Book of 1 John Chapter 1 Vs. 2

The Word of Life

1 John 1:2 “(For the life was manifested, and we have seen [it], and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)”

This verse is parenthetical. Compare, for similar interruptions of the construction, 1Jhn. 1:3, John 1:14, 3:16, 3:31; 19:35.

The Life (ἡ ζωὴ)

The Word Himself who is the Life. Compare John 14:6; 5:26; 1Jhn. 5:11, 5:12. Life expresses the nature of the Word (John 1:4). The phrase, the Life, besides being equivalent to the Word, also indicates, like the Truth and the Light, an aspect of His being.

Manifested means made real or appeared. The life John and others saw (John 14:6), is what 1 John seeks to convey to its readers. John says this life, which is summed up and was shown forth in Jesus Christ, was with the Father; this statement echoes (John 1:1), and points to Christ’s preexistence, His eternal presence and oneness with God the Father.

Was manifested (ἐφανερώθη)

See on John 21:1. Corresponding with the Word was made flesh (John 1:14). The two phrases, however, present different aspects of the same truth. The Word became flesh, contemplates simply the historic fact of incarnation. The life was manifested, sets forth the unfolding of that fact in the various operations of life. The one denotes the objective process of the incarnation as such, the other the result of that process as related to human capacity of receiving and understanding it. The reality of the incarnation would be undeclared if it were said, the Life became flesh. The manifestation of the Life was a consequence of the incarnation of the Word, but it is not coextensive with it (Westcott).

that eternal life... Twenty Facts of Eternal Life by John

1. People can have it by believing on Christ and God (John 3:15-16, 3:36; 5:24; 6:40, 6:47).

2. It becomes a well springing up in the soul (John 4:14).

3. People must gather fruit unto life eternal (John 4:36).

4. It comes through searching the Scriptures (John 5:39).

5. People must labor for it (John 6:27). Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life.

6. It comes by drinking of (i.e., partaking of) the benefits of the blood of Jesus Christ by faith (John 6:54).

7. Christ has the words of eternal life (John 6:68).

8. Christ gives eternal life to His own who meet the conditions (John 6:27; 10:27-29).

9. God commands people to get it (John 12:50).

10. God sent Jesus to give it to all who come to Him through Christ (John 17:2).

11. To know or to experience God and Christ is eternal life (John 17:2-3).

12. Jesus Christ is that eternal life (1Jhn. 1:1-3).

13. This eternal life has actually been seen, heard, and handled (1Jhn. 1:1-3).

14. People must not only meet the 23 conditions of eternal life of John 6:27, but they must let permit it to remain in them after they get it (1Jhn. 2:24).

15. If people do permit let it to remain in them, then they will continue in the Son, and in the Father (1Jhn. 2:24).

16. Eternal life is promised to all (1Jhn. 2:25), but it is given only to those who meet the conditions of receiving and keeping it (John 6:27).

17. No one who hates his brother has it (1Jhn. 3:15).

18. It comes from God (1Jhn. 5:11).

19. It is only in God’s Son (1Jhn. 5:11).

20. All people may know they have it (1Jhn. 5:13, 5:20; John 3:16; 5:24; 17:2-3).

And (καὶ)

Recognized. Though He was in the world and was its Creator, yet the world did not recognize him. This is the relation of ideas in these three clauses, but John expresses this relation after the Hebrew manner, by simply putting the three side by side, and connecting them by καὶ, and. This construction is characteristic of John. Compare John 8:20, where the point of the passage is, that though Jesus was teaching publicly, where He might easily have been seized, yet no man attempted his seizure. This is expressed by two parallel clauses with the simple copulative. These words spake Jesus, etc., and no man laid hands on Him.

Have seen - bear witness - shew

Three ideas in the apostolic message: experience, testimony, announcement.

Bear witness

Revised version of the New Testament, more correctly, for witness: a witness would be, μάρτυρα as Acts 1:8. The sense is for witness-bearing or to bear witness. On the word, see Acts 1:22; 1Pet. 5:1. It is one of John's characteristic words, occurring nearly fifty times in various forms in his Gospel, and thirty or forty times in the Epistles and Revelation. The emphatic development of the idea of witness is peculiar to this Gospel. It evidently belongs to a time when men had begun to reason about the faith, and to analyze the grounds on which it rested (Westcott). See on John 1:7.

Shew (ἀπαγγέλλομεν)

Better, as Rev., declare. See on John 16:25. So here. The message comes from ἀπὸ God.

Jesus is eternal Spirit the Word, and yet He took on the body of mortal man to reveal Himself to mankind. He took on the form of flesh and dwelt among us for the purpose of experiencing our difficulties in the flesh. He also, took on the form of flesh that He might save us from our sin and death. With this phrase, John accentuates the eternality of Christ in His Pre-reincarnate glory.

That eternal life (τὴν ζωὴν τὴν αἰώνιον)

A particularly faulty translation, since it utterly fails to express the development of the idea of life, which is distinctly contemplated by the original. Render, as Rev., the life, the eternal life; or the life, even the eternal life. For a similar repetition of the article compare 1Jhn. 2:8; 4:9; 2Jhn. 1:11. This particular phrase occurs only here and John 2:25. John uses ζωὴ αἰώνιος eternal life, and ἡ αἰώνιος ζωη the eternal life, the former expressing the general conception of life eternal, and the latter eternal life as the special gift of Christ. Αἰώνιος eternal, describes the life in its quality of not being measured by time, a larger idea than that of mere duration.

Which (ἥτις)

Not the simple relative ἥ which, but defining the quality of the life, and having at the same time a kind of confirmatory and explanatory force of the word eternal: seeing that it was a life divine in its nature - with the Father - and therefore independent of temporal conditions.

With the Father (πρὸς τὸν πατέρα)

See on with God (John 1:1). In living, active relation and communion with the Father. The preposition of motion with the verb of repose involves eternity of relation with activity and life (Coleridge). The life eternally tended to the Father, even as it emanated from Him. It came forth from Him and was manifested to men, but to the end that it might take men into itself and unite them with the Father. The manifestation of life to men was a revelation of life, as, first of all and beyond all, centering in God. Hence, though life, abstractly, returns to God, as it proceeds from God, it returns bearing the redeemed world in its bosom. The complete divine ideal of life includes impartation, but impartation with a view to the practical development of all that receives it with reference to God as its vivifying, impelling, regulating, and inspiring center.

The Father

See on John 12:26. The title the Father occurs rarely in the Synoptists, and always with reference to the Son. In Paul only thrice (Rom. 6:4; 1Cor. 8:6; Eph. 2:18). Nowhere in Peter, James, Jude, or Revelation. Frequent in John's Gospel and Epistles, and in the latter, uniformly.

The death of His body on the cross brought salvation to all mankind. He gave the opportunity of salvation to all who would believe. To bear witness means to tell of something you have seen with your own eyes. Jesus is the quickening Spirit that brings eternal life to us.

John 11:25-26 “Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:” “And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?”

John 14:6 “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

1Jhn. 5:11 “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.”

The Life which the apostles proclaimed is intensely personal. Not only has that Life appeared, but it is nothing less than the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to people. The Incarnation is unquestionably in view.