The Basis of Fellowship with Him (NKJV)
v. 5, This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.
(Bible Knowl Comm NT) “As Light, God both exposes man’s sin and condemns it. If anyone walks in darkness, he is hiding from the truth which the Light reveals.”
(Vincent’s II) “God is light. … Not a light, nor the light …” It is “in His very nature.” It “is not a metaphor.” “In Him is no darkness at all. It is characteristic of John to express the same idea positively and negatively.” Greek: “And darkness there is not in Him, no, not in any way.”
(Moody) “This summary … assesses three false claims in 1:6-2:2.” (Life) “If we want to have a relationship with God, we must put aside our sinful ways of living. To claim that we belong to him but then to go out and live for ourselves is hypocrisy.”
v. 6, If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
(Bible Knowl Comm NT) “Christians sometimes feign spirituality while engaging in acts of disobedience.”
(Vincent’s II) “Walk in the darkness. … Walk, is, literally, walk about; indicating the habitual course of the life, inward and outward. … Right action is true thought realized. Every fragment of right done is so much truth made visible (Westcott).”
(Moody) If people walk according to the darkness of Gnosticism, they lie. So v. 7, they must walk according to the light. https://www.learnreligions.com/gnosticism-95688
v. 7, But 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.
(Bible Knowl Comm NT) “we have fellowship with one another … may refer to the two parties (God and the Christian) named in the first part of the statement. … The light itself is the fundamental reality which they share. Thus true communion with God is living in the sphere where one’s experience is illuminated by the truth of what God is. It is to live open to His revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ.” “So long as there is true openness to the light of divine truth, Christians’ failures are under the cleansing power of the shed blood of Christ.”
(Vincent’s II) “He is in the light. … We walk, advancing in the light and by means of the light to more light.” “One with another. … with our brethren. Fellowship with God exhibits and proves itself by fellowship with Christians.” “Of Jesus Christ His Son. … 1. Jesus is the Son of God. 2. Jesus is the Christ.” “Cleanseth. … Not only forgives but removes. … The cleansing is present and continuous.” “All sin.The principle of sin in all its forms and manifestations; not the separate manifestations.”
(Moody) “This means believers conduct themselves according to Christian truth, so as to live a holy life. … (1) we have fellowship … with God and believers; and (2) the blood of Jesus … cleanses from any inadvertent sin (v. 7).” Not true of the Gnostics.
(Cultural) “Sacrificial blood set apart what was sacred for God, purifying from sin by making atonement (Lev 16:30).”
(Apologetics) “the credibility of the message cannot be separated from the lives of those who proclaim that message. This lifestyle includes walking in the light (v. 1:7), confessing sin (v. 1:19).”
v. 8, If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
(Bible Knowl Comm NT) “But when a believer is experiencing true fellowship with God he may then be tempted to think or say that he is, at that moment at least, free from sin. … If Christians understand the truth that God’s Word teaches about the depravity of the human heart, they know that just because they are not conscious of failure does not mean that they are free from it. If the truth is ‘in’ them as a controlling, motivating influence, this kind of self-deception will not take place.”
(Vincent’s II) “That we have no sin. … not to be understood of original sin, or of sin before conversion, but generally.” John includes himself in this universal. “We deceive ourselves. Lit., we lead ourselves astray … we are responsible for it.” “The truth. The whole Gospel. All reality is in God. … This reality is incarnated in Christ, the Word of God. … 1. Objectively. In the person of Christ. … 2. Subjectively. The truth is lodged in man by the Spirit, and communicated to his spirit… It dwells in man … as revelation, comfort, guidance, enlightenment, conviction, impulse, inspiration, knowledge.”
(Moody) “The next heretical assertion is to have no sin nature.” They are deceiving themselves into thinking they “were no longer capable of sinning.”
v. 9, If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
(Vincent’s II) “Confess. … primarily, to say the same thing as another, and, therefore, to admit the truth of an accusation.” “Sins. … The plural indicates that the confession is to be specific as well as general.” “Faithful. … fulfilling His own promises. … is faithful to forgive our sins, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, and thus to restore and maintain the interrupted fellowship.” “Just. Rev., righteous. … Righteousness is truth passing into action (Westcott).” “To forgive. … to send away, dismiss … as a debt. … To forgive is, literally, that he may forgive.” “Our sins. … lawlessness. … Any departure from the normal ideal of man as created in God’s image puts man out of true relation and harmony with his true self, and therefore with God and with his fellow-man.”
(Moody) Gnostics don’t confess sin. God can “forgive and purge us from all defiling effects of our sins.” Some say this is a believer’s admission of sin so sanctification can continue. It could also be a salvation verse.
(Life) “Confession is supposed to free us to enjoy fellowship with Christ. It should ease our consciences and lighten our cares.” Some Christians confess the same sins repeatedly; some believe if they die with unconfessed sin, they are eternally lost; these ideas are false. Why confess our sins? We are ‘agreeing with God that our sin … is sin and … we are willing to turn from it.” We are not hiding sin. We recognize the tendency to sin and “rely on his power to overcome it.”
v. 10, If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.
(Vincent’s II) “His word. Not the personal Word, as John i.1, but the divine message of the Gospel. … The word both moves the man … and abides in him.”
(Moody) “Divine dealings with mankind are based on the premise that they have sinned. To deny this is to make Him a liar.”
(Cultural) Some say this is in reference to the Gnostics, but “humans are capable of self-deception even without that teaching (e.g., Jer 17:9). Biblical prophets condemned false protestations of innocence as self-deception (e.g., Jer 2:35; Hos 8:2).” God required “admission of the sin and repentance.”
FIRST JOHN 1 MEDITATION vv. 1:5-10
First John 1 highlights our behavior in the world and links it up with our relationship with God. If our behavior and character is at odds with the Lord’s, then our relationship with God is broken or absent altogether. By looking at the relationship this way, we can say, “If I am living in a way contrary to who God is, then obviously the Lord is not living His life through me.” And Him living through us is what this epistle is all about; this was the communion of the Son with the Father and is to be the communion with us and Jesus.
God is light, and consistent with the spirit of the law of love. When we love our neighbor as ourselves, we live according to His character, His revealed light. His light, seen through our conduct, would exposes the neighbor’s darkness, just as the pictures of Jesus in the gospels expose our lack of faith, our hypocrisy, and more. We have seen God’s light and it causes us to repent and change and adapt to that life. Our lives are being consistently ordered by the light we receive. When we keep the Bible shut, we walk in darkness.
Jesus came to save us from our sin, the principle that rules everything in this body where Christ is not Lord and Savior—our intentions, thinking, emotions, planning, and more. By this we can examine ourselves to see whether we are in the faith. Are we regularly and willingly practicing behavior and thoughts contrary to the “unseen” kingdom of God? Then we are out of fellowship with God. We are not receptive to the light. The world and our excuses blind us to the light, so the Word has no effect on us. We want to have ongoing communion with the Son so the Spirit can communicate the light of the Word to us and keep us in the light, strengthening that communion, which, in turn, keeps sin at bay.
If we confess our sin, and confession means to “say the same thing” (to call sin as God calls it), then we are seeing the light and repenting. We are now walking in harmony with God. The sin principle is broken in us when we acknowledge God’s truth and respond in faith and obedience. When we live by faith and obedience to the Word, the Spirit is already guiding; God is already working out His purposes in us.
SOURCES – BIBLIOGRAPHY (*= used in this study)
*(Apologetics) = The Apologetics Study Bible
*(Arc) = NIV Archaeological [not “Cultural”] Study Bible
(Bible Back Comm 4) = Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary vol. 4
*(Bible Knowl Comm NT) = The Bible Knowledge Commentary, New Testament
(BLB) = BlueLetterBible.com
*(Cultural) = NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible
(ENT) = Encountering the New Testament
*(ESV) = English Standard Version Study Bible
*(Life) = Life Application Study Bible, New American Standard Version
*(Moody) = The Moody Bible Commentary
(NKJV margin) = Holy Bible, The New King James Version, margin note
(Prophecy) = Tim LaHaye Prophecy Study Bible
