God Is Light, And That Matters Greatly (1 John 1:5-2:2)
God is light and His people live in the light.
Last week we discussed the prologue of 1 John. And in the prologue we saw that John wanted those who came in contact with his letter to be assured of their salvation so that their joy would be made complete. Today we will begin discussing the content of 1 John.
This section deals with three claims of the heretics. The three claims are that it is those who have left the teachings of the Apostles, or the teaching of the New Testament that have fellowship with God, are without sin, and have not sinned. You will notice that John says “If we claim” or “If we say” throughout this passage. These are the claims that Cerinthus and his followers are making.
Over against this claim John will make a declaration. It is a declaration that has already been taught. It is the message that they heard from Jesus and the message that the Apostles announced to them. The message was, “God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5-2:2 NASB)
God is pure. God is righteous. God is holy. God is without sin. And His separation from darkness is complete. And this one declaration that God is Light is a rebuke to all three of these claims. And John will spend this passage telling us why that is the case. For God is light, and His people live in the light.
It may seem at first glance that these objections don’t apply to people today. But if you really think about it they apply immensely, and so the same rebuke that John gave long ago will help us today.
Think about it. When there is a gay pride parade marching down the street there is usually a pastor of a church somewhere involved with the entire ordeal. This person who is supposed to know about the character and nature of God is asked by a reporter, “Do you think God is okay with homosexuality?” And the answer that they will give is predictable. They will say, “God is love.” Then they will likely say, “Love is love.” And what should our response to that statement be. “God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5 NASB) And then we could look at the biblical definition of marriage and the commands against homosexual behavior.
Another instance might be a guy walks up to you and says, “I know I am married but I really want to be with this woman. I don’t think God would want me to be unhappy. I am going to leave my wife and get married to her.” What is our response to this? “God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5 NASB) And then we would tell him to separate himself with this new lady and go home and love his wife.
And here, over against the objections made by the disciples of the heretic Cerinthus John holds forth the nature and character of God. They said that they are the ones that have fellowship with God, that they are without sin, and that they have not sinned, and John says, “God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5 NASB)
There are two ways that light is primarily used in Scripture. First, light is revelatory. Light reveals things to us. God reveals Himself to us and without this revelation about Himself or the world we would be left in darkness. What do you do when it’s dark and you need to find something? You turn on a light. Why do you do that? Because light reveals things. And second, light is pure. Darkness does not live in light. Therefore, there is a purity in light.
What we will see in this text is that God is light and His people live in the light.
God Is Light, And Those In The Light Have Fellowship With God (Vv. 6-7)
The first objection that John deals with here is that the heretics are the ones that have fellowship with God. They lived sinfully, believing that the sins they committed in the body were not actually sins because their soul was not sinning.
John’s answer to this is
“If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; 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.” (1 John 1:6-7 NASB)
Last week I said that eternal life began with God who has life in Himself. And eternal life is defined as fellowship with God. This fellowship was extended by God to the world when God the Son came to earth and this fellowship continues to be extended even today as people are brought into God’s Kingdom. This fellowship is with God who is Light and has not darkness at all. Therefore, it is those who are in the light who have fellowship with God, not those in the darkness.
This becomes interesting in our day when a person who claims to be a Christian is belittling a Christian for his beliefs on different sins in our day. They will look down on the Christian, ultimately because the Christian does not have fellowship with darkness. That is where the Christian belongs. They are in the light and not in the darkness.
I.Howard Marshal, the great Bible commentator had a really interesting and helpful illustration on this point. The Christian lives in a world of darkness. He is like
“a person walking on a dark stage in the circle of light cast by a spotlight which is focused on him; he moves slowly so that he can walk in its light without fear of stumbling and losing his way. To live in the glare of the spotlight involves living a life that is compatible with being in the light, a life that is free from sin. To live in the darkness means to live without the benefit of divine illumination and guidance and so to live in sin. What John is saying is that it is not possible to have fellowship with God and yet to live in sin because to have fellowship with God means walking in the light while to live in sin means to walk in the darkness.”—I. Howard Marshal, The Epistles of John, p. 110
And so, John’s answer to them is simply that they are lying. It cannot be possible that a person who is walking in darkness can be in fellowship with God who resides in the light.
God is morally pure. And if a person claims to have fellowship with God while living in darkness then their life is not matching their claim. This mismatch means that they are lying about their fellowship with God.
And notice how John moves to verse 7. I love what he does here. He takes us back to the prologue. The person who lives in the light has fellowship with other believers and with God.
It is not those who walk in the darkness, but those who walk in the light that have fellowship with God and other believers. Those people who set themselves apart from the rest of the church are outside of this fellowship of light. And only those people who are part of the fellowship of light have provision for their sins through the blood of Christ.
The message to the unbeliever is not, “Come Just As You Are” and live however you want. It is “Come Just As You Are”, turn from ruling your own life and trust in the Savior. Jesus Christ was holy and that holy life is something that Christians are called to do. Do not act as if Jesus would have embraced all manners of worldliness that the people of this world have embraced. Jesus is not like us. He is holy. And that his a good things. The invitation to the lost person who hears this message today is not for you to come to a Jesus of your own imagination. It’s to come to the real Jesus who was declared by the Apostles so long ago and become part of the fellowship of the light through the finished work of Christ.
Those who profess faith in Christ, yet embrace every manner of sinfulness that the world embraces are not Christians. Our country is filled with people who name the name of Christ but have not been changed by the name of Christ. Their claim is false. If they have fellowship with the light then they are in the light.
The salvation that Christ achieved for us is much more than just being saved from Hell. Christ saves from sin. This will not be finished until we are one day with Him in the New Heavens and New Earth, but the believer lives in the light. So, the Christian lives in the glare of the spotlight as those who have fellowship with God.
This means that as a church we should be an example of love and holiness to the community that surrounds us. We are the blood bought bride of Christ who has a local outpost here on the East side of Conway. Let us hold each other accountable to that holiness. Let us help each other grow in that holiness. God is light and in Him there is no darkness. Let us reveal that light to the community that surrounds us.
But this does not mean that we will be perfect. In fact, it reveals that we are not.
God Is Light, And That Reveals Our Sinfulness (Vv. 8-9)
The second claim of the heretical group was that they were without sin. Here, God is Light peers through the claim and reveals its falseness with great clarity. The person who claims that they are without sin is self-deceived. Whatever their outward conduct is, they are proclaiming they are not sinning. And John simply answers with, you are self-deceived.
From my own personal experience, and I assume yours as well, the more I understand the meaning of “God is light”, the more I understand the sinfulness and darkness that lives within my own heart. And quite simply, John is saying that a person who looks at their self and thinks, “I have no sin” cannot possibly be a Christian. They are most certainly self-deceived.
If I were to walk to downtown Conway and just start asking every passers by what they thought of their self, for the most part the population would let me know that they are a really great bunch of people. Most people would throw in a caveat and say that they did bad things, but they were good people. And everyone would have a different way of justifying their statement. A person who hasn’t stolen anything in a while might say that he’s not a thief. And the thief might say that he’s never murdered anyone. It’s a sliding scale.
Human beings are good at a lot of things. One of the things we are really good at is deceiving ourselves. A person can usually justify their actions to their self even if it is an incredibly silly self-justification. You have children. How many times have you seen one child sock one of the other children and have a justification for why they did it? How many times have you seen two adults get into a fight and have their justification for the fight ready at hand?
And here’s the problem. Other people are not the standard. God is the standard. And here John says, “God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5 NASB) When compared to God, we are all filthy, wretched, and blind. And when you are in the light, you know that.
Our modern society seems built on the notion that people are sinless. People will argue that their problems are not sin issues. Typically they argue that the problem is psychological or social. Some of the things you will hear is that people aren’t bad by nature, so we don’t need police or jails. They simply need some therapy to draw out the good that lies within. But it’s self-deception. Sin is real and people are really sinful. Sometimes you will hear people say that if only everyone were given the same start in life with good homes and a good education then society would be good. So, the person committing sin is not sinning, but they are just behind the 8 ball socially. It’s society’s fault, if society did their part, they would not have sinned. As if rich people with good educations don’t sin. It’s another example of self-deception. Give wicked people more money and more education and they have just become smarter and richer crooks. And what about people who just say that they were made this way and can’t help it.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is the Christian. The Christian saw God’s holiness and moral purity and separated their self from the self-righteousness that causes a person to make these sorts of excuses and turned to Christ who is truly righteous for their salvation. The unbeliever thinks they can achieve on their own if only certain circumstances were right while the Christian sees their sinfulness and flees to the Savior. It is the Christian who understands their standing in the world. They understand their sinfulness and flee to the Savior. Anything else is a bad case of self-deception.
And that is the idea found in the next verse.
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9 NASB)
When we see God as He is, and we view ourselves as we truly are, this pushes us to Christ who is the only relief for our souls. God the Son came to Earth and took on human flesh and dwelt among us. He lived a perfect life so that we could be counted righteous in Him. He died on the cross so that our sins could be forgiven in Him. He rose from the grave so that we could have resurrection life in Him. And so, when we sin…and we do sin, we run to the one who can cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
The Christian is in a far different place than the heretic of John’s day and many people in our own. The Christian sees their failures in light of God’s light and goes to the only place where forgiveness can be found. We are not a collection of people who are self-righteous. We are a collection of people who have been saved by the grace and mercy of God. We seek forgiveness only in Him.
God Is Light, And He Has Told You That You Are A Sinner (Vv. 10)
The next objection is very much like the last one. The heretics had claimed not only that they were righteous but that they had never sinned. John here insists that if a person has ever claimed that then they are not just a liar, but that they are calling God Himself a liar. But why would John say that?
Over and over in Scripture sin is seen as universal. When Adam sinned we all became corrupt and we all sinned. (Romans 5:12)
It is very likely that we have all memorized Romans 3:23 which puts this idea forward quite plainly.
“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23 NASB)
No one has met God’s standard of holiness. The sinfulness of mankind is universal. But this idea is not just found in the New Testament. This idea is found scattered throughout the Old Testament.
“When they sin against You (for there is no man who does not sin) and You are angry with them and deliver them to an enemy, so that they take them away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near;” (1 Kings 8:46 NASB)
“They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.” (Psalm 14:3 NASB)
“Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who [continually] does good and who never sins.” (Ecclesiastes 7:20 NASB)
“All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.” (Isaiah 53:6 NASB)
“For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” (Isaiah 64:6 NASB)
Here is the plain truth of the matter. God has stated over and over that all people are sinful by nature and that they act out that sinfulness with sinful actions. If any person says they’ve never sinned then they are saying that “God is lying.” And the person who calls God a liar does not have the Word of God in them. They are not a Christian.
Christian, you are not perfect and God knows that about you. You sin. The work Christ came to accomplish will one day be completed and you will sin no more. But for now, you sin.
So, how do we put the two ideas of this passage together? How do we reconcile that those who live in darkness are not believers yet those who claim sinlessness or to be righteous on their own are not believers? What gives?
There is an illustration that is helpful. I can use the camera on my phone to either take pictures or take video. When I use it as a camera it captures a still photo of a singular moment in time. When I use it as a video camera it captures longer portions of time. Now, if I were working on the roof of my house and while doing so, hit my finger with my hammer and said a word that should not be uttered, someone might look at me and say that I am not a Christian. “Look at how he is behaving.” They might say. But if they were following me around capturing video, the scene would be different. One of these captures a singular moment in time when I failed and the other captures my life. And there is a difference.
The Christian’s style of life should be that of living in the light. There will be moments of darkness, but the Christian’s life will be one of living in the light of God’s holiness.
So, we are not perfect. We are a congregation of sinful people who have been brought to Christ. We are growing less sinful and more like Christ. So, we live in the light, but when we sin, we flee to the Savior for forgiveness.
God Is Light, And That Is A Comfort For Christians (Vv. 2:1-2)
John’s concluding remarks summarize what he has been saying.
Why is it that John wrote to them?
John wrote to them so that they would not sin, but when they sin they flee to the Savior.
We can slide into strange positions on either side of this. We can end up being too lenient or too severe. If we are too lenient then we will encourage sin and sinfulness in our midst by discussing the grace of God all the time and not insist upon holy living. But that is not possible for us because God is light and there is no darkness in Him. If we are too severe we will either deny people the possibility of salvation from sin or change our understanding of sin so much that people will not believe they are sinning.
God’s forgiveness is not to give us a light view of sin. It should do the opposite. It should give us a horrid distaste for sin and move us to live holy lives.
But when the Christian sins, Christ our legal defender…our Advocate…comes alongside us and pleads our case. Jesus, “the propitiation for our sins”, pleads on our behalf. The word “propitiation” is a beautiful one for the Christian. It means “wrath bearing sacrifice”. God created all things and they were all good. And man, as part of that creation, owed God all reverence, honor, worship, and obedience. But man fell into sin and rebellion. We have earned God’s wrath and justice. God’s wrath is not uncontrolled anger. God’s wrath is His settled response to sin. It’s God’s justice in response to the breaking of His Law. That is the punishment that you and I owe to God for breaking His Law. But Jesus is our propitiation. He took God’s wrath upon Himself.
And this wonderful sacrifice is not just enough for you in the here and now. It’s “also for the sins of the whole world.” It is enough for anyone and everyone who trusts in Christ as their Savior.
So, we live in the light. But when we sin there is bountiful forgiveness in Christ.
Conclusion
God is light and that causes His people to live in the light. They live lives that accord with that light. But this right understanding of God’s purity also gives them a right understanding of their own sinfulness. For as long as the Christian lives on this Earth they will have some level of impurity within them. But the Christian doesn’t hide that sin, they go to their advocate. He is the only one who cleanses from sin. Only in Him can sins be forgiven. And we are so glad that He forgives sin because impurity will remain within us that we will fight our whole lives.
R. Dwain Minor