1Jo 1:3-4 | KingComments | STEP | . John and the apostles cannot and do not want to keep to themselves what they have seen and heard. It was revealed to them, but they love to pass it on to you and me. They want us to partake of that. They must “proclaim” it, for they cannot but speak about it (cf. ). Their mouths spoke out of the abundance of their heart ( ). ‘To proclaim’ has with the meaning of making up a report of what you have learnt. John has learnt from the Lord and he made up a report of that to pass it on to us. Here it is written in a way that whenever you read his report, that proclamation comes to you. This is how I experience it too when I read it. If you read his report and you make yourself aware of it thoroughly, it is like time disappears and it makes you feel like you are in the company of the Lord Jesus during His life on earth. The purpose of his report is that you “have fellowship” with him and the apostles as witnesses. For the word ‘fellowship’ you could perhaps use the nowadays word ‘relationship’. However, the word relationship does not rightly reflect the real meaning of ‘fellowship’. A relationship makes you think of being related to someone in a certain way or a connection you have with someone. But the word ‘fellowship’ contains much more. It means that you share something together with a person. You have the same part. Children of God have fellowship with one another because they have Christ as their life. John wants you and me to have fellowship with him and his fellow apostles. By that he thus means that you and I share with them what we and they have in common and that is the Father and the Son. But having fellowship with the apostles is not a goal in itself. It surpasses that. John wants you to be involved in the fellowship that he and his fellow apostles have “with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ”, i.e. with Divine Persons. It is the desire of the apostles to expand the circle of fellowship. John’s purpose is that you together with him and the other apostles have fellowship with the Father and the Son. By saying that he means that they share in the part that the Father has and in the part that the Son has. That fellowship together with the apostles is possible because you have the same life as they have. In the way John writes it down here – he mentions the Father first – the emphasis is on the fellowship with the Father. Of course the Son is not less, for He is God as the Father is, He is one with Him ( ). The distinction is that He, the Son, has explained the Father ( ). All who have received Him, the Son, as their life, are now able to consciously enjoy the same fellowship with the Father as He has with the Father. You know the Father as the Father, because the Son is your life. What is always the case with the Son, is now the case with you too. Just as the Son, you want to glorify the Father and magnify and honor Him. The fellowship with the Father is therefore at the front. Immediately after that follows, as it were in the same breath, that the fellowship is also ‘with His Son Jesus Christ’. It is a fellowship that is at the same level as the fellowship with the Father. John is perfectly clear about that. By what has been declared to you about eternal life and what you have believed, you also have fellowship with the Son. The heart of the Father is focused on the Son and now your heart is also focused on Him. I repeat what I said earlier, that it is not about the degree that you live up to and experience it, but about what is typical to the new nature that you have received. . John declares with words, but he also declares by ‘writing’. In doing so, he records what he has proclaimed for the coming generations, so that everyone who hears it in this way, can be involved in the fellowship. Everything is recorded in the written Word. Therefore you do not need to follow some training or be taught by some or other enlightened spirit about this. It is written in God’s Word, you can read it yourself and personally enjoy it. John addresses all believers in what they have in Christ. He who has life, has fellowship. He who has fellowship, enjoys it. It gives the highest degree of joy. How could it be otherwise? There is “complete” joy if you enjoy fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. This joy is the joy of the Lord Jesus, Who speaks twice about “My joy” ( ). It is a joy which He fully wishes His disciples to have. The way He went, shows the content of His joy. He walked in undisturbed fellowship with the Father and always did what pleased the Father. That was His joy. He knew and enjoyed the undivided love of the Father. If you want to know and enjoy that full joy, His joy, you ought to abide in His love ( ). That happens if you keep His commandments ( ). The enjoyment of complete or full joy depends on a life in obedience. You see that in the life of the Son. He is your life and therefore it is the same with you. You will certainly feel your incompetence. Do you know what you may do because of that? You can pray to the Father in the Name of the Lord Jesus. The result will be that you receive full joy ( ). . After his introduction, in which he mainly deals with life , John speaks in about light . In his Gospel ‘life’ and ‘light’ are also closely connected ( ). The life that you received from God is life that is lived in the light. It belongs to the light and not to anything else. Your new life has got nothing to do with darkness and sin. That’s why that is the point of John’s message. He has not invented that message, but he announces what he has heard from Him, the Lord Jesus. The message says ”that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all”. You will seek in vain in the Gospel according to John for a statement of the Lord in which He uses these precise words. There is no need for such a statement, because it is clear that His whole life proclaimed that message, as it were. If you read about Him in John’s Gospel and see Him, you see light, while you see nothing that has got to do with darkness. When it is stated here that God is light, it doesn’t mean that it is a feature of God, but that it is about His Being, about Who He is. His whole Being is light. All His features come from that. God is also love. That is said hereafter in the letter, even twice ( ). It is important to announce that God is light. It is about fellowship with Divine Persons. That fellowship can only happen in the light, in accordance with the perfect purity of God. God is always light. He was that too when there was no creation yet. He is light and is also in the light, He is surrounded by it ( ). The fact that despite that, it is still said that in Him “there is no darkness at all”, has to do with time. It indicates that God is related to His creation, where spiritual darkness entered through sin. You also read that the Lord Jesus came in the darkness and that the darkness did not comprehend it ( ). . The fact that God is light and that our fellowship can only be enjoyed in the light, excludes any possibility of walking in the darkness. It is absolutely not possible to say that we have fellowship with God and the Lord Jesus, while we walk in the darkness at the same time. John speaks in general terms and even includes himself thereby. You can derive that from the word “we”. After all, it is about speaking out a particular confession. Then it is something that concerns each one who confesses to be a Christian and says to live in fellowship with God and Christ. John points out that it is basically impossible that there is a relation between light and darkness. It is not possible to belong to light and to darkness at the same time. Here you see again that John presents the things in black and white. His concern, so to speak, is not how you walk, but where you walk. His concern is not your practice, but your new life. Practice is certainly important and your new life ought to be visible in it. We will pay attention to that later. The point now is, what is typical for the new life, where it is taking place and where it cannot possibly take place. It is a lie if a person says he has fellowship with the Father and the Son, while he walks in the darkness. Such a person does not live in accordance with the truth. He ‘does not practice the truth’, for he does not know it and does not have it. He may present himself as a person who knows and has the truth, but his walk in the darkness, thus apart from God, shows that he is lying. Now read 1 John 1:3-6 again. Reflection: What do you learn in these verses about fellowship and about joy?

‏ 1 John 1:3-4

Fellowship and Complete Joy

1Jn 1:3. John and the apostles cannot and do not want to keep to themselves what they have seen and heard. It was revealed to them, but they love to pass it on to you and me. They want us to partake of that. They must “proclaim” it, for they cannot but speak about it (cf. Acts 4:20). Their mouths spoke out of the abundance of their heart (Mt 12:34b).

‘To proclaim’ has with the meaning of making up a report of what you have learnt. John has learnt from the Lord and he made up a report of that to pass it on to us. Here it is written in a way that whenever you read his report, that proclamation comes to you. This is how I experience it too when I read it. If you read his report and you make yourself aware of it thoroughly, it is like time disappears and it makes you feel like you are in the company of the Lord Jesus during His life on earth.

The purpose of his report is that you “have fellowship” with him and the apostles as witnesses. For the word ‘fellowship’ you could perhaps use the nowadays word ‘relationship’. However, the word relationship does not rightly reflect the real meaning of ‘fellowship’. A relationship makes you think of being related to someone in a certain way or a connection you have with someone. But the word ‘fellowship’ contains much more. It means that you share something together with a person. You have the same part.

Children of God have fellowship with one another because they have Christ as their life. John wants you and me to have fellowship with him and his fellow apostles. By that he thus means that you and I share with them what we and they have in common and that is the Father and the Son.

But having fellowship with the apostles is not a goal in itself. It surpasses that. John wants you to be involved in the fellowship that he and his fellow apostles have “with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ”, i.e. with Divine Persons. It is the desire of the apostles to expand the circle of fellowship. John’s purpose is that you together with him and the other apostles have fellowship with the Father and the Son. By saying that he means that they share in the part that the Father has and in the part that the Son has. That fellowship together with the apostles is possible because you have the same life as they have.

In the way John writes it down here – he mentions the Father first – the emphasis is on the fellowship with the Father. Of course the Son is not less, for He is God as the Father is, He is one with Him (Jn 10:30). The distinction is that He, the Son, has explained the Father (Jn 1:18). All who have received Him, the Son, as their life, are now able to consciously enjoy the same fellowship with the Father as He has with the Father. You know the Father as the Father, because the Son is your life. What is always the case with the Son, is now the case with you too. Just as the Son, you want to glorify the Father and magnify and honor Him.

The fellowship with the Father is therefore at the front. Immediately after that follows, as it were in the same breath, that the fellowship is also ‘with His Son Jesus Christ’. It is a fellowship that is at the same level as the fellowship with the Father. John is perfectly clear about that. By what has been declared to you about eternal life and what you have believed, you also have fellowship with the Son. The heart of the Father is focused on the Son and now your heart is also focused on Him.

I repeat what I said earlier, that it is not about the degree that you live up to and experience it, but about what is typical to the new nature that you have received.

1Jn 1:4. John declares with words, but he also declares by ‘writing’. In doing so, he records what he has proclaimed for the coming generations, so that everyone who hears it in this way, can be involved in the fellowship. Everything is recorded in the written Word. Therefore you do not need to follow some training or be taught by some or other enlightened spirit about this. It is written in God’s Word, you can read it yourself and personally enjoy it.

John addresses all believers in what they have in Christ. He who has life, has fellowship. He who has fellowship, enjoys it. It gives the highest degree of joy. How could it be otherwise? There is “complete” joy if you enjoy fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.

This joy is the joy of the Lord Jesus, Who speaks twice about “My joy” (Jn 15:11 ; Jn 17:13). It is a joy which He fully wishes His disciples to have. The way He went, shows the content of His joy. He walked in undisturbed fellowship with the Father and always did what pleased the Father. That was His joy. He knew and enjoyed the undivided love of the Father. If you want to know and enjoy that full joy, His joy, you ought to abide in His love (Jn 15:9). That happens if you keep His commandments (Jn 15:10). The enjoyment of complete or full joy depends on a life in obedience.

You see that in the life of the Son. He is your life and therefore it is the same with you. You will certainly feel your incompetence. Do you know what you may do because of that? You can pray to the Father in the Name of the Lord Jesus. The result will be that you receive full joy (Jn 16:24).

1Jn 1:5. After his introduction, in which he mainly deals with life, John speaks in 1Jn 1:5 about light. In his Gospel ‘life’ and ‘light’ are also closely connected (Jn 1:4-5). The life that you received from God is life that is lived in the light. It belongs to the light and not to anything else. Your new life has got nothing to do with darkness and sin. That’s why that is the point of John’s message. He has not invented that message, but he announces what he has heard from Him, the Lord Jesus. The message says ”that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all”.

You will seek in vain in the Gospel according to John for a statement of the Lord in which He uses these precise words. There is no need for such a statement, because it is clear that His whole life proclaimed that message, as it were. If you read about Him in John’s Gospel and see Him, you see light, while you see nothing that has got to do with darkness.

When it is stated here that God is light, it doesn’t mean that it is a feature of God, but that it is about His Being, about Who He is. His whole Being is light. All His features come from that. God is also love. That is said hereafter in the letter, even twice (1Jn 4:8 ; 16).

It is important to announce that God is light. It is about fellowship with Divine Persons. That fellowship can only happen in the light, in accordance with the perfect purity of God. God is always light. He was that too when there was no creation yet. He is light and is also in the light, He is surrounded by it (1Jn 1:7).

The fact that despite that, it is still said that in Him “there is no darkness at all”, has to do with time. It indicates that God is related to His creation, where spiritual darkness entered through sin. You also read that the Lord Jesus came in the darkness and that the darkness did not comprehend it (Jn 1:5).

1Jn 1:6. The fact that God is light and that our fellowship can only be enjoyed in the light, excludes any possibility of walking in the darkness. It is absolutely not possible to say that we have fellowship with God and the Lord Jesus, while we walk in the darkness at the same time. John speaks in general terms and even includes himself thereby. You can derive that from the word “we”. After all, it is about speaking out a particular confession. Then it is something that concerns each one who confesses to be a Christian and says to live in fellowship with God and Christ.

John points out that it is basically impossible that there is a relation between light and darkness. It is not possible to belong to light and to darkness at the same time. Here you see again that John presents the things in black and white. His concern, so to speak, is not how you walk, but where you walk. His concern is not your practice, but your new life. Practice is certainly important and your new life ought to be visible in it. We will pay attention to that later. The point now is, what is typical for the new life, where it is taking place and where it cannot possibly take place.

It is a lie if a person says he has fellowship with the Father and the Son, while he walks in the darkness. Such a person does not live in accordance with the truth. He ‘does not practice the truth’, for he does not know it and does not have it. He may present himself as a person who knows and has the truth, but his walk in the darkness, thus apart from God, shows that he is lying.

Now read 1 John 1:3-6 again.

Reflection: What do you learn in these verses about fellowship and about joy?