that we have fellowship with that we have no sin
Him, and walk in darkness,
we lie, and do not the truth. we deceive ourselves, and the
truth is not in us.
But if we walk in the light, If we confess our sins,
as He is in the light,
we have fellowship one with He is faithful and righteous to
another. forgive us our sins,
and the blood of Jesus His Son and to cleanse us from all
cleanseth us from all sin. unrighteousness.
As to the former of these two paragraphs, the underlying thought is that
fellowship with God necessarily involves moral likeness to Him. Worship
is always aspiration after, and conformity to, the character of the god
worshipped, and there can be no true communion with a God who is light
unless the worshipper walks in light. In plain language, all high-flying
pretensions to communion with God must verify themselves by practical
righteousness. That cuts deep into an emotional religion, which has much
to say about raptures and the like, but produces little purifying effect
on the humble details of daily life.
There are always professing Christians who talk of their blessed
experiences, and woefully fail in prosaic virtues. It is a pity that a
man should hold his head so high that he does not look to keep his feet
out of the mud. Such a profession is for the most part tainted with more
or less conscious falsehood, and is always a proof that the truth--the
sum of God's revelation--is not operative in the man; that he is not
turning his belief into act, as all belief should be. On the other hand,
the true relation resulting from the message is that we should walk in
the light, as He is in it.
Verse 10 seems to be simply a reiteration of the preceding idea, with
some intensifying, and that chiefly in the description of the true
character of the denial of sin. To make God a liar is worse than to lie
or to deceive ourselves; and all ignoring of sin does that, because not
only has God declared its universality by the words of revelation, but
all His dealings with men are based upon the fact that they are all
sinners, and we fly in the face of all His words and works if we deny
that which we ourselves are. Therefore the Apostle further varies his
expression, and says 'His word' instead of 'the truth,' thus bringing
into prominence the thought that 'the truth' is made accessible to us
because God has spoken.
III. Chapter ii. 1-6 is in structure analogous to the preceding section.
As there, so here, the 'message' is summed up in one great
fact,--Christ's work as advocate for believers and as propitiation for
the world. As there, so here, two practical consequences follow, which
are drawn out on corresponding lines. Observe the repetition in verses 3
and 5 _b_, of 'hereby know we,' and in verses 4 and 6 of 'He that
saith.'
Note, too, the reappearance of 'is a liar' and of 'the truth is not in
him' in verse 4. The drift of the section may be briefly put as follows.
John's heart melts as he thinks of the possibilities of holiness open to
believers, and of the sad actualities of their imperfect lives, and he
addresses them by the tender name, 'my little children.' The impelling
and guiding motive of his letter is that they may not sin. Practical
righteousness is the end of revelation, and its complete attainment
should be the aim of every believer.
But the sad experience of 'saints' is that they are not yet wholly
delivered from its power. Therefore 'the message' is not only 'God is
light without blending of darkness,' but, 'we Christians have an
Advocate with the Father.' Jesus is to-day carrying on His mighty work
of prevalent intercession for all His servants, and that intercession
secures forgiveness for their inconsistencies and lapses, because it
rests upon Christ's finished work of 'propitiation,' which is for the
whole world, even though it actually avails only for believers.
Such being the power of Christ's work in its twofold aspect of
propitiation and of intercession, the same practical issues as in the
preceding section were shown to flow from the revealed nature of God are
here, in somewhat different form, linked with that work. First, keeping
his commandments (which is equivalent to 'walking in the light') is the
test to ourselves, as well as to others, of our really knowing Him with
a knowledge which is not mere head work, but the acquaintance of
sympathy and friendship, or, in the words of the previous paragraph,
having fellowship with Him.
Clearly, the scope of this section requires that 'His commandments'
should here mean Christ's, not the Father's. All professions of knowing
Jesus which are not verified by obedience to Him are false. If we do
keep His word--not merely the individual 'commandments,' but the word as
one great whole--our love to God reaches its perfection, for it is no
mere emotion of the heart, but the force which is to mould and actuate
all our acts.
Verse 5 _b_ should be separated from the preceding words, for it is
really the beginning of the second issue from the work of Christ, and is
parallel with 'hereby know we,' etc., in verse 3. Observe the progress
in thought from the assurance that we _know_ (ver. 3) to the assurance
that we _are in_ Him. The Christian's relation to Jesus is not only that
of acquaintance, however intimate, loving, and transforming, but that of
actual dwelling in Him. That great truth shines on every page of the New
Testament, and is not to be weakened down into metaphor or rhetoric. It
is the very heart of the Christian life, and the test that we have
attained to it, and that not merely as an occasional, but as a
permanent, condition (note that '_are_ in Him' is strengthened to
'_abideth_ in Him') is that our outward life, in its manifold
activities, shall be conformed to the pattern of all holiness in the
life of Jesus. To walk as He walked is to walk in the light. Profession
is nothing, conduct is everything, and we shall only be clear of sin in
the measure in which we have Him who is the light of men for the very
life of our lives.