5This 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. 6If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; 7but 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.
Writing in the last decade of the first century, the apostle John writes about similar themes as he does in his more extensive work, which we call the Gospel According to John, also written in the same time period. The word light occurs six times in this letter, life fifteen times, and love forty-six times. Here he expands on the theme of light which he remembers from his days with the Lord:
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)
After a lifetime of sacrificially spreading the Word and teaching about Christ, John writes that being in the light or darkness is related to one’s relationship with either God or Jesus. There is no doubt in his teaching that “[i]n the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Christ is God. He is the locus of where God shines His light in the world. To have fellowship with God and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, therefore, means walking with Christ.
From this point on in his letter, John seems to alternate his use of pronouns, like “he” or “him,” between God or Jesus, very fluidly. To fellowship with God and to walk with God is equivalent to fellowshipping and walking with Jesus. They are one and the same. Therefore, to claim fellowship with God but reject Jesus is to walk in the darkness. To insist otherwise is, to put it in black and white terms, a lie! It is simply not true. Walking in the light is intractably connected with being cleansed from all sin by the blood of Jesus.
In this letter, the character of John’s writing is to present truth in stark contrast, or as we said earlier, in black and white terms: either one or the other, with no in-between. At the core, if something is not true, then it is a lie. Satan, the Liar, continually tries to undermine the truth of God. People who buy into the lie (that which is not true) and therefore walk in darkness may not be consciously thinking they are distorting the truth, but by believing it and propagating it, they are complicit in the lie. So, John puts it, that person is lying. Therefore, fellowship with God and Jesus Christ is built on the foundational truth of the blood of Jesus Christ, the Word who is God, cleansing us from sin.
Prayer: Lord, I do believe You cleansed me from sin through Your blood on the cross.
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