that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us. Yes, and our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
"Fellowship" is a very important word in this epistle because everything depends on it: salvation, fullness of joy, and forgiveness of sins. "Fellowship" is from the Greek word, koinonia and means "the share which one has in anything, participation" (Thayer 352). "The idea in the word is that of one person having a joint-participation with another in something possessed in common by both" (Wuest, I John 96). John begins by saying that he wants his readers to have fellowship, a sharing in common with him and the other apostles. What is the import of his words? As Lenski says, "’Also to you’ means that you may have what we apostles have" (377). John wants his readers to enjoy a share in what he and the other apostles have enjoyed all along. In the next phrase, he explains.