Living in the Light

Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament, 28th Edition Chapter 1

ἐὰν εἴπωμεν ὅτι ἁμαρτίαν οὐκ ἔχομεν,* ἑαυτοὺς πλανῶμεν καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια ⸆ ♦⸉οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν ἡμῖν⸊.* 9 ἐὰν ὁμολογῶμεν τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν, πιστός ἐστιν καὶ δίκαιος, ἵνα ἀφῇ ἡμῖν τὰς ἁμαρτίας ⸆ καὶ ⸀καθαρίσῃ ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ πάσης ἀδικίας.* 10 ἐὰν εἴπωμεν ὅτι οὐχ ⸀ἡμαρτήκαμεν, ψεύστην ποιοῦμεν αὐτὸν,* καὶ ὁ λόγος αὐτοῦ ⸉οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν ἡμῖν⸊.

English Standard Version Chapter 1

8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

OPENING REMARKS

Last week we considered the apostle John’s great statement that ‘God is light.’ We caught a glimpse of God’s glory, of His perfect yet awful holiness, so bright we can’t gaze steadily at it, of His enjoyment of all that is good and His hatred of evil. We further considered this idea of fellowship which the apostle progresses in this first chapter; that those who say they know God but walk in darkness have no fellowship with Him. It is this idea that John further develops in verses 8-10 which we’ll be covering today.

This passage is the culmination of little literary pattern begun in verse six. There are five clauses each beginning with ‘if we’; three of the clauses have negative outcomes and two have positive outcomes. The order is ‘negative, positive, negative, positive, negative.’ The pattern ends with a stark conclusion ‘we make him a liar and His word is not in us.’ Interestingly every ‘if we say’ is followed by a negative and every action always in the present tense, giving us a sense of continuation is followed by a positive outcome. Perhaps a reminder that so often, talk is cheap, it’s walking the walk that bears fruit in the long run.

Today we begin with clause 3 out of 5.

If we say we have no sin...

As we begin to get accustomed to John’s style we can see how the apostle often starts with the general and then moves to the particulars. The themes of light and darkness are now develped into truth and falsehood, purity and sinfulness.

What does he mean by ‘if we say we have no sin’? Where does this train of thought come from? Well, the statement that God is light is absolutely speaking of His holiness. If His holiness is a light, the brightest light conceivable then whatever is hidden in the darkness must be exposed. The bible consistently uses darkness as a metaphor for sin. In John’s thinking, knowledge of God’s holiness was immediately connected with a conscious awareness of sin.

Just as Adam and Eve hid themselves from God in the garden so we have this natural, hereditry inclination to hide sin from God. This denial manifests itself in a number of different ways. Some may outright deny the doctrine of original sin; saying that there is no sinful nature into which we’re born. That babies are born holy and are only corrupted by bad company. That it is possible to live a morally blameless life. There was a 4th century british monk who believed this by the name of Pelagius. He believed that mankind was inherantly good, that mankind enters into the world without bondage to sin and has the power within his will to choose to be righteous. The heresy now known as Pelagianism was condemned by the church largely because of the work of a man named Augustine. Although pelagianism was condemned as a heresy, its core beliefs have once again become popular in the church today.

When asked what Martin Luther might say to todays heirs of the reformation, R.C Sproul the late theologian and author said;

“I think he would write on the modern church’s captivity to Pelagianism.’

What on earth would that look like? Most people have never heard of Pelagius, so how can you spot the influence of his false teachings in the church. Well, one thing that will be conspicuously missing in a pelagian pastors preaching will be the very thing that the apostle John is addressing in these verses here; sin. Have you ever noticed how little the issue of sin and in particular our own personal sin is ever addressed by modern preachers? If it is mentioned at all it is spoken of more like a sickness, ailment that we suffer from unjustly rather than something that we do that we are guilty of,

This idea of sin is another more subtle way of denying our sin. Rather than saying outright that we have no sin, many see themselves as the guiltless victim of sin. That sin is something outside of them that ocassionally gets the better of them but that they are essentially not guilty. In this view God doesn’t really need to punish our sins because they were only the symptoms of our sickness with which we were afflicted. This view was popularised by W.M Paul Young in his book The Shack.

Papa says ‘I don’t need to punish people for sin. Sin is its own punishment, devouring you from the inside. It’s not my purpose to punish it; its my joy to cure it.’

To say ‘I’m a victim of sin’ is as good as saying ‘I have no sin’, since it denies your own agency in the sin.

English Standard Version Chapter 3

10 as it is written:

“None is righteous, no, not one;

11  no one understands;

no one seeks for God.

12  All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;

no one does good,

not even one.”

13  “Their throat is an open grave;

they use their tongues to deceive.”

“The venom of asps is under their lips.”

14  “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”

15  “Their feet are swift to shed blood;

16  in their paths are ruin and misery,

17  and the way of peace they have not known.”

18  “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Another telltale sign of modern Pelagianism is that there will be a lot of focus on man, of what man can do, of how noble and good man is. In these modern, semi-pelagian churches the emphasis on God’s sovereign grace is always diminished, God’s grace is simply viewed as a divine helping hand to give us a leg up where we needed a bit of help. Whereas the Biblical view of grace is the picture of Lazarus, dead in the tomb for four days, unable to help himself, no will to choose to raise himself, it was Jesus’s call and nothing else that woke him up. The gospel puts man in his place, it shows his rebellion against God and his absolute dependence upon nothing but the grace of God to save him from judgement in the last day.

We deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us...

Have you ever told yourself a lie so much that you begin to believe it? This is what the Bible says about those who claim not to have sin. They may not be fooling God but they’ve successfully fooled themselves. Sure, it’s not a pleasant thing to understand about yourself; that you’re not only living in a sinful world but that you yourself are a sinner. It’s true that even as a Christian there is a remnant of the old man, the sinful self preserved in the flesh, in your body with which you must wrestle for the remainder of your earthly days. It may not be a thing we like to dwell on but it’s true!

We don’t dwell on this truth and believe it because of some morbid fascination, or because of some problem of self esteem! We dwell on the truth that we are sinners because it is what the Bible tells us about ourselves. That we aren’t victims in need of healing but we in our flesh are rebels, enemies of God. This is the miracle of salvation, that God came to save His enemies, that Christ laid down His life for us while we were still sinners, at war with Him.

So to live as a Christian claiming that you have no sin is self-deception. It’s evidence that the truth is not in you, because you won’t accept the word of God concerning you; that you are a sinner

He who cannot find water in the sea is not more foolish than the man who cannot perceive sin in his members. As the salt flavours every drop of the Atlantic, so does sin affect every atom of our nature. - Charles Spurgeon

It’s easy to spot those who are deceiving themselves in this respect. The gospel that they preach is one of deliverance from sickness, poverty and oppression and wrong thinking, there is little said about sin. There is little to no acknowlegement of mans sinfulness and God’s holiness. No real mention of God’s wrath or judgement, but a heavy serving of God’s love. The true gospel is an indictment upon all mankind, that he is a sinner, that he is at war with a holy and all powerful God, and can do nothing in and of himself to change this. The true gospel reveals a God who in His perfect love chooses to save those who were utterly unworthy of being saved, and it is He who does all the work, it is He who deserves all the glory.

In the words of Jonathan Edwards “You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary!”

If we confess our sins...

As Romans 6:6 teaches we know that the old self has been crucified with Christ. Therefore we are now a new creation in Christ Jesus (2 Cor 5:17). However, Paul also taught of the ‘body of sin’ which although it will ultimately be condemned and pass away but remains with us in this earthly life. Elsewhere he uses the term ‘flesh’ to refer to this ‘body of sin’ (Romans 7:14-25) or ‘body of death.’ He teaches that it is in the flesh or in the physical body where sin remains. This explains the constant wrestle that we have as Christians with sin on a daily basis. However, the sin that we now do as believers is not perpetrated by our new man, but by our flesh. So this is how John could say on one hand that we have sin and must confess our sin, and on the other hand that no one born of God can continue sinning.

John says that as we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Perhaps the image we have in our heads when we hear the word ‘confession’ is impacted by the catholic practice of confession. Visiting a priest sat in a box and listing off your misdeeds as he listens.

This understanding doesn’t really capture the full thrust of what John was saying. The greek word for confession here is a compound verb; homologomen. Which is the word ‘homo’, meaning ‘the same’ and ‘logos’ meaning ‘word, or saying’. Literally translated it means to say the same as. So the apostle isn’t asking us to visit some dude in a box and list our vices, he’s asking us to own our sins, to agree with God about our guilt and desperate need of His grace.

I would say this—To confess sin does not mean merely on some one occasion to repeat a catalogue of sins before God in private, nor at certain set seasons to rehearse a list of our faults, but it means a life-long acknowledgment of our sin. We must take our places as men who have sinned, and never attempt to occupy the position of innocent beings. - CH Spurgeon

This is what it means to walk in the light; authenticity. No false personas, no masks, no platform Christians, but owning the truth about ourselves, owning our sin, owning our failure.

The Lord cannot stand with us on the platform of seeming and appearance, but only on the ground of what we really are, and therefore in proportion as we are untrue we cut ourselves off from God. - CH Spurgeon

You may say, ergh how depressing, surely God wouldnt want us to have such a morbid self perception. Won’t that lead to low self esteem and depression? I say quite the contrary; it’s the most liberating thing i have believed about myself! The longer I walk with God the more I know about my own unworthiness and sin. Not just the things I do, but the things I don’t do.

Jesus Himself said that the greatest commandment in the whole law was to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Do you love God with all of yourself? Or do you like me find your heart colder than it should be, do you find your mind reckons it has better things to think on than God? This is sin too! God forgive us for our lukewarmness, for our half hearted devotion to you, cleanse us from all our unrighteousness.

You see, God promises this. To forgive our sins and cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness! There is no darkness in our life that He is unwilling or unable to blitz. Are you ashamed to come to Him because you feel you have done something so dark and evil that God could never forgive you? Confess it, own it, and bring it before Him. There isn’t a sin that can withstand the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus.

He is faithful and just to forgive us..

Our only safe course—and may the Spirit of God grant us grace to follow it—is to come to God as we actually are, and ask him to deal with us, in Christ Jesus, according to our actual condition. If we are to walk with God at all it must be in the light, and if we once walk in the light with him our condition will tally with the description of verse seven; we shall see sin in ourselves and daily feel the blood of Jesus Christ cleansing us therefrom. - CH Spurgeon

This activity of confessing our sins is to be a daily rhythm of life for us. The more we walk in the light, the more the darkness in us is exposed and we become conscious of it. So owning these sins is simply a part of what it means to walk in the light. It’s not a morbid fascination or a grim outlook on life, it’s an acknowledment of the truth about who He is and who we are.

the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. John 3:19

We make Him a liar...

We depart todays passage with a final warning from John; if we say we have not sinned we make Him a liar.

To say we haven’t sinned is to make a mockery of God. It is to call Him a fool. It is to say that His diagnosis of the human condition was wrong, that there was no need to send His son to bear our iniquities on the cross. This is to make God a liar.

Let God be true but every man a liar. Romans 3:4

God’s diagnosis of the human condition is a grave one. It doesn’t tally with our modern sensibilities whereby we see ourselves as masters of our own destiny, as inherently good and worthy of good things. The Bible puts mankind in its place, as deserving of nothing but the wrath of God. Though we were created good, through Adam sin corrupted all that we are. The image of God which was bestowed upon Adam and Eve was cracked and distorted in every way imaginable through sin.

Now we stand before God with nothing to commend ourselves to Him. We have nothing with which to put Him in our debt. We can’t gain His favour through good deeds, or religious obedience or wisdom or kindness. Only the empty hand of faith in His son Jesus Christ is able to put us right with God.

It is a faith that comes with empty hand, claiming nothing for itself, but seeking its all in Christ. This empty-handed faith is the kind of faith that results in a right standing with God. - Dr. James White

Come as the citizens of Calais did to King Edward III. when the city was captured; come with ropes about your neck, owning that if sentence be executed upon you, you deserve it; come at once in all your filthiness and dishabille; come with no jewels in your ears, with no ornaments upon your necks, and with no recommendation whatever; come as sinners by nature, and as sinners by practice. Plead nothing that looks like goodness, but come in your sin. Do not try to put one touch of paint on those cheeks of yours, nor imitate the flush of health upon that consumptive countenance. Come honestly as you are, and say “Lord, look at me as I am, a worse sinner than even I think myself to be, and then show the infinity of thy free grace, and the power of Jesus’ dying love in saving me, even me.” - CH Spurgeon