That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life. 1 John 1:1
Just as the greatest threat to Christianity today is apathy, so the greatest threat to Christianity at the time John wrote his first epistle was a false teaching called gnosticism. This doctrine taught that all spirit is good, and all matter is evil. This unbiblical doctrine led to some conclusions that were so dangerous that John wrote this letter to set things straight.
The worst error of the false cults around us today is their denial that Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God. It was the same with the gnostics, who claimed that Jesus became divine at His baptism and His divinity left Him before He died. But John knew better; he knew the Lord Jesus personally and perhaps better than anyone else. In our text he refers to his Lord as being from the beginning, in the same way that he opened the Gospel that bears his name: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’ John 1:1. John also speaks in our text of having heard, seen, and actually touched the Lord Jesus. And his epistle destroys the big lie of the gnostics.
John also argued against the gnostics’ claim that there was nothing wrong with gross sinfulness because the body, being matter, was evil anyway. That idea is totally wrong, John declared: ‘Whosoever committeth sin transgressed the law, for sin is the transgression of the law’ – 1 John 3:4. The apostle made it clear to his readers that those who are truly saved do not live in sinfulness.
Almost two thousand years old, John’s first epistle is very relevant to us today. We are living in a time when most of the world does not know or care that Jesus Christ is the Lord God. And the same world does not know or care that sinfulness is wrong and will be punished. Like John, we know better. – Jim MacIntosh
Hewre is the link to the video of this message: https://youtu.be/2AmAkYcCdss