Bible Version: New International Version (NIV)
Application Notes: Life Application Study Bible (NIV)
1 JOHN 1
The Incarnation of the Word of Life
1 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. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 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. 4 We write this to make our joy complete.
Light and Darkness, Sin and Forgiveness
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. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 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.
8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.
Application Notes
1:1-10 First John was written by John, one of Jesus' original 12 disciples. He was probably "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (John 21:20), and along with Peter and James, he had a special relationship with Jesus. This letter was written between AD 85 and 90 from Ephesus, before John's exile to the island of Patmos (see Revelation 1:9). Jerusalem had been destroyed in AD 70, and Christians were scattered throughout the Roman Empire. By the time John wrote this letter, Christianity had been around for more than a generation. It had faced and survived severe persecution. The main problem confronting the church at this time was declining commitment: Many believers were conforming to the world's standards, failing to follow Christ wholeheartedly and thereby compromising their faith. False teachers were plentiful, and they were accelerating the church's downward slide away from the Christian faith.
John wrote this letter to put believers back on track, to show the difference between light and darkness (truth and error), and to encourage the church to grow in genuine love for God and for one another as Jesus had commanded. He also wrote to assure true believers of their promised eternal life and to encourage them that their faith was genuine so they could enjoy all the benefits of being God's children. (For more on John, see his profile on page 1833.)
1:1-5 John opens his first letter to the churches similarly to the way he began his Gospel, emphasising that the eternal Word of life, Jesus Christ, came into the world as a human in order to rescue us from sin and restore our fellowship with God. When John says "we," he is including himself with the other disciples as eyewitnesses to Jesus' life. John had lived and travelled with Jesus, having personal, physical contact with him over several years. He knew beyond any doubt that Jesus brings light and life.
1:3-4 John writes about having fellowship with other believers. There are three principles behind true Christian fellowship: (11 We should ground our fellowship in the testimony of God's Word. Without this underlying standard, our unity will dissolve. (2) Because unity is so vital to functioning effectively as the body of Christ, we must be absolutely committed to making unity a priority. (3) We should seek daily renewal through the Holy Spirit. True fellowship combines social and spiritual interaction and is made possible through a living relationship with Christ
1:3 As a personal companion and eyewitness to Jesus' ministry, John was qualified to teach the truth about him. The readers of this letter had not seen and heard Jesus themselves, but they could trust that what John wrote was accurate. Jesus had promised the disciples that the Holy Spirit would remind them of all he had said (John 14:25-26). We are like those second- and third-generation Christians-though we have not personally seen, heard, or touched Jesus, we have the New Testament record of his eyewitnesses, and we can trust that they have spoken the truth about him (John 21:24; also see John 20:29).
1:5-6 Light represents what is good, pure, true, holy, and reliable. Darkness represents what is sinful and evil. The statement that God is light means that God is perfectly holy and true and that he alone can guide us out of the darkness of sin, showing us the right path. His light clearly and truthfully exposes our motives, whether good or bad. In the dark, if you can see at all, different objects look alike; in the light, good and evil can be clearly distinguished. Just as darkness cannot exist in the presence of light, sin cannot exist in the presence of a holy God. If we want to be in relationship with God, we must put aside our sinful ways of thinking and living. We become hypocrites ii we say we belong to him but then go out and live only for ourselves with little thought of serving others. Christ will expose and judge such deceit.
1:6 Here, John confronts the first of three claims of the false teachers: that we can have fellowship with God while we deliberately sin ("walk in the darkness"). Those who believed this taught that the physical body was evil or worthless. They divided into two camps: They either insisted on denying bodily desires through rigid discipline, which limited the use of God's gifts and limited the importance of serving others, or they approved of gratifying every physical lust because the body would eventually be destroyed anyway. Obviously, the second approach was more popular. Here, John is saying that no one can call themselves a Christian and still live an evil or immoral life. We can't love God and court sin at the same time.
1:7 How does Jesus' blood purify us from all sin? In Old Testament times, God's people symbolically transferred their sins to an animal, which they would then sacrifice (see a description of this ceremony in Leviticus 4). The animal died in their place to pay for their sin and to allow them to continue living in God's favour. The blood of the animal stood for the life of the person. God graciously forgave them because of their faith in him and because they obeyed his commandments concerning the sacrifice. Those sacrifices anticipated the day when the death of Jesus Christ. symbolised by his shed blood, would completely remove sin. Real cleansing from sin came with Jesus, "the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). Sin, by its very nature, brings death. Jesus did not die for his own sins; he had none. Instead, by a transaction that we may never fully understand, he died for the sins of the world. When we commit our lives to Christ, and thus identify ourselves with him, his death becomes ours. He has paid the penalty for our sins, and his blood has purified us. Just as Christ rose from the grave, we rise to a new life of fellowship with him (Romans 6:4).
1:8-10 The false teachers denied that sin breaks fellowship with God (1:6) because they denied even having a sinful nature (1:8), so they also denied that their conduct involved any sin at all (1:10). That lie ignores one basic truth: All people are sinners by nature and by practice. At conversion, all our sins are forgiven--past, present, and future. Yet even after we become Christians, we still sin and still need to confess it. This kind of confession is not offered to gain God's acceptance but to remove the barrier to fellowship that our sin puts between us and him. Many people find it difficult to admit their faults and shortcomings, even to God. To recognise our sinful weakness takes humility and honesty, and most would rather pretend that they are fine. But we need not fear revealing our sins to God-he knows them already. He will not push us away, no matter what we've done. Instead, he will draw us to himself.
1:8 Here John attacks the second claim of the false teachers: that people have no natural tendency toward sin, that they are "without sin; and that they are thus incapable of sinning. The false teachers refused to take sin seriously. They wanted to be considered Christians, but they saw no need to confess and repent of their sin. The death of Christ did not mean much to them because they didn't think they needed it. Instead of repenting and being purified by Christ's blood, they were lying and encouraging believers to sin. In this life, we are always capable of sinning, so we should never let down our guard. When we do sin, we have the promise that Jesus will forgive us.
1:9 Confession frees us to enjoy fellowship with Christ. It should ease our consciences, take away our shame, and lighten our burden of guilt. But some Christians do not understand how confession works. They feel so guilty that they confess the same sins over and over; then they wonder if they might have forgotten something. Other Christians believe that God forgives them when they confess, but that if they died with unconfessed sins, they would be forever lost. These Christians do not understand that God wants to forgive us. He allowed his beloved Son to die just so he could offer us pardon. He cancelled our debt and dismissed all charges. When we come to Christ, he forgives all the sins we have committed or will ever commit. Of course, we should continue to confess our sins, but not because failure to do so will make us lose our salvation. Our relationship with Christ is secure. Instead, we should confess so that we can enjoy maximum fellowship and joy with him.
True confession also involves a commitment not to continue in sin. We wouldn't be genuinely confessing our sins to God if we planned to commit them again and just wanted temporary forgiveness. Rather, we should pray for strength to defeat temptation the next time we face it.
1:9 If God has forgiven us for our sins because of Christ's death, why must we confess our sins? In admitting our sins and receiving Christ's cleansing, we are (1) agreeing with God that we truly have sinned and will turn from it, (2) ensuring that we don't conceal our sins from him and consequently from ourselves, and (3) recognizing our tendency to sin and relying on his power to overcome it.
Taken from Life Application Study Bible - Third Edition - (NIV)