NOTES for Jo1 1:1-10

In bearing witness to Christ, John at the same time bears witness to the Kingdom. It cannot be otherwise: they are inseparable. The very appearing of the Son is connected with the fact that God's life, the life of the heavenly Father, formerly invisible and unreachable, becomes visible (v. 2). Visible through a concrete Man and in a concrete Man, whom one can touch with one's hands and examine just as we can examine and touch everything that exists in our world (v. 1). And through this, one can become part of the Kingdom, share in the life by which the Father lives and which the Son bears in Himself in all its fullness (v. 3). This is Christianity. John does not speak by chance of the fullness of joy (v. 4; the Synodal translation calls it "perfect joy"). The point is that joy which is connected with God's presence in the life of a person or a community. This joy, of course, was known even before the coming of Christ.

But no one in pre-Christian times knew its fullness. And the issue here is not that it was never experienced in fullness by anyone, nor even that every joy, together with life, then ended in Sheol, the world of shadows, the kingdom of the dead, which made everyone equal. The issue is that the breath of God, the breath of the Kingdom, could not be contained in fullness in any human heart - and therefore could not be revealed to the world from within, so as to be accessible to every seeker.

From outside, this breath reached people, and in the world at all times there were people who sensed it. But to transform our world completely, to return it to the state in which it could again become part of the Kingdom, as it was before the fall, can be done only from within. And the Savior, coming into the world, brings the Kingdom into it. In all the fullness now accessible to every seeker who is ready to trust Him.

But to share in the life of the Kingdom means not only to touch it outwardly. It also means to let it in. To make our heart become the door through which the breath of the Kingdom enters the world. This is beyond the strength of fallen man. But one can open one's heart to Christ, let Him into one's life, and then He will make our heart the door through which the breath of the Kingdom will burst into the world just as it once burst into it through the open windows of the upper room in Zion. Then our life will become Christian to the end - we will live by the Kingdom and in the Kingdom.

In today's reading from the letter of the holy apostle John, an interesting logical connection can be traced. John writes that God is light, and therefore if we are in darkness, this is a sure sign that we are not in communion with Him. This is understandable. But he continues: if we are in the light, then we have fellowship with one another. That is, the condition of this fellowship is being in the light. What kind of fellowship is this? It is entirely obvious that one can communicate with people while in a state of sin of any gravity, while being a militant atheist, and so on. One cannot claim that non-Christians do not communicate with one another.

Apparently John is speaking of a special kind of fellowship whose condition is being in the light of Christ. He probably has in mind the fellowship, the bond of people in the Church, when our relationships are determined first of all not by likes and dislikes, but by that for which, or more precisely around Whom, we are gathered: the person of Christ. His light enlightens and heals all relationships.

The fact that God is light, John obviously is not the first one to say it. And it is not even a matter that he could hear something like that from the mouth of the Savior: they speak of that in the books of the Old Testament too. Why then the apostle says it, as if he was opening and proclaiming again something which is an important part of the Good News? Before, nobody of course doubted that there is no darkness in God. But it is often mentioned in the books of the Old Testament that God, Who sends to man not only the good, but also evil. Certainly, much can be attributed to the type, theologically not verified biblical language, usually not distinguishing will and indulgence. And yet: it comes to live with God in a world, where there was place not only for the good, but also for evil, not only for light, but also for darkness.

It was not of course always like that: it is enough to remember the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, the tremendous poem of the creation, where in the first day of the creation God divides the light and the darkness, divides such that the darkness stay out of His created world, the world which in the first day of the creation seems before us quite flooded with the light of God's presence, this presence, which then embraced the whole world.

But after something happened, the world experienced a terrible catastrophe, and darkness darkened the creation which shone before. And here is, now everything returns again to the first day, the world becomes again bright and shining, and now God will never turn to man the dark side of His creation. The hour of the Kingdom is coming, the time of transformation, after which there won’t be darkness anymore in the life of those who chose God. And the apostle proclaims the coming of this Kingdom. As well as the Savior Himself proclaimed its proximity.

The language of Scripture is the language of paradoxes, because the reality described by the Word of God does not fit into unambiguous formulas. God Himself is paradoxical: He is One and Triune at the same time. His attitude toward us is paradoxical: He loves us as we are, but we, as we are, do not please Him. This world is paradoxical: it was created by the all-good God, yet it lies in evil. The apostle John writes in his letter about a similar paradoxicality within us.

On the one hand, we have "known Him," which is manifested in our keeping God's commandments. On the other hand, "if we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us." This simultaneous presence within us of incompatible sin and grace is what makes up the tension, the dynamism of Christian life, our movement from darkness into light.

And the verse we have read today tells us how we should make this movement. We must openly acknowledge our sins before God, sins we discover as violations of Christ's commandment to love one another, acknowledge our lack of self-sufficiency, and ask Him to intervene in this situation. Then by His forgiveness He cleanses us from within, giving us the strength of the Holy Spirit for changing our life, for ascending toward Him.

Why does the apostle consider that the denial of man of his sinfulness is a false witness on Jesus? Of course, one could say that it is, first of all, about the sense of the earthly ministry of the Savior, Who said directly that the world lies in evil and that He came to deliver him it from this evil. Hardly in such a context our assertions of our own sinlessness will sound even a little convincing; they will become rather the witness of our thoughtlessness or arrogance.

Maybe and something else: John could answer in his message those of his coreligionists, who were (perhaps, quite sincerely) persuaded that having entrusted their fate to Christ, they had freed themselves just like that from the power of this sin, which prevented them from living formerly a righteous life. Knowing that sin and the Kingdom are incompatible and being assured that the Kingdom became an integral part of their life, they completely calmed down for their own sinfulness: it seemed to them that they are now not under the power of sin by definition.

The apostle, as seen, dispels their errors on his own account. But the main thing is all the same, probably, somewhere else: the denial by man of his own sinfulness makes very absurd the coming of the Savior into the world. Isaiah of Babylon already said that the Messiah is not going to suffer for His own sins, but for the sins of the people, to whom He will come. And the cleansing of the people from sin will become one of the essential tasks being before Him.

Jesus Himself spoke in particular about the salvation of the sinners from their sin, without cleansing of which one can not enter the Kingdom. But here is, it turns out now that were found in the Church people questioning this mission of the Savior. It is not surprising that John gives them a severe rebuke: for, not wishing to accept the proposed salvation, they not only did not go to Christ, but also misled the others on the path. John understood perfectly that it is about very important things, not to be treated so lightly.

The words of John's letter seem paradoxical at first glance. On the one hand, he states that as Christians we must not be involved in sin, because the blood of Christ cleanses us from every sin (1 John 1:6-7). On the other hand, according to his own words, we are by no means sinless, and we had better not deceive ourselves about this (1 John 1:8).

Meanwhile, this paradox, or rather this antinomy, describes the phenomenon of biblical righteousness, known even in pre-Christian times. Sober-minded people who sought genuine spiritual life and, accordingly, firm relations with God never considered themselves perfect or sinless. And biblical righteousness was never equated with sinlessness. There is no darkness in God; in Him there is only light (1 John 1:5). This truth was known to believing Jews in every age. Righteousness is not light emitted by a person, but God's light reflected by him. Such is human righteousness, and this is exactly how the authors of the Old Testament books describe it.

In this respect nothing has changed: after the coming of Christ, the human being remained what he had been. Neither before nor now is anyone born into the world free from sin. But with the coming of the Messiah, something did change. New possibilities opened up. Formerly the Kingdom was beside the world. The prophets of Israel sometimes saw it as if through a transparent but insurmountable barrier. Many, not only among the Jewish people but throughout the world, sensed its breath.

But for the transformation of the world, for a complete and qualitative change in its nature, for its final liberation from the power of sin and death, this was not enough. The Kingdom had to enter into the world in all its fullness, inevitably colliding in doing so with the evil in which, according to the word of the Gospel, the fallen world lies. This collision, its first and chief blow, was taken upon Himself by the One who brought the Kingdom into the world, the Savior Himself. It was His blood that opened the road into the Kingdom for us. But not only that: it also opened the road for the Kingdom into our hearts. Formerly those who sought the path of righteousness strove to become a perfect reflection of God's light, in spite of their sinfulness, which remained unconquered to the end. Now those who seek the path of the Kingdom can become an open door through which the breath of the Kingdom enters the world being transformed. This happens in spite of their own sinfulness, which, however, has become conquerable thanks to what the Savior has done for us. And now the path of the Kingdom, beginning in our world that has not yet been transformed, is completed in the fullness of that Kingdom. In the fullness that will be revealed to the world on the day of the Savior's return. His return in glory.