CHAPTER ONE

1:1. For the first time, for we have heard, for we have seen with our eyes, when we have seen, and our hands have been touched, O Word of the Living Things... (Of what was from the beginning, what we heard, what we saw with our eyes, what we looked at and what our hands touched, about the Word of life.)

The main joyful news, idea and truth is that God the Word became man so that we could be made God in Him. In other words, He took on human flesh in order to make us gods by grace. The One Who is Eternal Life came to earth so that we could have living fellowship with Him. The word of life is the main subject of real evangelism. As St. John the Theologian wants to explain to us, the basis of the joyful news of this gospel is that the Word was made flesh (John 1:14). God the Word, Who is eternal life, appeared to us, being without beginning (even from the beginning)

They have heard, seen, beheld, and felt the Word of life, the God of life. God the Word has become the most accessible reality in us, and we have become convinced of this in the most obvious way by experience. The way is truly experiential (experimental), the way is experiential (the Way of Life). Christ is the "Word of life," he is truly the rationality of life, the wisdom of life. Until Christ came to earth, life was irrational, without meaning and purpose, it was sheer madness, because there was nothing reasonable, because everything was chaos, an indicator of irrationality. Before Him, the Word of life, life was worthless, it could not think, express, express, confess with sincerity, and tell anything about its torment, joy. Life began to speak, became wiser, filled with grace, because it acquired meaning. Before that, it was unreasonable, meaningless, aimless, devastated by sin. All the ideas about life that existed at that time (Hellenic, Roman, Indian) dissipated, lost their meaning with the manhood of God the Word, Who became life, our earthly life. The mind and the Word of life are between us. We have the Word of life because we know the meaning of it, the purpose of life. Here is the beginning of life, God the Word, because He is the One Who was from the beginning. Life is no longer something reckless, but is endowed with Divine reason, because sin is a force that deprives everything of meaning, deprives it of Divine reasonableness, God's meaning and grace. In reality, sin is a complete deprivation of the meaning and purpose of life.

1:2. ... And the life appeared, and we saw, and testified, and proclaimed to you eternal life, which is with the Father, and has appeared unto us... (For life has appeared, and we have seen, and testify, and proclaim to you this eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested to us.)

Before the incarnation of God, life did not seem to exist on earth. And no matter how long it existed, it was a distortion of life, its substitution and forgery, in other words, pseudo-life, false life. After all, what kind of life is this, in which there is only death, which ends only with it. It is a constant and periodic torment, an unstoppable approach to death. Only one life is worthy of its name, that which does not cease, which does not die, but dominates death, and through the resurrection leads to eternity. In reality, there is only one life, eternal life. And this life first appeared in this human world with God the Word, with the God-Man Christ. That is why St. John the Theologian says: "And the life (i.e. life) shall appear, and we shall see, and we testify, and we proclaim to you eternal life, which is with the Father, and hath appeared unto us.

Life and eternal life are synonymous. There is no life without eternal life. With the God-Man Christ, life appeared in our world, in the world of death and pseudo-life. In the God-Man we saw the right life, only eternal life is the only right life. This is evident only in the God-Man Lord. The whole of the God-Man and all of Him is the breath and radiance of eternal life. There is no thought of His that does not begin in eternal life and is not completed in Him, "in eternal life." Likewise, His every feeling, word, and deed stems from eternal life.

In the God-Man Lord, there is a constant presence of the eternal. And the waves of eternal life overwhelm us with all that is in Him. Do you want to see how to live forever in time? Ask Jesus. Only in the God-Man Jesus is contained everything pertaining to eternal life. For as the Father hath life in Himself, so also hath the Sons life in Himself (John 5:26). This is the most obvious proof and testimony. All this is shown with infinite accuracy in the verse "And the life appeared, and seen, and we testify, and proclaim to you eternal life, which is with the Father, and hath appeared unto us."

Before the coming of the God-Man, death was in us and around us, and people did not know what eternal life was, nor how to attain eternal life. But He did not leave us alone, but came and appeared among us.

1:3. ... If we have seen and heard, we will tell you, that you also have fellowship with us: but our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. (Of the things which we have seen and heard, we declare unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: but our fellowship is with the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.)

Where does St. John the Theologian take and present this testimony from? From my personal experience. He tasted eternal life, attained communion with it, and won the right to dwell in it through the Lord Jesus. And how could he who lived in Him not have unity with the Lord? He was in eternal life even then. This life is essentially communion with the Trinitarian Deity. Everyone is Trinity-Created, three-fold through the God-Man, and this is nothing other than existence in eternal life. Everyone sees and feels eternal life in Christ for himself. Christians are different from other people because they have eternal life, because they have personal experience and personal contemplation of the eternal. For this reason the eyewitness, St. John the Theologian, testifies with inspiration and truth: "As we have seen and heard, we will tell you, that ye also may have communion with us: but our communion is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ." The life of Christians is life with the Divine Trinity, visible communion with Her, communion with Her life-giving, creative, eternal powers.

Contemplation of the eternal gives people true eternal life. This is not an external observation, but the inner life of the Holy Trinity. This is the true communion of man with God, deification, deification, life in God. In this way, everything is personally experienced, animated, everything is "alive", born anew. The whole God the Word entered into man and became man, entered into a human body and became incarnate. The word is in the body of man, has entered us, has become the same with us (except sin), exists among us.

With Him, all life becomes eternal, and all truth is also eternal, and all love is eternal, and all light is eternal, and all perfection is eternal.