1 John 1:5-10 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.
From the beginning of time, people’s thoughts of God were of a creator, an entity that made all that is perceived and experienced. Additionally, the absolute foundation of Christianity is that God is as pure as light. Then Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12) In today’s focus, John claims that God has no darkness in him. Consequently to be with God eternally, we must be as God is with no darkness within us. The darkness can be ascribed to sin, the opposite of light. These blots of darkness cannot exist with God. If God, everlasting life, and eternity consist of light alone, we must be cleansed of all the blackness within us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. John states that if we believe we have no darkness within us, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. We cannot have fellowship with God, Absolute Light, if we are not cleansed of sin. Neither can we have unadulterated fellowship with the body of Christ while loving a sinful life, permitting and flaunting our sin in front of fellow believers. Such a lifestyle, of course, was what some believers were doing in the church of Corinth. They seemed to be proud of their willingness to accept open sin within their congregation, but Paul knew as John knows, sin is cancerous, deceptive, and finally destructive. Therefore, Paul tells the Corinthians to expel the wicked man from their congregation and then hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord. (1 Corinthians 5:5) All people have some darkness or waywardness from God’s purity within them. This, of course, in the Christian sense is dealt with by faith in the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ. We experience a constant, ongoing purification provided by Jesus’ death on the cross. When John wrote that Christ’s blood purifies us from all sin, the verb tense he used means that it cleansed us yesterday, it is cleansing us today, and it will cleanse us tomorrow. We are cleansed, we are pure, because Jesus paid the price for our purity or rightness with God. But to flaunt sin, to say it is okay to be openly rebellious to God’s nature is a dangerous place in which to live.
To be openly sinful, glorying in your freedom to sin as we function in the household of God is very dangerous, but to claim purity because of our good works is even more dangerous, for we have lost contact with the TRUTH OF ETERNAL LIFE. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us. To make God out as a liar, to contradict Jesus’ words that we must be born again, is unredemptive in nature, pushing us toward blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.” (John 6:35-40) Jesus speaking under the Holy Spirit’s authority told his audience that He is the bread of life. The disciples wanted to know, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” (John 6:28-29) Jesus lays out very clearly that He and his words must be partaken of literally. Eternal life comes only through eating of him, believing in him, taking his words into their lives. The TRUTH of the Word of God is to believe in the Christ and in his saving works. Salvation happens when a person believes in the Christ God sent down to Earth. Matthew at the beginning of his gospel introduces us to this idea of redemption from our sins through Jesus Christ. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because HE WILL SAVE HIS PEOPLE FROM THEIR SINS.” (Matthew 1:20-21) In this account, we see a man from the lineage of David, a servant of God as David was, place his faith in what he heard from the angel. The angel said that this baby would save people from their sins. How can anyone change the self-will of an individual? How can anyone change the imagination of a person? How can anyone change the deceitfulness of mankind? How can anyone erase the sinful actions of men from God’s judgment? But, the angel of the Lord says conclusively, he will save his people from their sins, not that people will save themselves from sin.
Salvation is not the work of men, but the work of God. As Paul wrote, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9 NKJV) Only God knows how to bring eternal life to men. He sent Jesus to do that work for us. We have little perspective of how to be better in an enduring way. We might do better for a while; we might even think of ourselves as being sinless for a brief time. But perfection is not something that we can attain by ourselves. The Bible says that we need a Savior, someone who is perfect at all times and forever. For us to live eternally, we must not have any blackness in us, any grit of sin, anything that is Not of God. Otherwise, we must be like God in our nature. The Bible says that we will be integrated into the body of Christ. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit, that we are children of God: And if children, then heirs—heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ. (Romans 8:16-17 NKJV) In this new realm, we are as white as the brightest star. All residue of our imperfections is gone by faith. In place of our sinfulness, Christ’s perfection is ours. How can all this happen? Only through the substitution of Christ’s life for our lives, his perfection for our imperfection. If we do not take Jesus’ righteousness for our unrighteousness, we will not gain entrance to the domain of God. John understood this truth, and he warns us that we must live in the TRUTH and the Truth is Jesus Christ. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. Without faith in Christ’s death and resurrection, we walk in darkness without God’s direction and outside of the power of the Holy Spirit. We are the light of the world so we should walk in that light, knowing God is in us and his words are our words. Today, begin to see yourself as a shining light, full of the Holy Spirit, led by the Spirit. Turn away from all darkness and allow God’s perfection to have its way in you. When Paul encouraged believers to fulfill God’s purposes in their lives, he told them that when you give your life wholly to God, you will shine among them (a crooked generation) like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. (Philippians 2:15-16)
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