To claim that we have never sinned is to throw our sin in the face of God.
10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
The last verse of the first chapter of 1 John brings the section and discussion about what it means to walk in the light to a close. It also draws one final implication regarding those who claim to know what Jesus’ sacrifice means, but who have not acknowledged their sin. Continue reading “1 John 1:10 | If I am not a Sinner, God is a Liar”
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
John continues his discussion of the differences between those who walk in the light and those who do not in verse 9. In this verse, we find a conditional statement that ought to help us to see how we can walk in the light. Continue reading “1 John 1:9 | Sin and Forgiveness Require Confession”
8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
The greatest form of deception is self-deception. When we make a conscious decision not to take heed of the knowledge, wisdom, and experiences of those we trust we have set our course toward self-destruction. Continue reading “1 John 1:8 | We are Fundamentally Broken”
Missing by an inch or missing by a mile is still missing the standard that John establishes here.
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 his Son cleanses us from all sin.
John returns to the subject of light in verse 7. As he does it augments what he means by the relationship that we have with God. There is a particular characteristic to our journey in the light. That characteristic is that it is, or should be, the same light that God is in, or rather that God produces from himself. In other words, when we say that we are in the light, that we are walking in the light, then what we are saying–or should be saying–is that we are living out and embodying and reflecting God’s love and life in our own. Continue reading “1 John 1:7 | Walking in his light”
6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. (1 John 1:6 ESV)
After declaring and defining that one of God’s clearest characteristics is “light” in verse 5, John turns in verse 6 to an implication of this reality, of being in the light. It is the first of two that he provides in this paragraph.
John wants to highlight and contrast a contradiction between our confession, of being in fellowship with God, with our actual positional relationship with God. Now, it is important to maintain the argument John is making here. The power of the argument is that it forces us, as readers, to assess our own lives against the truth that John is bringing to bear. And what is that truth? It is that light and darkness cannot and will not coexist.
Let’s look at it more closely. John begins by asking, in the form of a conditional statement, where we stand. “If we say we have fellowship with [God],” this is our confession, “while we walk in darkness…,” this is the reality of where we stand. Now, it is important that we do not miss the contradiction here. The contradiction is that we are believing one thing and yet doing the opposite. It is not that we are just a little bit off. We must remember that John is using an undeniable contrast. When God is light and we are in darkness, we are left with an unbridgeable divide.
This is the problem and challenge John highlights. We are actively saying we are in fellowship with God while at the same time walking apart from him. What this means is that we are deluded and blind to the reality–and the danger–of our position.
Once we understand the conditions of our dilemma, we can better understand the conclusion that John draws. John says that when I, as an individual, exist in this state described I have two problems. First, I am a liar. Whether it is intentional or out of ignorance makes no difference. I have become a liar because my confession and my conduct do not agree. Second, and this may be more damning, I have physical evidence that I am a law-breaker because I am not “practicing” the truth. Every action I take that maintains the contradiction is another step toward bondage and away from freedom.
Whether I can see it or not, if I do not understand that the contradiction exists I may never be able to break free from the cycle. Only the light of the truth of the Gospel can release me from this blindness.
What we may not want to admit, and what may even be closer to the truth, is that we already know that the contradiction exists, but we are unwilling or unable to stop being liars and failures as practitioners of the truth. We must hear the truth and allow that truth to be the light that illuminates our way out from the darkness of sin.
5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
After his introduction, John makes a declaration regarding the message that he now proclaims. In these first five verses, John makes reference to the message that he and the other disciples are preaching eleven distinct times. Continue reading “1 John 1:5 | God is light”
4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
Verse 4 is the final statement given by John in the opening paragraph of his letter. John speaks of the truth of his witness regarding who Jesus is. He extols the readers to remember that Jesus is the life that they are to seek and he points to the fellowship that is produced as a result of the unifying power of the Gospel.
In these short verses, John has pointed to the undeniable truth that the reason the foundation of our faith is firm and unmoving is because Jesus is the one who holding it all together. It can be easy to forget this. Jesus is the only one capable of sustaining the fragility of our lives and faith. He alone can see into our hearts and into our futures and decisively lead us into the next moment. But, why does any of this matter? John makes an amazing confession. He writes about these things so that “our joy may be complete.”
The second truth that we find here relates to the nature of the joy John says is available to us. John says that our joy may be complete or mature or full. When we come together around the truths of the Gospel we are closer to the kind of life God desires for all his children. Joy is not dependent on the circumstances of life. Many of us have heard this description/definition of joy. What makes this reality so wonderful is that it means that God’s steadfastness is the guarantee for my joy. In other words, that regardless of what happens in life we have the inward assurance that we are secure and safe in God’s arms.
Whenever we find our joy waning let us look to our connection with our local church. John wrote to the church to remind them that it is in community and in fellowship that our joy as God’s people is sustained. We each may have the joy of the Lord within us, but this inward presence is multiplied when we gather together to worship God and are immersed in the gospel of Jesus.
that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:3)
Here at the beginning of the letter John repeats the word fellowship in two distinct contexts. It appears from the general context of the first three verses that the gospel of Jesus Christ has (among other realities) a binding effect among the community of faith and between the individual believer and the Father and Son. Let’s look at this more closely.
John has made an important point by saying that the proclaiming of the Gospel (i.e., “that which we have seen and heard) is a prerequisite fact to what is to follow. This is why he starts with the proclamation in order to get to the “so that”. This short phrase tells us the purpose of the proclamation. So, what is the purpose? It is so John and those who believe the Gospel that is proclaimed might have fellowship. The unity of the body is vitally important to John because it is eternally important to Jesus. Jesus prayed in John 17.
20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. (John 17:20-23a NIV)
The Gospel brings believers together because it has brought those same individuals closer to God. When a person hears the Gospel and believes their relationship with God through Jesus has begun. Now that the vertical relationship has been established, the horizontal relationship must be initiated. The reason that believers in Africa can have fellowship with Christians in China and in North America is because of the unifying power of our common faith in Jesus. According to John, his is one of the main reasons we should proclaim the Gospel.
Fellowship is not just what happens during potlucks at church. Fellowship is the family connection that is forged because of our faith in Jesus. As individual believers, we should seek to grow in our fellowship with those who are members of our local congregations, not look for excuses to not show up. The gathering of God’s people is a gift from God for the benefit of His children. Let’s not take it for granted.
the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us. (1 John 1:2 ESV)
When John refers to “the life,” here in verse two, he is linking back to Jesus who is the one of whom he had heard, seen, looked upon, and touched with his own hands. In verse 1 we see John use the phrase “word of life” to refer to Jesus. In verse two he simply says “the life” because he is about to declare something about the nature of this life.
John tells us that this life was not just merely philosophical ponderings. Often times we read the bible and we allow our contemporary definitions to cloud our comprehension. John’s was using the language to convey something far more profound than a description about the quality of our human experience. The apostle points to the Son of God and tells us that he, Jesus, was made present, “manifest,” before John’s very eyes. What is more, he does not internalize this idea of the life, but keeps it outside of himself, further pointing to the reality of Jesus’ humanity upon the earth.
Verse 2 is interesting because John makes a third reference in a span of thirty words to having laid his own eyes upon the person of Jesus. It is because of this that he is willing to be a witness to what he has seen. But not only that, John wants to proclaim that this life is of such a particular quality that it deserves to be shared, no, proclaimed to others. The life that was manifest on the earth was eternal life in the flesh. This life must be classified as eternal because of where it originated. It came from the Father who resides in the highest heaven.
The power of the Christian life is not is that we offer a different kind of life. It’s not as if what we are offering is an alternative. There is only one choice. What God sent to earth, in the person and ministry of his son Jesus, was eternal life. Without Jesus, there is not life. Only death.
As followers of Jesus, we must recognize the difference between true life and all the false alternatives offered by the world–or even some within the church. True and eternal life will only be found in Jesus. Any claim that offers Jesus plus anything is a counterfeit and should not be trusted or entertained.
“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life…” 1 John 1:1 ESV
John’s perspective is very different from that of the other writers in the New Testament. His relationship with Jesus was far closer than many of us may even begin to understand. The fact that Jesus entrusted his mother, Mary, into John’s care is an indicator of how Jesus felt about John. John even uses the moniker of being the “disciple whom Jesus loved” throughout his gospel five different times. There was a closeness to this their relationship giving John’s insights and words a weightiness unique to him.
John’s introduction also sets a distinct tone for the letter. John is not merely interested in arguing with his readers. He decides to speak from a more fundamental point of view. For better or for worse, the apostle understood that conviction must be based on more than reason. An experience has the power to affect us far deeper than shear force of will or thought.
In this opening verse we will see John makes four declarations of why he is convinced of Jesus’ work. He will say more in verse 2 (which we will get to next time), but for now he begins to set the stage of his own conviction for faith in the Word of Life. We will look at the four statements John offers to here.
First, that “which we have heard.” John begins with something that, at first appears to be simple, but when we consider what Paul said about faith, a bridge of ideas begins to take shape. Faith comes by…hearing. That Paul told the Romans (10:17). What we hear, many times, is our first introduction to is there to be known, to what we can experience in life. We can hear more initially than we see. That is why we get startled, we hear something we can’t see and therefore, respond in fear and surprise. John is pointing to both of these realities. We hear and are introduced to new things. But, we continue to hear and this causes our minds to wonder about what things caused the sounds. They may not yet exist in front of us, but the sounds provides us with our first evidence that there is something else out there.
Second, that “which we have seen with our eyes.” This second declaration shows how John was not merely talking about something someone else had told him about. John had been a witness of the person and ministry of Jesus. Seeing is the verification we look for when we hear things we struggle to believe. When John saw Jesus and what he was doing, what he had heard was confirmed and affirmed. Our minds are wired to bring together what we hear and what we see. It has to “make sense.” There has to be a correspondence between the sense in order for our minds to remain settled.
Third, that “which we looked upon.” I struggled with this declaration because it is so closely related to the second one. It involves the eyes, but there is something else intended here. The implication appears to be that what John heard and saw had to then be considered. John “looked upon” Jesus. John studied and contemplated all that was taking place in front of him because at the end of the process a decision needed to be made. John knew that if what he saw, heard, and considered was leading down a particular path, he would not be able to escape the decision that was waiting at the end of the road.
Fourth, that which we “have touched with our hands.” The final declaration John offers coincides with, what I believe, was John’s acceptance of what he had heard, seen, and contemplated. John had “touched” Jesus. And while there is a physical reality present in this declaration, John is taking us deeper. When the Bible describes touching, the idea is that of identification. For a Jewish person, touching unclean things made them unclean. So, for John to use this image as his final declaration is a strong indicator of the choice and commitment he made. The apostle was not merely paying lip service to Jesus and his work. John was proclaiming, in as clear and bold a manner as he could that his allegiance was with Jesus.
John’s four declarations can serve as a way of discerning where we are in our own journey of faith. Each of these declarations speaks to a step we must take. Steps that bring us closer to the point of decision and deepening levels of commitment.
Until we are ready to touch Jesus, and then reach out our hands to do so, until then we have not reached the point of complete surrender to Jesus. We must all decide to identify with Jesus for ourselves. It is this commitment that will help us to serve Jesus as he deserves. But, this commitment will also help us to know that we can have confidence in the decision we have made in the Word of Life.
