Music theory is fundamental to any musician’s study, which always includes the basic elements of music such as rhythm, harmony (harmonic function), melody, structure, form, style, etc. Without some knowledge of these basic elements it is almost impossible to make music that will be pleasing to the ear.
Even then, some people are more music theorists than musical performers. (brief explanation)
In a similar fashion, some people are more theorists when it comes to God than they are people that actually experience Him. They have knowledge about how to fellowship with God, but they never actually experience intimate fellowship with Him.
The purpose of this message is to help Christians understand how they can fellowship with God and not just hold theories about experiencing Him in their lives.
In the beginning God created man to fellowship with Him. Until Adam disobeyed God, he walked with Him in the Garden of Eden. But, after his sin he hid from God and was covered in the shame of his transgression. As a result, God set in motion His plan of redemption that culminated in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on Calvary and His resurrection from the grave. Through the Gospel (death, burial, resurrection) men are brought back into right relationship with God through His Son so that they may have fellowship together with Him as He intended. The only condition to being brought into right relationship with God is to trust His Son as your Savior! However, there is at least one specific condition to experiencing ongoing fellowship with God!
The passage we are considering is perhaps the fullest single treatise in the NT explaining how to have fellowship with God. One author put it this way in describing the text:
“It would be difficult to find any single passage of Scripture more crucial and fundamental to daily Christian living than 1 John 1:5-10. For here, in a few brief verses, the ‘disciple whom Jesus loved’ has laid down for us the basic principles which underlie a vital walk with God.”
It’s important to remember that this passage is dealing with the matter of “fellowship,” a word found four (4) times in the ten verses of 1 John chapter 1 (1:3 - twice, 6, 7). Fellowship involves sharing something together in common with at least one other person.
John makes three affirmations (1:5, 7, 9) that are countered by three responses each of which are false counter statements (1:6, 8, 10). From the three affirmations we learn how to have fellowship with God or experience Him in our lives.
Affirmation #1: “...God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.”
“Light” is a common metaphor for God and it speaks of His holiness/sinlessness. There is no sin in God at all! Darkness is a metaphor for error or evil, which is never found in God.
God is “light” by nature (in His essential being) just as He is Spirit (John 4:24) and love (4:8). “Light” refers to His moral character...no darkness (sinfulness) at all: God is holy, untouched by any evil or unrighteousness. Because God is “light,” those who desire fellowship with Him must also be pure.
Intellectually, “light” can represent biblical truth while “darkness” represents error or falsehood (cf. Psalm 119:105; Proverbs 6:23; John 1:4; 8:12). Morally, as it is used here, “light” represents holiness or purity while “darkness” represents sin or wrongdoing (Romans 13:11–14; 1 Thessalonians 5:4–7).
Light and darkness are favorite antithetical concepts in the Johannine writings (John 1:4–5; 3:19–21; 8:12; 12:35–36, 46; 1 John 2:8–11; cf. Revelation 21:24 and 22:5).
This is a foundational statement about God that must be understood for us to have fellowship with Him!
- False counter statement:
“If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice [i.e., act consistently with] the truth.” (1 John 1:6)
These are the words of someone that is living (conducting his life) in known sin, but still claiming to be in fellowship with God. You can’t be walking in the light and in the darkness at the same time.
Illustration:
A son has in him the life of his earthly father because through his father he came into this world. However, if he makes his home at a distance from his father they will not be able to have shared experiences. In the same way, a Christian who lives at a moral distance from God loses the privilege of shared experience with God. Walking in the light brings Father and spiritual child into the same moral realm and that realm itself becomes the foundational experience which they have in common
Affirmation #2: “...if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7)
To “walk in the light” means to be in the light, to be exposed to it, to refuse to hide out in the darkness.
Illustration of the flashlight...
The text doesn’t say we have to “walk according to the light” for that would require sinless perfection. It says we must “walk IN the light,” i.e., to be open and responsive to the light. It means that we have to walk in the sphere of the light that comes to us through God’s Word.
As we do this two things occur: 1. We experience fellowship with God. 2. We experience cleansing by God.
One writer puts it this way, “...while the believer exposes himself openly to God and to God's truth, he experiences both a sharing with God and a cleansing by God. The latter makes the former both reasonable and right, for given the sinfulness of even the best of men—the apostles themselves, in fact—fellowship with a sinless God—in whom there is no darkness at all—could only occur if man's unholiness were constantly under the efficacious influence of the blood of Jesus Christ his Son. This has nothing to do with our initial salvation which is fully guaranteed to us at the moment of our faith. Rather it has to do with the righteousness of God in permitting His far from perfect children to live in His presence and to share the light where He is. Nothing less than the blood of Christ could make this possible, and no Christian has ever enjoyed so much as a single moment of fellowship to which the Savior's sacrifice, in all its value, has not been contemporaneously applied!”
- False counter statement:
“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8)
Some people take “no sin” as a claim to no longer possess a sin nature or sin principle. This doesn’t represent the manner in which John commonly uses these words. It is the unique sense in which you find them in his writings that is the interpretive clue as to what he means here.
Dr. Robert Law, in his extensive commentary on John’s epistles, says, “The phrase ‘to have sin’ is peculiar to St. John, and has a quite definite sense. Thus in John 15: 22 our Lord says, ‘If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.’ Here, beyond question, ‘to have sin’ specifically denotes the guiltiness of the agent. In John 9:41; 15:24; 19:11 the sense is equally clear; and these parallels must be held as decisive for the meaning here.”
In other words, to “say that we have no sin” is equivalent to saying, “I have no consciousness of sin (sense of guilt for sin) in my life.”
Someone may be walking in the light and presently have no conscious guilt about specific sins being committed, but it would be a grave error to assume that sin is no longer present with him, at all. The fact is, if sin were no longer present with him he would no longer need the continual cleansing of the “blood of Christ.” If at any point in our lives we conclude that we are free of sin then the cross of Christ has lost its grip on our hearts.
John would have understood just how quickly sin can overtake Christ-followers from having known Peter’s outright denials of Christ after confessing that he would never do so (Mark 14:27-31). Peter had no awareness of his potential, upcoming failure until he was faced with the temptation.
Even when we think everything is good in our lives we must remain open to God showing us more than we presently see that will need confession.
New believers in Christ don’t have near the sensitivity to sin as do those that have walked with Christ for many years. They have just emerged from the darkness, but the longer they are in the light the more plainly they will see themselves and their sin. It’s not that sin becomes the preoccupation of their lives (our lives), but apart from the process of self-discovery that can only be realized in the light can a person know deeper fellowship with God.
Affirmation #3: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)
Confession or agreeing with God is the integral part of walking in the light with God (i.e., experiencing God). It is impossible to truly experience fellowship with God and refuse to acknowledge the sins that are exposed by the light.
The fact that God has removed the penalty for our sins at conversion (1 Corinthians 6:11; Ephesians 1:7; 4:32; Colossians 2:13) doesn’t mean we don’t need to confess our sins regularly.
The forgiveness we experience at the moment of salvation is forensic (judicial, positional). The forgiveness under discussion in this passage is familial. The forgiveness at salvation concerns our relationship with God. The forgiveness here concerns our fellowship with God.
The plural pronouns that began early in this chapter continue throughout the chapter. The Apostle John includes himself, the rest of the apostles, the readers to whom he is writing, and all of us. Even John and the apostles needed to confess their sins!
And, God has promised to forgive all sins confessed to Him. This confession either permits us to begin walking in the light (have fellowship with God) again and/or keeps us from moving out of the light.
- False counter statement:
“If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar...” (1 John 1:10)
To say that you “have not sinned” is to deny what the light has exposed in your life. When you move in this direction you begin excusing and justifying your sin. You basically deny what God says about your sin.
All of these counter statements leave a person in contradiction to God. Listen to the strong words of John concerning those that fail to believe his affirmations: “we lie and do not practice the truth,” “we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us,” and “we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”
Experiencing God necessitates that we walk in the light. When the light exposes something sinful in our lives we immediately confess it. Even when we don’t know of any conscious sin in our lives we acknowledge that God sees what we cannot see and we desire that He bring to light anything that needs confession. Our prayer is always that of the Psalmist.
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.” (Psalm 139:3-4)
The only way to experience God is to be open to Him every day of our lives and to walk before Him with integrity of heart. If we regress into the darkness of sin we will miss the sweet fellowship He desires us to enjoy with Him.
