Like all of the New Testament, the Apostle John’s first letter is divinely inspired. This short New Testament writing gives us a special message from God. The first sentence makes that point clear. It says, “That which was from the beginning… concerning the Word of life…” All of us know that God is the source, the giver and the sustainer of life. Therefore, the ‘Word of life’ is a word or message from God.
When God gives his message to man, the process is called revelation. The English word revelation comes from a Latin word which means “drawing back the veil or the curtain.” [so one can see what is behind it]. The English word revelation is used to translate the Greek word ‘apokalupsis’ (apocalypse), which means “to lift the cover” [so one can see what is beneath it]. The Urdu word ‘makashfa’ comes from the Arabic word ‘kashaf’ which means to disclose, to uncover, to display, to expose, to illuminate or to manifest something which had been kept secret.
Obviously, whenever we have the opportunity to get a message from God we should give that opportunity top priority. We should pay attention to God’s message with top priority first of all because man is an intelligent being. We do not work by blind impulse. We desire to know the whence and the whither of our existence. We desire to make the voyage of life intelligently. If we think at all, we can find no rest till the problem of life is solved. But we cannot answer the deepest, the most important questions by our own wisdom and insight.
For example, one of the great problems was expressed by Job. He asked, “If a man dies, will he live again?” (Job 14:14 NIV) We by ourselves cannot answer that question. We need the answer because we need a hope that reaches beyond the grave. “He who says this hope is not a deep and universal need, mocks the mother bending over her dead child, the strong man weeping at the grave of buried love and the aged husband and wife doomed to part in the dark valley of death.” (Everst, Harvey W., The Divine Demonstration, St. Louis, 1884, p. 29-30.) Therefore, we need an answer from God. We need revelation from God. And that is exactly what we get when we study the apostle John’s short letter.
Secondly, we are religious beings. Therefore, a message from God should be given our greatest attention because it alone can satisfy our hunger for the eternal. The Bible says, “He hath made every thing beautiful in its time: also he hath set eternity in their heart, …” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 ASV) Temporal things can never satisfy our longing for the eternal. This is a religious impulse, the highest of all our aspirations. Only a message from God can fulfill that need.
Because God has set eternity in our hearts we say, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” (Psalms 42:1-2 NIV)
That thirst for God is largely fulfilled through God revealing himself to us through his revealed message. If we do not receive His message or for some reason after we receive his revealed message we reject it, our religious impulse will impel us to worship someone or some thing which is inferior to God. This is a frightening course of action because we will become like that one or that thing which we worship. We know this because Scripture tells us: “The idols of the nations are silver and gold, made by the hands of men. They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but they cannot see; they have ears, but cannot hear, nor is there breath in their mouths. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.” (Psalms 135:15-18 NIV)
From this passage in Psalms it is clear that unless our god is pure and perfect, our worship is a source of degradation. A knowledge of the true God has ever been the most pressing need of our human race. Therefore, we need the true message from God.
We human beings are not only intelligent beings, not only religious beings, but we are also moral beings. We know we are moral beings because all of us has a conscience or the intuition that there is a right and there is a wrong. All of us feel we should do that which is right and reject that which is wrong.
But as moral beings we need to know the true purpose of our existence and the true ultimate purpose of life. Once knowing that true purpose of life we should commit ourselves to it. But, to know that purpose we need revelation, a message from God.
Even with the information which we already have we know there have been times when we have failed to live up to the purpose which God has for our lives. Therefore we know that we are sinful beings. The evidence is everywhere, within and without. The witnesses are our conscience, the weakness and failure of our moral powers, the necessity of civil law and its penalties, the blood written pages of history, and the constant suffering and death of which we are aware every day. Without a message from God which we can only receive through revelation, we can never know whether sin can be forgiven and if it can, what the terms and conditions of forgiveness are. We need a message from God.
There are people who deny that we need revelation, a message from God. For example, “…humanism – is a value system rooted in the belief that man is his own measure, that man is autonomous, totally independent.” But, if one man is autonomous, then all men are autonomous. That means your opinion is as good as mine. That also means that there are no “absolutes on which to combat injustice” a basis on which he can “say that evils and injustices” are “absolutely wrong” (Francis A. Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live?, (Old Tappen, New Jersey, Fleming H. Revell Company, 1976), p. 127.)
From Scripture we know the humanist position is totally wrong. The Bible tells us, “O Jehovah, I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” (Jeremiah 10:23 ASV) Because we cannot direct our own steps, we need that ‘Word of Life’ which was “from the beginning.” That is the very message we get from the Apostle John’s first general letter. It is a message from God.