Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 John 1:4

And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.

4. these things write we ] These words apply to the whole Epistle, of which he here states the purpose, just as in Joh 20:31 he states the purpose of the Gospel. Both ‘write’ and ‘we’ are emphatic: it is a permanent message that is sent, and it is sent by apostolic authority.

that your joy may be full ] According to the better reading and rendering, that our joy may be fulfilled. Tyndale in his first edition (1525) has ‘your’, in his second (1534) and third (1535) ‘our’. In the Greek we have a passive participle, not an adjective: that our joy may be made full and may remain so. Moreover the expression that joy is made full or fulfilled is one of S. John’s characteristic phrases, and this should be brought out in translation. The active ‘fulfil my joy’ occurs Php 2:2; but the passive only here, Joh 3:29; Joh 15:11; Joh 16:24; Joh 17:13 ; 2Jn 1:12. Comp. ‘These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be fulfilled’, and ‘These things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves’ (Joh 15:11; Joh 17:13). Once more Christ’s prayer and S. John’s purpose are one and the same. See on 1Jn 1:3. ‘ Our joy’ may mean either the Apostolic joy at the good results of Apostolic teaching; or the joy in which the recipients of the teaching share ‘yours as well as ours’. In either case the joy is that serene happiness, which is the result of conscious union with God and good men, of conscious possession of eternal life (see on 1Jn 5:13), and which raises us above pain and sorrow and remorse. The first person plural used throughout this Introduction is the plural of authority, indicating primarily S. John, but S. John as the representative of the Apostles. In the body of the Epistle he uses the first person singular ( 1Jn 2:1 ; 1Jn 2:7-8; 1Jn 2:12-14; 1Jn 2:21 ; 1Jn 2:26, 1Jn 5:13). The concluding words of the Introduction to the Epistle of Barnabas are striking both in their resemblance and difference: “Now I, not as a teacher, but as one of you, will set forth a few things, by means of which in your present case ye may be gladdened.” Bede remarks, doubtless as the result of personal experience, that the joy of teachers is made full when by their preaching many are brought to the communion of the Church and of Him through whom the Church is strengthened and increased.

The following profound thoughts struggle for expression in these four opening verses. There is a Being who has existed with God the Father from all eternity: He is the Father’s Son: He is also the expression of the Father’s Nature and Will. He has been manifested in space and time; and of that manifestation I and others have had personal knowledge: by the united evidence of our senses we have been convinced of its reality. In revealing to us the Divine Nature He becomes to us life, eternal life. With the declaration of all this in our hands as the Gospel, we come to you in this Epistle, that you may unite with us in our great possession, and that our joy in the Lord may be made complete.

We now enter upon the first main division of the Epistle; which extends to 1Jn 2:28, the chief subject of which (with much digression) is the theme God is Light, and that in two parts: i. the Positive Side What Walking in the Light involves; the Condition and Conduct of the Believer (1Jn 1:5 to 1Jn 2:11): ii. the Negative Side What Walking in the Light excludes; the Things and Persons to be avoided (1Jn 2:12-28). These parts will be subdivided as we reach them.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

And these things write we unto you – These things respecting him who was manifested in the flesh, and respecting the results which flow from that.

That your joy may be full – This is almost the same language which the Saviour used when addressing his disciples as he was about to leave them, Joh 15:11; and there can be little doubt that John had that declaration in remembrance when he uttered this remark. See the notes at that passage. The sense here is, that full and clear views of the Lord Jesus, and the fellowship with him and with each other, which would follow from that, would be a source of happiness. Their joy would be complete if they had that; for their real happiness was to be found in their Saviour. The best editions of the Greek Testament now read your joy, instead of the common reading our joy.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

1Jn 1:4

That your Joy may be full

The joy of the Lord, and its fulness

I.

The nature of this joy as primarily Christs. Joy, as commonly understood and exemplified among men, is a tumultuous feeling; a quick and lively passion or emotion, blazing up for the most part upon some sudden prosperous surprise, and apt to subside into cold indifference, if not something worse, when fortune threatens change or custom breeds familiarity (Ecc 7:6). Even what must in a sense be called spiritual joy may be of that sort. There may be joyous excitement when the glad jubilee trumpet fills the air with its ringing echoes, and an enthusiastic multitude are hastening to keep holiday. There may be a real elevation of spirit when some affecting scene of spiritual awakening is witnessed, or some gracious ordinance is celebrated, or some stirring voice is heard. Such joy is like the goodness which as a morning cloud and as the early dew goeth away.

II. This joy, His joy, is to become ours; it is to remain in us. Our joy is to be full by His joy being fulfilled in us.

1. Christ would have His joy to be really ours. In all that constitutes the essence of His own joy the Lord associates us in intimate union with Himself.

(1) In His standing with the Father, and before the Father, He calls us to share.

(2) He makes us partakers of the very same inward evidence of acceptance and sonship which He Himself had when He was on earth.

(3) We have the same commission with Christ, the same trust reposed in us, the same work assigned to us. Accepted and adopted in Him, sealed as He was sealed by the Spirit, we are sent, as He was sent, into the world.

(4) He is meek and lowly in heart, and therefore His yoke is easy and His burden is light; so easy, so light, that He may count it joy to bear them. In His case, as in Jacobs, the charm is love; love, rejoicing in His Father, whose will He is doing; love, rejoicing over us, whom He is purchasing to be His spouse. We, like Him, must be emptied of self.

2. The reality of this joy–Christs own joy remaining in us–may now be partly apparent. But who shall venture to describe its fulness? In the 45th Psalm the Messiah, rejoicing over His Church as a bridegroom over His bride, is thus saluted: Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness; therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee, etc. This gladness of the anointing oil and the sweet-smelling spices is all associated with His loving righteousness and hating wickedness. The secret of His full joy lies in His being, as His Father is, the holy one and the just. To one who is at once a servant and a son that is fulness of joy. Is it attainable by us here? Yes, in measure, and in growing measure. Let our nature be assimilated to that of God, our mind to His, our heart to His. Let our souls learn the lesson of seeing as He sees and feeling as He feels.

III. The propriety of this joy of the Lord–this joy in the Lord–is not merely a privilege, but a duty. Rejoice in the Lord; and again I say unto you rejoice. For this joy is not anything like that sort of mysterious, incomprehensible rapture into which the spirits may be occasionally thrown under some sudden and irresistible impulse from without or from within. It is a calm and sober frame of mind, suited for everyday wear and everyday work. Its elements and causes can be specified. Its rise and progress can be traced. We have it in us, the germ of it, the essence of it, if we have Christ in us; if we have the Spirit of Christ. Stir up, then, the gift that is in you. Do you ask how? Observe the different connections in which your sharing the Lords joy stands in the farewell discourses and the farewell prayer; as first, with your keeping His commandments and abiding in His love, as He kept the Fathers commandments and abode in the Fathers love (Joh 15:10-11); secondly, with your asking in His name as you have never asked before (Joh 16:24); and, thirdly, with your being kept in the Fathers name in ever-brightening disclosures of the Fathers glorious perfections (Joh 17:11; Joh 17:13). And observe, in the fourth place, the beloved apostles warm appreciation of this joy as realised in the communion of saints (2Jn 1:12). (R. S. Candlish, D. D.)

Our happiness

I. What we mean by it. Not comfortable circumstances. If we did the counsel would hardly suit anybody for long. Nor Stoicism. Some people are almost irritated by any reference to joy or even peace. To rejoice evermore is a precept which comes to us not as an addition to our suffering, but as an anodyne to enable us to bear it. For whatever is taken away we may joy in God, and therefore our resources are never exhausted.

II. What we gain by it. Souls immortal and capable themselves of these feelings of joy. The world is like Leander in the old Greek story, swimming for bare life across from Sestos to Abydos by night, his only attraction being the love of Hero, his only means of assuring himself that he was in the right course being her torch. While that lamp was throwing its light upon the Hellespont he knew that his beloved was there, and the hope and certainty of welcome bore him through the waves. There is many a strong swimmer in his agony buffeting the billows of this worlds temptations who looks to you for light. He wants not only the love, but the lamp, remember. Not only your compassion, but your joy. Let it burn bright and clear, and many a poor soul may find grace and courage to swim on. Fulness of joy will not only help you to win other souls, it will help you as to your own. In your patience possess ye your souls, said the Master. We cease to possess them when we become impatient. That patience, and its twin sister peace and their daughter joy, are essential to our obedience to Christ. And besides the souls of others and your own, the soul of Christ will be gladdened by your gladness. He meeteth him that rejoiceth.

III. How we come by it. When we see Jesus and know that He hath loved us, when we see that through Him we are treading a pathway of promise, then the common stones of lifes causeway become changed into chalcedony and jacinth and emerald, and the gates through which we go in and out are transmuted into pearls. (J. B. Figgis, M. A.)

Joy in believing

I. Its nature.

1. As predicted (Isa 56:7). What folly it is to seek pleasure other wise than in God!

2. As encouraged. When the angel came to the shepherds he brought tidings of joy. According to St. Paul, the great end of the ministry is to assist believers to realise this joy. We are helpers of your joy.

3. As illus trated. Samaria received the gospel, and there was great joy in that city. The Ethiopian received the gospel and went on his way rejoicing. St. Peter, in speak ing of tribulation, adds, wherein we greatly rejoice; ye rejoice with joy unspeakable.

II. The use and advantages of this joy.

1. The principal graces can only exist in the preserver of Christian joy.

2. The praise of God can only be properly expressed in the presence of Christian joy. What the heart does not feel it cannot speak, what the mind does not realise it cannot express.

3. We cannot honour our Master without feeling Christian joy.

4. We cannot exercise becoming strength without Christian joy. The joy of the Lord is your strength. Sorrow makes the hands hang down and the knees become feeble.

5. We can only realise the blessedness of heaven by the exercise of Christian joy. Heaven will be the consummation of the present, and unless the seed is sown here it can never blossom hereafter.

6. We can only be kept from error and sin when feeling the power of Christian joy. If we wish to make a flower droop, and wither, and fade, and die, what do we do? We remove it from the sunlight. The plant will make an effort to grow, but it will soon die away. It is so with the soul. In the atmosphere of darkness and desolation it must droop and eventually die. It will be liable to disease and to be eaten with cankerworm. (Homilist.)

The joyfulness of a Christian life

Nothing is more familiar to us in life than the different feelings with which the same object of pursuit is regarded by different persons. To some it is attractive and delightful, to others it is a matter of entire indifference, or is even repulsive. We see this in childhood. Of the children in the same household not infrequently it will be true that to one the schoolroom is full of invitation and of delight, while to others it is simply repellent. We see the same thing in mature life continually, so that a form of business which to one is delightful to another presents no attractiveness. The same law holds in the department of religious activity. To most men the religious life on earth appears like a tedious journey to a distant mine. They hope to find great riches, but instead of that the journey is merely one of fatigue and discomfort. To others the religious life on earth for its own sake is delightful and precious, containing in itself riches and rewards which belong to no other form of human activity. When we look carefully into the elements of this peculiar and rich experience in the religious life, they are not difficult to ascertain.

1. There is a sense of worth in character which comes with the full and vivid experience of the life of God, manifested in Christ and wrought in us by the power of the Holy Spirit. This, in itself, is an element of gladness and delight. A man when he has overcome a temptation and conquered a passion feels himself ennobled in a measure by that fact. When he has cherished in him self and brought to supremacy a trait difficult to be attained, and to which his nature seemed averse at the outset, he feels that he has gained in dignity and sweetness and strength of spirit. He rejoices in the fact. When the Christian feels that, by his consecrating faith toward the Divine Master, he has reached a point of moral supremacy which before he had not gained, he cannot help having the sense of a new birth in himself. There is nothing of self-righteousness in this. It has not come from his own endeavour, except as that endeavour has cooperated with the grace and power of the Most High working in him by the energy of the Holy Ghost.

2. Then there is a sense of his holy relationship to God–a sense by which He who builded and guides the universe becomes the guardian of our interests; His power, wisdom, universal presence and universal government become the guarantee of our security. Sometimes there is a sweet and triumphant sense of this in the midst of the utmost peril and sorrow. There is a consciousness that He who governs all things from the infinite throne will make our very sorrow work for our glory, work for the welfare of others through us, work for our own more triumphant peace and more happy and holy vision in the world beyond.

3. Then, beyond this, there is a sense of intimate fellowship with God; not merely of external relationship, which comes in intervals at least of Christian experience, and in which there is a thrilling and unspeakable delight. In that is joy, surpassing all joy of music, all delights of friendship; surpassing all other joys known on the earth, a gleam of the celestial breaking into the darkness of the world.

4. And then there is the consciousness of gladness in doing the work of God on earth, in cooperating with Him in our small measure, yet with a true consecration of the spirit to Him, which He accepts and blesses, and the result of which He secures and furthers by His providence and the energy of His Spirit. So it is that the grandest workers have been the happiest Christians. Luther, how he sings in his conversations and in his letters!

5. Then there comes a joy in all that helps toward this, which makes this state of experience and effort possible to man–joy in the Word of God; not merely because it is full of interesting narrative, charming biography, marvellous prophecy, grand argument of doctrine, grand revelation of the future, but because here God meets the human spirit which has been seeking Him, and has found it in order to lift it nearer Himself, to give it His own secret thought, if we may say so. The soul feels itself brought by the Word into fellow ship with the Divine mind. It has an intense gladness of heart meditating upon the Word, whose mysteries then become to it arguments for its Divine origin, whose transcendent promises flash before it as with the effulgence of the Divine mind. So with the Church. How sacred and lovely it is when it contributes to these results! (R. S. Storrs, D. D.)

Fulness of joy

These things. What things? The mediatorial person and office of Christ and the fellowship to which they lead. It is assumed that the fulness of joy arises out of the fellowship which is produced by the knowledge of Christ.

I. The fulness of joy springs out of fellowship with the father. This is self-evident. Suppose a sinner so to see and confide in God as his Father that he may be said to have fellowship with Him, enjoying a sense of His favour, and reciprocating it with a feeling of love, it is plain he must be happy in God. It is ever so regarded in the Scriptures. When God invites sinners to forsake the fellowship of the ungodly and to come into communion with Himself, it is in these words (2Co 6:17-18). The promise by which the invitation is enforced is supposed to secure true blessedness to all who shall enjoy it. A brief contemplation of what may be expected from God as Father will make this statement plain. A father is ready to pardon his children. A father has tender sympathy with his children. Their joys and sorrows are all his own. A father teaches his children. What he knows himself he makes known to them. He does so that they may know how to choose the good and refuse the evil. A father corrects his children. Observe, then, how an inspired apostle applies this thought (Heb 12:9). A father encourages his children. A father protects his children. A father provides for his children. Suppose, now, that this view of God is realised. What, then, ought to be his joy?

II. Fulness of joy springs out of fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ. Besides the happiness thus derived from God, however, there is a fresh source of joy opened up to the believer in Christ Himself.

1. First, His person is such as to call forth this affection. He is God manifest in the flesh. He has become such for the very purpose of being a Saviour of men.

2. Again, the work of Christ affords matter of joy. He died the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, having been made a curse for us. His work is perfect, and the sinner who is willing to accept it is presented with a full and free salvation.

3. His gracious offices, still continued, must farther heighten the joy of all who have fellowship with Him in them.

4. Once more we have the Spirit of Christ and the blessed promises of which He is the fulfiller.

5. To all this must be added His everlasting covenant. All the blessings He bestows are secured by covenant, and nothing is omitted which is needful for His people.

III. The fulness of joy is greatly confirmed by fellowship with believers. They instruct one another. How much we owe to the society of the wise and good! The interchange of thought is a principal means of advancement in knowledge. Believers encourage one another. We should aim at being useful to those with whom we are associated. Believers should warn one another. Thou shalt not suffer sin upon thy brother, but rebuke him. By pursuing such a course it is easy to see how the fellowship of Christians would tend to the fulness of their icy. (James Morgan, D. D.)

The full joy of Christian fellowship

1. The joy which believers have for the present in this fellowship is a full joy, it being true of this joy, and no other, that it is a full joy.

(1) There are two adjuncts peculiar to this joy which demonstrate its fulness, to wit, the sincerity and the permanency of it. This joy is a sincere, cordial joy. A full shower of rain is that which doth not only wet the surface, but sink into the ground, bedew the branches, but go down to the root. That is a full joy which doth not only fill the face with laughter but the heart with comfort, and such, yea, such alone is joy. The joy of religion is not a light joy, which only swimmeth at the top, but weighty, and sinks down to the bottom of the heart, so that it exhilarateth the inmost parts. This joy is a permanent, lasting joy. That is most truly said to be full which doth not fail, and such only is this Divine joy. Other joys are such as, before they come, we make great account of, but when they are come we cannot keep, nay, we quickly grow weary of, and as the flower often sheds before the leaf fade, so the joy vanisheth while yet the thing remaineth. In this respect we may say of worldly joy it is satiating but not satisfying, glutting and yet not filling; but Christian joy is that which we can never have enough of.

(2) Not only the adjuncts, but the effects commend this joy, it being deservedly called a full because a strong joy, able to sustain the spirit under, and bear it up against affliction. Other joys at best carry in them only a partial emolument, and therefore it is the joy of wealth is no antidote against sickness, nor can the joy of health cure the sorrow of poverty, but this joy is the universal medicine, the catholic remedy against all sorts of miseries. It maketh a prison sweet and pain easy, it maketh a man cheerful in want and comfortable in losses, it turneth a wilderness into a garden, and finally, it supports in life, yea, it comforts in death.

(3) The fulness of this joy chiefly depends on the ground and object whereabout it is conversant. It is an undoubted maxim that the object of all joy is good, and therefore such as is the good such is the joy. If the good be only so in appearance the joy must needs be false and empty, but if it be a real, full good, the joy must needs be both true and full. Now, as for worldly joy, it is only in vain, empty things (Ecc 1:2), whereas this joy is fixed on God our Creator, Christ our Redeemer, and so is a true and solid icy.

2. Though this joy we have for the present be a full joy in opposition to carnal and worldly joy, yet in comparison of that celestial joy it is but empty, and rather filling than full; and therefore some conceive joy here to be, by a metonymy of the effect for the cause, put for blessedness, because then alone it is that we shall have full and perfect joy. (N. Hardy, D. D.)

Religion a joy

I remember a friend of mine who had gone far into what is called a life of pleasure telling me, when he became a Christian, that what surprised him most of all was this–he had always looked on religion as a burden which he knew he ought to carry, but he found that it was something that carried him and his burden too. He said also that he had enjoyed in a single week after he was a Christian more real pleasure than in all the years he had devoted to what is termed the pursuit of pleasure. I am convinced this is the view of religion needed in a great city where the individual is lost in the great multitude. (James Stalker, D. D.)

Open the heart to joy

God offers to fill our homes and our hearts with joy and gladness if we will only let Him do it. We cannot create the canary birds, but we can provide cages for them and fill our dwellings with their music. Even so we cannot create the heavenly gifts which Jesus offers, but they are ours if we provide heart room for them. The birds of peace, and contentment, and joy, and praise will fly in fast enough if we will only invite Jesus Christ and set the windows of our souls open for His coming. (T. C. Cuyler.)

Joy givers

The world has a right to expect a great many things from all of us who call ourselves Christians. It is the business of a Christian not to smoke but to shine. The dark lantern religion that never makes itself visible to others will never guide you or me to heaven. We ought to reflect our Saviour as light givers. We ought to live above the fog belt. The higher up the holier, the higher up the happier. A churlish, croaking, gloomy professor of gospel-religion is a living libel; he haunts society like a ghost. But there is One who says to us, I am come that your joy may be full. Let us open our souls to Him and our faces will shine; He can make even tears to sparkle; we shall carry sunshine into the darkest hours; we shall catch instalments of heaven in advance. (T. C. Cuyler.)

Happiness helpful to holiness

There is an intimate connection between happiness and holiness. If you are striving to attain the other port to which John would pilot you, that port of Sin not, remember that patience and peace and joy in the Lord are sailors of which it is hardly too much to say, Except these abide in the ship ye cannot be saved. At all events, full salvation demands fulness of joy. (J. B. Figgis, M. A.)

Knowledge of Christ the foundation of joy

High thoughts of Christ constitute the essentials of a sinners religion. They are the foundation of his hopes and the materials of his happiness. (C. Bradley.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 4. That your joy may be full.] Ye have already tasted that the Lord is good; but I am now going to show you the height of your Christian calling, that your happiness may be complete, being thoroughly cleansed from all sin, and filled with the fulness of God.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Not insipid, spiritless, empty, as carnal joy is, apt through the deficiency of its cause to admit of intermingled qualms; but lively and vigorous, 2Jo 1:12, well grounded, Joh 16:24, such as is of the right kind, and will grow up into the perfect plenitude and fulness of joy, Psa 16:11.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

4. these thingsand noneother, namely, this whole Epistle.

write we unto youSomeoldest manuscripts omit “unto you,” and emphasize “we.”Thus the antithesis is between “we” (apostles andeye-witnesses) and “your.” We write thus that yourjoy may be full. Other oldest manuscripts and versions read “OURjoy,” namely, that our joy may be filled full by bringingyou also into fellowship with the Father and Son. (Compare Joh4:36, end; Php 2:2, “Fulfilye my joy,” Phi 2:16;Phi 4:1; 2Jn 1:8).It is possible that “your” may be a correction oftranscribers to make this verse harmonize with Joh 15:11;Joh 16:24; however, as John oftenrepeats favorite phrases, he may do so here, so “your” maybe from himself. So 2Jo 12,”your” in oldest manuscripts. The authority of manuscriptsand versions on both sides here is almost evenly balanced. ChristHimself is the source, object, and center of His people’s joy(compare 1Jo 1:3, end); it is infellowship with Him that we have joy, the fruit offaith.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And these things write we unto you,…. Concerning the deity and eternity of Christ, the Word and concerning the truth of his humanity, and the manifestation of him in the flesh; and concerning that eternal life and salvation which is declared in the Gospel to be in him; and concerning the saints’ fellowship one with another, and with God the Father, and with Jesus Christ:

that your joy may be full; meaning either their spiritual joy in this life, which has Christ for its object, and is increased by the consideration of his proper deity, his incarnation and mediation by a view of free justification by his righteousness, and atonement by his blood; by a sight of his glorious person by faith, and by intimate communion with him, and a discovery of his love, which passeth knowledge: and which joy, when it is large, and very great, may, in a comparative sense, be said to be full, though not absolutely so, and being as much as can well be enjoyed in this state; and nothing can more contribute to it than a declaration of the above things in the Gospel, and an experimental acquaintance with them, and enjoyment of them: or else it may intend the joy of the saints in the world to come, in the presence of Christ, where are fulness of joy, and pleasures for evermore; and so may express the ultimate glory and happiness of God’s people, which is the chief end, as of his purposes, promises, and covenant, so of the Gospel, and the declaration of it. The Syriac version renders it, “that our joy, which is in you, may be full”; it is the joy of the ministers of the word, when the saints are established in the faith of Christ’s person and offices, and have communion with him, with which view they declare him, and bear record of him. Some copies read, our joy.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

We write ( ). Literary plural present active indicative of , which see in the singular in 2:12-14.

May be fulfilled ( ). Periphrastic perfect passive subjunctive of , stressing the state of completion in the purpose (), remain full, precisely as in Joh 16:24. See aorist subjunctive in Joh 15:11 and perfect indicative in Joh 17:13. The MSS. differ as often between (our) and (your).

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

These things. The whole Epistle.

Write we unto you [ ] . The best texts read hJmeiv we, instead of uJmin to you. Both the verb and the pronoun are emphatic. The writer speaks with conscious authority, and his message is to be not only announced (ajpaggellomen, ver. 3), but written. We write is emphasized by the absence of the personal object, to you.

Your joy [ ] . The best texts read hJmwn, our, though either reading gives a good sense.

Full [] More correctly, fulfilled. Frequent in John. See Joh 3:29; Joh 7:8; Joh 8:38; Joh 14:11; 2 John 12; Rev 6:11. “The peace of reconciliation, the blessed consciousness of sonship, the happy growth in holiness, the bright prospect of future completion and glory, – all these are but simple details of that which, in all its length and breadth is embraced by one word, Eternal Life, the real possession of which is the immediate source of our joy. We have joy, Christ ‘s joy, because we are blessed, because we have life itself in Christ” (Dusterdieck, cit. by Alford). And Augustine : “For there is a joy which is not given to the ungodly, but to those who love Thee for thine own sake, whose joy Thou thyself art. And this is the happy life, to rejoice to Thee, of Thee; this is it and there is no other” (” Confessions, “10 22). Alford is right in remarking that this verse gives an epistolary character to what follows, but it can hardly be said with him that it” fills the place of the cairein greeting, lit., rejoice, so common in the opening of Epistles. “

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “And these things write we unto you.” The “these things” John was about to write were things concerning a) The Incarnation of Jesus Christ, b) The Divine Life, eternal life, He had given to His children, c) The fellowship, joy and love to be shared by brethren in Him, and d) warnings against worldliness and false prophets.

2) “That Your joy may be full” as our Lord spoke final loving words to His church that their joy might be full, so John the beloved apostle wrote this letter to the Lord’s immature “Little Children,” (Greek teknia) that their joy might be full, Joh 15:11; Joh 16:24; 1Pe 1:8; 1Th 5:16; Php_4:4.

MR. GLORY-FACE

Adoniram Judson went as a missionary to Burma. He so burned with the desire to preach the gospel before he had learned the language that he walked up to a, Burman and embraced him. The man went home and reported that he had seen an angel. The living Christ was so radiant in Mr. Judson’s countenance that men called him Mr. Glory-Face.

THE EVANGELISM OF JOY

A bigoted Chinese who never could be induced to attend a Christian service went to a missionary and said, “I want to hear about your religion. I never have heard the words of it, but I have heard the laughter in your house and in the houses of my countrymen who have embraced your faith. And if you have anything that makes people so joyous I want it.” One great need in all lands is for more glad Christians.

Record of Christian Work

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

4 That your joy may be full By full joy, he expresses more clearly the complete and perfect happiness which we obtain through the Gospel; at the same time he reminds the faithful where they ought to fix all their affections. True is that saying,

“

Where your treasure is, there will be your heart also.” (Mat 6:21.)

Whosoever, then, really perceives what fellowship with God is, will be satisfied with it alone, and will no more burn with desires for other things.

“

The Lord is my cup,” says David, “and my heritage; the lines have fallen for me on an excellent lot.” (Psa 16:5.)

In the same manner does Paul declare that all things were deemed by him as dung, in comparison with Christ alone. (Phi 3:8.) He, therefore, has at length made a proficiency in the Gospel, who esteems himself happy in having communion with God, and acquiesces in that alone; and thus he prefers it to the whole world, so that he is ready for its sake to relinquish all other things.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

4. Joy full And the object of so certifying his readers of this glorious truth is their joy. If all doubt is removed, and they know on his authority from Christ himself that this fellowship with God is a reality, a joy full and inspiring will fill their hearts and strengthen their souls for all goodness.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

1Jn 1:4. That your joy may be full. “That the divine life may be so improved in your souls, and your meetness for the heavenly inheritance may be so apparent, and so advanced, that your joy may, as far as possible, be fulfilled; and no circumstance which this mortal life will admit, may be wanting to complete it.”

1Jn 1:5. Which we have heard of him, &c. Of him, means, “From Jesus Christ;” for St. John evidently refers to what he had said in some of the preceding verses, concerning his seeing Christ in the flesh, and hearing him preach the word of life; what that apostle had heard from Him, he delivered faithfully unto the Christians. Light is in several texts put for knowledge or felicity; and darkness for ignorance or misery. But here light is put for purity or holiness, and darkness for moral impurity, or vice and wickedness. God is a pure and spotless Being, without any dark stain of impurity whatever. The phraseology of this verse, of affirming one thing, and immediately denying the contrary, or of denying one thing and affirming the contrary, was very common with the Hebrews, and St. John has often made use of that idiom. See 1Jn 1:6; 1Jn 1:8; 1Jn 2:4; 1Jn 2:7; 1Jn 2:10, &c. Dr. Bates says, that the phrase, God is Light, expresses his most clear and perfect knowledge; for light discovers all things: his unspotted holiness; for light is incapable of any pollution: and sovereign goodness and happiness; for light, joined with vital heat, inspires pleasure into universal nat

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

1Jn 1:4 . After stating the subject and aim of his apostolic proclamation, the apostle intimates specially the aim of this Epistle. ] By , is made co-ordinate with , the particular with the general, not the composition of the Epistle with that of the Gospel (Ebrard). refers neither merely to what precedes (Russmeyer, Sander), nor merely to what immediately follows (Socin), but to the whole Epistle (Lcke, de Wette, Dsterdieck). With , comp. 1Jn 2:1 ; 1Jn 2:12 , 1Jn 5:13 . The plural is used because John as an apostle writes in the consciousness that his written word is in full agreement with the preaching of all the apostles; all the apostles, as it were, speak through him to the readers of the Epistle.

] comp. with this Joh 15:11 ; Joh 17:13 . The aim of the Epistle is the of joy which it, as apostolic testimony to the salvation founded on the of the (1Jn 1:2 ), was to produce in its readers. De Wette groundlessly thinks that the effect, namely, the perfected Christian frame of mind, is here put for the cause, namely, Christian perfection. It is rather very especially the perfect (not merely “the joy of conflict and victory,” Ebrard) that is the goal to which the apostle would lead his readers by this Epistle. With the reading it is the of the apostles first of all of John that is the goal, and no doubt the joy which for them consists in this, that their word produces fruit in their hearers. [46] Incorrectly Ebrard: “If is right, then the apostle resumes the mutual : that our (common) joy may be full;” for, on the one hand, is not mutual (embracing the apostles and the readers), and, on the other, would have to be referred to the that is contained in , but not to the more remote .

[46] Theophyl.: , , .

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

4 And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.

Ver. 4. And these things write we ] Out of the Scriptures, those wells of salvation, draw we waters with joy, Isa 12:4 , suck these breasts of consolation, and be satisfied, Isa 66:11 . Nusquam inveni requiem nisi in libro et claustro, saith one. Chrysostom brings in a man laden with inward troubles, coming into the church; where, when he heard this passage read, “Why art thou cast down, my soul, &c., hope in God,” &c., he presently recovered comfort. (Hom. in Genes.) There is a singular efficacy in the promises to comfort those that are cast down, Rom 15:4 . See Trapp on “ Rom 15:4 “

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

1Jn 1:4 . , clearly the editorial plural. The reading seems at the first glance more attractive than as evincing a generous solicitude on the part of the Apostle for the highest good of his readers, viz. , the fulfilment of their joy. Rothe: “Wer es weis, dass das uranfngliche Leben erschienen ist und er mit demselben und dadurch mit dem Vater Gemeinschaft haben kann, dessen Herz muss hoch schlagen”. In truth, however, evinces a still more generous solicitude the very spirit of Jesus. As He could not be happy in Heaven without us, so the Apostle’s joy was incomplete unless his readers shared it. Cf. Samuel Rutherford:

“Oh! if one soul from Anwoth

Meet me at God’s right hand,

My heaven will be two heavens

In Immanuel’s land.”

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

full = fulfilled or filled full. App-125. Compare Joh 15:11; Joh 16:24.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

1Jn 1:4. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.

Some Christians have joy, but there are only a few drops in the bottom of their cup; but the Scriptures were written, and more especially the doctrine of an Incarnate God is revealed to us that our joy may be full. Why, if you have nothing else to make you glad, the fact that Jesus has become brother to you, arrayed in your flesh, should make your joy full.

1Jn 1:5. This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

Not a light, nor the light, though he is both, but that he is light. Scripture uses the term light for knowledge, for purity, for prosperity, for happiness, and for truth. God is light, and then in his usual style John, who not only bells you a truth, but always guards it, adds, in whom is no darkness at all.

1Jn 1:6. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.

Mark here, this does not mean walking in the darkness of sorrow, for there are many of Gods people that walk in the darkness of doubts and fears, and yet they have fellowship with God; nay, they sometimes have fellowship with Christ all the better for the darkness of the path along which they walk; but the darkness here meant is the darkness of sin, the darkness of untruthfulness. If I walk in a lie, or walk in sin, and then profess to have fellowship with God, I have lied, and do not the truth.

1Jn 1:7. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light,

Not to the same degree, but in the same manner.

1Jn 1:7. We have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.

So you see that when we walk the best, when we walk in the light as he is in the light, when our fellowship is of the highest order, yet still we want daily cleansing. It does not say mark this, O my soul it does not. If say, The blood of Jesus Christ cleansed, but cleanseth. guilt return, his power may be proved again and again; there is no fear that all my daily slips and shortcomings shall be graciously removed by this precious blood. But there are some who think they are perfectly sanctified and have no sin.

This exposition consisted of readings from Psalms 130; 1Jn 1:4-7.

Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible

1Jn 1:4. , these things) From the emphatic singular he comes to the plural, for the sake of greater convenience of expression. These things, and no other: 2Co 1:13, much less, smaller and more trifling things, as the defenders of traditions say.- , we write to you) To this present the past, I have written, ch. 1Jn 5:13, answers. Comp. ch. 1Jn 2:1; 1Jn 2:12, and following verses. Writing gives strong confirmation.-, that) Fulness of joy arises from a full and abundant confirmation of soul in faith and love. To this, declaration and writing in conjunction especially tend: 2Jn 1:12.-, joy) Thus also John writes in his Gospel, ch. Joh 15:11, Joh 16:22. There is the joy of faith, the joy of love, the joy of hope. In this place the joy of faith is first noticed; and the expression is abbreviated, your joy; that is, your faith, and the joy which springs from thence: but there is also intended the joy of love and of hope, flowing from thence.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

1Jn 1:4

PURPOSE OF WRITING

(1Jn 1:4)

4 And these things we write, that our joy may be made full.–“These things” were the matters immediately referred to in the early verses of the chapter and, in a secondary sense, in all of the Epistle. The plural pronoun “we” is a common literary device and does not, of course, mean that others were joined with John in the authorship of this Epistle. (Cf. 2Co 1:1; Col 1:1; Php 1:1; Philem. 1:1; 1Th 1:1.) The purpose for which “these things” were penned was that the joy of John might abound. Through the announcement of the testimony regarding Christ (verse 1) fellowship would obtain (verse 3), and the effect of this fellowship was joy. The same writer later said, “I re-joiced greatly, when brethren came and bare witness unto thy truth, even as thou walkest in the truth. Greater joy have I none than this, to hear of my children walking in the truth.” (3Jn 1:3-4.)

In the foregoing verses is another of the many parallels which occur between this Epistle and the Gospel by the same writer

The EpistleThe Gospel

“That ye also may have fellowship with us.” (1:3.)”That they may all be one.” (17:20.)

“Our fellowship is with the Fa-ther and his Son, Jesus Christ.” (1:3.)”That they also may be one in us.” (17:21.)

“These things we write, that our joy may be made full.” (1:4.) “And these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy made full in them-selves.”

Commentary on 1Jn 1:4 by E.M. Zerr

1Jn 1:4. That your joy may be full. The last word is where the emphasis of thought should be placed. Small or partial joy may be possible from many different sources, but the joy that can come from a faith in the only divine Son of God is full both in the sense of being complete in its extent, and perfect in its quality. It will leave nothing that can reasonably be desired further by a firm believer.

Commentary on 1Jn 1:4 by N.T. Caton

1Jn 1:4-And these things write we.

I, it is true, write you, but in so doing you may feel assured that it is the same as though all the witnesses of the Lord were writing, and the object of writing to you concerning the things of the Lord and our fellowship with him is that your joy may be full and complete when you fully recognize the great honor that is thus bestowed upon you.

Commentary on 1Jn 1:4 by Burton Coffman

1Jn 1:4 –and these things we write, that our joy may be made full.

We write … It has been debated whether this applies primarily to the whole apostolic message just referred to in the prologue or to the epistle about to follow. Scott is likely correct in referring both to the apostolic proclamation “Declare we (1Jn 1:3) and write we (1Jn 1:4) refer to the same message.”[20] Since the epistle itself is part of the apostolic message, this appears to be logical.

A NOTE REGARDING “ETERNAL LIFE”

Before leaving this study of the prologue, a little further attention to the subject of eternal life is appropriate. It is well known that both in the gospel and the epistles John often speaks of eternal life as the present possession of Christians. J. W. Roberts has given a thorough discussion of this in his commentary. He cited many passages that indicate that, “In some sense, John sees the Christian as enjoying eternal life here and now,”[21] a proposition that is obvious to any reader or student of John. He concluded that, “The eternal life which the believer has (present tense) is to be interpreted not as quantitative (everlasting) but as qualitative.”[22] Those qualities of the Christian’s present “eternal life” are evident in the declarations that he “has passed from death into life,” that he is a “partaker of the divine nature” (2Pe 1:4), and that he arises from baptism to walk “in newness of life.”

No disagreement whatever is felt with regard to Roberts’ analysis; but it seems appropriate to guard against any misunderstanding of it. The Christian’s possession of eternal life now and here must be understood in the sense of his enjoying the blessed promise of it. The earnest of it (Eph 1:13) which he now sheds forth in his heart many qualities of the ultimate eternal life that shall crown the efforts of the faithful in heaven; and, in that possession of the earnest, the Christian certainly enjoys qualitatively the eternal life yet to come; but it should always be remembered that in no sense should the earnest (which of the whole is only a very small part) ever be equated with the entirety of that eternal life, which according to the blessed promise of the Christ himself is the ultimate reward of the faithful in Christ. Nor can it be thought even of those qualities of eternal life enjoyed in the present time, that they are in any sense to be equated completely with the ultimate “eternal life.” The very term earnest forbids this. Not all the joys of eternal life are ours now; nor can it be thought, even of those fruits of the Spirit (Gal 5:22 f) which we already possess, that they have the same fullness, quality, and intensity of the eternal life to come. Thus, in Roberts’ statement about having eternal life qualitatively, it would be wrong to understand it as totally so. It is more accurate to view the present possession of eternal life as prospective. It is ours in the sense of our possession of the blessed promise and the confident expectation of receiving the fulfillment of it at “the last day.”

There is abundant testimony in the New Testament to the effect that not all of those qualities of eternal life ultimately expected are in the possession of the saints now. Even the apostle John’s joy was not yet full when he wrote this epistle, as indicated by the last verse of the prologue (1Jn 1:4) above. Paul’s statement that it would be “better” to depart and be with Christ; John’s declaration that “it is not yet made manifest what we shall be” (1Jn 3:2); the absolute inability of any Christian ever to rise completely above all sin; the fact that it has never even entered into the heart of man (1Co 2:9) the things that God prepared for them that love him; the constant attendance upon human footsteps of sorrow, pain, and tribulations; – all such considerations deny the quality of that eternal life in Christians now as having any complete correspondence to the eternal life given on the last day to them who shall be invited to “enter thou into the joy of thy Lord” (Mat 25:23). “Entering in” cannot be equated in any complete sense with “You have already entered.”

[20] Ibid.

[21] J. W. Roberts, op. cit., p. 26,27.

[22] Ibid.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

that: Isa 61:10, Hab 3:17, Hab 3:18, Joh 15:11, Joh 16:24, 2Co 1:24, Eph 3:19, Phi 1:25, Phi 1:26, 2Jo 1:12

Reciprocal: Deu 12:12 – And ye Pro 29:6 – but Son 2:3 – I sat Mat 10:2 – John Joh 17:13 – that Joh 20:30 – General Phi 2:2 – Fulfil Phi 2:28 – and that 2Ti 1:4 – filled 1Jo 2:1 – these 1Jo 2:12 – write 1Jo 5:13 – have I

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

FULNESS OF JOY

These things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.

1Jn 1:4

St. John gives in our text his reason for writing the Epistle. The Apostle, who lay on the breast of the Master at supper, and who describes himself as he whom Jesus loved, carried ever after with him the atmosphere of sweet and holy rest. It breathes in all his writings; the spirit of one who knows his God, who has felt the Divine love, and can with confidence look forward to the future. He speaks with simple directness of the fellowship that the believer should have in Christ. He shows, as he has proved in his own life, the connection between sound doctrine and holy living, between faith and practice. The love of Jesus Christ is his greatest experience, and this love has kindled a corresponding flame in his own heart which is as the mainspring of all his actions. He would have all believers know this love, and experience a like peace and rest. He writes these things that their joy may be full.

I. Joy in God.As we have seen, St. John saw an intimate connection between right believing and right living, and his right faith and right conduct brought him that peace of mind and gladness which should ever be a heritage of the Christian. A special note of his message is its calm assurance and confidence in the Divine love, and this confidence he feels should also be the portion of every believer in Jesus Christ. In emphasis of his message, twenty-seven times, in this short Epistle, the word know occurs. As Church people, our Litany and confessions of sin, prayed Sunday by Sunday, should guard us against any spirit of presumption before God, any vain, overweening confidence, or Pharisaic self-sufficiency. There we are reminded of our ill-desert, and that all our righteousness is of Jesus Christ. We have, too, the words of the Lord, warning us to watch and pray lest we enter into temptation; the warning to the Corinthians, Let him who thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall; and the dreadful condemnation of apostasy in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Now St. Johns message shows us another aspect of spiritual truth. He gives us, as it were, a further revelation. His desire is that we should have the joy and gladness, the great benefit to our souls, of knowing that as Gods children we are in His keeping; that our spiritual progress is carefully guarded and fostered by Him; that He concerns Himself to sustain and protect His people. And from this knowledge of the goodness of God and His unremitting love will spring joy and confidence. Was it not part of the very purpose of the Son of God in coming to this earth to change sin and sorrow into gladness and joy? His life and death of sorrow were that we might have happiness. He rose with healing in His wings that pain and suffering might be relieved. His will is that His children may know by faith the very real joy of His presence in their hearts, and look forward to that greater joy and gladness when they shall see Him face to face, and shall dwell in His presence for ever.

II. Joy in a wholehearted service of love.This was doubtless the Apostles own experience. In the midst of a long and arduous life of toil for the Master, during periods of bitter and cruel persecution of the Church, he still maintains this note of full confidenceof the glory of perseverance for a cause bound to be ultimately victorious. And love was the motive power; the sense and knowledge of the individual care and love of the Son of God for him, and a deep concern for the souls for whom Jesus came to die. And what a transforming power such love for and personal knowledge of God brings! How it changes and alters the character, bringing in the joy of conscious strength! The weak man is made strong; the nervous man confident; the vacillating is given decision of character. Moses, shy and apprehensive, fleeing from vengeance, is changed into the bold and purposeful leader. Now rebuking Pharaoh upon His throne, again withstanding the people and pronouncing judgment upon their unfaithfulness. Jeremiah, bewailing his youth and inexperience, is changed into the prophet conscious that he is Gods mouthpiece, condemning sin and foretelling further punishment. Zacchus, the tax-gatherer, is changed from the oppressor of the poor to the conscientious follower of Christ, righting past wrongs and giving liberally of his means. Saul of Tarsus, the bigoted oppressor of the brethren, proud of his position and intellectual attainments, is changed into St. Paul, the earnest missionary and humble-minded follower of Christ. The people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits. A life of strong, purposeful service for Christ is a life of true joy, such as the idler in the vineyard can never know. It matters not where our field of service lie: whether in the home circle, the place of business, the workshop, or in more directly spiritual work among the young, teaching them their inheritance in the kingdom, or in service in the house of God; whenever we do it from motives of love, anxious for Divine commission and enabling power, it becomes to us a service of truest heart-satisfaction and joy.

III. Have we this joy?Do we know anything of this joy in God, this joy in service? We can only know it as we dwell in love as St. John did. The love of the Saviour may be to us, as to him, a deep personal possession. How great is the treasure within our reach, and how cold and unresponsive we are! How little we value it, or seek to make it our own! Speaking of the longing of the Old Testament saints to so know the Messiah, St. Bernard wrote: When I think of the longing, of the desire of the Fathers yearning to see Jesus Christ in the flesh, I am confounded and wounded, and I can scarce restrain my tears. So much does the cold and torpor of the present time shame me. And might not these words with truth be written of many of us, so much does the cold and torpor of our affection bring shame to us? And our joy will never be full while we are content to so know God. We shall never enjoy service for His Church or the gladness of His presence until our hearts are kindled into more ardent love. And how paltry are the things that draw us away, that do absorb our thoughts and efforts! Like Esau, for what miserable messes of pottage do we sell our birthrightthe gratification of the flesh, our present advantage, the transitory honour of the world!

Rev. H. G. Wheeler.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

1Jn 1:4. That your joy may be full. The last word is where the emphasis of thought should be placed. Small or partial joy may be possible from many different sources, but the joy that can come from a faith in the only divine Son of God is full both in the sense of being complete in its extent, and perfect in its quality. It will leave nothing that can reasonably be desired further by a firm believer.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Observe here, The great end for which the apostles penned and wrote the doctrine of the gospel, namely, that their joy may be full who do believe it and obey it. The joy which good men experience in the word of God, is a solid joy, a substantial joy, a full joy, a lasting joy.

Worldly joy is nauseating, but not satisfying; glutting, but not filling: But that joy that is found in the holy Scriptures, in the word and promise of God, is better experienced than expressed.

Christianity doth not extirpate our joy, but regulate and refine it; it shews us the proper object of our joy, what to rejoice in, and the manner how, that we may not sin in rejoicing.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Verse 4

That your joy may be full; that you may attain to perfect and eternal joy.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

Here "we" is probably editorial. "These things" refers to what John wrote in this epistle. Not only would his readers experience full joy, but so would John as the readers entered into and continued in intimate fellowship with God (cf. 3Jn 1:4). Joy is the product of fellowship with God. When there is no joy, there is no fellowship (cf. Joh 15:11; Joh 16:24).

In summary, John wrote as an apostolic eyewitness. He identified two dangers to readers that are still prevalent in the church today. One is the assumption that Christian fellowship is possible without common belief in Christ. The other is the assumption that someone can have a relationship with God without a relationship with Jesus Christ. [Note: Marshall, p. 107-8.] John wrote this epistle so his readers might join and continue in the fellowship with God that is possible only for those who have seen God, as the apostolic eyewitnesses of the incarnate Christ had done.

"He has the heart of a pastor which cannot be completely happy so long as some of those for whom he feels responsible are not experiencing the full blessings of the gospel." [Note: Ibid., p. 105.]

These verses, rather than 1Jn 5:13, constitute the comprehensive purpose statement of the epistle. There are four purpose statements in 1 John (1Jn 1:3-4; 1Jn 2:1; 1Jn 5:13) plus 10 imperatives (1Jn 2:15; 1Jn 2:24; 1Jn 2:27-28; 1Jn 3:1; 1Jn 3:7; 1Jn 3:13; 1Jn 4:1 [2 times]; 1Jn 5:21) any of which could possibly provide John’s purpose for writing. But 1Jn 1:3-4 give his most comprehensive primary and secondary purposes in writing. [Note: Yarbrough, p. 46. See also Smalley, p. 15; and Gary W. Derickson, "What Is the Message of 1 John?" Bibliotheca Sacra 150:597 (January-March 1993):89-105.]

"It is usually true that in the introduction to a book we find the key to that book. In the first four verses of this Epistle we find the key." [Note: Mitchell, p. 21. Cf. Hodges, "1 John," pp. 883-84.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Chapter 2

THE CONNECTION OF THE EPISTLE WITH THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN

1Jn 1:4

FROM the wholesale burning of books at Ephesus, as a consequence of awakened convictions, the most pregnant of all commentators upon the New Testament has drawn a powerful lesson. “True religion,” says the writer, “puts bad books out of the way.” Ephesus at great expense burnt curious and evil volumes, and the “word of God grew and prevailed.” And he proceeds to show how just in the very matter where Ephesus had manifested such costly penitence, she was rewarded by being made a sort of depository of the most precious books which ever came from human pens. St. Paul addresses a letter to the Ephesians. Timothy was Bishop of Ephesus when the two great pastoral Epistles were sent to him. All St. Johns writings point to the same place. The Gospel and Epistles were written there, or with primary reference to the capital of Ionia. The Apocalypse was in all probability first read at Ephesus.

Of this group of Ephesian books we select two of primary importance-the Gospel and First Epistle of St. John. Let us dwell upon the close and thorough connection of the two documents, upon the interpretation of the Epistle by the Gospel, by whatever name we may prefer to designate the connection.

It is said indeed by a very high authority, that while the “whole Epistle is permeated with thoughts of the person and work of Christ,” yet “direct references to facts of the Gospel are singularly rare.” More particularly it is stated that “we find here none of the foundation and (so to speak) crucial events summarised in the earliest Christian confession as we still find them in the Apostles creed.” And among these events are placed, “the Birth of the Virgin Mary, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Session, the Coming to Judgment.”

To us there seems to be some exaggeration in this way of putting the matter. A writing which accompanied a sacred history, and which was a spiritual comment upon that very history, was not likely to repeat the history upon which it commented, just in the same shape. Surely the Birth is the necessary condition of having come in the flesh. The incident of the piercing of the side, and the water and blood which flowed from it, is distinctly spoken of; and in that the Crucifixion is implied. Shrinking with shame from Jesus at His Coming, which is spoken of in another verse, has no meaning unless that Coming be to Judgment. The sixth chapter is, if we may so say, the section of “the Blood,” in the fourth Gospel. That section standing in the Gospel, standing in the great Sacrament of the Church, standing in the perpetually cleansing and purifying efficacy of the Atonement-ever present as a witness, which becomes personal, because identified with a Living Personality-finds its echo and counterpart in the Epistle towards the beginning and near the close.

We now turn to that which is the most conclusive evidence of connection between two documents-one historical, the other moral and spiritual-of which literary composition is capable. Let us suppose that a writer of profound thoughtfulness has finished, after long elaboration, the historical record of an eventful and many-sided life-a life of supreme importance to a nation, or to the general thought and progress of humanity. The book is sent to the representatives of some community or school. The ideas which its subject has uttered to the world, from their breadth and from the occasional obscurity of expression incident to all great spiritual utterances, need some elucidation. The plan is really exhaustive, and combines the facts of the life with a full insight into their relations; but it may easily be missed by any but thoughtful readers. The author will accompany this main work by something which in modern language we might call an introduction, or appendix, or advertisement, or explanatory pamphlet, or encyclical letter. Now the ancient form of literary composition rendered books packed with thought doubly difficult both to read and write; for they did not admit footnotes, or marginal analyses, or abstracts. St. John then practically says, first to his readers in Asia Minor, then to the Church forever -“With this life of Jesus I send you not only thoughts for your spiritual benefit, moulded round His teaching, but something more; I send you an abstract, a compendium of contents at the beginning of this letter; I also send you at its close a key to the plan on which my Gospel is conceived.” And surely a careful reader of the Gospel at its first publication would have desired assistance exactly of this nature. He would have wished to have a synopsis of contents, short but comprehensive, and a synoptical view of the authors plan-of the idea which guided him in his choice of incidents so momentous and of teaching so varied. We have in the First Epistle two synopses of the Gospel which correspond with a perfect precision to these claims. We have:

(1) a synopsis of the contents of the Gospel;

(2) a synoptical view of the conception from which it was written.

I We find in the Epistle at the very outset a synopsis of the contents of the Gospel.

“That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we gazed upon, and our hands handled-I speak concerning the Word who is the Life-that which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you also.”

What are the contents of the Gospel?

(1) A lofty and dogmatic procemium, which tells us of “the Word who was in the beginning with God-in Whom was life.”

(2) Discourses and utterances, sometimes running on through pages, sometimes brief and broken.

(3) Works, sometimes miraculous, sometimes wrought into the common contexture of human life-looks, influences, seen by the very eyes of St. John and others, gazed upon with ever deepening joy and wonder.

(4) Incidents which proved that all this issued from One who was intensely human; that it was as real as life and humanity-historical, not visionary; the doing and the effluence of a Manhood which could be, and which was, grasped by human hands.

Such is a synopsis of the Gospel precisely as it is given in the beginning of the First Epistle.

(1) The Epistle mentions first, “that which was from the beginning.” There is the compendium of the procemium of the Gospel.

(2) One of the most important constituent parts of the Gospel is to be found in its ample preservation of dialogues, in which the Saviour is one interlocutor; of monologues spoken to the hushed hearts of the disciples, or to the listening Heart of the Father, yet not in tones so low that their love did not find it audible. This element of the narrative is summed up by the writer of the Epistle in two words-“That which we heard.”

(3) The works of benevolence or power, the doings and sufferings-the pathos or joy which springs up from them in the souls of the disciples occupy a large portion of the Gospel. All these come under the heading,

“that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we gazed upon,” with one unbroken gaze of wonder as so beautiful, and of awe as so divine.

(4) The assertion of the reality of the Manhood of Him who was yet the Life manifested-a reality through all His words, works, sufferings-finds its strong, bold summary in this compendium of the contents of the Gospel, “and our hands have handled.” Nay, a still shorter compendium, follows:

(1) The Life with the Father.

(2) The Life manifested.

II But we have more than a synopsis which embraces the contents of the Gospel at the beginning of the Epistle. We have towards its close a second synopsis of the whole framework of the Gospel; not now the theory of the Person of Christ, which in such a life was necessarily placed at its beginning, but of the human conception which pervaded the Evangelists composition.

The second synopsis, not of the contents of the Gospel, but of the aim and conception which it assumed in the form into which it was moulded by St. John, is given by the Epistle with a fulness which omits scarcely a paragraph of the Gospel. In the space of six verses of the fifth chapter the word witness, as verb or substantive, is repeated ten times. The simplicity of St. Johns artless rhetoric can make no more emphatic claim on our attention. The Gospel is indeed a tissue woven out of many lines of evidence human and divine. Compress its purpose into one single word. No doubt it is supremely the Gospel of the Divinity of Jesus. But, next to that, it may best be defined as the Gospel of Witness. These witnesses we may take in the order of the Epistle. St. John feels that his Gospel is more than a book; it is a past made everlastingly present. Such as the great Life was in history, so it stands forever. Jesus is “the propitiation,” “is righteous,” “is here.” So the great influences round His Person, the manifold witnesses of His Life, stand witnessing forever in the Gospel and in the Church. What are these?

(1) The Spirit is ever witnessing. So our Lord in the Gospel-“when the Comforter is come, He shall witness of Me.” No one can doubt that the Spirit is one preeminent subject of the Gospel. Indeed, teaching about Him, above all as the witness to Christ, occupies three unbroken chapters in one place.

(2) The water is ever witnessing. So long as St. Johns Gospel lasts, and permeates the Church with its influence, the water must so testify. There is scarcely a paragraph of it where water is not; almost always with some relation to Christ. The witness of the Baptist is, “I baptize with water.” The Jordan itself bears witness that all its waters cannot give that which He bestows who is “preferred before” John. Is not the water of Cana that was made wine a witness to His glory? The birth of “water and of the Spirit,” is another witness. And so in the Gospel, section after section. The water of Jacobs well; the water of the pool of Bethesda; the waters of the sea of Galilee, with their stormy waves upon which He walked; the water outpoured at the feast of tabernacles, with its application to the river of living water; the water of Siloam; the water poured into the basin, when Jesus washed the disciples feet; the water which, with the blood, streamed from the riven side upon the cross; the water of the sea of Galilee in its gentler mood, when Jesus showed Himself on its beach to the seven; as long as all this is recorded in the Gospel, as long as the sacrament of Baptism, with its visible water and its invisible grace working in the regenerate, abides among the faithful; -so long is the water ever witnessing.

(3) The Blood is ever “witnessing.” Expiation once for all; purification continually from the blood outpoured; drinking the blood of the Son of Man by participation in the sacrament of His love, with the grace and strength that it gives day by day to innumerable souls; the Gospel concentrated into that great sacrifice; the Churchs gifts of benediction summarised in the unspeakable Gift; this is the unceasing witness of the Blood.

(4) “The witness of men” fills the Gospel from beginning to end. The glorious series of confessions wrung from willing and unwilling hearts form the points of division round which the whole narrative may be grouped. Let us think of all those attestations which lie between the Baptists precious testimony, with the sweet yet fainter utterances of Andrew, Philip, Nathanael, and the perfect creed of Christendom condensed into the burning words of Thomas-“my Lord and my God.” What a range of feeling and faith; what a variety of attestation coming from human souls, sometimes wrung from them half unwillingly, sometimes uttered at crisis moments with an impulse that could not be resisted! The witness of men in the Gospel, and the assurance of one testimony that was to be given by the Apostles individually and collectively, besides the evidences already named, include the following-the witness of Nicodemus, of the Samaritan woman, of the Samaritans, of the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda, of Simon Peter, of the officers of the Jewish authorities, of the blind man, of Pilate.

(5) The “witness of God” occupies also a great position in the fourth Gospel. That witness may be said to be given in five forms: the witness of the Father, of Christ Himself, of the Holy Spirit, of Scripture, of miracles. This great cloud of witnesses, human and divine, finds its appropriate completion in another subjective witness. The whole body of evidence passes from the region of the intellectual to that of the moral and spiritual life. The evidence acquires that evidentness which is to all our knowledge what the sap is to the tree. The faithful carries it in his heart; it goes about with him, rests with him day and night, is close to him in life and death. He, the principle of whose being is belief ever going out of itself and resting its acts of faith on the Son of God, has all that manifold witness in him.

It would be easy to enlarge upon the verbal connection between the Epistle before us and the Gospel which it accompanied. We might draw out (as has often been done) a list of quotations from the Gospel, a whole common treasury of mystic language; but we prefer to leave an undivided impression upon the mind. A document which gives us a synopsis of the contents of another document at the beginning, and a synoptical analysis of its predominant idea at the close, covering the entire work, and capable of absorbing every part of it (except some necessary adjuncts of a rich and crowded narrative), has a connection with it which is vital and integral. The Epistle is at once an abstract of the contents of the Gospel, and a key to its purport. To the Gospel, at least to it and the Epistle considered as integrally one, the Apostle refers when he says: “these things write we unto you.”

St. John had asserted that one end of his declaration was to make his readers hold fast “fellowship with us,” i.e., with the Church as the Apostolic Church; aye, and that fellowship of ours is “with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ; and these things,” he continues (with special reference to his Gospel, as spoken of in his opening words), “we write unto you, that your joy may be fulfilled.”

There is as truly a joy as a “patience and comfort of the Scriptures.” The Apostle here speaks of “your joy,” but that implies his also.

All great literature, like all else that is beautiful, is a “joy forever.” To the true student his books are this. But this is so only with a few really great books. We are not speaking of works of exact science. Butler, Pascal, Bacon, Shakespeare, Homer, Scott, theirs is work of which congenial spirits never grow quite tired. But to be capable of giving out joy, books must have been written with it. The Scotch poet tells us that no poet ever found the Muse until he had learned to walk beside the brook, and “to think long.” That which is not thought over with pleasure; that which, as it gradually rises before the author in its unity, does not fill him with delight; will never permanently give pleasure to readers. He must know joy before he can say -“these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.”

The book that is to give joy must be a part of a mans self. That is just what most books are not. They are laborious, diligent, useful perhaps; they are not interesting or delightful. How touching it is, when the poor old stiff hand must write, and the overworked brain think, for bread! Is there anything so pathetic in literature as Scott setting his back bravely to the wall, and forcing from his imagination the reluctant creations which used to issue with such splendid profusion from its haunted chambers?

Of the conditions under which an inspired writer pursued his labours we know but little. But some conditions are apparent in the books of St. John with which we are now concerned. The fourth Gospel is a book written without arriere pensee, without literary conceit, without the paralysing dread of criticism. What verdict the polished society of Ephesus would pronounce; what sneers would circulate in philosophic quarters; what the numerous heretics would murmur in their conventicles; what Critics within the Church might venture to whisper, missing perhaps favourite thoughts and catch words; St. John cared no more than if he were dead. He communed with the memories of the past; he listened for the music of the Voice which had been the teacher of his life. To be faithful to these memories, to recall these words, to be true to Jesus, was his one aim. No one can doubt that the Gospel was written with a full delight. No one who is capable of feeling ever has doubted that it was written as if with “a feather dropped from an angels wing”; that without aiming at anything but truth, it attains in parts at least a transcendent beauty. At the close of the procemium, after the completest theological formula which the Church has ever possessed-the still, even pressure of a tide of thought-we have a parenthetic sentence, like the splendid unexpected rush and swell of a sudden wave (“we beheld the glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father”); then after the parenthesis a soft and murmuring fall of the whole great tide (“full of grace and truth”). Can we suppose that the Apostle hung over his sentence with literary zest? The number of writers is small who can give us an everlasting truth by a single word, a single pencil touch; who, having their mind loaded with thought, are wise enough to keep that strong and eloquent silence which is the prerogative only of the highest genius. St. John gives us one of these everlasting pictures, of these inexhaustible symbols, in three little words-“He then having received the sop, went immediately out, and it was night.” Do we suppose that he admired the perfect effect of that powerful self-restraint? Just before the crucifixion he writes-“Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crowns of thorns, and the purple robe, and Pilate saith unto them, Behold the Man!” The pathos, the majesty, the royalty of sorrow, the admiration and pity of Pilate, have been for centuries the inspiration of Christian art. Did St. John congratulate himself upon the image of sorrow and of beauty which stands forever in these lines? With St. John as a writer it is as with St. John delineated in the fresco at Padua by the genius of Giotto. The form of the ascending saint is made visible through a reticulation of rays of light in colours as splendid as ever came from mortal pencil; but the rays issue entirely from the Saviour, whose face and form are full before him.

The feeling of the Church has always been that the Gospel of St. John was a solemn work of faith and prayer. The oldest extant fragment upon the canon of the New Testament tells us that the Gospel was undertaken after earnest invitations from the brethren and the bishops, with solemn united fasting; not without special revelation to Andrew the Apostle that John was to do the work. A later and much less important document, connected in its origin with Patmos, embodies one beautiful legend about the composition of the Gospel. It tells how the Apostle was about to leave Patmos for Ephesus; how the Christians of the island besought him to leave in writing an account of the Incarnation, and mysterious life of the Son of God; how St. John and his chosen friends went forth from the haunts of men about a mile, and halted in a quiet spot called the gorge of Rest, and then ascended the mountain which overhung it. There they remained three days. “Then,” writes Prochorus, “he ordered me to go down to the town for paper and ink. And after two days I found him standing rapt in prayer. Said he to me -take the ink and paper, and stand on my right hand. And I did so. And there was a great lightning and thunder, so that the mountain shook. And I fell on the ground as if dead. Whereupon John stretched forth his hand and took hold of me, and said-‘stand up at this spot at my right hand. After which he prayed again, and after his prayer said unto me-son Prochorus, what thou hearest from my mouth, write upon the sheets. And having opened his mouth as he was standing praying, and looking up to heaven, he began to say-In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And so following on, he spake in order, standing as he was, and I wrote sitting.”

True instinct which tells us that the Gospel of St. John was the fruit of prayer as well as of memory; that it was thought out in some valley of rest, some hush among the hills; that it came from a solemn joy which it breathed forth upon others! “These things write I unto you, that your joy may be fulfilled.” Generation after generation it has been so. In the numbers numberless of the Redeemed, there can be very few who have not been brightened by the joy of that book. Still, at one funeral after another, hearts are soothed by the word in it which says-“I am the Resurrection and the Life.” Still the sorrowful and the dying ask to hear again and again “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” A brave young officer sent to the war in Africa, from a regiment at home, where he had caused grief by his extravagance, penitent and dying in his tent, during the fatal day of Isandula, scrawled in pencil -“Dying, dear father and mother – happy-for Jesus says, He that cometh to Me I will in no wise castout.” Our English Communion Office, with its divine beauty, is a texture shot through and through with golden threads from the discourse at Capernaum. Still are the disciples glad when they see the Lord in that record. It is the book of the churchs smiles; it is the gladness of the saints; it is the purest fountain of joy in all the literature of earth.

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary