Works of
literature have several defining characteristics. They have an opening, also known as “the
hook”, designed to catch the reader’s attention. A main point is necessary. This is the theme that runs through the
piece, overshadowing all that is written.
A purpose, while often being synonymous with the main point, can
sometimes be different. Climaxes,
denouements, prologues, and epilogues are among the other features that are
usually present. We have already
discussed the fact that John chose to dispense with several of the typical
characteristics of a letter in his first epistle. But what he doesn’t leave out is his main
point. And it is found in verses five to
ten of chapter one. Bear in mind that
this is not John’s purpose for writing the letter. That won’t come until chapter five and verse
13. But what he reveals here is the
fulcrum upon which the pendulum of 1st John swings. This is the crux of the issues he is
presenting. What we will find in these
few verses is the grounds which enable John to drive toward that purpose to be
revealed later. To state it clearly,
this is the heart of the matter.
John has
spent considerable effort already in detailing his authority as an eyewitness
of the manifestation of God the Father in the person of God the Son, Jesus
Christ. We have seen how John’s
firsthand experiences with Jesus overwhelmed his senses and contributed to a
comprehensive understanding and contemplation of this revelation of God’s
character. So when he comes to verse 5
it should come as no surprise that he continues to draw on that authoritative
position he enjoys: This is the message
we have heard from Him and announce to you.
Remember that this is no mere preacher seeking to exegete the
Bible. The speaker is not someone whose
words may be casually ignored or even judiciously considered for accuracy. This is the Apostle John and his words carry
the same weight of authority as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
And what
words they are! This is the critical
point upon which 1st John hangs: God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. We looked at this verse briefly a few weeks
ago. John is capitalizing on a Biblical
metaphor here. He did not invent it. In fact, this illustration of light and dark
is from antiquity. Consider Psalm
119:105: Your word is a lamp to my feet
and a light to my path. Or perhaps
Proverbs 6:23 would be helpful: For the
commandment is a lamp and the teaching is light; and reproofs for discipline
are the way of life. Repeatedly
Scripture gives us this image of light as a good and helpful thing. Light illumines our way forward to aid us in
not becoming lost. It is associated with
heat, as from the Sun, to warm our bones on a cold winter’s day.
By contrast,
darkness is confusing and mysterious, even fearful. Temperatures fall in the dark, causing us to
shiver and feel a sense of dread or foreboding.
We instinctively know and understand that darkness is worse than
light. This is because the dark
represents the unknown. We fear the unknown
on a primal level because of the sundering of our relationship with God. So in all these ways, in every way possible,
it makes absolute sense to our minds that light is good and dark is bad. Therefore, when John uses this metaphor it
feels right to us.
But, do we truly
play it out to its logical conclusion?
If God is light, or good, and if there is no darkness, or evil, in Him
then what is our response to evil in the world?
There are only two possibilities.
To be fair, there is a third, that God Himself is evil. But that option is so ludicrous as to not
even be worthy of consideration. Thus we
are left with the following. Either we
ascribe to God the full ruler ship and authority over His creation, including
the evil parts of it that are due to sin.
Or we divorce Him from this evil and maintain that agents outside of God
are the causal forces responsible for the evil that is present in the
world. The problem with the latter
solution is that it removes a portion of God’s sovereignty over His
creation. The difficulty with the former
is that if God allows, permits, or ordains that evil exist in His world then
how can He be perfectly light with no darkness at all in Him?
This is one
of the most perplexing and divisive issues in the Bible. And I’m not going to be very fair here
because I’m not going to get side-tracked and delve too deeply into it. My purpose is rather to cause you to reflect
and contemplate. I want you to process
this apparent Scriptural difficulty. So
I will say this. The fundamental reason that
humans grapple with this issue is because we struggle to reconcile the
possibility that two truths can run parallel to each other without intersecting
or contradicting each other. In our
minds there is a finite, or two dimensional cause. Similarly there is a finite, or two
dimensional effect. And to be sure, many
doctrines of Scripture are this way. One
of them is in this very passage and we will get to it in a few minutes. But some Biblical truths are not like this,
such as the issue at hand of how God’s sovereignty and goodness co-exist and
relate to the evil in the world. There
is a very clear principle in Scripture that God can be sovereign in ordering
circumstances to His whim yet at the same time when those circumstances involve
the commission of acts of evil, the human beings perpetrating the offense are the
ones who are guilty, not God, for their conduct in spite of the fact that they
were operating under the auspices of the Lord.
Two passages
among several come to my mind to reinforce this point. I will allow them to speak mostly for
themselves and then I will move on from this topic. Both references involve the death of
Christ. The first is in Mark 14:21. Jesus is speaking and He references the
pre-ordained path He was on that would ultimately lead to His death. But at the same time, even though this was
part of God’s plan, Jesus places the burden of responsibility squarely on
Judas’s shoulders: “For the Son of Man
is to go just as it is written of Him; but woe to that man by whom the Son of
Man is betrayed! It would have been good
for that man if he had not been born.”
The second citation I will give comes from Peter’s sermon on the Day of
Pentecost, found in Acts chapter 2. In
verse 23 Peter makes it clear that the death of Jesus was according to God’s
plan yet the ones responsible for that death were held accountable for their
actions: “this Man, delivered over by
the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the
hands of godless men and put Him to death.”
These
passages prove that the parallel truths of God’s sovereignty over evil and
man’s responsibility for his evil actions can and do co-exist in harmony. We may not understand how that can be. But honestly our ability to comprehend it is
quite irrelevant to the question of whether or not it is true. And we need to come to terms with the fact
that, however we want to settle this issue in our minds, the Bible makes
allowance for this peaceful co-existence.
In addition,
we need to be clear on our understanding of who God is. John reveals Him here as light with no hint
at all of darkness. The whole rest of
this letter hinges upon understanding that.
So we must be sure that our understanding lines up with reality as best
it can.
With this
foundational unveiling of God’s nature out of the way, John now moves on to
draw some practical conclusions from what he has just said. In 1st John 1:6 we read: If we say that we have fellowship with Him
and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. Immediately a question comes to my
mind. Namely, what exactly is walking in
darkness? What does that look like on a
practical level? Let’s engage in a
little bit of logical deduction and see where it takes us. We will pre-suppose that we already know good
is the opposite of evil. We will also assume
an understanding that light is the opposite of darkness. Therefore, if God’s nature, His fundamental
character quality, is equivalent to good and light then it stands to reason
that evil and metaphorical darkness are similarly equivalent to that which is
opposite of God’s own essence. So with
very broad but accurate brush strokes we can say that to walk in darkness is to
live and act in a manner which is not consistent with who God has revealed
Himself to be.
To further
clarify our understanding on this matter, remember that the fellowship John is
speaking of is the same word he used in the preceding passage: koinonia. This is infinitely more than an acquaintance. It is vastly deeper than even a close
friendship. Koinonia as the Greeks
thought of it was a comprehensive and intimate communion that bonded two
entities together in a shared relationship of sacrificial love and unconditional
affection. This causes the offense John
is describing to ratchet up significantly in terms of its putrescence. He is describing a situation where people
claim this sort of bond with God that practically transcends human ability it
is so special. Yet while making such
assertions the very same people are gleefully stabbing the Lord right in His
proverbial heart with their lifestyles that are flat contradictions of
everything He is.
As I
mentioned just a minute ago, some Biblical truths are quite clear cut and
plain. This is one of them. It’s really a black and white issue. If we claim to be born of God yet we act
contrary to Him then we are liars. It is
as simple as that because the Bible clearly says so. This is strong language. I think we often, especially in this age of
politically correct speech, tend to shy away from making such blunt
pronouncements. It feels somehow cruel
and unusually harsh to call someone a liar.
Yet John, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and speaking to this
issue of walking in darkness while claiming the light, pulls no punches in
labeling the behavior he is condemning.
Furthermore,
notice the connection that John makes between works and words. He could have written that we are liars. Or he could have said that we do not practice
the truth. But instead he throws them
both into the verse. Those who claim
fellowship with God yet don’t act like Him are both liars and practitioners of
falsehood, also known as darkness, also known as evil. The works follow the words or the words
follow the works. Either way, one goes
with the other, always. This is the
point Jesus was making with his tree metaphors in Matthew 7:15-20: “Beware of the false prophets, who
come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor
figs from thistles, are they? So every
good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can
a bad tree produce good fruit. Every
tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by
their fruits.”
To reinforce
his own illustration John now provides us with the counterpoint to this dark
and gloomy description of unfaithfulness and lies. Verse 7 presents a far different picture of
how to live: but if we walk in the Light
as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the
blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. This is the exact polar opposite of what John
has previously described. We have seen
that walking in darkness is equivalent to acting contrary to God’s own
nature. Therefore, walking in the light
is necessarily defined as acting in accord with God’s own nature.
There is a
logical paradigm implicit in what John is saying about the blood of Jesus. Cleansing cannot occur unless dirt is present
to be cleaned. If there is no dirt then
washing is unnecessary. In fact, it
becomes irrelevant. Because of this John
doesn’t have to specify that sin is present in those who are in fellowship with
God. All he has to say is that Christ’s
blood will cleanse us from sin. And
because of this we are automatically categorized as being sinful because if we
weren’t then the blood of Jesus would have nothing to clean. Why is this important? Because it refutes the claims of those who
would say that we are not inherently sinful.
John places himself firmly in lockstep with the other New Testament
Apostolic witnesses (Romans 3:10-18) as well as the Old Testament prophetic
record (Psalm 14:1-3) with his statement.
But to eliminate any possibility of still being misunderstood on this
point he proceeds to lay out three arguments in the form of potential responses
to what he has said followed by the conclusions drawn based on the truth or
falsehood of the responses given.
The first
possible reply that John foresees is found in verse 8 and I am going to
categorize it as John’s response to those who profess past sinless origination:
If we say that we have no sin, we are
deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. This first clause links very nicely with the
preceding point. As John has already
implied the presence of indwelling sin he now argues specifically against any denials
of it. He does this by using a Greek word
that connotes a state or a condition.
The word is “echo”. It is usually
translated into English as “have”. The
idea is to hold or contain something, or perhaps to be in a condition or state
of something. In this case the something
being held onto or the condition present is that of sin.
Jesus uses
the same verbal construct in John 19:11: You
would have no authority over me, unless it had been given you from
above. In this verse Christ is
describing Pilate’s power to pronounce judgment upon Him. He is describing the authority invested into
Pilate as the Roman governor of Palestine.
This authority is a state of being that Pilate is currently in or a
condition he is holding onto.
Another
usage of “echo” that bears more similarity to our current location in 1st
John is found in John 9:41: If you were
blind you would have no sin, but since you say, ‘We see,’ your sin
remains. Jesus is not describing a
situation in which a person can potentially free themselves from their sinful
condition. He is making the point that
if any person anywhere would or could actually admit that they are hopeless in
and of themselves and consequently confess their need for God, they would in
that case be sinless. But this is purely
a hypothetical exercise that He is using to prove a point. Because the reality is that no mere human has
existed since The Fall that is capable of making such an admission.
Therefore, all people’s sin remains. And again we see Jesus using the word “echo”,
translated once again as “have” to express the idea of a condition or a state
of sin.
With that
point in mind, look at John’s opinion of those who deny their sinful
condition. He says they deceive themselves
and the truth is not in them. This is a
strong parallel to verse 6 that we have already looked at. But here the offense is amplified and the
shame is intensified by revealing that these people are not just lying
externally but they are lying internally as well. They are deluding themselves.
I recall the
sheer lunacy of the people described in Isaiah’s sarcastic description of idol
worshipers, found in Isaiah 44:9-20. The
prophet is describing the idiocy of a man who plants a tree, watches it grow,
chops it down, uses it to build a fire, cooks his food on the fire, eats and is
filled. Oh yes, and then he takes the
rest of the clearly inanimate wood, fashions it into an idol, and prostrates
himself before it in heinous worship. It
is the very definition of insanity; to deny that which is real. And then in verses 18 to 20 Isaiah says this:
They do not know, nor do they
understand, for He has smeared over their eyes so that they cannot see and
their hearts so that they cannot comprehend.
No one recalls, nor is there knowledge or understanding to
say, “I have burned half of it in the fire and also have baked bread over its
coals. I roast meat and eat it. Then I make the rest of it into
an abomination, I fall down before a block of wood!” He feeds on ashes; a deceived heart
has turned him aside. And he cannot
deliver himself, nor say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?”
The man in
the story is clearly out of touch with reality.
He doesn’t understand or comprehend.
The passage makes it clear that God is the one who has caused the
blindness. Yet we once again see
elements of the parallelism that I talked about above in that it is his own
deceived heart that has turned him aside.
It matters not that God is the one who has smeared over the eyes. Foolish and sinful man is still held
accountable for his blindness. It
matters not that man cannot deliver himself.
He is still fully under the wrath of God and destined for hell should
something not intervene to alter his fate.
This is the
depth of divinely ordained and self-deluded damnation that people are headed
for who deny the reality of their own indwelling sin. To deny one’s sinful condition is to cut the
legs out from under the very foundation of the gospel. If we refuse to admit that we are sinners by
not just action and commission, but by condition and classification, then we
refute the necessity of forgiveness and cleansing. It’s a bit like a child, covered in mud after
a hard day’s playing outside, who adamantly resists his parent’s exhortations
to wash before dinner. He looks them
boldly in the face and says “But I’m not dirty!” And the whole time his obtuseness is evident
to all except himself.
Moving on
from the sad and pitiable state described in verse 8, John now gives us a
pleasant interlude of God honoring behavior in verse 9. I’m going to call this John’s response to
those who confess their sinful conduct: If
we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
What we find in this verse is nothing less than a textbook definition of
repentance. The word confess doesn’t
just mean an admission of guilt. It is
more than that. To confess in this
context means to agree with one’s accuser.
The One who accuses the world of sin is God, specifically His Holy
Spirit (John 16:8-9). So when we confess
as the Bible dictates, we are agreeing with God that our standard of thought,
word, and deed has missed His holy and righteous mark which is established and
delineated by His own character.
Furthermore, we agree with His assessment of the punishment due to us by
virtue of the guilty verdict which has been delivered. And finally, we agree to turn away from our
former lifestyle and conform to a new standard, God’s standard, the only
perfect standard which is acceptable in His sight. This is the pre-requisite attitude that God
demands before He will consent to absolve us of our guilt before Him.
But notice
how John is very careful to draw our attention, even in this moment of repentance,
back to the character and reputation of the Lord. He specifically points out that God is both
faithful and righteous. His faithfulness
is exhibited in the fact that He has previously promised this forgiveness (John
3:16; Acts 2:38). Therefore, His
trustworthy nature dictates that He will follow through and be true to His
word. His righteousness, as the visible
portrayal of His holiness in quantifiable actions, is displayed because He
doesn’t just nonchalantly excuse away our trespass. Rather, God has followed His own paradigm of
justice in providing a substitutionary sacrifice in the person of Jesus Christ
(2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 3:18). This is
precisely why it is the blood of Jesus that is the cleaning agent which
cleanses us from all sin, as John stated back in verse 7. Christ’s blood on the cross is the catalyst
that enables God to remain perfectly just when He righteously forgives our sin
and declares us not guilty.
This is
terribly, critically important for Christians to bear in mind. Our salvation from death and adoption as
children of God is not dependent on our own sometimes half-hearted and at all
times imperfect efforts to live righteously.
The rock on which we stand is built upon the character of God and what
He has said. Our transient minds are
extremely capable of delusion and error.
Satan is very well aware of this and is exceedingly proficient at
exploiting our vulnerability. He plants
doubt in our minds about our salvation.
He sows seeds of fear over some horrific sin from our past. He lustfully covets our joy in Christ and
exerts all of his considerable skill in attempting to rob us of it by accusing
us daily of our imperfections. Jesus described
the efforts of the devil in John 10:1: “Truly,
truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the
sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber.”
Our defense
against these seditious acts of spiritual sheep rustling is to implant firmly
into our minds the truths of God’s faithfulness and righteousness. That is why John is calling our attention to
those divine qualities in this verse. He
knows that it is imperative for his “little children”, as he will refer to us
in the next chapter, to throw up a solid and defensible shield wall against the
onslaught of the enemy’s attacks. I
believe that John’s purpose in giving us this defense is twofold. First, just as any parent or older sibling
doesn’t want a child to be in danger or in pain, so this Apostle desires for
his spiritual children to be safe, happy, and contented.
To this end
I think he would echo the sentiments of his apostolic brother Paul in
Philippians 3:12-14: Not that I have
already obtained it or
have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay
hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having
laid hold of it yet;
but one thing I do: forgetting
what lies behind and
reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press
on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ
Jesus. Just like Paul, John wants us
to grab ahold of the truths of God’s character and use them as both an anchor
to hold us steady and a raft to keep us afloat. Then he wants us to run with abandon and vigor
toward the finish line of glorification.
He wants us to cast away doubt and fix our gaze firmly forward. If we will do this we are assured of a
confidence and a joy in our Christian life.
But as glorious and hopeful as this sentiment is, it’s the lesser of his
two motivations.
The far more
important issue at stake is one of sin. Let’s
connect the dots here. God has stated
emphatically that He will save us purely on the basis of biblical saving faith
in the person of Jesus; both His sacrificial work on the cross and His nature
as God in the flesh. To disbelieve or
even mildly doubt what God has said is to imply that He is untruthful. This is a slander against His name, which is
sinful and evil. Jesus affirms this
warning in His wonderful and masterful teaching about worrying in Matthew
6:25-33. To worry about God’s provision
of what we need is a sin. Likewise, if
we doubt our own salvation we are effectively making a statement about the
trustworthiness and validity of what God has said, and we are falling into sin
in the process. To put it bluntly, we
are making God Himself out to be a liar.
Not only that but we are perverting the genuine and pure repentance we
started with when we originally confessed, into a sad parody and wicked
caricature of what God has commanded. We
cast ourselves into a vicious cycle where we sin, repent for it, but then fall
back into sin by doubting the forgiveness that is granted by our repentance.
And this
leads perfectly into the final point of this section in verse 10. This is John’s response to those who claim
present sinless perfection: If we say
that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in
us. Although in English we see the
same word, have, as in verse 8, the meaning here is different. Actually, there are three words in this verse
that come from a single word in the original Greek: we, have, and sinned. That original word is a different tense of
the same verb also found in verse 8, which is itself an expression of the
original Greek noun for sin, “hamartia”.
If you are feeling confused at this point, don’t be. Just remember that the English word “have” in
verse 10 has nothing to do with the original Greek word like it does in verse
8. In verse 8 “echo” modifies
“hamartia”. In verse 10 “echo” is not
present but we translate the concept into “we have sinned” for ease of
understanding. Then the verb is modified
by a negative which comes into English as “not”. And so we are left with the phrase “we have
not sinned”.
What’s the
point of all this language gibberish? It
is that John is stressing a different emphasis in this verse than in verse
8. In the former he was talking about a
state, or a condition, of being sinful.
Here he is referring to our current existence, the choices we make, and
the actions we do. He is talking about a
person who claims they do not currently sin.
They might say this either as an extension of the verse 8 point, that
they don’t believe they have a sin nature at all. Or perhaps they think they have advanced
beyond the capacity to sin. In other
words, they have achieved a sinless perfection in this life. This is blatantly, obviously, contrary to the
biblical record. One example of many we
could draw on to prove this is Ecclesiastes 7:20: Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good
and who never sins.
Why does
John feel the need to express a denial of sin in these two different ways? After all, isn’t this kind of like two sides
of the same coin? Perhaps, but by doing
it this way John delivers a comprehensive killing blow to any form, shape, or
fashion of a denial of sin. I think he
is trying to eviscerate any possible objection to his teaching here. And in the process he ratchets up his
rhetoric to new levels by plainly stating what we have already inferred from
the previous verse: namely, that by acting this way what we are doing, in
effect, is calling God a liar.
Consider the
condemnatory cross-examination delivered by Paul in Romans 2:21-24: you, therefore, who teach another, do
you not teach yourself? You who preach that one shall not steal, do you
steal? You who say that one should not
commit adultery, do you commit adultery?
You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who boast in the Law, through
your breaking the Law, do you dishonor God?
For “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of
you,” just as it is written. He is
talking directly to two-faced Christians who from one side of their mouth teach
others not to sin, while from the other side they engage in the very same acts
they preach against. This type of
hypocrisy blasphemes the name of God. It
taints His reputation. Because of people
like this God’s glory is diminished.
The same
sort of behavior is what John has in mind here in verse 10. By refusing to own up to one’s own sinful
activities we not only condemn ourselves but we impugn God’s honor. This is a terrible crime. It is the most evil of actions possible for a
human being to commit, seeing as how it seeks to do harm to the only perfectly
holy being in the universe; the Lord Himself.
John emphatically says “Don’t do this!
Don’t act like this! Don’t be
like this!”
In the
interest of drawing this to a conclusion, I want to point your attention back
to what I think is the main point of this section. It is the heart of the issue of how we
respond to sin. God Himself is the
standard by which all of reality is measured.
He Himself is light and all that that entails. Matthew Henry, writing his commentary on 1st
John in the 17th century, stated it this way:
He is all that beauty and perfection that can be
represented to us by light. He is a self-active uncompounded spirituality,
purity, wisdom, holiness, and glory. And then the absoluteness and fullness of
that excellency and perfection. There is no defect or imperfection, no mixture
of anything alien or contrary to absolute excellency, no mutability nor
capacity of any decay in him
This
essential goodness of God is the motivational grounds of all that follows in
this first epistle of John to the Christian church. It is not acceptable for us to be primarily
moved by a desire to escape judgment and wrath.
It is insufficient for believers to view righteous Christian conduct as
a rigorous and unyielding list of rules that serve to steal their joy and bring
monotony to their existence. The Lord
God is the best and brightest standard of measure that exists. He graciously and mercifully loved us and extended
an olive branch of peace to us while we were yet sinners. The only correct response to this wonderful
truth is to be filled with a sense of wonder and a determination to strive to
love Him back as sacrificially as He first loved us. And it is in this, this decisive ordering of
one’s life not out of requirement but out of affection, that we will live life
to the fullest measure possible.
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