1 John 1:5-2:2 - In The Light

Introduction

Last summer we were looking for something to do up around Cook Forest, and we stopped at the Mysterious Maze—have you seen it? It’s a two-story indoor labyrinth made out of plywood and stud walls, along with some moveable obstacles. The whole thing is painted black and completely dark inside, with the exception of a few isolated spots with laser lights or optical illusions. We decided to give it a try, and as we were getting ready to go in the owner said to us, “Now, when you get in there, don’t use your phone flashlight or anything—it’s not against the rules, but it really ruins the fun.” We got about two minutes in, and I remember thinking I was about ready to “ruin the fun” anyway and pull out my light! But I resisted the urge, and we actually had a really good time.

Groping around and trying to feel your way in the dark can be entertaining if it’s just a funhouse attraction like the Mysterious Maze—but it’s no fun at all when you feel like you are trying to live your life by just groping and stumbling around in the dark. Here in our text this morning, the Apostle John writes something about God that is going to be the foundation of everything he writes through the middle of Chapter 3. It’s something that, particularly if you came to Christ later in life, that you know from firsthand experience:

1 John 1:5 (ESV)

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.

If you know what it’s like to live your life in the dark—just trying to get by, doing the best that you can, groping your way along and trying to figure things out with no guidance, not able to see your way—then you know what a difference it makes to have the light of God’s truth illuminating your way, don’t you?

John is going to use that image of walking in the light and walking in the darkness throughout these verses, because he has something vital for us to understand about who Jesus is. Remember, John is writing this letter because he is fighting the false teachers (one in particular, I believe) who were saying that Jesus was not really God—He just looked like God, but couldn’t really have been God because God can only be spirit, not mortal. As we saw last week it is absolutely vital that we affirm Jesus is both fully God and fully man—our whole salvation utterly depends on it.

And so as John is combatting that confusion over who Jesus is, he establishes his argument here in the fact that God is light—and so what I understand this passage to be showing us today is that

You can rightly KNOW Jesus only in the LIGHT of God’s TRUTH

There are no shortages today of opinions about who Jesus is, what He means, and what it means to follow Him. There are those who claim He would be a socialist today, or that He would support gay marriage, or that He would march with Black Lives Matter or join in calls to defund the police. There are those who wear the t-shirts that conflate Jesus’ name with USA (“JesUSA”), and those who claim that He would be a dyed-in-the-wool Republican and supply-side economic capitalist. Everybody wants to claim that Jesus would agree with them or approve of their philosophies or fit into their worldview. But we can only know Jesus rightly when we let the light of God’s truth shine on our hearts. The first thing John shows us is that to know Jesus rightly we must understand

I. The Truth about God’s CHARACTER (1 John 1:5)

Look again at verse 5:

1 John 1:5 (ESV)

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.

Another way of saying this in the Scriptures is to say that

He is UTTERLY HOLY

Throughout the pages of the Bible, we see reference after reference to God’s holiness and righteousness and perfection in terms of “light”:

Psalm 27:1 (ESV)

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

Psalm 36:9 (ESV)

For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.

In the introduction to his Gospel, John says of Jesus

John 1:9 (ESV)

The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

And Jesus Himself says

John 8:12 (ESV)

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Not only is God “light”, John says, but he makes very clear that “in Him is no darkness at all”. The “light” of God’s holiness and goodness and moral perfection is contrasted with the “darkness” of sin and evil and wickedness and rebellion—John says in Chapter 3 of his Gospel:

John 3:19–20 (ESV)

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

When John sets out his statement here in our text in 1 John, he is saying something utterly crucial, utterly foundational about God—God is utterly, completely and unalterably holy in all that He is and all that He does. That God is utterly holy means that there is no darkness, no sin, no spot or blemish of unrighteousness or wickedness in Him whatsoever.

The image of light helps us understand this, doesn’t it? What happens when you turn on your flashlight in the middle of the Mysterious Maze? The darkness is destroyed, isn’t it? In the same way, the darkness of sin and evil simply cannot remain in the presence of God—it is obliterated by the light of His holiness the way darkness is obliterated by a light!

God’s utter holiness means that He is completely and unalterably righteous and pure—and it also means that He is utterly and completely separate from us. There is no way that we can comprehend Him on our own—we cannot know someone who is utterly different, utterly set apart and separate from us, unless He reaches down to reveal Himself to us! That God is “light” means that He is utterly holy, and it means that

He is SELF-REVEALING

Light banishes darkness, and light reveals, doesn’t it? Light allows you to see things you couldn’t see otherwise. John is making it clear here that what we can know about God must come from God Himself—we cannot create our own notions of Who God is and what He is like out of our own ideas and our own notions of what we think He is like—John even says that this truth that God is light is a truth that he himself “received” and passed on to his readers.

That God is light means that He reveals Himself to you—you don’t get to define Him according to your preferences! You don’t get to define what holiness is, you don’t get to set the definition of what is “sin” or not—God alone is utterly holy, and God alone reveals what holiness is and what sin is.

You cannot rightly understand who Jesus is or what He has done if you are seeing in the light of God’s truth. You must understand the truth about God’s character, and you must understand

II. The Truth about your CONDITION (1 John 1:6-10)

Look with me at verses 6-7 of 1 John 1--

1 John 1:6–7 (ESV)

If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 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.

The first thing that John tells you is

Don’t lie to OTHERS (vv. 6-7; cp. John 3:19-20)

about your spiritual condition. Don’t say that you have fellowship with God—that you have a relationship with Him—while you are living your life in the darkness of your own sin. There are a lot of people who have carefully split their lives between their church life on Sunday morning and the rest of their life the other days of the week.

Are you a different person here than you are on a Tuesday afternoon at work? Is your language different on Sunday morning than it is the rest of the week? You do and say things here you have no intention of anyone else in your life ever finding out about--and do and say things all week that you have no intention of anyone here ever finding out about?

If you live like that and try to lead everyone to believe that you have a relationship with God, then the Bible says you are a liar. Because light obliterates darkness—there is no way that the darkness of your love of your sin can withstand the light of God’s holiness. A Christian who walks in darkness is an oxymoron—like flaming snowflakes—you cannot continue to nurture and delight in sin if you are walking in fellowship with God.

The only way you can know Jesus rightly is to see the truth of your condition in light of God’s truth—don’t lie to others, and

Don’t deceive YOURSELF (vv. 8-9)

Look at verses 8-9:

1 John 1:8–9 (ESV)

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

How easy it is for us to say, “Well, I’m not sinning when I immediately get on the phone to pass on some embarrassing or sensitive details about someone—I’m just ‘sharing a prayer concern’”. But God calls it gossip, and it is a sin:

Proverbs 11:9 (ESV)

With his mouth the godless man would destroy his neighbor, but by knowledge the righteous are delivered.

You may say that the rage and hatred and anger boiling up inside you when Fox News (or CNN or MSNBC or Newsmax) report on the latest political maneuvers on one side or the other, that it’s all just “righteous indignation”—but God’s definition of what you’re doing is different:

Matthew 5:22 (ESV)

But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

John says here that you are not the measure of what is and is not a sin—it is God alone that defines what sin is. And John says here that justifying or explaining away your behavior and why it’s really not a sin for you means you are just deceiving yourself.

Don’t lie to others that you have a relationship with God while you are living a double life, don’t deceive yourself that you are not sinning when God says you are, and in verse 10, John warns you,

Don’t make a liar out of GOD (v. 10)

1 John 1:10 (ESV)

If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

We are living in an age when the whole idea of “sin” is being pushed aside, downplayed, and even denied. We are told that the real problem of the human condition isn’t that we are sinners, but that we need to feel better about ourselves; that God wants us to love ourselves. That what is needed in our society isn’t repentance but education or tolerance or self-esteem. One former professor from Union Theological Seminary in New York City, Delores Williams, once said,

I don’t think we need a theory of atonement at all. I think Jesus came to show us something about life… I don’t think we need people hanging on crosses and blood dripping and weird stuff”(Deloris Williams, “Re-Imagining Jesus,” 1: 3– 2, quoted in Akin, Daniel L.. Exalting Jesus in 1,2,3 John (Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary) (Kindle Locations 315-318). B&H Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

But that is not at all what God has said. And there is a terrible, hideous consequence of this kind of thinking that makes God something far worse than merely a liar: If there is no such thing as sin, if there is no sin problem in this world, then why did God have Jesus Christ tortured to death? If all He had to do was come and “show us something about life”, then why did He have to suffer and die on the Cross? His death was pointless, and He suffered for nothing. If we have not sinned, then God is worse than just a liar—He is the most horribly evil and sadistic monster imaginable.

But the fact is that we have sinned; we have broken God’s laws, and the Light of His holiness must necessarily obliterate the darkness of our sin. This is the wrath of God—the light of His holy and righteous omnipotence coming into contact with the darkness of our sin.

And this is why Jesus had to come and die—because His death was the only way you and I could be shielded from the wrath of God. When you understand the truth about God’s character and acknowledge the truth about your condition, then you are able to understand

III. The truth about Jesus’ ACCOMPLISHMENT (1 John 2:1-2)

Look at 1 John 2:1-2:

1 John 2:1–2 (ESV)

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

John says that Jesus Christ is the One who stands between you and the infinitely righteous and holy Light of God--

He is your RIGHTEOUS ADVOCATE (v. 1)

The word “Advocate” here is a legal term, used in other places in Greek to refer to what we would call a “defense attorney”—someone who will plead your case before a Judge. This is who Jesus is for you, Christian—the One Who stands before the infinitely holy God, in Whom there is no darkness at all, Whose wrath will utterly obliterate and destroy any sin that approaches Him—God the Son in human flesh stands before God the Father and pleads your case before Him!

He stands before God’s infinite holiness and says, “I have cleansed her of her sin” — 1 John 1:7: “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.”

He stands before God’s infinite holiness and says, “He is forgiven of his sin”—1 John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

He stands before the light of God’s infinite holiness because He Himself is God and He Himself is the Light of infinite holiness! John 8:12: “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, can do all of this because

He is your RESCUE from WRATH (v. 2)

He Himself bore your sin, suffering and dying under the wrath of God. This is what John means in verse 2, when he writes

1 John 2:2 (ESV)

He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

A “propitiation” is a sacrifice that takes away wrath. When the light of God’s truth reveals to you His character and you acknowledge the truth of your condition, then you can see what Jesus did for you in His death! He went to the Cross bearing your sickness of sin and receiving the consequences of it--the omnipotent wrath of almighty God as His infinite Holiness comes into contact with the darkness of sin, destroying it. Jesus bore the brunt of His Father’s wrath against your sin so that you could be spared the judgment of His infinite wrath against you!

Delores Williams and her ilk notwithstanding, we really do need “someone hanging on a cross with blood dripping”, or else the light of God’s holiness would destroy us. But since His wrath was satisfied on that Cross, we now have fellowship with God through Jesus Christ! And now, John says, we proclaim that this forgiveness, this cleansing, this fellowship is offered to the whole world in Jesus Christ! Every tribe, tongue, people and language are invited to come to Jesus—there is no one outside the reach of this Gospel, no one to whom it is not offered! Jesus Christ has accomplished in His death on the Cross the invitation to the whole world to be free from the wrath of God!

These verses today tell us that there are two kinds of people—those who want to look like they walk in the light with God, and those who really do walk in the light with God. Those who like to come across as having fellowship with God but who are secretly still in love with their darkness, and those who love to walk with God and are devastated when they stumble into the darkness that still haunts them.

If that’s you this morning—if you are seeking to be obedient to Christ every day, and not toying with the dark, if sin is not something you are secretly looking forward to but something that breaks your heart when you fall into it, then see here the assurance and comfort that you have in Christ!

Because when you fall into that sin and do not try to hide it or deny it or excuse it—when you come to God and confess it, you have the assurance that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses you! He is not your condemning Judge, He is your Advocate—He is on your side! When you stumble and fall into that sin that trips you up, He is not angry at you, He is angry at that sin that has ensnared you!

Jesus no more hates one of His children who stumble into sin than a mother hates her own child who is sick with cancer—she does not hate her child, she hates the cancer! And just as that loving mother would rather trade places with her child, taking on that cancer and allowing her child to have her health, this is just what Jesus Christ did for you! He hated that sin in you so much that He took it on Himself and died under the wrath of God so that you could live in His righteousness! Don’t ever fear to come to Him when sin has tripped you up, because He has promised that when you confess it and don’t try to hide it or excuse it or deny it, He will cleanse you and set you free from it!

And if you are here this morning and you know that you have everyone here fooled—you say that you have fellowship with God, but you are secretly feeding all that sin—you sit here this morning right alongside your fellow church members, and none of them have any idea of the darkness that you are nurturing and gorging yourself on outside of your “Christian life”, you need to hear what God is saying to you this morning—John writes in His Gospel, John 3:20:

John 3:20 (ESV)

For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

Here is what you need to understand this morning: The Light of God’s holiness will always expose the darkness of sin. Always. The Light will expose your hidden sin. The day will come when all of your lies will be exposed, all of your hypocrisies and false piety will be laid open for all to see. You will be shown to be a fraud, a desperately wicked and deceitful sinner who has lied to everyone you ever met. And if God is gracious to you, that will all happen here in this life.

Because if you live your whole life successfully lying to everyone that you have fellowship with God while loving and nurturing and feeding the wickedness of your sin, if you draw your last breath as a wicked scoundrel while everyone you ever knew thought you were the most righteous Christian they ever knew, you will be exposed when you stand before God at the Last Judgment And by then it will be too late.

And on that day the One Who called you to repentance your whole life, the One who stood ready to serve as your Advocate before the holy righteousness of God, will be the One who pronounces your judgment, the One Who will cast you forever into the Outer Darkness. And the Darkness you thought you loved because it hid your wickedness from God will be the Darkness that will hide God from you forever, and that Darkness will be the place of your torment and agony forever.

You do not want that Darkness to be your eternal destiny—so quit walking in in now. Stop treating the blood of Christ as a “get out of sin free” card that allows you to flirt with sin and then get cleaned up afterwards. Stop pretending that you can live one life here in front of your Christian friends and another life outside of church where you can live in the passions of your flesh, carrying out every twisted desire of your body and mind, like the Hell-bound child of wrath that you are.

These words written two thousand years ago by the Apostle John are just as true for you now as they were then:

1 John 1:9 (ESV)

If you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive you your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.

Please—step out of that double life, step out of that darkness today. Call on Him for cleansing, for forgiveness, and for a new life walking in fellowship with God and His people. Come—and welcome!—to Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION

Hebrews 13:20–21 (ESV)

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION*:

How has our culture come to take sin lightly? How do we do this in our own lives?

Light is a common theme in Scripture. How does the image of light help you understand who God is?

Why is it important to get our idea of sin from what God says rather than from our culture?

What is the relationship between belief and action according to John? What do your actions say about your relationship with Christ?

Why should Christians be marked by continual confession of sin?

What are some options about Jesus’ identity that you have heard? How do they match up with Scripture?

*Adapted from Akin, Daniel L.. Exalting Jesus in 1,2,3 John (Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary) (Kindle Locations 502-513). B&H Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.