'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 i. 7.
John was the Apostle of love, but he was also a 'son of thunder.' His
intense moral earnestness and his very love made him hate evil, and
sternly condemn it; and his words flash and roll as no other words in
Scripture, except the words of the Lord of love. In the immediate
context he has been laying down what is to him the very heart of his
message, that 'God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.' There
are spots in the sun, great tracts of blackness on its radiant disc; but
in God is unmingled, perfect purity. That being so, it is clear that no
man can be in sympathy or hold communion with Him, unless he, too, in
his measure, is light.
So, with fiery indignation, John turns to the people, of whom there were
some, even in the primitive Church, who made claims to a lofty
spirituality and communion with God, and all the while were manifestly
living in the darkness of sin. He will not mince matters with them. He
roundly says that they are lying, and the worst sort of lie--an acted
lie: 'They do not the truth.' Then, with a quick turn, he opposes to
these pretenders the men who really are in fellowship with God, and in
my text lays down the principle that walking in the light is essential
to fellowship with God. Only, in his usual fashion, he turns the
antithesis into a somewhat different form, so as to suggest another
aspect of the truth, and instead of saying, as we might expect for the
verbal accuracy of the contrast, 'If we walk in the light, as He is in
the light, we have fellowship with God,' he says, 'we have fellowship
one with another.' Then he adds a still further result of that walk,
'the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin.'
Now there are three things: walking in the light, which is the only
Christian walk; the companions of those who walk in the light; and the
progressive cleansing which is given.