For many today the concept of “Christ” means little more than an ideal or a utopian reality. This is not new; it developed in the second century. Instead of speaking of “Jesus Christ”, some Gnostics would speak of Jesus the person and the “Christ” who came upon him. John, however, portrayed Christ as the prophesied person – the One from eternity. All he had to do was testify of his and others’ personal encounters with the historic Jesus Christ: we have heard him, we have visually discerned and viewed with fascination, we have verified by touch. John makes a clear presentation of the empirical adequacy of historic Christianity. He and many others had personal encounters with the Word of life that was with the Father and was made manifest to them.
Because of this, John states that he and others bear record and announce to us this Jesus Christ so that we who have not seen him first-hand can have a shared and common interaction. We too can personally encounter the Word of life by entrusting ourselves to the report (the gospel) of those who physically met and entrusted themselves to incarnate God. This shared personal interaction (“fellowship”) with the Father and Son – the Creator/Redeemer is what John called “eternal life.” The idea of “eternal”, as used in John’s report, is not just quantitative (amount of time) but is also qualitative; it is the life of divine character.
John stated that he and others like him had personally, physically encountered the divine Person. He announced it to us with the aim that it would revolutionize our day-to-day experiences through this thing we call “fellowship.” The more we engage and commit to his truth, the more we develop and experience the life of divine quality. What John gained vertically (in a horizontal way) he shared horizontally. That becomes the definition of “fellowship” for us too. Our relation to the Father and Son through His Spirit becomes the spring of our mutual interaction. Our encounter with the eternal Person becomes the fountain head of our personal encounters with each other. This is more than an ideal; this is Christian fellowship – the relationship of brothers and sisters in Christ as God designed it.