The year was 1200. The Roman Emperor Frederick II believed humanity was born with a language at birth, and that language must be either Hebrew, Greek, or Latin. Frederick was just not sure which language our birth language was. So, Emperor Frederick ordered several newborn babies to be hidden away immediately after birth. He gave them shelter and assigned women to feed the children, clean them, and bathe them. However, the emperor ordered that the women not make any sounds or gestures of any kind in the presence of the babies. The emperor believed that by doing so, the babies would grow and speak the language instilled at birth. Does anyone know what language the babies came to speak? It was not Hebrew, Greek, Latin, or any other language at all because every baby died. They did not die due to lack of food, shelter, clothing, or bodily care. They died because they had no hope. They died from a condition sometimes called “failure to thrive.” The experiment showed we are not just a walking stomach, an object to be talked about, an article to be handled, or an entity to be sheltered. We require hope to live. Without hope, there is no life. The foundation of hope for Christians is Christ Jesus.
How, then, do we thrive as Christians? This question is at the heart of Apostle John’s first letter. I want us to look at John’s letter from the context of thriving as Christians.
John’s first letter was written to an early church in crisis. The church had experienced persecution from the Jews and then the Romans. That persecution began in Jerusalem and resulted in the stoning of a man named Stephen. The persecution resulted in the death of John’s brother James by an executioner’s sword. The Book of Acts chronicles the beatings that Paul experienced due to persecution. Whether known to John or not, by the time he wrote this letter, he was the lone surviving apostle of Jesus Christ. All the others had been killed due to persecution. The church was no stranger to persecution. Despite the persecution, or perhaps as some believe, because of the persecution, the church grew.
What was the heresy? Then, in addition to persecution, the church faced a new crisis called heresy. We don’t use the word "heresy" very often anymore. Heresy is a religious belief that differs from the accepted set of beliefs. Persecution comes from outside the church seeking to shrink it. Heresy comes from within the church seeking to divide it. The early church faced both. John’s letter dealt with those within the church seeking to divide it with heresy.
Within the church, an idea began to form and spread. The idea was that Jesus was the Son of God, Jesus was divine, but that Jesus was never human and, therefore, Jesus never died. There was no virgin birth. The person called Jesus only appeared to be human but was not human at all. Jesus did not go to the cross; someone else died on the cross in Jesus’ place, with the leading candidate for that role going to Simon of Cyrene, who the gospels said at one point was made to carry Jesus’ cross. The blood of Simon, or perhaps someone else, was shed on the cross, but not Jesus's blood. This idea was born because people could not accept that God would die for his people. The technical term for this heresy is Docetism and the heresy was tearing at the foundation of the early Christian church.
Knowing this bit of history, we turn to 1 John 1. John wrote, “1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4 We write this to make our joy complete” (1 John 1:1-4). John’s opening words did three things. First, the words made clear that Christ taught He had two natures: the Son of God and the Son of Man. Second, the apostles uniformly testified to the truth of Jesus’ dual nature. Third, accepting the truth about Christ brought people into fellowship with God and other believers.
John began by stating Jesus' dual nature was as the Son of God and the Son of Man: “That which was from the beginning” (1 John 1:1a), called Jesus “the Word of Life” (1 John 1b), and was He “with the Father” (1 John 1:2b). These words are strikingly like the opening words of John’s Gospel, “1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning” (John 1:1-2). John emphasized the divine nature of Jesus as being with God and as God in the beginning. The church and the heretics accepted the divine nature of Jesus.
But John then said of this same Jesus, “which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched” (1 John 1:1), “we have seen and heard” (1 John 1:5), and we are purified by “the blood of Jesus” (1 John 1:7b). John was describing human physical traits and human senses by which John and others observed firsthand that Jesus was, in fact, human. Moreover, this divine Jesus and human Jesus was the one who bled upon the cross for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus was divine and human, and John knew it.
Secondly, John said that he and other apostles “proclaim” (1 John 1:1, 3) and “write” (1 John 1:4) these truths about Jesus without hesitation or reservation. There was no division among the apostles, and each proclaimed, wrote, and testified about Jesus, knowing full well that doing so made them targets for persecution. As I mentioned a few minutes ago, John was the only member of Jesus’ inner circle who had not been executed for making such claims.
Lastly, John said he spoke the truth to bring fellowship to others. John desired others to fellowship with him because John’s fellowship was with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ (1 John 1:3). Fellowship is a deep sense of togetherness among people who have a shared set of binding yet loving convictions. Let me illustrate a moment from my life from this past weekend. I spent time with many of my first cousins as we celebrated my sister’s and my brother-in-law's lives. While it was nice to get reacquainted with some cousins I had not seen in decades, there was still a distance that could be closed with those who are atheist. In the Book of Amos, we would read, “3 Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?” (Amos 3:3). Clearly, the answer is no. Two will not walk together unless they agree to do so. When I spoke at the memorial service about the hope believers have in Christ, it was clear that my cousins who are atheists were not walking with me. Thus, while we had friendly conversations, we did not have fellowship because, as John said, our fellowship is with God and his Son Jesus Christ. That is not true of atheists. John was laying the foundation that those who had been in the church but now denied the person of Jesus had broken fellowship not just with other believers but with God and his Son Jesus Christ.
John addressed the divided situation within the church in a pastoral manner, seeking to clarify his authority, the risk he was willing to take to proclaim the truth, and the substance of the truth so that the church's people would thrive. John then gave them the message again, emphasizing the risk heretics faced in denying the truth about Christ.
John wrote, “5 This is the message we have heard from him [Jesus] and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). The point here is quite sharp and absolute. People will be found either in the light of Christ or in the darkness of evil. You are either in fellowship with Jesus or you are not. There is no gray area. People who fellowship with Jesus thrive in a Godly sense and have eternal life with God. Those who are not in fellowship with Jesus do not thrive and will have eternal separation from God.
John made this point even sharper. “6 If we claim to have fellowship with him [Jesus] and yet walk in the darkness [deny his nature], we lie and do not live out the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:6-7). If you claim you follow the teachings of Christ but you deny truths about him, John says you are a liar to claim fellowship with Jesus because you are not in fellowship with Jesus. In John’s context, people claimed the divinity of Christ, denied the human nature of Christ, and yet still claimed to be in fellowship with Christ. John said you cannot deny the blood of Jesus that bought you salvation and say you are in fellowship with that same Jesus.
Finally, John said, “8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:9). Perhaps, John specifically had in mind here that if those who deny the humanity of Christ believed they had not sinned, then they need to think again. Saying untrue things about Jesus, all the while claiming to be a Christian, is a sin. It is an affront to God. But John gave some good news here, “9 If we confess our sins, he [Jesus] is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). We can be in fellowship with Christ through confession of our sins to Him. If we have made a mistake, Jesus, and only Jesus, can fix it for us. That is the good news of the gospel of Jesus.
This is such an important point that John did not want anyone to miss it, so he repeated it, “10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us. 1 My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2 He [Jesus] is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 1:10, 2:1-2). John wanted to preserve the fellowship of believers and invite new people to join, as well as those who had been led astray, to come back into fellowship with Jesus. John wanted people to have hope and to thrive as Christians.
John began his first letter to combat a heresy within the church while the church separately experienced persecution. The church universal continues to experience persecution. In the United States, there is a persistent but low level of persecution. We are fortunate that the government is prohibited from engaging in persecution by the Bill of Rights of the Constitution. However, the church, particularly in the United States, faces many heresies that have divided the churches, leaving many in darkness. One of the major heresies of today’s American churches is the opposite of Docetism, called Arianism. Arianism is the belief that Jesus was human but was not divine. It is the mirror image of Docetism that John wrote about. A survey done in 2015 showed that 44% of all Americans believed that Jesus was only human and was not or likely not divine. Many of these people regularly attend churches. This is a belief of the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Progressive Christian movement, and the United Universalists, and increasingly, it is the view of some churches of mainline denominations. The Word of God tells them all these people are not in fellowship with God and his Son, Jesus Christ. These groups will not thrive, do not possess hope, and end in darkness.
To thrive as Christians, we must know what believing in Christ means. At the highest level, there are five things I would like us to test ourselves on today about our own beliefs. To thrive as a Christian, you and I need to:
- Belief in one God, existing as three persons—Father, Son (Jesus Christ), and Holy Spirit—equal in essence, distinct in role (Matthew 28:19, 2 Corinthians 13:14).
- Jesus is entirely God and fully man, born of the Virgin Mary, who lived a sinless life, died for humanity’s sins, and rose bodily from the dead (John 1:1, 14; Philippians 2:5-11).
- Salvation is a gift from God, received through faith in Jesus’ atoning sacrifice, not earned by works (Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 5:1).
- The Bible is divinely inspired, authoritative, and sufficient for faith and practice (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
- Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead, and believers will be resurrected to eternal life (1 Corinthians 15:20-23, Revelation 22:12).
You can certainly add more to this list and make it better. However, these five beliefs seem essential to agreeing with Jesus and fellowshipping with Him. These beliefs will keep you on the same road with Him, moving toward the same destination. These beliefs allow us to fellowship through the joys we share and the trials of life. If you struggle with any of these beliefs, we should talk and see whether it is a matter of how I expressed something or that your struggle runs deeper. As John said, knowing the truth and believing in it is shared so that we can have fellowship with the Father, his Son, Jesus Christ, and each other. When we can do that, then our joy will be complete. Amen and Amen.