A Tangible Truth: Reflections on 1 John 1:1-4

By Kevin Youngblood, Ph.D.

The Cloned Christ

I don’t know if you have noticed it or not, but Christ has been cloned. Not just once or twice, mind you, but cloned a myriad of times. Perhaps it is appropriate that the first mammal to be cloned from a somatic cell was a lamb named Dolly (July 5, 1996). The Cloning of the Lamb – it sounds like a horror movie but its not. It is far worse than a horror movie. The real Jesus, the real Lamb of God, is hidden amidst a myriad of cloned Christs.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. Several years ago, a book came out entitled “Two Visions of Jesus” in which two NT scholars offered quite different interpretations of who Jesus really was. In fact, there are today as many books offering as many interpretations of Jesus as there are special interest groups: Republican Jesus, Democrat Jesus, Marxist Jesus, sexual fluidity-affirming Jesus, homophobic Jesus, strict Jesus, lenient Jesus, you name it.

Do you see what I mean? You can clone Jesus. If the real Jesus does not suit you simply replace him with one of your own making. Give Jesus an extreme makeover. If the Jesus who was truly both God and Man is too difficult for you to accept or understand, simply genetically engineer a Christ that is either one or the other but not both. If you do not like the Christ who claims that he is the only way to the Father and therefore the only one who can offer eternal life, simply clone yourself a Christ who is more accommodating to Buddah, Krishna, Mohammed, and all the other prophets offering some form of eternal bliss.

In one sense we shouldn’t be surprised by this. Jesus himself predicted that he would be cloned. Listen to these words from Matthew 24:23-24

Then if anyone says to you, “Look, here is the Christ!” or “There he is!” do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.

This matter of “Christ clones” is of great concern to me. Nothing is more devastating to the gospel or to the true identity of Jesus than the slightly altered versions of our own making. It leads either to idolatry or cynicism. To idolatry because if you follow the Christ of your own making he will only lead you further and further away from the true one. To cynicism because the multiple versions of Jesus have led many to doubt whether there even is a real one or, if there is a real one, whether he can even be distinguished from his numerous clones.

The Cloning of Christ in Asia Minor

I say all of this by way of introduction to a letter the apostle John wrote to several churches in Asia Minor with which he had a special relationship. His concern in this letter was very much like the one I have expressed. Certain Christians from these churches had cloned Christ. The Jesus who was both fully God and fully man was just too hard to sell in the Hellenistic culture of Asia Minor. The people of this great Roman province preferred a clear separation of the spiritual world from the material world. The notion of God becoming man in the person of Jesus Christ was just too much for them; it was scandalous; it was offensive. So, in the interest of marketing Christianity some of the believers in these churches followed the law of supply and demand. Since there was no demand for a god-man Jesus, they offered Asia-Minor a more contextualized, culturally sensitive Jesus – a Jesus who only appeared to be human but in reality was spirit.

Not all of the Christians in these churches, however, were comfortable with the Jesus clone. They sensed that he differed from the Jesus to whom they had been introduced and with whom they had a very satisfying and life-giving relationship. As a result the Christ-cloners became indignant with their less progressive brothers and sisters. The Christ-cloners left to form their own church (a clone-church?) and as they left, they criticized the faithful accusing them of being unenlightened, of holding to an inferior, underdeveloped, and inadequate form of Christianity, and, worst of all, they accused them of trusting in the wrong Christ.

Now all church splits are discouraging but this one was especially so because it left the true believers wondering whether or not they really did know the true Christ. They wondered whether they really did have a relationship with the risen Jesus – the same Jesus who walked this earth, died on the cross for their sins, and ascended into heaven to intercede for them.

In addition to these doubts, those who left to form their clone-church continued drawing converts from the original church. As their numbers dwindled their doubts grew. If we are in fellowship with the real Jesus how could this be happening? Why are we losing members if we are in communion with the true Christ? How can I know that I know the original, genuine Jesus? 

John’s First Letter

John wrote his first letter to address these questions. How can we know that we are trusting in the real Jesus, the original Jesus and not one of his Christ clones? So in 1 John, the Beloved Disciple offers a series of tests as assurance that our faith is real and that our eternal life in Christ is genuine. Each of these tests begins with the words “This is how we know” (9x in 1 John)

1 John 2:3:

This is how we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.

John opens this letter with a stirring affirmation of the reality of the flesh and blood Jesus – the Jesus he had seen, heard, and touched.

What was from the beginning, what we have heard and continues ringing in our ears, what we have seen and remains seared in our memory, what we observed and our hands touched concerning the life-giving word, (this life was revealed and we know we saw it and testify and proclaim to you that eternal life which was intimately associated with the Father and yet was revealed to us)

What we know we saw and know we heard we declare also to you that you too might have fellowship with us, the very same kind of fellowship that we enjoy with both the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ.

John wastes no time in dispensing with the phantom Jesus. For John only a real Jesus will do, only a Jesus who is every bit as much human as he is divine. Why is this such a big deal? You might ask. It is not as though the Christ-cloners were denying that Jesus is God.

Why Does it Matter?

The first reason this is a big deal is because my sin is real. Every sin I have ever committed I committed right here in the real world. I have yet to have committed a phantom sin that did only phantom damage to my phantom self and my phantom friends. No! I have committed real sins that require a real savior. My sins occurred here in the real world and they did real damage to real people that only a real Christ can forgive and heal. I need a Jesus who is every bit as real as my sin. I need a Christ who enters the very realm where these sins occur, who will deal with them in a very real way so that I can have real freedom and real life.

So I must insist that it really does matter that there is a historical Jesus. I must insist that the doctrine of the incarnation of God in Christ is not just something to celebrate at Christmas and not just something to keep theologians occupied. I sin with my body. Sin corrupts and kills my body. Sin can only be dealt with in a body. Only an embodied Christ can take away sins as physical and real as the ones I have committed. Only a mortal Jesus can die to deliver me from my mortal sins. Only a physical Christ can reverse sins physical harm.

I must further insist that it really does matter whether you follow the true Christ or one of his clones. It matters for the same reason. As much as I wish I could say that my alter-ego is the real villain, that some clone-Kevin is running around committing clone-sins that result only in clone-collateral damage, I cannot. I have to confess to you that it is the real Kevin who has sinned and has fallen short of the glory of God and only a real Jesus can save me.

The war I wage with sin is not occurring out there somewhere in the wild blue yonder; it is not occurring up there in heaven. It is occurring here in this reality. The Jesus of history entered my battlefield. He did not send reinforcements from afar. He came himself. He fought my battle. He won my war. And he did it here. And it matters that he did it here. He did it here so that its effects would be felt here. 

Another reason why it matters is because I can only be changed through a relationship with a real flesh and blood Jesus. The invisible, intangible God of the Old Testament so easily becomes an abstraction. This is precisely why you never see anyone wearing a bracelet with the initials WWYD (what would Yahweh do?). There is no way to know what Yahweh would do were he in our shoes. Until Jesus came Yahweh never was in our shoes!

I need a real Jesus to model real righteousness in the real world. I need a real relationship with a real Christ who can influence me in a real way, who can conform me to his character. I don’t know how to have a relationship with a phantom, but I do know how to have a relationship with a man.

But the love of God is truly perfected in whoever keeps his word. This is how we know we are in him. The one who claims to remain in him ought to live in the same way as he lived.

1 John 2:5-6

Phantom Jesus, Real Sins

It is precisely at this point that the real danger of the phantom Jesus emerges. Since the phantom Jesus cannot deal with real sins, the only thing left to do is deny them. This, apparently, is exactly what John’s opponents did. Knowing that their phantom Christ could not atone for real sins, they denied that they had any. For John is probably referring to one of their slogans, one of their sound-bytes when he says, 

⁸ If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

 ⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

 ¹⁰ If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

1 John 1:9-10

Those who have no means of dealing with sin have no choice but to deny it. Since only the real Jesus can atone for real sins by dying a real death on a real cross, those who follow some other Jesus must either ignore sin, down-play sin, make sin irrelevant, or attempt to hide their sin behind a façade of good works. None of this of course really eliminates the problem, and deep down inside I think people realize that.

The irony of it is that John’s opponents were probably making some deep philosophical excuse for their inability to overcome sin. They probably said something to the effect that the Spirit had enlightened them to the truth that Christianity is about being enlightened, having secret knowledge. This secret knowledge makes mere ethical distinctions irrelevant since the body and the things done in the body don’t matter anyway. Why would a phantom Christ care about what we do in our bodies? 

Orthodoxy vs Orthopraxy in Today’s Church

Don’t think that this doesn’t happen anymore, it does! Perhaps not as blatantly as the opponents in 1 John, but in numerous subtle ways theory is elevated above or even pitted against practice in Christianity. The single most dangerous theological move one can make is to separate orthodoxy from orthopraxy. Orthodoxy simply means correct belief while orthopraxy means correct behavior. 

The church has always struggled with emphasizing one over the other, almost always orthodoxy over orthopraxy, theory over practice. The incarnate Christ, however, will have none of it. The truth that God became man in Jesus Christ unites orthodoxy and orthopraxy because it is not enough to know the fact that God became man in Jesus of Nazareth, one must actually enter into communion with this very real Jesus and whoever does will experience a very real behavioral change.

John preached the real Christ, the risen Christ to his beloved churches and as a result they and we have a very real relationship with this very real Jesus. John even goes so far as to say that the relationship we have with Jesus is no less real, no less intimate than the one he has with Jesus. Isn’t that amazing! Despite John’s privileged position as one of the eye-witnesses of the incarnate Christ, despite his belonging to Jesus’ inner-circle, even despite the fact that to him alone did Jesus entrust the care of his mother, he claims no special status, no privileged position. We all have the same fellowship with each other and we all have the same fellowship with Jesus. This means that all who follow the real flesh-and-blood Christ instead of one of his clones share the same salvation and eternal life found in Christ. 

Real Christ, Real Confidence

This leads to one last reason why it is important to follow the real Jesus instead of the phantom one. Confidence! Confidence is found in the real, incarnate Christ that is found nowhere else. Only a real Jesus can give you real confidence. All the world has to offer is cloned confidence, shallow assurances, and empty promises. I am reminded of what happened to that poor cloned lamb named Dolly. What the scientist who made her didn’t know is that aging is greatly accelerated in clones and as a result they die prematurely. The same is true of cloned confidence. It dies quickly. But the real confidence of real communion with the real Christ – It lasts forever. 

I write these things to you who believe in the name of God’s Son so that you can know that you have eternal life. This is the confidence that we have in our relationship with God.

1 John 5:13-14

Christ’s Faithfulness and Our Salvation

This last point was driven home to me in one of my earliest experiences as a full time minister in Philadelphia. I received the call late one
night that one of the elderly ladies who attended the church where I was preaching was in the process of dying. No one could say for sure how long she would last. The most generous estimates gave her three days. So I went to her bedside to offer whatever prayers and comfort I could. When I arrived, her nurse said to her “your minister is here.”
Immediately, her eyes widened and she gripped my hand and asked with a trembling voice, “Have I done enough? Do you think God will accept me? Have I done enough?” I tried my best to be theologically correct. I told her, “Christ has done enough. God will accept you because of Christ’s work.” But she was inconsolable. In response, she said, “But have I done enough?” The only thing I could say that would give her any peace was “Yes, you have done enough.” Her question has haunted me ever since. I have often reflected back on that experience and wondered whether or not I said the right thing. I have finally come to the conclusion that I did say the right thing. She had trusted
in the finished work of Christ as evidenced by her baptism and her life of selfless service. That is all one need do to share in the eternal life Christ offers. Christ himself made that plain in John 6:28-29:

Then they said to him, “What must we do to perform the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”

But I also came to the conclusion that what I said at that moment did
not matter nearly as much as things I had said to her long before her terminal illness. That woman went to her death bed without the assurance of her salvation in Christ. I cannot help but wonder if the preaching she heard from me and the many other ministers she had heard through the years didn’t contribute to her doubts. To be completely honest, in those days I preached a lot more sermons on what one must do to be saved than I did on the fact that
one can know that she is saved. As I left the hospital that night, I made a vow to God. I vowed that from that day forward I would preach the assurance of salvation. I vowed that long before their death beds, members in the churches where I preach would hear the good news of assurance – the good news that our salvation has a lot more
to do with Christ’s faithfulness than it has to do with ours, a lot more to do with his obedience than it has to do with ours. I want those to whom I minister to know that our confidence comes from Christ, not from ourselves. It comes from his work, not ours.

To view or listen to the full chapel on September 13, 2023, click here: