Tuesday, August 6, 2024

PT -1 "The Word of Life is Historical" (1 JN. 1b-2a)

 

EVENING SD FOR 8/6/2024 10:43 PM

 

My Worship Time                                                     Focus: PT-1“The Word of Life is Historical”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                    Reference:  1 John 1:1b-2a

 

            Message of the verses:  “what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life—and the life was manifested.

 

            No as we look at the last part of verse one we get the idea of what John is trying to say about the Lord Jesus Christ.  What he is saying is contrary to what the false teachers taught, experiencing Christ and His gospel is certainly not some mystical, spiritually transcendent, secret insight that is reserved only for those elite who ascend to some kind of higher understanding, as it is for those who have trusted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.  John is telling his readers that even though you may be young in years, or young in their faith that they could apprehend the actual, historical truth about the Word of Life.  I want to quote 1 John 2:12 as it goes well with what I just wrote:  “I am writing to you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven you for His name’s sake.”  I do believe that he is speaking of those who are young in the Lord.  MacArthur writes “John wrote that ‘the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth’ (John 1:14); cf. Rom. 1:3; Gal. 4:4; Heb. 1:1-3; 1 Tim. 3:16; Rev. 19:13).  Jesus Christ was the God-man (John 10:30), fully divine (Phil 2:6; Col. 2:9); and fully human (Luke 1:31; Phil. 2:7-8; Heb. 2:14; 4:15).  John had experienced that reality through his natural senses and was a true witness to the incarnation in its completeness.”  I just wanted to say that the beginnings of the gospel of John and the beginnings of 1 John have similar things written in them, and I believe that John wrote them late in his life, along with the book of Revelation.

 

            I now want to go over what John listed as four ways that he had actually perceived the Word of Life with his senses.  First John heard the Lord speak, and this speaks of when he was with the Lord for three years as one of His disciples.  He heard the parables that Jesus spoke, and he heard the sermons that Jesus spoke, (example Matt. 4:23; 5-7, Sermon on the Mount.)  MacArthur adds “Have heard translates a perfect tense from the verb akouo, indicating a completed occurrence in the past with an impact in the present.  John did not merely hear something from Jesus on a single occasion.  He was present throughout Jesus’ earthly ministry (cf. John 20:30-31; 21:24-25).  Though John wrote this letter some sixty years later, what he had heard firsthand was still a vivid truth in his heart.”  I guess that John MacArthur must agree with me about when John wrote this letter as sixty years later would be in the early 90’s A.D.

 

            I want to look at the second way that John had actually perceived the Word of Life and that would be that he had also seen Him.  MacArthur adds that “The verb translated have seen is also in the perfect tense, again suggesting a past, completed action with a present, ongoing impact.”  I think that this goes along with when John experienced this and then much later when he wrote about it.  We can read that John added with our eyes in order to make it clear that he was referring to the physical experience of seeing; he was not referring to some kind of a spiritual vision that was only in his mind.  Some have stated, and they are wrong, that Christ is a mystical, phantom image; however John was not referring to some kind of spiritual vision that was only in his mind.  Jesus Christ was a real man whom John had observed daily for three years by means of normal eyesight.

 

            Lord willing we will look at the next two ways that John actually perceived the Word of Life.

 

8/6/2024 11:16 PM

 

           

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