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Wuest's Word Studies in the Greek New Testament First John 1:1-2
FIRST JOHN In the Greek New Testament V 13, p 85 In order to reap the most benefit from his study, the student is urged to work through John’s letter verse by verse, with his Bible and this exegesis before him, seeking to understand the meaning of the Word in the light of the word studies, interpretations, and expanded translation. CHAPTER ONE V 13, p 87 (1 John 1:1) John begins his letter with a relative pronoun in the neuter gender, “that which.” The reference is to things relating to the Lord Jesus. We are not to understand the expression as equivalent to “He who.” The preposition “of” in the expression “of the Word of life” is peri (περι), “concerning.” This speaks of the things concerning our Lord, rather than of Him personally. John speaks of that which was true of our Lord from the beginning. “Was” is the verb of being in the Greek text (eime (εἰμε), “to be,” not ginomai (γινομαι), “to become.”) It is in the imperfect tense which speaks of an abiding state in past time. Thus, John has reference to those things that were true of our Lord since the beginning. In his Gospel, he begins with the majestic words, “In the beginning was the Word.” The context there identifies this beginning as the beginning of created things. That is, when all creation came into existence, our Lord was in existence. Since He antedated all creation, He must be uncreated. Since He is uncreated, He must be without beginning, and therefore Deity. In his Gospel, John reaches back into the eternity before the universe was brought into existence to speak of the Lord Jesus as in fellowship with the Father, and as the Light that shone through the darkness of sin through His creative acts ( 1 John 1:1–10). In his first epistle, he goes back only to the time when the created universe came into existence, and speaks of that which was true concerning Him since that time and until His incarnation (“that which was in the beginning,” which would include the things true of Him mentioned in 1 John 1:1–10), and then in the words “which we have heard, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled,” he speaks of His incarnation, as he does also in John 1:11–14 and on through the entire Gospel. V 13, p 88 Vincent says: “By the words ‘in the beginning,’ the writer places himself at the initial point of creation, and, looking back into eternity, describes that which was already in existence when creation began. ‘The Word was in the beginning.’ In the words, ‘from the beginning,’ the writer looks back to the initial point of time, and describes what has been in existence from that point onward. Thus, ‘in the beginning’ characterizes the absolute divine Word as He was before the foundation of the world and at the foundation of the world. ‘From the beginning’ characterizes His development in time.” The inspired writer does not in his first letter deal with the preincarnate life of our Lord, which he merely mentions in the words “that which was from the beginning.” But when he refers to His incarnation, he goes into careful detail as to His humanity. Robertson mentions the view of Westcott, that John wrote his Gospel to prove the deity of our Lord, assuming His humanity, whereas he wrote his first epistle to prove His humanity, assuming His deity. In the words, “which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled,” he is maintaining the real humanity of our Lord against its denial by a certain group in the Church at that time. These were the Gnostics. There were two groups among them, both agreeing in the essential evil of matter. Both groups had their own private opinions regarding the Person of our Lord. The Docetic Gnostics denied His actual humanity. The word “Docetic” comes from the Greek word dokeō (δοκεω), “to seem.” These argued that our Lord had only a “seeming” body, not a real physical body. The Cerinthian Gnostics distinguished between the man Jesus and the aeon (ἁεον) Christ that came on Him at His baptism and left Him on the Cross. As to Cerinthus, Smith says: “His distinctive heresy was a theory of the Person of Christ.… He supposed that Jesus had not been begotten by a virgin, but had been born of Joseph and Mary as a son in like manner to all the rest of men, and became more righteous and prudent and wise. And after the baptism the Christ descended into Him from the Sovereignty V 13, p 89 which is over the universe, in the form of a dove; and then He proclaimed the unknown Father and accomplished mighty works, but at the end the Christ withdrew from the Jesus, and the Jesus had suffered and had been raised, but the Christ had continued throughout impassible. The essence of this is the dissolution of the Person of our Lord, the distinction between the human Jesus and the divine Christ. St. John encountered Cerinthus at Ephesus, and strenuously controverted his error. Irenaeus and Eusebius quote a story of Polycarp’s that the apostle once visited the public baths, and, seeing Cerinthus within, sprang out of the building. ‘Let us flee,’ he cried, ‘lest the building fall, since Cerinthus, the foe of the Truth, is within it.’ And all through our epistle, he has the heresy in view. See 1 John 2:18–23; 4:1–6, 13–15; 5:1–12.” Some Gnostics practiced asceticism, while others went to the other extreme of licentiousness. John deals with both classes in his first letter. The word “Gnostic” comes from a Greek word gnōsis (γνωσις), which means “to know.” They claimed a superior, private knowledge over and above that of the Bible. Nine times John presents tests for knowing the truth, and uses the verb ginōskō (γινωσκω) from which the Gnostics get their name. Therefore, in stressing the fact that he and his fellow-apostles had had personal experiential knowledge of the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth through the senses of hearing, seeing, and touching, he is combatting a doctrinal error in the early church known as Docetism, the teaching that our Lord had only a seeming body, not a real one. The first proof the inspired apostle advances for the fact of the actual humanity of the Son of God is that he and his fellow disciples heard Him speak in a human voice. The verb is in the perfect tense, which tense in Greek refers to a process completed in past time having present results. Had John desired merely to refer to the fact of hearing the Lord, he would have used the aorist tense in Greek, which tense refers to the fact of an action without referring to its details such as completeness or incompleteness, whether it was an instantaneous act or a process. The fact that he goes out of his way to use another tense than the V 13, p 90 aorist indicates that he wishes to stress the details of the action. The first thing he tells us by the use of this tense is that his hearing the Lord speak was not confined to one single occasion, but that he heard Him speak at repeated intervals and at length. The impressions his auditory nerves received were correct, for he heard His voice over and over again. It is like repeating a scientific experiment over and over again so as to check results. The second thing John wishes to tell his readers by the use of this tense is that this past process was a complete one. That is, he heard our Lord speak so often that the experiment, so to speak, was a finished one. It was complete, and a fair test of the question as to His actual or seeming humanity. The third thing he tells his readers is that the past completed process of hearing the Lord Jesus speak had present results, that is, present results with John at the time he was writing this letter. John wrote his first epistle about A.D. 90. He heard our Lord speak from A.D. 30–33. About sixty years had elapsed between the impression he had received and the time of the recording of the events in the Gospel which he wrote, the date of which is about the same as that of his first epistle. Sixty years is a long time to remember the discourses of an individual. John was an unlettered man. He was not trained in the Greek schools of the time, as was the apostle Paul. However, there are several things which account for John’s memory of the events in the life of our Lord. One is that in the first century books were few and men trained themselves to remember much, whereas today books are plentiful and men remember little. Another is that in the case of unlettered ancient peoples, a vast amount of their literature was remembered and repeated letter perfect through generation after generation. Still another is that our Lord’s wonderful personality and discourses made an indelible impression upon those who were His constant companions for over three years. Finally, His words to His disciples, “He (the Holy Spirit) shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:26), account for any facts which it was necessary for V 13, p 91 John to know in order to write the Gospel which bears his name, and which he may have forgotten. As John thought over those eventful years, often the Holy Spirit would, during those sixty years, bring back to his memory things that had slipped his mind. Thus John gives his readers the assurance that he is well equipped to write his Gospel, for he was a competent witness of the events recorded and remembered them accurately, this from the human standpoint. Of course, from the doctrine of verbal inspiration, and that division of it which we call the inspiration of superintendence, we are assured that the Holy Spirit superintended the recording of the historical facts so as to guarantee an infallible record of our Lord’s life. John said in his Greek: “That which we have heard, and at this present moment is ringing in our ears.” For further proof of our Lord’s actual humanity, John turns to the sense of vision. The distinctive word he uses for “seeing” here is horaō (ὁραω), which refers to the physical act of seeing, giving prominence to the discerning mind, to mental perception, and to mental activity. By the use of this particular Greek word for the act of seeing, John assures his readers that he not only had the sensory impressions on his retinae, but he understood what he was looking at. He was a correct interpreter of the events in our Lord’s life for the reader. He says he saw the events in the Lord’s life “with his eyes.” How else can one see anything except by the aid of his eyes? While this is a self-evident thing, yet John felt it necessary to mention it in order to be absolutely sure that his readers understood him to be referring to sensory impressions from our Lord’s actual human body. They were actual, discerning impressions, not an optical illusion or an hallucination. Again, he uses the perfect tense. By doing that he tells his readers that the things he saw concerning our Lord were indelibly retained in his mind’s eye. As he was writing this letter, he could close his physical eyes and see our Lord as He appeared to him during His humiliation on earth sixty years before. One could translate: “That which we have seen with discernment by V 13, p 92 means of our eyes, and which as a present result we have in our mind’s eye.” But John did not only see our Lord with discerning eyes. He “looked upon” Him. Here he uses another word which means “to see.” It is theaomai (θεαομαι), which means, “to behold, view attentively, contemplate.” In early classical usage it included the idea of wondering regard. Thayer says that this idea gradually faded out, to give place to “such a looking as seeks merely the satisfaction of the sense of sight.” However, we can well conclude that after John and his fellow-disciples had seen our Lord with discerning eyes, they looked with a contemplation that was a mingling of wonder, awe, and admiration. The Greek word comes over into our language in the word “theatre.” They looked at that unique life as upon a spectacle. Here John uses the aorist tense, referring merely to the fact of seeing without mentioning details. After having established the permanent accuracy of his observations in the use of the perfect tense in the previous verb which meant “to see,” he did not feel the need of repeating that tense. The translation could read, “That which we gazed upon as a spectacle.” After establishing proof of our Lord’s actual humanity through the scientific mediums of the senses of hearing and sight, John turns to that of touch. The words “have handled” are the translation of psēlaphaō (ψηλαφαω), “to handle, touch, feel.” In late Greek it meant “to examine closely.” The verb means, “to handle with a view to investigation.” The word is used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament when blind Isaac felt the hands of Jacob (Gen. 27:22). The old man, puzzled at the voice of Jacob, handled his hands with a view to investigating whether the speaker were really Esau. The same word is used in Luke 24:39, where our Lord said, “Handle Me with a view to investigation and see; because a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” Our Lord’s proof to the disciples that He was raised in the physical body in which He died was based on the scientific evidence of their sense of touch. They handled His body, investigating His claim to have a body of flesh and V 13, p 93 bones. John undoubtedly has reference to this occurrence here. It is the only reference to our Lord’s resurrection in the epistle. Thus far the expanded translation reads: “That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard and at this present moment is ringing in our ears, that which we have seen with discernment with our eyes and which is at this present moment in our mind’s eye, that which we gazed upon as a spectacle and our hands handled with a view to investigation, concerning the Word of the life.” Four times John uses the pronoun “that which.” Each is qualified by the phrase, “concerning the Word of life.” That is, the things John heard, saw, and felt concerned the Word of life. The word logos (λογος) (word), is John’s particular designation of our Lord. Logos (Λογος) comes from legō (λεγω), “to speak,” and refers to the total concept of something. Our Lord is the Logos (Λογος) of God in the sense that He is the total concept of God seen through a human medium, His humanity consisting of His human body, His human limitations, and His human life lived on earth in the power of the Holy Spirit. John calls Him here, “the Word of the life,” the definite article appearing in the Greek text, not any general idea of life here, but the particular life that God is and which was revealed in concrete form in the humanity of our Lord. Translation. That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard with the present result that it is ringing in our ears, that which we have discerningly seen with our eyes, with the present result that it is in our mind’s eye, that which we gazed upon as a spectacle, and our hands handled with a view to investigation, concerning the Word of the life. |
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