Exploring 1 John: Walking in the Light
Exploring 1 John: Walking in the Light
1 John 1:7 - We are to walk in the Light, cleansed from all sin by Jesus.
”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 NASB1995
John is now telling believers that if we walk in the Light (just as He Himself is in the Light), we will have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. Walking in the Light, pure and simple, means OBEDIENCE. We are not perfect or sinless, but if we walk in His Light, we should not look left or right but straight at that perfect Light. Here is what Enduring Word says about this walk, which is an active participation with Him:
But if we walk in the light: This means to walk in a generally obedient life, without harboring known sin or resisting the conviction of the Holy Spirit on a particular point.
John’s message here means that a walk in the light is possible. We know that on this side of eternity, sinless perfection is not possible. Yet we can still walk in the light, so John does mean perfect obedience.
The Christian life is described as walking, which implies activity. Christian life feeds upon contemplation, but it displays itself in action. “Walking” implies action, continuity, and progress. Since God is active and walking, if you have fellowship with Him, you will also be active and walking.
As He is in the light: Since God is light (1 John 1:5), when we walk in the light we walk where He is. We are naturally together with Him in fellowship.
There is more coming in verses 8-10 about sin because John obviously recognizes that we cannot be sinless in this life. The key is to confess that sin and give it up to the blood of Jesus.
So if we do walk in this Light, we are in fellowship with Him and in fellowship with other believers. Ok….I honestly can’t say that I have any deep fellowships with other believers, with a small handful of exceptions. This is probably mostly due to my stubbornness in seeking out others (yes, a sin that I confess quite often). One couple that we got to be friends with at the first church we attended after leaving the ELCA followed us to the new church that was started by the pastor of that megachurch. Now they have left that new church (we hadn’t seen them in weeks) and are vowing to move soon to another state, so I’m not sure how that friendship (and fellowship) will endure. We have the obligatory “meet someone new” request to the congregation after the worship music and before the lesson, but that is not a way to start a walk in fellowship. We are, to be honest, possibly in a seeking mode again for the right congregation, but then the problems with fellowship start all over again.
I think our restless and unfocused society results in more and more difficulty in forming friendships and fellowships. Steve and I never had children, which leaves out those types of long-term friendships that form with other sets of parents. It is one of our prayers that we do find and cultivate those friendships, but in particular, those fellowships and SOON. I like what John Piper says about this fellowship, how it can be lost, and how to preserve it in his sermon about John 1:1; I shared some of his thoughts in the previous devotional:
You know what this is like. You have a precious friend — perhaps even a spouse — you have in common the same desires for God. You are both living in the light of his surpassing value. You’re both devoted to his cause. You both hope in his promises, and avoid sin by the light of his word. Then something happens.
You discover one day that your friend seems strangely fascinated by some trend, strangely preoccupied with a book or a movie or a fashion or a singer or a career or a piece of lake property. Then you notice that the topic of God is avoided. Prayer is missing or perfunctory. There are no more comments about the sweet hour in the word of God. Church and Christian people seem to be on the butt-end of periodic sarcasm. The wartime zeal for the global cause of Christ has shriveled up to a me-centered pursuit of two-second pleasures. And the old fellowship is over. Not because you want it to be, but because it is impossible unless we both walk in the light.
So verse 7 teaches that the only way to preserve the precious jewel of deep unity with God and with other believers is to walk in the light — to see things in the light of God, to let God be your bright pathway to joy.
Finally, this verse reassures us that we are cleansed from all sin by the Blood of Jesus. His suffering and death on the cross took on the sins of humanity (I explored this recently in my series on Psalm 22). We can walk in the Light because of the Son of Light; there is no other way to Him! I really like this commentary by David Guzik on Enduring Word:
The blood of Jesus Christ: This continual cleansing is ours by the blood of Jesus. This does not mean the actual drops or molecules of His literal blood, but His literal death in our place and the literal wrath of the Father He endured on our behalf. The blood of Jesus Christ paid the penalty for all our sins – past, present, and future.
The work of Jesus on the cross doesn’t only deal with the guilt of sin that might send us to hell. It also deals with the stain of sin which hinders our continual relationship with God. We need to come to God often with the simple plea, “cleanse me with the blood of Jesus.” Not because we haven’t been cleansed before, but because we need to be continually cleansed to enjoy continual relationship.
“‘The blood’ is more specific than ‘the death’ would be, for ‘the blood’ denotes sacrifice. It is always the blood that is shed.” (R.C.H Lenski)
“Observe, here is nothing said about rites and ceremonies. It does not begin by saying, ‘and the waters of baptism, together with the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us,’ – not a word, whether it shall be the sprinkling in infancy, or immersion of believers, nothing is said about it – it is the blood, the blood only, without a drop of baptismal water. Nothing is here said about sacraments – what some call ‘the blessed Eucharist’ is not dragged in here – nothing about eating bread and drinking wine – it is the blood, nothing but the blood.” (Charles Spurgeon)
“Does my walking in the light take away my sins? Not at all. I am as much a sinner in the light as in the darkness, if it were possible for me to be in the light without being washed in the blood. Well, but we have fellowship with God, and does not having fellowship with God take away sin? Beloved, do not misunderstand me – no man can have fellowship with God unless sin be taken away; but his fellowship with God, and his walking in light, does not take away his sin – not at all. The whole process of the removal of sin is here, ‘And the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.’” (Charles Spurgeon)
From all sin: We can be cleansed, by the blood of Jesus, from all sin. The sin we inherited from Adam, the sin we committed as kids, the sins of our growing up; sins against our father, against our mother, against our brother and sister; sins against our husbands or wives, against our children; sins against our employers or our employees, sins against our friends and our enemies; lying, stealing, cheating, adultery, swearing, drugs, booze, promiscuity, murder; sins that haunt us every day, sins we didn’t even know we did – all sin can be cleansed by the blood of Jesus.
Sin is the hindrance to fellowship and the blood of Jesus, received by faith as the payment for our sin, solves the problem of sin and opens the way to fellowship with God.
You can’t come to fellowship with God through philosophical speculation. You can’t come to fellowship with God through intellectual education.
You can’t come to fellowship with God through drugs or entertainment.
You can’t come to fellowship with God through scientific investigation.
You can only come to fellowship with God by dealing with your sin problem through the blood of Jesus.
We might say that the only sin that cannot be cleansed by the blood of Jesus is the sin of continuing to reject that blood as payment for sin.
I really like the Charles Spurgeon commentaries - We are not walking in the Light because we are baptized or share in communion. We can only get on this path by constantly asking Jesus to cleanse us of our sins. You may think you are without sin, but I can say, with assurance, that you sinned in many ways today, some that might have eluded your understanding that it was a sin. He will forgive you for any sin, except rejecting His payment for your sin, which is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
My next devotional examines more about sin, from 1 John 1:8-10.
Heaven on Wheels Daily Prayer:
Dear Lord - Please cleanse me of sin so that I may walk with You in Your light. I want to walk in fellowship with You and with other believers in Christ. Amen.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Enduring Word commentary by David Guzik is used with written permission.
John Piper is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For more than thirty years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis. He is author of more than fifty books, and his sermons, articles, books, and more are available free of charge at desiringGod.org. By John Piper. © Desiring God Foundation. Source: desiringGod.org