📖WEB · 1 John 1:3
What does 1 John 1:3 mean?
"that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us. Yes, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ."
— 1 John 1:3 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we saw, and our hands touched, concerning the Word of life
(and the life was revealed, and we have seen, and testify, and declare to you the life, the eternal life, which was with the Father, and was revealed to us);
that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us. Yes, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
And we write these things to you, that our joy may be fulfilled.
This is the message which we have heard from him and announce to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in the darkness, we lie, and don’t tell the truth.
Explanation
In plain language, this verse has John explaining why he is writing at all. He and the other apostles had personally seen, heard, and witnessed something extraordinary—namely Jesus Christ himself, the eternal life who was made visible among them. Rather than keeping this to themselves, they are proclaiming it to their readers so that those readers can share in the same relationship and experience that the apostles enjoy. That relationship, John clarifies, is not merely social or emotional—it is fellowship with God the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
The Apostle John wrote this letter, traditionally near the end of the first century, to churches he had pastoral care over, likely in and around Ephesus. By this time, false teachers had arisen (often associated with early Gnostic tendencies) who denied that Jesus had truly come "in the flesh" and who separated spiritual knowledge from ordinary Christian life and ethics. John writes as an eyewitness—someone who walked with Jesus, heard him teach, and touched him—to ground the church's faith in real, historical, physical reality rather than abstract speculation. His purpose, stated just before this verse (1 John 1:1-2) and continued here, is to pass on that eyewitness testimony so that his readers' joy and assurance would be complete (1 John 1:4).
Theologically, this verse teaches that authentic Christian fellowship is not simply human community centered on shared beliefs or activities, but a shared participation in relationship with God himself. The word "fellowship" (Greek: koinonia) implies partn
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