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1, 2, and 3 John, Volume 51
Word Biblical Commentary
By Stephen S. Smalley, Bruce M. Metzger, David A. Hubbard, Glenn W. Barker, John D. W. Watts, Ralph P. Martin ZONDERVAN
Copyright © 2008 Thomas Nelson, Inc.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-310-52166-2
CHAPTER 1
Preface: The Word of Life (1:1–4)
Form/Structure /Setting
The preface of 1 John clearly echoes the prologue, or introduction, to the Fourth Gospel (John 1; see further below, 5–6). Unlike the author of John's Gospel, the writer of 1 John does not announce in his preface all the ideas which will be developed in the body of the work (cf. Smalley, 'Johannes 1, 51," 300–307). But three of the main themes are introduced, and these are subsequently picked up and developed: life in Christ (cf. 5:11–12, 20); the historical reality of God's revelation in Jesus Christ (cf. 4:2; 5:6); and the idea of "seeing" in association with witness (cf. 4:14, 5:6–12). Nevertheless, perhaps because 1 John is different in character and approach from the Fourth Gospel, the preface to the letter is less clear in its expression and less profound in its thought than the Johannine prologue (see further 5; also xxvi–viii, especially xxvii).
Possibly the preface to 1 John was constructed by the author after he had written the remainder of the letter (cf. the prologue to the Fourth Gospel; see Smalley, John, 119–21), as a summary statement of his main topic and some of its ramifications. But equally, and in our view more probably, the preface may have been composed shortly before the main body of the work (note the way in which the terms [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ["news"], [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ["we have heard"] and [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ["we are proclaiming"] in v 5 appear to pick up and clarify the leading ideas expressed in vv 1–4).
The opening of 1 John, like its conclusion, lacks any of the literary features which are normally associated with the composition of a letter as such (contrast 2 and 3 John; and cf. the introduction, xxxiii); although Francis (ZNW 61 [1970] 110–26) points out that formal endings were not a necessary part of ancient letter–writing. Rather than acting as the beginning of a letter, 1 John 1:1–4 appears, on the contrary, to be a self–contained literary unit. (Houlden, 46, stresses this characteristic, and suggests that a secondary, editorial hand was responsible for the preface; but in view of the connections between vv 1–4 and v 5, stated above, we find this view unconvincing.)
Several commentators (e.g. Dodd, 1–3; Houlden, 45–46) have noted some roughness in the grammar of these four verses, and a consequent obscurity in their exact meaning. Nevertheless, they constitute an impressive introduction to the work, and are constructed with dramatic sensitivity (cf. Bultmann, 12–13). Thus, (a) the interest in the passage is constantly thrown forward, from the momentous fact that the word of life has been revealed to the further climax that this word is now being disclosed to the present readers; (b) the suspense is built up and intensified in the movement toward this climax by a series of similar, short (and sometimes repeated) phrases: [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ("what we have heard"), [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ("what we have seen," v 1), and so on. In this introduction the main subject of 1 John is firmly stated: the gospel means "life in Jesus Christ."
Comment
1. The emphasis in the opening verses of 1 John falls on "the word of life" (v 1) which the writer is proclaiming. In a long and grammatically complicated sentence, John announces his theme by stating first the object of his proclamation ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], "what was there from the beginning"), which he later defines as "(concerning) the word of life" ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). Not until v 3 does he complete the syntax of his sentence by supplying the subject and verb ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], "we are proclaiming"). Most English translations of John's preface, including our own, attempt to unravel this "grammatical tangle" (Dodd, 3) by creating separate sentences out of the single period. But, despite its cumbrous construction, the important effect of the Gr. is to underscore the nature of the "object which is proclaimed" (the "word"), rather than "the activity of proclaiming it" (Marshall, 100).
[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. A major problem in the opening verse of 1 John is the meaning of the ambiguous phrase, "(concerning) the word of life" ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). (The genitive [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ["of life"] may indicate both the content and the gift of the word, as Stott, 60, suggests; for the concept of "life" in John see further the comment on v 2.) Does this refer to Jesus himself, as the living Word (Logos) of God (cf. John 1:14), or to the life–giving message, the "word" (logos) preached about him? (The earliest extant NT manuscripts, being written in capital letters throughout, make it impossible for us to tell, in cases like this, whether the original writer intended to give an "upper" or "lower" case significance to technical terms such as [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) On the solution to this problem depends the meaning of the whole passage, 1 John 1:1–4. Thus, although it is the final phrase in the verse, we shall consider it first.
[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] The preface to 1 John contains obvious reflections of the introduction to the Fourth Gospel; and (against Robinson, Redating, 307) this suggests the likelihood that the Gospel in its finished form, including the prologue, was written before 1 John. Note in v 1 the use of an apx?IS ("from the beginning"; cf. John 1:1, [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], "in the beginning"); and [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] (cf. John 1:1, [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], "the word"). Note also the thought of "life revealed" (1 John 1:2 = John 1:4, 9), and of the Incarnation as an historical reality demanding response (1 John 1:1–3 = John 1:9–14).
If the opening verses of 1 John are intended to echo the introduction to John's Gospel, then it may be claimed that the "Logos of life" is personal in reference, and ultimately describes Jesus himself (so Haas, Handbook, 23–24; Schnackenburg, 60–61). In this case the background to the term [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], in both the Gospel and 1 John, is Jewish (cf. Gen 1; Ps 33:6; Prov 8:22–31; Sir 24) as well as Greek (Stoic; cf. also Philo, De spec. leg. 4.14; De opific. 26). See further Dodd, 3–4. The first clause in 1 John 1:1 will then refer to the pre–existent Logos, the following three clauses "to the incarnate Logos, that is to say 'the Jesus of history,' who, as a Man among men, could be seen, heard and touched" (Dodd, 1–2). Similarly, when the writer claims here that "the eternal life which existed with the Father has been revealed to us" (v 2), it could be argued that he is saying virtually what is expressed in the prologue to the Fourth Gospel: that the creative Logos, who was with God in the beginning, and who is both light and life, tabernacled among us in the Incarnation (John 1:1–14, especially 9–13). In this way God's being was finally revealed, and his will was decisively expressed; heaven and earth were uniquely brought together.
But it is not absolutely certain that the writer of 1 John is modeling his preface on the prologue to the Gospel, and that [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] in v 1 must be construed in this way. Westcott (6–7) and Dodd (4–5), for example, argue that the reference in this passage is to the gospel, of which Jesus is the center; and they base this interpretation both on their understanding of the context (where it is the "life," and not the "word," which is said to have been revealed, v 2), and on the parallel uses of the expression "word of life" (meaning "gospel") elsewhere in the NT (e.g. Phil 2:16; Acts 5:20; although, as Dodd, 5, admits, "Pauline and Lucan usage is not decisive for a Johannine passage").
However, these two interpretations of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] need not be opposed to each other; and possibly there is an intentional ambivalence at this point. For the life-giving word of the gospel is essentially a proclamation about Jesus who is the living Word of God. "Jesus gave the word and embodied it" (Houlden, 52; cf. Westcott 7; Marshall 103). In any case, the eventual focus here is on Jesus himself, more than on the witnesses to him (le Fort, Structures, 59–60). See further the debate on the meaning of "word" in this passage between Weir (ExpTim 86 [1974/75] 118–20) and Grayston (ExpTim 86 [1974/ 75] 279); cf. also Dunn, Christology, 245–46.
A further problem surrounding the phrase [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] is its relation to the preceding clauses in v 1. It may be taken closely with these, to mean that the writer is declaring what he has heard, seen and felt in respect of "the word of life" (so Marshall, 102 n.11). However, this brings four neuter relative pronouns into apposition with the masculine [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], and overlooks the change of construction from relative clauses to the use of the preposition [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (literally, "concerning"). Alternatively the phrase may be construed as an independent, coordinate clause, which supplies an additional object to the verb "declare" (v 3; for [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], literally, "we are declaring about," see John 16:25). In this case John is defining further the area with which the things heard, seen and felt are concerned (cf. Law, Tests, 368–69). However, as Houlden (50) points out, the difference between these two constructions (and the interpretations to which they give rise) is not very significant. Our translation attempts to lean in the direction of the former.
[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. The clause at the start of v 3, [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ("what we have seen and heard we are declaring to you as well"), resumes the structure, and to some extent the language, of this verse ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], "which we have heard/seen"), showing that the relatives in the two verses are identical in meaning. Thus the presence of the neuter pronoun in v 3 ("what we have seen and heard") means that the relative pronoun 6 here must be interpreted in a similarly impersonal way ("that which was," not "he who was"). This may suggest that, even if John has the person of Jesus at the back of his mind here (see above), the stress at the opening of this verse is on the message about Jesus.
The significance of the phrase "what was there from the beginning" is partly determined by the way in which "the word ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) of life," at the conclusion of this verse, is understood (see the comment above); although, as Marshall (102 n. 10) says, the antecedent of the relative clauses which introduce v 1 need not be directly identified with the phrase [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. If an impersonal reference is maintained (the "word" as Christian preaching), the sense of an [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ("from the beginning") becomes purely temporal, and indeed local. The author is then speaking about the "beginning" of the gospel, in terms of both its content (the ministry of Jesus) and its proclamation (the witness of the disciples). Cf. 2:7, 24; 3:11. This interpretation is adopted by Wendt, ZNW 21 (1922) 38–42; cf. also Dunn, Christology, 245–46.
However, a personal reference (the "word" of God as ultimately disclosed in Jesus) need not be excluded from this context. This is confirmed by the absence of the article with [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], as in John 1:1 (a stylistic feature which seems, in both cases, to be influenced by the LXX of Gen 1:1). If, as in the prologue to the Fourth Gospel, the reference of [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] here is personal (and in any case the "message" concerns the "person" of Jesus), John is claiming that the Christian revelation is "coeval in some sense with creation" (Westcott, 5; cf. Brooke, 1–2; note also 2:13–14). Moreover, the allusion is possibly to the pre–existent Word in eternity itself, rather than to the "beginning" of creation as such. For, unlike John 1:3, there is no mention of the creation in the preface to 1 John; and [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ("from the beginning") here differs from [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ("in the beginning") at John 1:1 (so Marshall, 100 n.5; cf. also Conzelmann, "'Was von Anfang War,'" 207–14; Schnackenburg, 59).
If this verse includes a reference to the pre–existent Word of God, it means that John begins his letter by introducing a christology which is deliberately and insistently "high." He views Jesus, on this showing, as one with God (cf. John 10:30; 13:3), and not only as one with man (cf. John 14:28). In this case the writer may be attempting to balance the "low" christology of his ex–Jewish readers, just as elsewhere he is resisting the "high" christology of his ex–pagan church members (see further above, xxvi–viii, for a discussion of the intention behind 1 John).
[TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ("we have heard ... we felt [with our hands]"). Perhaps for the benefit of those of his readers who were entertaining docetic (i.e. humanity–denying) views of Christ's person, the writer stresses the reality of God's self–disclosure in time and space. In so doing John moves beyond the concept of the life–giving word about Jesus, to the Word of God disclosed in Jesus (the life–giver) himself. For the reference of these four evocative verbs ("we have heard, seen with our eyes, observed, and felt with our hands") is very practical. In a typically Johannine manner, the writer speaks of the Christian revelation as a unique conjunction of the timeless and the historical. What was true from eternity ("there from the beginning") was gradually and actually disclosed, and personally experienced, in history (note the imperfect [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], "was," a "past continuous" tense, followed by a succession of two verbs in the perfect, a tense denoting some past action with present implications; the change to the aorist in the final two verbs need not be significant).
The verbs in the first two clauses ("which we have heard," "which we have seen") are significant, since "hearing" and especially "sight" are ideas which are close to "faith" in the Fourth Gospel (cf. John 10:27; 20:29; see further Smalley, John, 139–40). In this verse a similar ambivalence may be associated with [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. John may thus be saying that the truths which prepared the way for the gospel were finally realized in Jesus (cf. Heb 1:12), when the "word of life" could be "heard" in his preaching and "seen" in his ministry by those who believed.
The next two clauses ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], "which we have observed, and felt with our hands") may also be taken together, since they balance the previous pair. The use of the verb [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] "which we have observed"), following [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ([TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], "which we have seen"), probably represents a literary variation (so Schnackenburg, 60), rather than a difference in meaning (Westcott, 6, "calm contemplation"; Brooke, 4, "intelligent beholding"). In either case the writer repeats the typically Johannine notion of "sight" as being important for both history (the incarnate Word was visible) and faith (we are called to believe in him).
The words [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] ("and felt with our hands") possibly connect with the tradition behind Luke 24:39 (the risen Jesus says, "Touch me and see," using the aorist [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], "touch"); although interestingly the resurrection is not otherwise mentioned in 1 John. They also make the final reference to the Incarnation in this verse a climactic and intensely personal one. As Houlden (53) says, for the fourth evangelist, as for this writer, "touching is somehow closely linked with awareness of the risen Christ." (See also John 20:17, "do not hold on to me"; and vv 25–27, "reach out your hand and put it into my side.")
(Continues...)
Excerpted from 1, 2, and 3 John, Volume 51 by Stephen S. Smalley, Bruce M. Metzger, David A. Hubbard, Glenn W. Barker, John D. W. Watts, Ralph P. Martin. Copyright © 2008 Thomas Nelson, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of ZONDERVAN.
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