it's interesting, you know, different people seeing the Lord and the different, um, you know, different reactions, different results. Okay. If you have questions along the way, um, you know, you can stop me. That's okay. I'll ask about that's what we're sharing this class and I'll let you know. Thanks, Josiah. It's nice to know the guys here. OK. All right.

Okay, so this verse, Weiss renders this verse, that which we have discerningly seen with our eyes, with the present result that it's in our mind's eye. I kind of find that his phraseology, his approach many times has just really, really has helped me over the years.

And actually what I find also kind of cool about this, I'm not trying to sell He's consistent. If he uses this phraseology in one part of scripture, the same word will show up someplace else. He'll use the same phraseology, which helps me as a student figure out what's going on here. How is this word being used? I can see the same consistent translation across from book to book. So I use it a lot.

Okay, the next one, we have looked, so we got through, it's interesting, we have seen, now it's another sort of similar, we have looked, what's the difference between seen and looked? I mean, it seems like there can't be that much difference. Well, this is this word to behold contemplatively, attentively, and I think actually probably the best thing to do here is to look at a verse, and that's what we'll do next. Let's look at Luke. Someone could read. Actually, I guess I'm a little ahead here. OK. OK. Luke 23. Fifty five.

Does someone read that for me? Okay, so they saw the tomb and they saw how his body was laid. So I think this particular word is remembering details about looking at a person. They saw how his body was laid and actually Wiest again, he renders that They viewed the tomb with attention, seeing how his body was laid. So it's careful contemplative attention to detail that was going on.

And there's some other verses here. In fact, there's a mistake, obviously. I have John 1, 14 twice. That should be 1 John 4, 14. I apologize for that, and I'll try to correct it in the master. So that's 1 John. The last one is 1 John 4, 14. And let's take a look at that one.

1 John 4.14.

I'm sorry. Did someone read that? I apologize. So the word here is rendered beheld in this case. And actually what's interesting is we're going to see, and this verse kind of points out, we're going to see this kind of what you'd say is a natural consequence of knowing the Lord Jesus. You behold him, you scrutinize him, And what do you do? Do you just kind of keep that to yourself?

No. No. They bear witness. You know, bear witness is like, I like to think of eyewitness equals bear witness. Sounds like a, you know, to bear witness, you saw something and you're telling people, I saw, this is what I saw. And you're bearing witness. You're testifying. I saw that.

He was really here. And as Josiah pointed out last week, we're going to say a lot of this, the reason they're going to all this detail, all these, kind of really important Greek tenses is to show they really saw him, they really touched him, they really felt him. He wasn't a ghost. He was real.

So I think we're going to see that theme as we go through here. I've got to get the right spot here. Okay, this happens to be in the Aorist tense. And the Aorist tense is a past point fact. It's a strong way of saying a thing is. So they're strongly saying, we have seen it. It's a fact. There's no denying that fact that we saw him. I rearranged it again. We have looked at what? We have looked at the word of life of the Lord Jesus. and then the expanded translation. And I just kind of put the Aorist in here. You can read the notes down here. Aorist is used a lot in scripture. It's an emphatic way of saying a thing is. They're emphatically saying, that is, we saw him. So here's what we used to have, that which we gazed upon as a spectacle. We gazed upon it and it was wonderful. Can I ask you a question? Sure.

Well, it's a Greek scholar that was at Moody Bible Institute in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. And he produced a New Testament translation that he tries to take the original language and fold it in to the English text. And actually, you know, there are others out there. I mean, there's like the Amplified Bible. That's not bad. But I personally find the Wiest is more consistently translating it to the original language. That's been my experience.

Okay, the next one is, so we've had hearing, we've had seeing, kind of two flavors of that, so now we have touching. So he's going right through, just, I mean, when we get finished, if you say, if you come away with, we didn't see the Lord, you're, you know, you haven't been, you've been reading the wrong book. I mean, you know, he's making it so clear that they did. I can't pronounce this particular Greek word.

It's to feel, touch, and handle. And this is a cool one. This is a really cool one. Can someone read Luke? They're all good, but you know, Luke 2439. And actually, can we read? Let's just may back up a second here. Let's see what I want to read. How about how about thirty six through thirty nine and Luke twenty four. Thirty six to thirty nine.

And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them and said unto them, Peace be unto you. And they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts?

Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. So isn't this wonderful? He asks them to touch him, to handle him, and it's the same Greek word. He says, I'm not a ghost, I'm a real person. Here, touch me, feel me. So what John is saying here in 1 John, using that same Greek word, we had the same, we touched him, he wasn't a phantom, he wasn't a ghost.

And once again, it's the Aorist tense, past point fact, it's a reality, it really did happen. And the Greek is one of the incredible languages. We have God's word, and in the Greek language, in the Aorist tense, in the indicative mood, it makes a statement, and that is a statement of reality.

The Greeks in their language have the ability to define a real event. This is a real event. And it was from the author's perspective. If you're writing a book, you say, like you're bearing witness, I write that I saw this car accident, whatever. Well, if God is speaking, God said, this really happened, that's reality. And the tense of the verb shows you that. It's an incredible thing.

So once again, I rearranged it here. Actually, the subject here really is the hands of us, I believe, the hands of us touched. And then we'll look at what Wiest has to say. our hands handled with a view to investigation. So just like the Lord offered, come and investigate me, come and look at me, come and touch me. John is saying we saw the Lord and we investigated him and he was a real person.

Powerful stuff. I have taken it well that's a good point that's a good point I don't know sure that's very true that's great it's after well actually I don't know yeah the one we just read is after because because right that's a good point No, I understand.

He saw him both before and after. I don't know. My first thought was before, but I see no reason why it couldn't be after. I mean, I don't see anything in the text that would preclude it from being after. Right. That's a good point. So what you're saying is, is he trying to show him that he he he was resurrected? Is there proof for that by by we touched him? Well, that's a good point. I actually had I did not go down that path. Now, think about that. That's it. I have to think about it. I might. Sure. It seems like I could apply to both. But that's good. OK. OK.

So now, at the end of all those statements, we have concerning, or with respect to, the word of life. And once we get into the original language for the word, it's this word logos. It's a word, speech, and when it has a definite article, it refers to the Lord Jesus.

And we see that a lot in the Gospel of John. And we see it kind of played out there. But it actually occurs in a few other places. It occurs in Revelation 19, 13, and six times in John's writing. He's the only one that uses that term for the Lord Jesus. But we see this is kind of combined. This kind of combines two ideas.

And actually, literally, it's concerning the word of the life. So there's actually a definite article in front of life as well. So I just kind of listed here, Word of Life is in 1 John 1. Then we have the Bread of Life, which you're familiar with that passage in the Gospels. And the Prince of Life in Acts. And then Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. So the Lord Jesus is truly the life. He defines what life is. So this, once again, is the title, I believe, for the Lord Jesus. And actually, that which concerning the Word of Life, not really that much additional detail. So sometimes it's helpful, sometimes it's not.

Now we're ready for the second half. So what we're going to see in the transition here, the first half kind of made these statements about the Lord Jesus, and we're going to see some of those statements in the second half. But then we're going to see the idea that we have seen, and now we testify and proclaim to you, they're proclaiming who the Lord Jesus is, and that he is eternal life, and that he was with the Father, and he was manifest and revealed to us. So they're taking what they're encountering with him, and they're declaring it and spelling it out.

OK. OK. And the life was manifested. And let's just look at it. This is another really neat word in the Greek. They're all good. Phanarao, I think it is, to make visible or clear. And Vine says, the true meaning is to uncover or lay bare or reveal. And actually, there is a synonym of this word, which Have you ever had maybe a container and you kind of wonder what's inside of that? So what do you do? You remove the lid or you take the lid off? Well, this word in a sense is the uncovering. You're allowing people to see what's inside this container. So that's kind of the sense of this idea that his life was exposed, was manifest to the world. of who he was. It was revealed, lay bare, the God-man, the Lord Jesus.

So I really, that's always a tremendous, and there's some passages here that talk about that. Once again, it's a statement of fact, aorist tense, and manifests as you six times, and there's the six times, and actually I want to look at a couple of those. Let's, okay, but I first, let's look at, John 17, 6 first. I'll just go ahead and read that one then.

And it says, this is the Lord Jesus speaking, I manifested thy name to the men whom thou gavest me out of the world, thine they were, and thou gavest them to me, and they have kept thy word. So the Lord Jesus is saying that he manifested He manifested the Father to the men that he gave him out of the world.

So basically, it's interesting. So the disciples are saying that Christ's life was manifested. They're making a statement about that manifestation of his life. It was manifested. And Christ says, I manifested the Father to the people that you gave me. So that's uncovering, revealing, laying bare.

OK. All right. Let's go on. OK. And actually, we surrenders it. And the aforementioned life was made visible. So, you know, when you go into anything. OK. Right. It was manifested. So he renders it made visible, which is OK. So this next part has like three components.

We have seen, testify, and proclaim to you the eternal life. So I'm going to ask the question again, a similar question. In this little part of verse two, we have seen, testify, and proclaim to you the eternal life. So, and maybe this is obvious, the eternal life, what is that referring to? Is there another word we could put in there?

I used to have, when we were another church for a while, I was doing Sunday school for a while, and the kids, after a while, they got kind of smart. They kind of got in tune. They said, well, I know the answer to every question is Jesus. So no matter what question you ask, they just said Jesus. So when in doubt, I believe this again is another declaration of the Lord Jesus.

I didn't expect us to be as smart as those kids. They're younger and sharper, right? They are, they are. So the answer, many times, so this verse is just packed full of wonderful things. We have seen, and they didn't stop there, they testify and they proclaim to you the eternal life. So that's another name for the Lord Jesus. Okay. So let's just come, I'll probably jump ahead here a bunch of things. We have seen the eternal life. Now, I just kind of went through here and listed. We testify the eternal life. We proclaim to you the eternal life.

So I just kind of took each of those parts to it and just made a separate phrase out of it or a clause out of it. Okay. Have seen is this word we saw before, harau. And it's in the perfect tense. We saw him in the past. We continue to see him now. We see him in our mind's eye. We remember what he looked like. But they didn't stop there. They went on. We testify. Bear witness is another translation. We bear witness. We were eyewitnesses and we bear witness to what we saw.

And let's look here at this passage in John 3.31. Notice how many times we're going to spend a lot of time in the Gospel of John because that's, you know, Yeah, how about 331 and 32? Can someone read that? You get extra points, you know, if you read. The one who comes from above is above all. The one who is from the earth belongs to the earth and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. And 32?

He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. Okay. So verse 32 says, what he has seen and heard, of that he bears witness, and no man receives his witness. So here's, and this is speaking of John the Baptist, you know, he was bearing witness, he was testifying, same word. Okay. And actually, just back in, I'll just read this one, back in chapter 2, chapter 2, verse 24 and 25, it says, okay, I lost it here. Okay. 24 and 25. Okay.

But Jesus on his part was not entrusting himself to them, for he knew all men, because he did not need anyone to bear witness concerning man, for he himself knew what was in man. So he was kind of, may have flipped, using the word a little different way. He didn't have anybody to need an eyewitness about man. He knew man. He understood man. OK. All right.

OK, the third thing is we have seen, testify, we proclaim, to announce, declare, report, And actually, I wanted to look at the Matthew passage, Matthew 14.12. OK, and it says, and the disciples came and took away the body and buried it. And they went and reported it to Jesus. So basically, in a way, proclaiming is a reporting.

So it's really wonderful. It kind of fits into this whole idea. They saw the Lord Jesus, and they were testifying, and they were announcing and reporting what they had seen. So it's really incredible. So let's go on here. So that's the whole section.

We have seen it with discernment. and have it in our mind's eye, we still see it in our mind's eye, our bearing witness, and this is cool, and bringing back to you a message concerning life, the eternal life, the Lord Jesus. Last part is, which was with the Father and was manifest to us. I'm going to ask you another question. The word which. This is going to be easy, guys. What is which representing here? Jesus, right? I missed it. I find this interesting. I don't know. I'm probably a little strange.

Which was with the Father, which was manifest to us. which equals eternal life, equals the word life, equals the Lord Jesus. And the expanded translation is, which is of such a nature as to have been in fellowship with the Father and was made visible to us.

And this idea that you think, well, how did they get the fellowship? Where did they get that from? Well, what's cool is about this, if you look at this and you go back here, this particular verb here was, is ami again. It says he continuously existed with the father. And the word with is one of associations. He was associating continuously with the father. So that's how they brought that forth.

It's really neat. So I wanted to kind of do a little summary here. OK, your homework, if you want to, I mean. What I was going to do, actually, what I had started to do, and it was about 10 o'clock last night, I was going to write out just kind of one statement after another.

We've had various statements about the Lord Jesus. Just write them out, you know, in your own words. The Lord Jesus was in the beginning from all eternity. The Lord Jesus, just write them out. You probably can get 10 or 15 of those. So that's, I find that really, and then you read them back and think, wow, look at what I learned from these two passages. I learned all these truths about our Savior from this passage. And I learned about how John and the disciples were reporting and testifying and telling us about our Savior. So I was going to do that, and it just got too late. And I said, OK, I'll have you guys do it. Too good, right? OK, I think actually that's about it. OK, what I want to do here, I'll just leave that up. I just want to do kind of a quick summary.

So, you know, basically, you know, the first part we saw, we saw a statement about the Lord Jesus' origin. He was from eternity past. In the beginning was the Word. And then we had four statements about Him, you know, that John and the disciples made. They heard Him. We have heard Him. We have seen Him. We have looked at Him, examined Him. We've touched Him. We actually handled Him.

And then it makes a statement that Christ was revealed, was manifested. I think it's kind of a declaration of that he came upon the scene, he was revealed. And then, basically, these statements about the eternal life, the Lord Jesus. Once again, they saw him, and then they're testifying to that, and they're proclaiming to that. And at the very end, the eternal life was in fellowship with the Father from eternity past. The eternal life was revealed to us. So just wonderful statements about our Savior in this passage, and wonderful statements about the disciples, and how they saw him physically, and how they're proclaiming and testifying that. OK, any last questions?

I'm just curious as to Why, if John is writing this letter, I know that we aren't certain who wrote this letter, but if, in fact, John was writing it, why he's writing it with we, you know, instead of an account being something personal and person tense, instead of we've seen this, we've seen that, we've started out, you know, because it's not the typical epistle either. It's not, you know, writing to one person. Well, I think he's speaking of the fact that it was more than just himself.

I think that's additional confirmation. It's we, the disciples, so there's more than one. I mean, saying there's only one, that's my explanation of that, that he's using the we. And actually, the we is used I have to look back in the Gospel of John a little. I think it's used there as well. I mean, it's used many times for, you know, you'll see it in terms of even Paul's epistles. You know, he'll say, brethren, he'll talk about a group of believers with his truth. So I don't think it's, you know, too unusual, but. I was thinking about Doug's question. OK.

Is John referring to the resurrection, the resurrection of Christ or Christ before his resurrection? And I don't know, but just looking at these verses, it doesn't, The focus seems just to be on his life, the Christ, his life, and not necessarily the resurrected Christ. And then even if we think of 1 John sort of as a commentary on the Gospel of John, and most of the Gospel of John is talking about the life of Jesus Christ before his death, and then a little bit after his death. I don't know.

It seems like just talking about it's referring, 1 John 1, 2, 3, 4 even, are just referring to Jesus Christ, period. Not necessarily the Torah. There may be other things that you could find. Yeah. That's a good question, Doug. I mean, that's an excellent question. Excellent question. Yeah. Okay.

Well, let's close in prayer then. Dear Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for this day, Father. We thank you for your word, Lord. We thank you that it just declares our Savior and who he is. And we're thankful that John has provided this testimony and declaration to us, Father. We thank you for that. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen.