In the first chapter of his first epistle, John gives us a "Hands-On" introduction to our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ, His purpose and work. The humanity of his Jesus is clearly declared in the verbs that he uses (heard, seen, looked upon, handled) to describe the Apostolic encounter and relationship with the One who was from the beginning.
        In verse 2, this One Who Is the Word of Life, he declares plainly to be the Eternal Life that was with the Father. In these two verses we have a most personal and intimate encounter with the God/Man Who Is the Sent One from the Father. (See John 5:22-24, 6:29)
        Verse three lays out John's reason for giving us this introduction to his Beloved Lord.  It is that we may have fellowship with the Apostles in a spiritually Hands-On way in order that we may have a spiritually Hands-On fellowship/relationship with the Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ. This is in keeping with John's record of our Lord's High Priestly prayer in John 17:20 where our Jesus prays for "them also which shall believe on Me through their (the Apostles) word." The power of the Gospel is in this historic Apostolic Witness, the Witness that we are called to spiritually encounter.  They did not speak of some myth!!
        It is intriguing that while John presents Jesus as the Eternal Life that is with the Father from the beginning, his focus is not primarily our eternal life in him. I believe that's to be understood in his words, but he seems to be emphasizing that our life in Christ is first of all to be one of fellowship with the Father and His Son. There is no indication of a "get out of hell free card"  salvation in John's thinking. This Eternal Life, this life in Christ Jesus, brings us into fellowship with the Most High God, and this is no mere nodding acquaintance of which he speaks..
        I have heard the cutesy description of fellowship as two fellows in one ship. That is dreadfully inadequate in John's context. The only validity to such a trite example might be seen if we see Christ Jesus as our Ark and us floundering, drowning,  trying to walk on water, and His mighty right hand drawing us to the safety of the Ark. Or perhaps we being in Christ Jesus and the waves of this world and the storms and lightning of our flesh threaten to sink us, and again our sweet Jesus calls our, “Peace be still”, and all is at rest.
        It is in this intimate, continual fellowship with our Savior who is Eternal Life, our Ark of Safety, that we find true Joy and that to the fullest.

Next time: the believers walk in fellowship with his Lord through this defiled and fallen world.  1 John 1:5-2:2

     The Lord did not leave it to the apostles to institute the Lord's supper after His departure. He rather regarded it as so important that by his own authority, while yet present, He instituted it in the most solemn manner on the night of His betrayal, immediately before going out to the garden. The bread and wine selected as emblems of His body and blood, were designed to impress upon His disciples (& us) with the persuasion, #1 that His body was the true Paschal sacrifice; #2 that His blood was the true sacrificial blood by which the New Covenant was constituted, more perfect by far than the Covenant at Sinai. The elements were signs of a reality, pledges in hand, that as surely as they took the sign into their hands, they by faith received the thing that was signified; for they were seals and pledges as well as signs. 
     The Covenant is founded simply on the bloodshed of One for many for the remission of sins, without any other element, whether in the form of supposed merit, or moral improvement, or services performed as the procuring cause. The cup of Thanksgiving was thus the evidence of our participation by faith in the blood of Christ and the bread that participation by faith in the body of Christ, as our only acceptance before God. The sacrament of the supper loudly proclaims this great truth to all time, and all ages must hear it. Till the Lord come, His atoning death must be proclaimed with festive Joy at this supper, as often as it is deemed proper to celebrate it. Of how  great importance must that truth be which Jesus so vividly portrayed, and the perpetual memory of which He has so carefully secured! This shows what a supreme place belongs to His atoning sacrifice. It is the principal thing of the Gospel; nay, it is the Gospel. Take it out of the Gospel and it ceases to be the Gospel. 

George Smeaton, from The Doctrine of the Atonement According to the Apostles.

​     The God-man, Christ Jesus, united a sinless humanity to Himself, that by entering into every part of our obligation as creatures and sinners to the law of God, He might bring in an everlasting righteousness. Until the law received its satisfaction in this two-fold respect, that is by obedience to its requirements and penalty for breaching its commands, the Supreme Judge could take no one into His Favor. The humanity Christ wore was made by Him an instrument which He used for the great purpose of bringing in the Righteousness of God or, to put the matter in a personal and concrete form, Christ Himself is the Righteousness of God. The Son of God made flesh, obedient in life and death, is our righteousness before God. The entrance of Christ’s sinless humanity with the law in His Heart became the central point of all time, to which previous ages look forward, and after ages look back. 

George Smeaton: Christ’s Atonement According to the Apostles

       I have been reading the four gospel accounts of our Lord's crucifixion this morning. There is an incredible amount of prophetic fulfillment and spiritual lessons there, that my pea brain can't begin to comprehend but a small portion of it. But I was captivated by the sponge of vinegar, actually cheap bitter wine, that was placed to our Lord's lips. And I was struck by the fact that the first miracle our Lord performed before the people was the turning water into wine at the wedding of Cana. And it was the best wine that the master of the feast had ever tasted. But here, at the most important Miracle that our Jesus ever performed, His victory over death and hell, He drank cheap bitter wine held up to His lips on a hyssop branch, the same branch used to apply the blood of the sacrifice under the law of the Old testament. The new wine in Christ's blood is the sweetest and best and completely efficacious. The bitter wine that this world can provide, even wrapped in the garb of the Old testament law, is bitter and our Lord drank every ounce of requirement that old bitter cup required. Beloved our faith is in the best wine of the feast. And we will one day drink it fully in celebration at the marriage feast of the Lamb who Was slain from before the foundation of the world.  Amen and Amen

​                                                                 Hebrews 3:1-2
The cross was our Melchizedek's altar of priestly agency, a throne of powerful action, a chariot of victory in triumph.  From “The Atonement” by Hugh Martin 1822-1885 

      "Scripture lays before us that the actual manifestation of Christ's power(Heb 7:16-power of an endless life) and His official obedient(Heb 5:5-6) and positive agency(Heb 2:13-18) in that manifested power, which never were, nor never could be overcome and made ineffective. But on the contrary, His power, obedience and agency prevailed to put forth all His strength and energy  precisely against an inconceivable combination of agencies and instruments naturally fitted, that had it been possible, to subdue and overcome Him. 
      Earth and hell and heaven, all prepared to torment Him:   Earth’s rulers and her rabble; her kings and priest’s and soldiers, and malefactors assailing Him;  her Jews and Gentiles; her dumb creatures even; Earth's forests furnishing wood (for the cross) Earth's stream refusing water (even though He said, “I thirst”); Earth's bitterness mingled and vinegar and gall; Earth's curse embodied in her thorns, in mockery and pain to Crown Him; Earth's “founded” steadfastness refusing to support Him (the earthquake); her firmament to shine on Him (darkness over all the earth).
      Hell's utmost force and fury gathered up against Him; heaven's sword devouring Him and heaven's God forsaking Him. Earth and hell and heaven thus in conspiring actions against Him unto the uttermost of heaven's absolute Justice and Earth and hell's utmost Injustice:-- What is the glory of the Cross if it is not this?  With such action conspiring to conquer and subdue His Priestly and representative action, His Priestly power, obedience, and representative action outlasts and outlives them all.  He did not die subdued and overcome (forced) into dying.  He did not die until He gave Himself in death. Emmanuel a mere sufferer in his death? Oh no!!! The Logos of the Cross is the power of God.  (When He uttered, “It is finished”, He knew His Father’s Will had been completely fulfilled, that bitter cup had been completely drained, and now it was time!!! RF)
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Isaiah 53:12 “He poured out His soul unto death.”
John 10:11 “I am the good shepherd, the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.” (17-18) “Therefore does My Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.  No man takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself.  I have Power to lay it down, and I have Power to take it again.  This commandment have I received of My Father.”
Ephesians 5:2 “And walk in love, as Christ also loved us, and has given Himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor.”
Ephesians 5:25 “He loved the church and gave Himself for it”.
Hebrews 1:3  “When He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down on the Right Hand of the Majesty on High.”
Revelation 1:5b “Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His Own blood, and has made us kings and priests unto God and His Father; to Him be Glory and dominion for ever and ever, Amen

Hebrews 9:14 “How much more shall the blood of Christ (than bulls and goats), Who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the Living God?”  The Precious Lamb of God (Rev. 5) is so much more than a higher quality sheep!!!)