<p>1:3- see on Mt. 28:10; Jn. 3:32; Jn. 20:18; Acts 4:20.</p><p><i>What we have seen and heard, we declare to you also, so that you may also have fellowship with us. Yes, and our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ</i>- The Lord Jesus is called &quot;the life, the eternal life, which existed with the Father, and was manifested unto us&quot; (:3). In this lies the importance of a Christ-centred life and mind; <i>He is the definition of eternal life</i>. This is what eternity will be like, John is saying: life lived as the Lord lived and lives, the eternal life is a knowing of the Father and Son, a relationship with them (Jn. 17:3). Eternal life isn't defined in terms of sitting under a fig tree in a perfect climate watching the animals living happily together (although we are invited to believe that by God's grace this <i>will</i> be a part of our Kingdom experience). It is the life of Christ our Lord; and that's why one of His titles is &ldquo;the life, the eternal life&quot;. He shewed us what eternal life will be about, and invites us to begin that experience, however imperfectly, even now (cp. Hos. 6:3 RV). And it is in this sense alone that &quot;we may know that we have (now) eternal life&quot; (1 Jn. 5:13).&nbsp;</p><p>John exalts in the fact they touched and saw &ldquo;the word of life&quot;; the Lord Jesus personally was and is the voice of God&rsquo;s word. When John writes that &ldquo;that which we have seen and heard we declare unto you&quot;, he doesn&rsquo;t mean to say that he is simply giving a transcript of the Lord&rsquo;s spoken words. He is telling men about the person of Jesus, the man he personally knew, and in doing this he was declaring God&rsquo;s essential <i>logos / </i>word to them. If the very being of the Lord Jesus was the expression of God&rsquo;s word, it is little to be marvelled at that the cross, being as it is the crystallisation of all He was and is, should be in an even more intense sense the voice of God to us. And the same process of the word becoming flesh must be seen in us too.</p><p>There are different levels of fellowship; as we actually know from our own observed experience. There are some we are 'in fellowship' with whom we don't feel so close to as others. John says that he wanted to declare to them the depths of the understanding of Christ, &ldquo;that you may also have fellowship with us&quot; (1 Jn. 1:3), even though they were already technically 'in fellowship'. And so it is with our communal life. A close binding together in the depths and heights of the Lord Jesus leads to ever higher experiences of fellowship. It may be that there are even different levels of fellowship between men and God. Thus God&rsquo;s original intention was that His presence in the Angel should go up to Canaan in the midst of Israel; but because of their weakness, He went in front of them, somewhat separate from them (Ex. 33:2,3). Likewise the glory of God progressively distanced itself from the temple and people of God in Ezekiel&rsquo;s time. The basis of our fellowship, both with the Father and His people, is the life and living of the Lord Jesus. It is not a set of theological tenets<i> per se</i>. It is common experience of living His life, sharing His spirit. We sense this fellowship intuitively with others who live and have it, and if we later discover that we have points of difference over some matters of interpretation, this cannot take away from our connection together in the spirit of Christ. And conversely, sharing simply the same theological tenets is no guarantee of itself that fellowship shall be experienced.</p><p>Fellowship with each other is predicated upon fellowship with the Father. To deny fellowship to another is therefore to say something about their fellowship with the Father and Son. To break fellowship with His children is likewise to break fellowship with Him, as developed in chapter 4. It is therefore utterly fundamental to our fellowship with the Father to be open in fellowship to all His children, all who are in His Son. If we have His spirit within us, this will happen naturally; we just have to ensure that denominational laws and the fear of what others think of us doesn't lead us to go against the Spirit and deny the experience of unity in the Spirit which is naturally created.</p><p>There appears a contrast between 'us' and 'you'. What 'we' see, 'we' declare to 'you'. The 'we' may refer to John and some elders, or even the original disciples, wishing to share their experience of life and fellowship with the Lord with Johns converts.</p>