1 John 1:1; John 20:1-10, John the Eyewitness

We have seen that John had a remarkable closeness to our Lord during His earthly life.  I hope you noticed also that John was a very thoughtful man.  Peter was quick to speak, as we know.  But even in Acts 3-4, when Peter and John are together in the temple when the blind man is healed, John is pretty quiet while Peter does the preaching.  But in his quietness, John is thinking.  He arrives at the empty tomb first but doesn’t go in.  But he’s thinking, pondering.  And he believes.  When the seven disciples are fishing in John 21 it’s John who realizes it’s Jesus on the shore.  That’s the picture I get. 

But it’s not just from the stories.  In 1 John 1:1 there are four terms John uses to tell us he was a true eyewitness of the life of Christ: heard, seen, looked upon, and handled.  The first two are in the Greek “perfect” tense, meaning John’s hearing and seeing have had lasting effects.  That makes sense.  John’s life continued to be changed and empowered about what he had heard and seen.  The other two terms are in the “aorist” tense, which means they were definite actions done and completed in the past.  That also makes sense.  John, at the time of writing 1 John, was no longer handling Jesus, who had ascended to heaven.  John’s “looking upon” Jesus was also completed.

But we need to talk a little more about this word.  You might think “seen” and “looked upon” are synonyms, but they are not.  The Greek word for “looked upon” means to behold, contemplate so as to perceive.  Wow!  That is powerful.  Have you ever looked at something but not really seen it or realized the significance of what you saw?  That’s what we’re talking about here.  John says, “I have seen with my eyes; and then I have contemplated what I saw and have come to a conclusion.”  Again, think about John when he has come to the empty tomb.  There is a delay of some sort as he waits for Peter to arrive.  John is looking.  Perhaps he is studying the layout of the graveclothes and the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head.  John is the only one of the four gospels to mention this.  That is why John 20:8 says, “he saw and believed.” 

There are illustrations of this in John’s gospel (and in all the gospels).  Nicodemus heard what Jesus said and at some point later on he believed.  We know this because he is helping Joseph of Arimathea when Christ was buried.  He had to contemplate for a long time.  The man born blind in John 9 contemplated about Christ throughout the day, realizing that Jesus who gave him sight was more than an ordinary man, more than a prophet, and he put his faith in Him as the Christ.  As you hear this, have you contemplated on Jesus?  In these days of “sound bytes” we may not be prone to stop and think deeply.  Perhaps you have heard the stories of Jesus, and you may know them by heart.  But have you stopped to look upon Him? … to think about who He is in light of the stories?