Proclamation

The most important thing that John has to say in his preface is that Christianity is Jesus Christ. Without Christ there would have been no Christianity, for Christianity began by God’s revelation of Himself in Jesus and continues by the authoritative testimony of the apostles and others to that revelation.

In yesterday’s study, we ended by drawing our attention to the phrase “the word of life” and mentioning the way this might be understood at first glance. We said that we would tend to interpret it as “the life-giving Word” or “Christ who gives life.” There are several reasons for questioning this first and easy identification of “the word of life” with Jesus, however.

The second channel through which John gained knowledge of Christ was the eye, for the apostle says that he and other apostles “have seen” Him. Of all the sense words used by John in this preface—hear, see, look upon, and touch—this one was apparently the most important to John personally, for he repeats it in each of the first three verses.

As objective and tangible as the revelation of God in Christ was, this would nevertheless have gone unnoticed by John and the others unless God had also intervened to reveal Christ to them subjectively.

At the conclusion to yesterday’s study, we saw that the first word used to describe how the Gospel is shared is martyrein, which originally denoted the bearing of testimony in a court of law.
Second, John says, we “proclaim” what we have seen and heard to you. On the surface this verb seems much like the other, involving a verbalized testimony to what has been seen and heard. But it also suggests something else. It suggests a commission from Christ, and therefore authority.