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Introduction

As members of a fallen race, we want, we desire. What we want is the world, taken by us outside the framework of God’s character. This is worldliness. Because we want to be unrighteous in this way, but we also want the reputation of righteousness, the only solution is to deceive ourselves, to lie to ourselves. But however much we lie, we cannot cross the chasm that exists between our death and God’s life. The only way to have that life is to receive it as a gracious gift from God. But we must never forget the character of the one who gives this life—He is light.

The Text

“This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).

Summary of the Text

This passage contains one of the few succinct definitions of God as found in Scripture, where the writer tells us that God is xyz. Jesus tells the woman at the well, for example, that God is Spirit. “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).

In this passage, we are told that God is light. Because He is light, it follows that in Him there is no darkness at all. This is not a theological triviality; John declares as integral to his message. This is the message we have heard from Him. This is the message we declare to you. God is light. This is crucial, in other words.

But this is no hard, cold, severe light. John introduced this thought in the previous verse when he said, “these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.” God is light, and those who are in fellowship with that light are happy people. Their joy is full and overflowing. To use the apostle Peter’s expression for this, it is “joy inexpressible and full of glory” (1 Pet. 1:8).

The verse following our text is a verse that emphasizes the problem of lying again. Those who claim to have fellowship with the light, while walking in darkness, are lying. They are not doing the truth.

Confession and the Light

Near the end of this short chapter, we are told that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins (the ones we confessed), and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). The word for confess is homologeo, which means to “speak the same.” Homomeans the same, and logeo is the verb to speak. To confess your sins means therefore to acknowledge your sin, freely and honestly, no spin control. Spin control is actually sin control.

The consequence of this kind of confession is that God cleanses us (katharizo) from all unrighteousness. But notice that two verses earlier, walking in the light has the same result.

“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Christ cleanses us (katharizo) from all sin.

Put This All Together

If you are not walking in the light, you are walking in the darkness. If you are walking in the darkness, you are telling yourself lies (v. 6). If you are in the darkness, you can’t see any of your own sin down in there, right? You can then tell yourself that you have no sin. But if you do that, then John says that you are deceiving yourself, and the truth is not in you. If you come into the light, if you confess your sin, then you are cleansed. Not only are you cleansed, but you are also now in fellowship with anyone else who has been cleansed (1 John 1:7).

And if your automatic reflex is to assume that you are not in fellowship with someone else because they are still walking in darkness, then you have said something that could be true, technically, but probably isn’t.

A man is walking in darkness, and his sole comfort in that dark place is something he takes for a teddy bear, his precious, which he strokes as he walks along. But it is not a teddy bear at all, but rather a ten-pound tarantula. You might wonder if such a mistake is possible, but I can assure you that it is. Remember how dark it is in there.

Confession of sin is to flip on the lights, and to walk in that light. You see the sin for what it is, and throw it away from your chest with an anguished gaaa! It is either that or a return to the darkness, and the grotesque comforts found in that darkness.

Bring It Down to Relationships

Remember that to walk in the light is to walk in the way that God is. To walk in the light, “as He is in the light,” is to walk in Christ-light. Again, you are not walking in a material impersonal substance. You are not walking in a force. You are walking in a Person. You are abiding in a Person. And what does this light look like? It looks like love, and does not look like hate. It does not taste like that acrid bitter taste in your mouth.

“Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him” (1 John 2:8–10).

But as long as you are in the darkness, you can chop definitions lengthwise, and say that you dolove her. You can say that youdolove him. Then why are youmiserable? Why are you unhappy? When you are in the dark, every word you look up in your self-justifying dictionary is pitch black. Allthe words are black down there.

Christ Light, not Christ Lite

But again, this light is a Person. Arise, O sleeper, and Christ will shineon you (Eph. 5:14). But this light . . . this light overwhelms all of our senses. It is light you can drink, like it was a cold mountain stream. It is light that fills the house with the aroma of spiritual bread baking, and then it tastes like that same bread, still hot enough to melt the butter. It is light that cascades over your head like an infinite bolt of unrolling invisible silk. It is light that is a breeze off the ocean. It is symphonic light, with an orchestra and choir made up of myriads of angels, and their billions of human understudies.

And finally it is the unapproachable light that you cannot see for brightness, and the cool clear light by which you see everything else—but especiallyyour brother and sister. If we are walking in the light, we regard no oneafter the flesh (2 Cor. 5:16). I can assure you that if you can’t see your brother and sister rightly, then what you are using for eyes need to be taken back to the worldview shop. If you see Christ, then you can see all the rest of us.

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Introduction

We have considered the enticements of worldliness—the snare that tripped up our first parents. Those enticements are the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. When we are drawn to such things, which makes us unrighteous, and we also want to cling to our deep need to be in the right, this results in us lying to ourselves. Self-deception is a radical problem. So our dilemma is the death grip of lust and lying. The alternative, the only possible alternative, is life from the dead.

The Text

“And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life” (1 John 5:20).

Summary of the Text

The Christian gospel, the Christian life, and the Christian worldview, are all encompassed by the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Everythingrevolves around who He is, and what He did. Who is this Jesus? And what did He accomplish through His life, death, and resurrection?

What do we as Christians know? We know, in the first instance, that the Son of God is come (v. 20). We were in darkness, but He came in order to give us light. We were in ignorance, but He came to give us an understanding. And what is that understanding? He came to give us an understanding of the one who came—e.g. that we may “know him that is true” (v. 20). He came so that we might understand why He had to come. If we know this, then we know that we are in Him that is true, that is to say, in His Son the Lord Jesus Christ (v. 20). This, John says, is the true God, and this, John says, is eternal life (v. 20). And he could add to this, if he wanted to, “but I repeat myself.” This is the true God. This is eternal life. They are not side by side—they are the same thing. The true and living God is our life.

Life Came Down

When the living God came down to us, lifecame down to us. Not only so, but this life has been mediated to us in a particular way.

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)” (1 John 1:1–2).

So the Word of life came down, and the apostles touched Him, and handled Him. This life was manifested to them, and they saw it. Having seen it, they bore witness to the life, and the result of this witness, this testimony, is that eternal life is shown to us. The life comes down from Heaven and is manifested. That is step one. This eternal life is seen and testified to. That is step two. This life that came down from Heaven also comes down through the centuries. The power of the Incarnation was the Holy Spirit of God. The power of apostolic witness and testimony is also the Holy Spirit of God.

“And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life” (1 John 2:25).

We are recipients of promises, and so it is that we are trafficking in certainties (1 John 5:13).

Airy Fairy?

Now for some, this seems like it is all “long ago and far away.” So somebody appeared to some ancient guys way back then, who then made some outlandish claims about it? How convenient that it all happened two thousand years ago. And so the question presses in on us—how can we be sure about this so-called “life”?

But I would suggest that we start somewhere else. Let’s start with something we have a lot more experience with, and which is empirically demonstrable. Let us start with the raw fact of death. As Chesterton points out somewhere, original sin is the one doctrine of the Christian faith that can be empirically shown. Open a news site on your browser. Can’t you read?

“We know that we have passed from deathunto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brotheris a murderer: and ye know that no murdererhath eternal life abiding in him. Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 John 3:14–16).

Before we discuss the eternal life that was manifestedin the Incarnation and is manifestedin the proclamation of the gospel, we need to make we understand the backdrop. That backdrop is the indisputable fact that we surrounded by death on every hand. We were born into it, and the death of selfishness is the air we breathe. The human race is bent and crooked timber, and we cannot build a straight house with it. So we are not arbitrarily saying that our little mystery religion is “special,” a claim made by all the other mystery cults. Sure. Claim and counterclaim. But we are not claiming to have the secret cheat codes of the cosmos (doctrine x as opposed to doctrine y). Rather, we are claiming something else entirely, something which, if true, cannot be denied by anybody. We are claiming to be alive. We have been born again. God has granted us the glorious miracle of the new birth.

The New Birth as Real Certainty

This is what it actually means to be evangelical. It means to be quickened. It means life.

“And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may knowthat ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God” (1 John 5:11–13).

This life is not impersonal. This is not some kind of spiritual joy juice. Remember our text. This is the true God, this is eternal life. And in the verse just cited it says that this life is in his Son.

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