The Walk of Life

Review: The Word of Life (1 John 1:1-4)

The Word of Life is God incarnate (1-2)

The Word of Life is essential for fellowship with God and God’s people (3)

The Word of Life feeds our joy (4)

The Walk of Life (5-10)

The character of the walk of Life (5)

The walk of life is sourced in God

Light = truth: this is how John defines it in verse 6. People who walk in darkness are liars and do not practice the truth. We might have expected that John make a reference to light after bringing up darkness, but he uses truth as the the antithesis to darkness

God is the source and measure of all that is true. Another way to put it would be that nothing is truly understood until it is understood in the light of God.

Darkness is that which is against the truth. Darkness is all that God is not.

When we concern ourselves to know and live the truth, we are ultimately giving ourselves to live under, and to, and for God because God is truth.

This reality is what must shape our walk… our way of life

The application of the walk of Life (6-7)

The walk of Life is shown in our desires (6)

Consider what John says about walking in darkness in the next chapter:

1 John 2:8–11 ESV

At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

So what is evident here is that those who walk in darkness live lives of hypocrisy. Claiming to be followers of Christ, but living in such a way that contradicts that claim. Here John calls out people who claim to be Christ followers and but hate others who claim to be Christ-followers.

But notice how darkness is described in 2:8: passing away. This same word, passing away (one Greek word), shows up again just a few verses down in chapter 2. Look at verse 17:

1 John 2:17 ESV

And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

So by tracing the idea of walking in darkness from 1:6 to 2:8-11 and then to 2:17 is an attempt to show that the quality of our walk or way of life is demonstrated in our desires.

Notice what v. 17 says, the world is passing away along with its desires. Worldly desires, whatever they may be, are desires that lead to the pursuit of that which is temporary and ultimately meaningless apart from God.

Everyone who loves the world more than God is walking in darkness. And living this way, John says back in chapter 1:6 lies and does not practice the truth.

The truth is that we are to delight in God more than in any pursuit of the world. The truth is that God is infinitely more precious than anything that we can come to possess or achieve in this world.

The walk of Life is demonstrated by our posture towards our sin (7)

Verse 7 seems to reference both fellowship with God and with one another. Verse 6 makes clear that fellowship with God is impossible if we walk in darkness. In verse 7, walking in the light is evidence that we have fellowship with God

But, remembering the context, back in verse 3 fellowship with other Christians is referenced (that you too may have fellowship with us). All this to suggest that John is referencing both fellowship with God and with other Christians in verse 7. And the condition of this fellowship is walking in the light, that is, walking according to the truth or in obedience to God since the truth is ultimately God. Of course, living this way requires we have a posture of war to our sin.

Notice the second half of verse 7: the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. What does John mean here?

We know what he doesn’t mean, perhaps more easily, than we know what he means. John is not referring to moral perfection. If this were the case, there would be no need for cleansing. Let alone what John says in the next verse: if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.

So then what does John mean? Another grammatical point to make here. the word cleanses appears in the present tense. So what John is saying here is that as we walk in the light, that is, as we walk in obedience to God, the blood of Christ continues to cleanse us from sin. We acknowledge that we will continue to struggle with sin in this world.

Christ came to conquer sin. This conquering of sin shows up in its power to conquer the our indifference towards sinning.

Hebrews 9:14 ESV

how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

Those who walk in the light receive through the cleansing power of the blood of Christ, purified consciences from sin in order to serve God.

Walking in the light means seeing things the way God sees them and responding the way he does. We walk in the light when we hate the sin we fall into and name it for the ugly thing it is and agree with God about it and turn from it. So confessing sin is a crucial part of walking in the light.

The clarification of the walk of Life (8-10)

The walk of Life will reveal our sin (8)

To claim to be without sin is self-deception

But this is what walking in the light does. It exposes our sin.

This shows up in our consciences, or response to our sin, our willingness to seek forgiveness and forgive.

The walk of Life leads to confession of sin (9-10)

As much as walking in darkness is denying our sin, confessing our sin is part of what it means to walk in the light.

Confession and repentance is fundamental to living (walking) the Christian life. If we are not denying our sin, the only God-honoring way to acknowledge it it to confess it God, and ask Him for the power to repent of it.

We are cleansed from our sin as we confess it to Him. We do not achieve this cleansing. Remember, repentance from sin is a gift from God

2 Timothy 2:24–25 ESV

And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth,

This is the way of life. acknowledging our sin and confessing it to God. This has an ongoing cleansing effect.

The blood is what cleanses, not our confessing, but our confessing displays our recognition of our ongoing need for forgiveness.

Verse 10 repeats much of what was said in verse 8, but intensifies the offense of marginalizing or dismissing our sin. We make God a liar. God says we struggle with sin and therefore need forgiveness. We should agree. The death of Jesus occured because of our sin, this is the truth. We need to walk in it.

Pastor John (2:1-6)

His concern for their holiness (1a)

Begins to address his readers directly: my little children

John understands his relationship with these people as one of affection and as pastor

He moves from 1st person plural in self-designations to 1st person singular

we are writing these things so that our joy might be complete… (4)

this is the message we have heard Him… (5)

These things, references the issues he addressed with them in verses 6-10 of chapter 1. John has a concern to strengthen his readers’ resolve to resist sinning and pursue holiness

In stating that the reason he wrote these things was that they may not sin, he is not contradicting what he said in 1:8-10, especially in light of what he says in the second half of verse 1.

His concern for their assurance (1b-2)

John’s concern to strengthen his audience against sinning, he is not under the delusion that they do not struggle with sin.

But John’s encouragement is not a strategy to resist temptation. It’s to point them to the fact that their Savior is their advocate between them and the Father.

Jesus is our advocate

Definition: a person who acts as a spokesperson or representative of someone else’s policy, purpose, or cause; especially before a judge in a court of law.

This word, parakletos, is found only in John’s writings in the NT. It’s not even found in the LXX.

In the gospel of John, this term is used to refer to the Holy Spirit who was sent to be with the disciples on earth after Jesus returned to the Father.

John 14:16 ESV

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,

see also John 14:26; 15:26; 16:7

Here in 1 john, it is used to refer to Jesus to describe what He is doing in heaven.

It appears that John is offering assurance to Christians regarding their struggle with sin by saying Jesus is speaking up on our behalf in the presence of the Father when we sin. He is our advocate, that is, our spokesperson with the Father.

Understanding Christ’s advocacy of His people before the Father is helped by connecting it to His ministry of intercession. see Rom. 8:34; 1 Tim. 2:5; Heb. 7:25.

That Jesus is described as the righteous (one) helps to clarify his role as our advocate. He is righteous and lived righteously and is therefore able to speak on behalf of those who have not aced righteously. (1 john 1:9; 2:29; 3:7, 12 all use the word righteous to refer to behavior. Jesus did behave righteous but is also righteous in nature. This is made clear in the next verse).

remember what John is addressing here. If anyone does sin, we have assurance of salvation because Jesus is our advocate and

Jesus is our propitiation

The Old Testament sacrificial system

Expiation: refers to the cleansing of sin and removal of sin’s guilt.

In the sacrificial system of Israel, blood was collected from an animal’s severed arteries and then manipulated in a variety of ways.

Blood was smeared, sprinkled, tossed, and poured out.

Leviticus 17:11 ESV

For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.

This underlies the idea of substitution: the shed blood of a blameless substitute represented life for life, soul for soul.

Blood’s importance was underscored most prominently by the sin offering. Through the shedding and manipulation of the sin offering’s blood, God taught Israel of their need for cleansing from sin and for the removal of sin’s defilement and guilt, making divine forgiveness possible (see Lev. 4:20, 26, 31, 35).

On the one hand, the blood signified death: displaying the blood before God demonstrated that a life, albeit the life of an unblemished animal substitute, had endured death, the wages of sin. On the other hand, blood represented the life of flesh: by the principle that life conquers death, blood was used ritually to wipe away, as it were, the defilement of sin and death.

Propitiation: refers to the assuaging of God’s wrath and gaining of His favor

The flood account in Gen. 6-9.

God was grieved over humanity’s corruption (6:6)

God determined to destroy all of humanity except for Noah and his family

The waters came, everyone not on the Arc was destroyed, the waters receded.

Upon exiting the Arc, Noah built an alter

Genesis 8:20–21 ESV

Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.

It wasn’t until after the sacrifices were made that God’s anger was assuaged. The sacrifices were pleasing to God (pleasing aroma), but also satisfied His demand seen in His declaration to never strike down every living creature as He had done n the flood.

The Arc of the Covenant

Exodus 25:17–22 ESV

“You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold. Two cubits and a half shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its breadth. And you shall make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work shall you make them, on the two ends of the mercy seat. Make one cherub on the one end, and one cherub on the other end. Of one piece with the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends. The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be. And you shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I shall give you. There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel.

When the Old Testament was translated into Latin, this word was translated as propitiatorium, which means "the place of propitiation." The standard English translation is "the mercy seat".

The lid was the place where the wrath of God was propitiated… where it was assuaged and His favor was gained.

there was only one day a year when sacrificial blood was offered on the kapporet to propitiate the wrath of almighty God.

Jesus our superior sacrifice

Jesus alone can cleanse the soul and conscience, He alone can turn away the wrath of God, since He is our propitiation.

Through His sacrifice, he assuaged the wrath of God and merited God’s favor for His people.

Hebrews 9:13–14 ESV

For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

For the whole world

The word kosmos occurs 23 times in 1 John.

natural world

locative: where people go and/or live

describes attitudes that oppose God

In John’s gospel, John the Baptist is quoted by saying that Jesus is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. (1:29)

We know John cannot mean that the sins of all people are automatically forgiven and inherit eternal life.

1 John 5:11–13 (ESV)

And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

We might attempt to explain what John means here (it’s easier to explain what he doesn’t mean) by saying that Jesus’ sacrifice was sufficient to deal with the sins of the whole world, but that His sacrifice does not become effective until people believe in Him. This seems to be what John teaches in the third chapter of his gospel in verse 16.

Our Assurance in our Striving

God uses His Word to strengthen His people against sin.

All people, including Christians, still sin.

Our comfort when we sin is in the advocacy and propitiation of Jesus.

Our resolve to continue in the fight against sin is fueled by the advocacy and propitiation of Jesus.