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Pinebrooke Community Church 9 August 2026
“The Word of Life” 1 John 1:1-4
What is true and what is real?! We live at a time in which we are not always sure. We’ve come to find that even fact-checkers aren’t completely reliable. And now with AI we are even more uncertain if what we see is what is in reality. In the COVID-19 era I found that personal testimonies were often disputed when the testimony was contrary to the recipient of that testimony’s perceptual framework. The context of John’s letter faces the same struggles twenty centuries ago. This is how the evil one works. Anything to create confusion. Remember John was in the room when Jesus responded to Thomas, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except by me.” So, the occasion for John’s three letters for those he knew in Asia Minor was the recent development of Gnostic thought and its heretical influence on the church around 100 A.D.
The error in the Gnostic thinking was that all physical or material existence was evil and all spiritual was divine. Therefore, they denied the human/divine nature of Jesus. Basically, since the physical is evil whatever is done in the flesh doesn’t matter. God who is Spirit certainly wouldn’t show up in the flesh. What Jesus taught about life and behavior, an ethical approach to life was meaningless. In addition, the fellowship or shared life based on love for other believers was unimportant. The thought was relationship with Jesus could only be invisible and spiritual because the divine could not exist in the material. So, God could not exist in flesh and blood. For the Gnostic knowledge is superior, not knowledge of (experience) but knowledge about (ideas or concepts) elevated a person to a superior state. The material was not real and only evil.
The Gnostics were promoting the notion that the divine came upon Jesus at His baptism and left before He suffered on the cross because the divine couldn’t experience pain. In the Gnostic philosophy, since material is evil there were but two possible responses to life: asceticism or hedonism. Starving the body or expressing every drive of the body without boundaries. Sin in the body was devoid of spiritual consequences because the flesh is unreal. Therefore, John writes his letter to confirm who true believers are. There are three tests that he places before fellow believers and in this first letter he does that three times. In summary the tests are these; the identity of Jesus, an ethical way of life, and love for and fellowship with fellow believers. Gnosticism failed all three tests. And don’t kid yourself, Gnosticism is still around.
The starting point in the discourse begins with Jesus. In John’s usual way he appeals in his philosophical way to make what he says very concrete. Let me note also the difference in literature when we are studying the New Testament and especially the epistles. Grammar and the use of words is an important part of our understanding. Different than the life of David, what John has to say is not biographical or story.
“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 to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 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. We write this to make our joy complete.”
When John writes, from the beginning he is referring to before creation. His point is that Jesus was eternal in nature. And yet, Jesus past the five senses test. He was not simply a spiritual/invisible entity. John’s point here is that he is talking out of a literal experience. That is the point of describing the physical experience of Jesus. Further, the sight and sound character carried a spiritual reality, an integrated whole. He is confronting the Gnostic idea directly. In addition, Jesus and God the Father existed eternally in unity. They are One yet distinctive.
The purpose of John’s writing is to show the fellowship between those who have experienced Him and in doing that this fellowship will expand to include relationship with Jesus and relationship with God the Father. There is an eternal connection to be experienced between believing people as well as this eternal connection with the Divine. This declaration flew directly in the face of the heresy that had been arising.
John becomes definitive. The life that was Jesus became tangible as well as spiritual. He testifies that he has experienced this life of Jesus through all five senses as well as his capacity to perceive and experience the spiritual. Before Jesus took on flesh and blood in the incarnation He existed in the invisible eternal realm of God the Father. Though he doesn’t say it directly here he refers to that which has been revealed by the Spirit. He described the connection earlier in his gospel. In the broader scope of the scriptures as well as Christian thought the Spirit is the revealer of this truth.
John’s appeal is this. The message we speak to you is based on both our physical and our spiritual experience. The purpose of our message is so that you may have fellowship (koinonia, soul-sharing) with one another and with us who walked with Jesus as we all fellowship with God the Father and God the Son. This soul connection is life itself. Then our goal is complete joy with one another, with us, and with God Himself. The outcome of incarnate/divine Truth connecting hearts is joy. Truth held in community with one another brings a realized joy. Therefore, this letter was written to you for the sake of joy. Joy will be the result when we come to know, believe, and hold to the truth of Christ. There is no joy in Gnostic thought, only arrogant pride and great loss.
John writes that we might be formed or reformed by the truth of Christ. If we choose to assimilate John’s proclamation the most important thing we share is common as followers of Jesus is not our humanity but our fellowship with eternity. The exhortation is that we might pay attention to grace or God at work within us. The core of our fellowship is not built on the ground of our favorite sports team or our political persuasion or our national citizenship, but our eternal relationship with the living Christ. The most intricate connections are the shared stories of God at work within us; the things God is doing, saying, revealing to us. That koinonia is the expressions of God in us. John’s concern is that the truth about Christ is the absolute in both what He said about Himself, about life, and what He did while He was in the flesh. There is divine revelation in His teaching and actions.
Our experience of salvation and our common experience with the Word made flesh is the central aspect of ourselves. What I am learning from Him is the dynamic of biblical fellowship (koinonia). My spiritual authenticity is tested by my faith in and experience with the Trinity of the Godhead. Throughout this letter authenticity is being tested. So, how can we apply or enhance our faith with the truth of which John speaks? In our spiritual discernment we can at least question whether someone is an authentic believer who does not hold to the physical and divine nature of Jesus. We can apply this passage by holding to the authenticating of our faith in what we believe and seek to obey. The role of biblical truth is to provide certainty is a world of uncertainty. We see it on bumper stickers all the time that appeals to our coexisting with other religions as though there were many ways to God. The clarity of what John writes is an offense to contemporary man.
Finally, if God has seen fit to speak to us through holy writ, it behooves us to pay attention. Learn from it, embrace it, and allow yourself to be shaped by it. Legitimate Christian faith believes what God has said and what Jesus did. I have a friend, a classmate from school years who is a theological Gnostic. Her role in her church is to be the morning reader of the scripture, much of which she reads but does not believe. It is not a new dilemma. The battle goes on in contemporary life, like Os Guinness says, Christianity works because it is true, it is not true because it works.” What Jesus said stands the test of time!
