1 John 1
Living Bible
1 Christ was alive when the world began, yet I myself have seen him with my own eyes and listened to him speak. I have touched him with my own hands. He is God’s message of life. 2 This one who is life from God has been shown to us, and we guarantee that we have seen him; I am speaking of Christ, who is eternal Life. He was with the Father and then was shown to us. 3 Again I say, we are telling you about what we ourselves have actually seen and heard, so that you may share the fellowship and the joys we have with the Father and with Jesus Christ his son. 4 And if you do as I say in this letter, then you, too, will be full of joy, and so will we.
5 This is the message God has given us to pass on to you: that God is Light and in him is no darkness at all. 6 So if we say we are his friends but go on living in spiritual darkness and sin, we are lying. 7 But if we are living in the light of God’s presence, just as Christ does, then we have wonderful fellowship and joy with each other, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from every sin.
8 If we say that we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. 9 But if we confess our sins to him,[a] he can be depended on to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong. And it is perfectly proper for God to do this for us because Christ died to wash away our sins. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we are lying and calling God a liar, for he says we have sinned.
Footnotes
- 1 John 1:9 confess our sins to him, implied; literally, “confess our sins.” Christ died to wash away our sins, literally, “he is . . . just.”
1 John 1
New Catholic Bible
Chapter 1
Prologue[a]
An Authentic Communion of Life
1 This is what we proclaim to you:
what existed from the beginning,
what we have heard,
what we have seen with our own eyes,
what we have looked at
and touched with our hands—
we are speaking of the Word of life.[b]
2 That life was made visible;
we have seen it and bear witness,
proclaiming to you the eternal life[c]
that was with the Father
and was revealed to us.
3 What we have seen and heard
we declare to you
so that you may have fellowship[d] with us.
For our fellowship is with the Father
and with his Son Jesus Christ.
4 We are writing this
so that our joy may be complete.
Walk in the Light
God Is Light[e]
5 This is the message
that we have heard from him
and that we declare to you:
God is light,
and there is no darkness[f] at all in him.
6 If we claim that we have fellowship with him
while we continue to live in darkness,
we are lying and do not live in the truth.
7 However, if we live in the light
as he himself is in the light,
then we have fellowship with one another,
and the blood of Jesus his Son
purifies us from all sin.
Deliverance from Sin[g]
8 If we claim that we are sinless,
we are only deceiving ourselves,
and the truth is not in us.
9 However, if we confess our sins,
he who is faithful and just
will forgive our sins
and cleanse us from all wrongdoing.
10 If we say that we have never sinned,
we make him out to be a liar,
and his word is not in us.
Footnotes
- 1 John 1:1 An identical movement of life is transmitted from the Father to the Son, from the Son to his witnesses, and from his witnesses to believers. And the authenticity of this sharing is guaranteed by the real contact of the witnesses with the Son of God, the Word of Life (see Jn 1:1), the Messiah who is truly man. The Christian faith starts from a fact, an event, an experience. Thus, everything appears as a movement from God and a striving toward him, a fellowship of life. Without such an insertion in the bonds of the Church and this link with a real testimony, it would be vain speculation.
This Prologue deals with the same themes and makes use of the same words as the Prologue to John’s Gospel (beginning, Word, life). - 1 John 1:1 The Word of God was the source of life (see Deut 4:1; 32:47; Mt 4:4; Phil 2:16). John gives the title “Word” to the Son of God become man with whom the Apostles lived. Thus, they became eyewitnesses of his glory. They touched him and knew he was real. They heard him with their ears as he spoke the words of life. Everything they preached and wrote about him was based on fact.
- 1 John 1:2 That life . . . the eternal life: i.e., Christ. He is called “life” because he is the living one who has life in himself (see Jn 11:25; 14:6). He is also the source of life and sovereign over life (1 Jn 5:11). This Letter begins and concludes (1 Jn 5:11) with the theme of eternal life.
- 1 John 1:3 Fellowship (or communion): the word expresses one of the most important themes in Johannine mysticism: the unity of the Christian community, based on the oneness of each believer with God in Christ. This unity is described in the figures of the vine and the branches (see Jn 15:1-5) and the body and the head (see 1 Cor 12:12; Col 1:18). It also finds expression in various formulations: Christians “abide in God and God in them”; “they are born of God”; “they belong to God”; “they know God.” Such a union with God is manifested in faith and fraternal love.
- 1 John 1:5 There is no fellowship with God in the absence of faith or love. Christians do not achieve fellowship with God the Light (see Jn 8:12) by giving themselves over to Illuminism or by some magical rite; they do so by believing in the Redemption brought about by Christ’s Passion and by living in the truth (see Jn 3:31), i.e., by entering into a life experience that keeps the commandments of the Gospel in a concrete manner.
- 1 John 1:5 Light . . . darkness: light represents all that is good, true, and holy, whereas darkness stands for all that is evil and false (see Jn 3:19-21).
- 1 John 1:8 Christians do not live in some superior spiritual sphere far removed from our daily lives on earth. We must in all honesty acknowledge that sin is present in our lives with all its weight. If we do not do so, we oppose the whole experience attested by Scripture and render insignificant the voluntary sacrifice that Christ made of himself so that human beings might have life. Deliverance from sin is obtained not by evasion but by the act of God who forgives and justifies us in the very depths of our being.
1 John 1
The Message
1 1-2 From the very first day, we were there, taking it all in—we heard it with our own ears, saw it with our own eyes, verified it with our own hands. The Word of Life appeared right before our eyes; we saw it happen! And now we’re telling you in most sober prose that what we witnessed was, incredibly, this: The infinite Life of God himself took shape before us.
3-4 We saw it, we heard it, and now we’re telling you so you can experience it along with us, this experience of communion with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. Our motive for writing is simply this: We want you to enjoy this, too. Your joy will double our joy!
Walk in the Light
5 This, in essence, is the message we heard from Christ and are passing on to you: God is light, pure light; there’s not a trace of darkness in him.
6-7 If we claim that we experience a shared life with him and continue to stumble around in the dark, we’re obviously lying through our teeth—we’re not living what we claim. But if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purges all our sin.
8-10 If we claim that we’re free of sin, we’re only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense. On the other hand, if we admit our sins—simply come clean about them—he won’t let us down; he’ll be true to himself. He’ll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing. If we claim that we’ve never sinned, we out-and-out contradict God—make a liar out of him. A claim like that only shows off our ignorance of God.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson