Read 1 John 1, Biblical History Matters!!!

You may not be aware that there are “evangelical” “scholars” today who are preaching the gospel while denying the validity of major parts of the Bible.  Apparently, a couple of these are men named Enns and Sparks.  I am not “up” on their stuff, not actually interested at this point in life in pursuing another line of attacks on the veracity of Scripture.  Apparently they have concluded that the entirety of Deuteronomy to 2 Kings is not a historical record but is a made-up story from hundreds of years later.  They have apparently decided that what archaeology says trumps what the Bible says, even though archaeology hasn’t nearly dug up everything.  It is possible they have never really been to Israel where what the Bible says is the key to the greatest archaeological finds, as in, “Oh, the Bible indicates there should be something here; so let’s dig here.”

Okay.  I have already introduced too much here.  But it is background for a simple word study I would like to present from 1 John 1.  This is the technical explanation of what John says in those verses.  I hope you don’t find it too technical.

·        v1,2: “was” = ein = past tense of eimi, to be, exist, happen, be present.

·        v1,3: “heard” = akouo = to hear.

·        v1,2,3: “seen” = orao = to see.

·        v1: “eyes” = ofthalmois = eyes.

·        v1: “looked upon” = theaomai = to behold, view attentively, contemplate.

·        v1: handled = yhlafaw = to touch, feel.

·        v2ab: life = zoe = possessing vitality, animate (well-illustrated by our youngest granddaughter who bears the name Zoe).

·        v2ab: manifested = efanerothh = to make visible or known what was hidden.

·        v2: bear witness = martureo = to affirm what one has seen or heard or experienced.

·        v3: declare = apaggello = to proclaim, bring good tidings, make known openly.

·        v3ab: fellowship = koinonia = association, communion, joint participation.

I know this is complicated, that “was” means “was” and “see” means “see” and so on.  But we want to be clear.  John is being an “evangelical”; we know this from the word declare which is where evangelical comes from: someone who declares the good tidings.  John says he declares the good news by bearing witness to what was made visible, something he saw and heard and touched!  No, not “something” but “Someone”, a Person with life/zwh. 

John says the goal of these things he is proclaiming is that we might have fellowship, a joint participation, a relationship, with God and Jesus.  And he wants us to have this relationship because that is the way we can have fullness of joy.  This is good news!

Bottom line: you cannot have full joy apart from the historical integrity of Jesus!  You cannot call yourself evangelical if you deny the historical integrity of Jesus in the words and witness of His Apostles who saw and heard and touched Him. 

Note one other thing John says.  You cannot separate fellowship with the historical Jesus (don’t be stupid, THERE IS NO OTHER JESUS than the historical Jesus) from the integrity of your own history.  Fellowship is inseparable from walk (v6-7).  And walk cannot be imagined apart from the issue of sin (v8-10. and on into the rest of John’s letter).  Sin is also real, as in historical, non-mythical, like Jesus is real!

Thank you for allowing me to vent, to use a lot of exclamation points.  This battle has been fought already in the modernist/ fundamentalist debate.  It has been fought in several seminaries in the last twenty years of the last century.  Don’t be led astray.  You cannot know Jesus without history.  That’s the definition of Incarnation.  God in the flesh.  God in history!