Commentaries:
Robertson's Word Pictures (NT)
Was manifested (efanerwqh). First aorist passive indicative of fanerow, to make known what already exists, whether invisible (B. Weiss) or visible, "intellectual or sensible" (Brooke). In Colossians 3:4 Paul employs it of the second coming of Christ. Verse I John 1:2 here is an important parenthesis, a mark of John's style as in John 1:15. By the parenthesis John heaps reassurance upon his previous statement of the reality of the Incarnation by the use of ewrakamen (as in verse I John 1:1) with the assertion of the validity of his "witness" (marturoumen) and "message" (apaggellomen), both present active indicatives (literary plurals), apaggellw being the public proclamation of the great news (John 16:25).
The life, the eternal life (thn zwhn thn aiwnion). Taking up zwh of verse I John 1:1, John defines the term by the adjective aiwniov, used 71 times in the N.T., 44 times with zwh and 23 in John's Gospel and Epistles (only so used in these books by John). Here lt means the divine life which the Logos was and is (John 1:4; I John 1:1).
Which (htiv). Qualitative relative, "which very life."
Was with the Father (hn prov ton patera). Not egeneto, but hn, and prov with the accusative of intimate fellowship, precisely as in John 1:1 hn prov ton qeon (was with God). Then John closes the parenthesis by repeating efanerwqh.
Other Robertson's Word Pictures (NT) entries containing 1 John 1:2:
John 16:25
John 21:1
Colossians 2:9
Hebrews 1:1
1 John 1:1
1 John 1:2
1 John 1:3
1 John 1:3
1 John 2:25
1 John 4:14
1 John 5:11
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