In his mind's eye the apostle John sees the believers in front of him. He knows many of these people. They are a people close to his heart. He is their spiritual father.

From the beginning he immediately makes it clear what this is all about. People are saying different things about Jesus Christ—including things that are different from what they had heard from John about the Lord Jesus. Even in our time one hears all kinds of things about Jesus Christ that very clearly contradict and exclude each other.

John clarifies what people need to believe—then and now. In doing so it is not about John, but about who the real Jesus Christ is.

John makes it very clear in 1 John 1:1–3 that he and the other apostles are the eye and ear witnesses. He is writing in the plural—what we have heard, seen, and felt. Those who are the ear and eye witnesses of the public ministry of Jesus Christ on earth now come with their testimony. This is a unanimous testimony. The Lord Jesus himself also saw to it that this cohesive testimony of the ear and eye witnesses came to be heard.

After Christ’s resurrection, there was one of the apostles who did not believe that the resurrection happened. He was also absent on the evening of the resurrection when Jesus came to his disciples and spoke to them. However, one week later Thomas is with the other disciples. Then the Lord Jesus came to the disciples again and showed and told Thomas that it is he who has really risen from the dead. He brought Thomas to confess, My Lord and my God! Upon this confession the Lord Jesus then says, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:28–29).

The eleven apostles (excluding Jude) have a testimony to give. The eleven were supplemented to twelve again after the ascension of Christ. In doing so, you see that it is these very apostles who are to bring their united testimony of Christ into the world as eye and ear witnesses of his actions. Peter explains what the prerequisite is for being appointed as the twelfth apostle: “So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us…one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection” (Acts 1:21–22).

Of course, one might question whether such a testimony of ear and eye witnesses is really that reliable. Our memories are not always all that reliable. Two things make it clear that this is a reliable testimony. The first is that it is a testimony that comes from twelve men. You see in the four Gospels, for example, that in them the unified account of Jesus comes to us. Even more important is the second reason for reliability, for this testimony is not only human. The Lord Jesus himself already says that the Lord God himself will make sure that the apostles will actually remember in a reliable way what he has done and said. We read this in John 14:26: But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

John connects this testimony with the beginning. What does this beginning refer to? In the first place, that the apostles experienced the Lord Jesus from the very beginning when he began to act—from the time when he came to John the Baptist and the Lord designated him at baptism as the promised Saviour, as the Son of God who came into the world (see John 1:32–34; Matthew 3:13–17; Mark 1:9–13; Luke 3:21–22).

This beginning is also connected to Christ who is the Son of God. This means that what we read in John 1 about Christ being the Word is also resonating here. He is God. There never was a time when he was not there. Together with the Father and the Spirit, he created heaven and earth. And this God became man, as we read in 1 John 1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made...And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John bore witness about him and cried out: ‘This was he of whom I said, He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’ For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” John 1:1–3; John 1:14–17).

From the beginning, John and the other apostles have seen and heard what Jesus Christ, the Son of God did and said on earth. They were so close to him every day that they even touched him. With their own eyes, ears, and hands they saw, heard and felt him who is the Word of life.

Again, we see very clearly here how John refers back to what he proclaimed earlier in the Gospel written by him. The Word that he refers to is not merely a matter of random words. It refers to the Son of God who became man. He is the Word of life. It is he who is life himself and who has earned that life through his sacrifice for those who believe in him. The Lord Jesus says of himself in John 14:6, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. True life is inextricably linked to him and to faith in him. We also see this in the second last chapter of John’s Gospel. We read there, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30–31).