THE BASIS OF OUR FELLOWSHIP
1 John 1:5 - 2:2
In his prologue, John
introduced the concept of fellowship, the idea that we have things in common
with other believers on the basis of our union with God. Now he proceeds to develop that principle by
explaining what is the basis and the foundation of
that union. The following mechanical
layout will be helpful in visualizing the flow of thought:
|
5 This
is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that
God is Light, and
in Him
there is no darkness at all. 6 If we
say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; 7 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. 8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say
that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. 2:1 My
little children, I
am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And
if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; 2 and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world. |
This section will be composed
of two main parts. First, John presents
a contrast between the concepts of light and darkness (1:5-7). Then he turns to the problem of sin in
relation to those who are walking either in the light or in the darkness (1:8 -
2:2).
LIGHT AND DARKNESS
There is nothing so
elementary as light and darkness. The
problem is that we tend to see things in terms of shades of grey. What John is going to present in this chapter
is an absolute.
1. There
is a Corollary between Light and the Nature of God: This is the message we have heard from
Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at
all (1 John 1:5).
God
is light. This is the very essence of
His being. It is unqualified. John does not say that God produces light or
that He is like light or even that He is THE light. Those things may all be true, but that is not
what John says. God IS light. This is an absolute. It is explained by way of contrast. In God there is no darkness at all.
There
are no grey areas here. There is no
middle ground. There is no half light
and half darkness. This is an
absolute. God is light. It is His nature. It cannot change.
To
what does this “light” refer? It refers
to God's quality of TRUTH. Light allows
you to see what is. God does that. He not only tells the truth and speaks the
truth, He IS the truth. The implications
are obvious. If we are to have
fellowship with God, then we must necessarily be walking in the light.
2. There
is a Corollary between Fellowship with God and the Walk of the Believer: If we say that we have fellowship with
Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth (1 John
1:6).
This
is the first of six hypothetical conditional clauses that John presents in 1
John 1:6 - 2:1. Each of these will be
introduced with the word “if.”
• If we walk in darkness (1:6).
• If we walk in the light (1:7).
• If we deny our sin (1:8).
• If we confess our sin (1:9).
• If we claim not to have sinned (1:10).
• If we walk fall into sin (2:1).
I
want to suggest that John is moving back and forth in contrasting the believer
with the unbeliever, the one who is walking in the light with the one who is
walking in darkness, the one who is confessing his sin with the one who is
denying his sin.
|
The Unbeliever |
The Believer |
|
He walks in
darkness (1:6) |
He walks in the
light (1:7) |
|
He denies his
sin (1:8) |
He confesses
his sin (1:9) |
|
He claims not
to have sinned (1:10) |
He has an
advocate when he sins (2:1-2) |
John
begins with the man who is walking in darkness.
Such a man might be claiming to have fellowship with God, but it is a
lie. We can picture the situation like
this:
|
Darkness |
Light |
|
Hypothetical man |
God is Light |
Do
you remember our definition of fellowship?
It refers to having things in common.
The man who is walking in darkness has nothing in common with God. This is as absolute and as definite as the
truth that God is light and has in Himself no darkness in Him. If God has absolutely no darkness in Him,
then He cannot possibly have anything in common with one who is in darkness.
Who
is the man who is walking in darkness?
It is the natural man. It is the
man who is still in his sins. It is the
man who is apart from Christ. This is
vividly illustrated in the teachings of Jesus.
Then Jesus again spoke to them,
saying, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me
will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” (John 8:12).
Jesus
is speaking to the Pharisees. They are
unbelievers. In verse 44, He is going to
tell them that their father is the devil.
They are not followers of Christ.
They are following Satan. If they
had been following Christ, they would have been saved.
It
is important to underscore that this is not speaking of discipleship as
something separate and distinct from salvation.
The difference here is between those who are saved and those who are not
saved. These Pharisees were walking in
darkness, but if they will turn to Christ, then they will not walk in darkness
any longer.
This
brings us to a question. What does it
mean to follow Christ? Does it mean that
I have to do certain good works? Does it
mean that I come to a place where I am able to stop sinning. Does it mean that I must make certain
promises to God? No, it does not. I think the answer is found in John 10.
The Jews then gathered around
Him, and were saying to Him, “How long will You keep
us in suspense? If You are the Christ, tell us
plainly.” 25 Jesus
answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe; the works that I do in My
Father's name, these testify of Me. 26 But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep. 27 My
sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and THEY FOLLOW ME; 28
and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will
snatch them out of My hand.” (John 10:24‑28).
Do
you see what is implied? Those who did
not believe were contrasted with those who were following Jesus. You are either in one group or you are in the
other. There is no middle ground. To follow Christ is to believe in Him. Either you believe in Him or you do not. Either you are saved or you are not. Either you are walking in the light or you
are in darkness. Either you have eternal
life or you do not.
Therefore
we can conclude that the man who is walking in darkness is a description of the
man who is unsaved. His situation is not
neutral. The man who is in darkness
eventually comes to hate the light. He
is in darkness because he likes to be in darkness.
This is the judgment, that the
Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the
Light, for their deeds were evil. 20 For
everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear
that his deeds will be exposed. 21 But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that
his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God. (John 3:19‑21).
We
are given a picture of the man who is in darkness. He hates the light. Why? Because the light condemns him. Light has a tendency to show things. When you go to a dermatologist and his looks
at a blemish on your skin, he shines a bright light onto it. Things are seen in the light. That includes good things and it includes bad
things.
Light
has a way of bringing sin out into the open.
Whenever you get close to the light, you find yourself coming face to
face with your sins. The natural man
hates this. He does not want to be
condemned. He would much rather justify
himself. He would rather believe in a
god of his own making. He is a blind man
in a dark room searching for a god who is not there.
When
we come to verse 7 we see another sort of man.
We see one who walks in the Light as He Himself is in the Light. He is the one who practices the truth. He has confessed the reality of his sins and
he is born of God. He comes to the
light. He is no longer in darkness. He does not love the darkness. He loves the light and comes to the
light. Why does he come? It is because he has been drawn by God (John
6:37, 44).
3. There
is a Corollary between Fellowship with the Church and the Cleansing of the
Believer: 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 1:7).
Up
to now we have been looking at the idea of having fellowship with God. But John speaks here of fellowship that we
have with one another. Those who have
fellowship with God also have fellowship with one another. We are part of a covenant community.
Notice
the condition that is presented here.
The fellowship that we share with one another and with God exists only
if we walk in the light in the same way that God is in the light. In which way is God in the light? All the way!
God is in the light in an absolute sense. That is why John said at the outset that God
is light and that in Him there is no darkness at all. The believer who is in the light is in the
light in an absolute sense. He is
completely in the light just as God is completely in the light.
The
result of being in the light is that now we have things in common with one
another. We now share a common union in
Jesus Christ. This common union leads to
a common cleansing — the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin (1
John 1:7).
The
believer is one who has been cleansed from his sin by the blood of Jesus. This is never said of unbelievers. They are still in their sins. They are under the penalty of death. But our sins have been cleansed. The penalty has been paid in the blood on the
innocent One.
The
description here is of blood that cleanses.
That is striking because blood usually stains. We speak of one whose hands are stained by
innocent blood. When you get blood on
clothing, it stains. Yet the blood of
Christ is described in terms of its ability to cleanse. It can cleanse because it is the sign of the
penalty of death that was paid on our behalf.
THE PROBLEM OF SIN
Verse 7 ended with the
reference to the problem of sin and how that sin was cleansed by the blood of
Christ. Now John takes up this issue of
sin to show its relationship to both the believer and the unbeliever.
1. The
Denial of the Existence of Sin: If we
say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us
(1 John 1:8).
We
turn back to the case of the unbeliever.
He is described as denying that he has sin. This can take many forms. Perhaps he is denying the existence of sin. Or maybe he is claiming that sin is really
not that bad and that God can easily overlook it. Or he is stating that his own sin is not that
bad when compared to that of others.
Whatever the case, he is claiming that sin has not totally and eternally
separated him from God.
It
is because the unbeliever is in darkness that he cannot see his sin. He is blinded to his true condition. It is only when he comes to the light that he
can see his sin for what it really is.
There
are two truths presented here about the one who is in darkness. They are two principles that are true of all
unbelievers:
• He is deceiving himself.
He
thinks that he knows the truth, but he is lying to himself. He is a blind man standing in a dark room
saying, “I can see!” Yet he cannot see
the sin in his own life and recognize it for what it is. He is deceived and he participates in his own
deception. The description is
reminiscent of Pharaoh who is both described as having his heart hardened and
also as hardening his own heart.
• The truth is not in him.
If
you are a believer, then there is truth in you.
But the unbeliever does not have such truth in himself. He is lacking something within himself that
is characterized by truth.
What
is truth? Pilate asked the question and
washed his hands. Jesus said, “I am the
way, the truth, and the life (John 16:6).
The Holy Spirit is described as the Spirit of truth (John 16:13) and God
is described as the God of truth (Isaiah 65:16).
The
unbeliever has no principle of truth within himself. He has no means of perceiving spiritual
truth. This is why he does not agree he
is in darkness. This is graphically
illustrated in the conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees:
And Jesus said, “For judgment I
came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who
see may become blind.” 40 Those
of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things and said to Him, “We are
not blind too, are we?” 41 Jesus
said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, ‘We
see,’ your sin remains.” (John 9:39-41).
In
the context of this conversation, Jesus had just given sight to a blind
man. This blind man had been given
physical as well as spiritual sight.
Both of his needs were met in Jesus.
However, the Pharisees had consistently refused to admit they had any
spiritual needs. If they had agreed with
God concerning their lost condition, they could have been saved. However, because they claimed that they were
already in the light, they remained in the darkness of their sin. This brings us to the truth presented in
verse 9 and the importance of confession of sin.
2. The
Confession of Sin: If we confess our
sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins (1 John 1:9).
This
is a very familiar verse. It is usually
used to describe haw a Christian is to get back into “fellowship” after he has
sinned. I agree that this verse tells
how a person comes into fellowship with God.
However, we have seen that John’s concept of fellowship is that the
believer has entered into a spiritual union with Jesus Christ at the time of
salvation. I do not believe that John
has suddenly changed the subject. He is
still continuing the same progression of thought that was begun in the previous
verses. He has been contrasting the
believer with the unbeliever and that contrast continues here.
|
The unbeliever is the one
who says he has no sin |
↔ |
The believer is the one who
agrees with God concerning his sin |
|
Confession is
not primarily something God has us do because he needs it. God is not clutching tightly to his mercy,
as if we have to pry it from his fingers like a child's last cookie. We need to confess in order to heal and be
changed. |
The
word “confess” is translated from the Greek root homologeo. It is a compound word, made up from the
joining of two words together. A
compound usually consists of more than the sum of its parts, but in this case,
it is helpful to look at those parts.
• Homo refers to something which is
the same as another. A homosexual is one
who desires the same sex.
• Lego is the verb “to say” or
“speak.”
The
resulting compound means “to speak the same thing.” This is what confession means. It refers to agreeing with God about
something. In this case, we agree with
God concerning our sin. We agree that we
are helpless to remedy our sinful situation and that our only hope is to trust
in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
3. The
Forgiveness and Cleansing of Sin: If
we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).
Now
we see the results of this confession.
There are two things that take place when we agree with God concerning
our sin.
• God is faithful and righteous to
forgive us our sins.
What
kind of forgiveness is this? It is the
same type of forgiveness that deals with our sin in verse 7 where we read
obtain through the blood of Jesus. This
is the forgiveness that comes as a result of Christ’s death on the cross for
us.
When
did this forgiveness take place? It took
place when you believed. Prior to that
time, you were still in your sins. But
when you came to Christ in faith, trusting in Him as your Lord and Savior, you
were eternally forgiven.
• God cleanses us from all
unrighteousness.
This
is the same word for cleansing that is used back in verse 7 when we read that the
blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. We are cleansed from all sin and we are
cleansed from all unrighteousness.
When
we place verses 7 and 9 side by side, we find that they are talking about the
same thing.
|
Verse 7 |
Verse 9 |
|
If we walk in the Light... |
If we confess our sins... |
|
As He Himself is in the
Light... |
He is faithful and
righteous... |
|
The blood of Jesus His Son
cleanses us from all sin. |
...to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness |
Do
you see the implications? Walking in the
light produces the same effect as confessing our sins. Therefore, we conclude that John presents the
man who comes before God and agrees with God that he is a sinner in need of a
Savior. It is this man who will find
that his sins have been forgiven and that he is now walking in the light.
4. The
Denial of Specific Personal Sin: If
we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.
(1 John 1:10).
Now
we move back to the unbeliever. This
time we are looking at the case of the man who says he has not sinned. This is subtly different than what we saw in
verse 8. There we saw a denial of
sin. This could include the existence of
sin or the idea that sin is not really that bad or that there is a sin nature
or that sin has separated man from God.
Here
there is a change. This is the case of
the man who might admit that sin exists in the lives of others and that it is
evil and that it separates people from God.
However, he claims that none of this applies to him because he does not
feel he has sinned. He is saying in
effect that he does not need the work of Christ on the cross, though it is a
good thing for others.
This
man is trying to make God a liar. God
declares that all have sinned and this man says, “But not me!” The truth is that he is unable to confess his
sins. He is in darkness. He cannot see his true condition. It is only when he is brought into the light
that he will be able to see his true condition and agree with God concerning
his sins. It is only when he believes
what God says and agrees about his sins and his need for a Savior that God
forgives those sins.
5. The
Motivation to Avoid Sin: My little
children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin (1 John 2:1).
John
has just finished demonstrating that the man who has fellowship with God is the
one who agrees that he has sinned and is in need of a Savior. But John does not want his readers to think
by this that he is condoning sin. To the
contrary, the very reason John is writing is so that they will avoid sin.
This
is not a new concept. Christianity has
always called the believer to walk in righteousness. Grace can never be taken as a license to sin.
What shall we say then? Are we to
continue in sin so that grace may increase?
2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still
live in it? (Romans 6:1‑2).
It
is only the Christian who has any true basis on which to live a life that is
free from sin. The Christian has been
declared to be righteous. Now he has a
reason to live up to that righteousness and to try to live like what he has
been declared to be. He has been legally
pronounced dead to sin and he is called to live a life that is alive to righteousness.
The
believer also has the Holy Spirit living within him. This gives to him, not only the motivation,
but also the means to live this kind of life.
...for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work
for His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13).
This
brings us to a question. Does this mean
that a believer can come to a point where he will never sin again? That is exactly what it means. However, the believer will only reach that
point when he enters the presence of the Lord. It will only be in that day that we shall
finally be like Christ.
Beloved, now we are children of
God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He
appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. (1 John
3:2).
Now
this brings up an important question. If
sin is contrary to the righteousness of God and I am being told that I should
not sin, what happens if I do sin? The
answer is found in the next section.
6. The
Solution to Present Sin: And if
anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the
righteous; 2 and He
Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for
those of the whole world (1 John 2:1b‑2).
Here
we have the instance of the sinning believer.
What is to be his attitude? He is
to recognize that he has One who continually speaks in
his defense. It is Jesus Christ. He has settled the sin issue. He has appeased the wrath of God. He is the propitiation—the satisfaction—for
our sins.
Don’t
miss the implications of this! It means
there is nothing that can ever stand in the way of our relationship with
God. Jesus Christ speaks for us. Who can speak against us? He does not defend us by claiming we have not
sinned or that our sin is not that bad.
Our defense is the finished work of Jesus Christ. Our defense is the cross. Our sins have been judged. The penalty was death. They were dealt with on the cross and can
never be brought against us.
When
John says we have an Advocate, he uses the Greek word parakletos. It refers to one who has been called to our
side (para means alongside and kaleo is to call) to speak on our behalf. This same word is used in John’s gospel to
refer to the Holy Spirit.
I will ask the Father, and He
will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; 17 that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot
receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He
abides with you and will be in you. (John 14:16‑17).
We
have two advocates, but they are really One. First there is Jesus Christ who speaks to the
Father on our behalf. John says we have
an Advocate with the Father. There is
also the Holy Spirit who speaks to us on behalf of the Father and the Son. But they are really One, just as Jesus said,
“I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).
Return
to Stevenson Bible Study Page