The Culture of Hope Founded on Faith
1 John, Part 2 – The Battle of Two Wills
1 John 1:5-7 sets the topical pattern for the whole epistle:
“This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
Earlier in the first chapter, John establishes the authority of his message by his personal experience of it. He is fully qualified to convey the things he is about to write because he has heard, seen, observed, and handled it first-hand. He joined Jesus shortly after the baptism in which Jesus was identified as the Son of God by what appeared to be a descending dove accompanied by the voice from heaven saying, “Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22). John and Andrew were disciples of Jesus longer than any of the other apostles.
The message he writes is that God is light, with no darkness at all, so must we His followers “walk in the light” (vs. 5). In other words, if we truly know Him as Savior our lives demonstrate that we belong to Him, i.e. “have fellowship with Him” (vs. 6), by walking in the light of God. On the other hand, to say that we have fellowship with God while walking in darkness instead of light is a lie. Verse 8 reiterates this with, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” Participation in darkness (sin) and denial of our sin equally show that we are not in fellowship with God.
An outcome of that daily fellowship with Him is fellowship with one another. Another outcome is that we are not only cleansed of sin at salvation, but we are also continuously cleansed of sin as it touches us in our daily contact with the world. The story of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples in John 13:5-10 clarifies a great deal of what John writes later in his epistle about believers and sin after salvation.
1 John 1: 9 is typically used by evangelical Christians as a salvation message, but the context makes it more a message for those who already know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. Here’s why. John uses the first person plural designations of “we” and “us” up to and including this point in his writing. He is talking to fellow believers, even calling us “my little children” in chapter two, verse one. Verses six and eight also use the first person plural which would indicate that the sin represented is not the persistent sin of an unbeliever but the occasional sin of the believer. The first person designation does not change to third person until 1 John 2:4 where the writer foreshadows his later comparisons and contrasts when he states, “He that says, I know him, and keeps not His commandments, is a liar and the truth is not in Him.”
When we accept Jesus as Lord and Savior, our sins are forgiven (Eph. 4:32), we are cleansed of our sins (1 John 1:7), and we are healed of the spiritual effects of our sins (1 Pet. 2:24). But our redeemed souls reside in unredeemed bodies with all the lusts of the flesh and desires for the things of this world battling for control of our lives. As Romans 7:22-25 says, “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man, but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.”
That’s why the issue of the Christian’s sin is addressed. Confession comes from repentance. We have the promise of Scripture that “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9) when we confess. We are cleansed by His blood shed on the cross, but while we walk in the world our feet get dusty with the sin and depravity around us. As Jesus washed the feet of His disciples in John 13, so He washes our spiritual “feet” upon confession of the darkness picked up along our earthly way.
Update/Prayer Request: Dan is slowly getting better, aided so very much by the increased sleep he is able to get as a result of the antibiotics and inhaler. His digestion is slowly doing better as well. He is still plagued with stamina issues, but he has more energy than before, again because he is able to sleep more at night. Thank you for your continuing prayers for us. While we continue to heal we still need God’s intervention for the rest of this journey.
