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

The Divide Between Man and God

Hebrews 4:12 says,

“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

2 Timothy 3:16–17 tells us,

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

I want to start with these things in mind, because as we continue to look at the epistle of 1 John, it merits considering the timely relevance of God’s Word to those who received it in the moment, and the timelessness of those who take in the message at any given point. What we read in 1 John is a historical document, a pastoral letter from John the Apostle, written to address the particular pains and struggles of the first century church, containing guidance and wisdom against the challenges of the flesh and the false teachings of the day. And yet what we read is also completely unbound by time, entirely limitless, entirely true before it was written, at the time of its writing, and still today. The world seems to change, and yet God is eternal. The underlying dynamics of sin and righteousness, of Light and dark, of glorified God and fallen man were all present before John penned his letter, and have all remained since. Last week we looked at some of the ways that John wrote to combat the blending of Gnosticism with Christian teaching, but Gnosticism, while specific to the time, and still around today, serves as a stand in, a placeholder for something more general – darkness. Replace the Gnostic view with another worldly, self-indulgent viewpoint, and John’s words are just as relevant. Gnosticism is the world, it’s the lie, it’s the darkness that attempts to distort, to cling to the Truth and muddle it. It teaches, as do many belief systems, that your transcendence, enlightenment, salvation, renewal – pick a word – comes from within. The world says focus inward and find your true self, or let go of self and embrace all that is outside of you to know peace, or seek balance in all things and become enlightened – and it’s all just varying shades of wrong because they all operate around the lie that we can somehow do something ourselves to become right. In our flesh we’re both blind and in the dark. Humanity likes to play with this image of swimming against the current, fighting with tenacity and perseverance, and with enough determination we can overcome – and we’re wrong. Because we’re not swimming against the current, we’re miles below the surface of the water, in complete darkness, with no indication as to which way is up. What’s worse is that, we’re not helpless victims here. We’ll drown, loving every lungful of water. We’ll follow the pattern of the mob of Sodom from Genesis 19, stricken blind by the angels who came to rescue Lot, their loss of sight doesn’t distract them from their goal of sin, but simply robs them of their aim, as they exhaust themselves groping in the dark for the door to Lot’s home. We’re sick and we lack the ability and inclination to make ourselves well. It is by Light, by Truth, by Christ that we may see our condition, that we may know the unknowable God, and see by comparison our complete lack of righteousness, and be delivered by His hand. Jesus shows us the divide, then He bridges the divide, so that we may be found righteous and may stand in His presence. If we look at today’s passage from 1 John, we get a perfect illustration of this divide, of who we are, who Christ is, and who we’re made to be in Him.

1.      The Divide Between Light and Dark

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

The yin-yang symbol, having origins in eastern philosophy, is pretty common in popular culture. A circle, cut in half by a gently waving line running top to bottom, one side is white and one is black. A core trait of the symbol is that on the white side of the circle is a black dot, and on the black side is a white dot. This is supposed to signify balance, and teaches that within the light there exists some darkness, and within the darkness there is some light. This is extremely gratifying to the flesh, because most of us would view ourselves as at least semi-moral. The legitimate psychopaths who can look at themselves, identify their actions as evil, and find contentment in that certainly don’t make up the majority. We want to believe that at the very least, we’re “mostly” good, whatever that might mean to each individual. James 3:11–12 says,

“Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.”

The yin-yang symbol is both spiritually wrong, and a logical fallacy. If the light contains some darkness, then it cannot be called wholly light. If the darkness contains some light, then it can’t be entirely considered darkness. While John’s letter may not have been aimed specifically at Taoist symbols, we see it immediately dispel this tempting viewpoint of our flesh. “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.” We can see what this means concerning Christ, and what it means for us, systematically laid out through Scripture. John gave this principle at the start of his gospel in John 1:4–5,

“In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Jesus is recorded as speaking to His own nature as the Light, and what that means for those who follow Him in 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.’”

This gives us the context for Jesus being the Light, but then He also says during the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:14–16,

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

Jesus goes on to give further clarity around light and dark in Matthew 6:22–23, saying,

“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”

Jesus said in John 14:23, answering the question of how He would manifest Himself in the world after His ascension,

“… If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”

So Jesus is the Light – the whole and perfect in whom, as James 1:17 says, “there is no variation or shadow due to change.” This Light of the World, the Spirit of the Living God comes and makes His home inside of those who set their aim upon Him, and so those who love Him, those who follow Him are made into lights of the world. We shine with a purpose and a glory that was not our own, but was given to us that we might glorify God. In 1 Peter 1:14–16, Peter cites Leviticus 19:2, saying,

“As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’”

This is how we are made holy – not by internal contemplation, not by opening to the world, not by seeking the balance of foolishly attempting to harmonize good and evil. We surrender to the One who is holy, the One who is Light, we give ourselves over to the One who has already completed the work, who has declared it finished, who has overcome the darkness, and delivered us an eternal victory.

2.      The Divide of Truth and Lies

“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. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

Lies are Satanic. Some people will read that and think, “Well yeah, obviously,” while others might think it sounds a bit extreme. In the minds of many, “Satanic” the outright and explicit worship of the enemy, but if your criteria for sin is only the most extreme example of it, you’re leaving a lot of middle ground for corrupt and Biblically unsound behavior. Lies are Satanic. Jesus says to the ruling Jews in John 8:42–45,

“… If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.”

Satan is called a liar and, “The father of lies,” but it’s also said that “He was a murderer from the beginning.” Flip through Genesis 3 and you won’t see Satan stab, or bludgeon, or strangle anyone – he takes no life, at least not in a direct sense. But what he does is introduce the lie, he introduces sin. Genesis 2:16–17 says,

“And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.’”

And we see Satan speak to Eve in Genesis 3:4–5,

“But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’”

Satan didn’t kill with sword, or pit, or poison, he did it with the lie. Prior to this, Adam and Eve lived in true peace, in harmony with God because they were fully within the order and framework of the Truth. Lies are definably Satanic, because they contradict that which is true. God has made the world in such a way that there is only one Truth – the lie denies that in favor of the way we want things to be. When you lie, you stand in the same place as Satan, you follow after him and the spirit that says that the way God has made things is not good enough – so you will describe them as you see and make them better. There is no such thing as a “white lie,” told to preserve someone’s feelings, or, more often, make things more palatable for yourself. A lie is a lie, big or small. I’m not saying that they’re all the same – Someone lying about adultery, another person lying about embezzling money from their employer, and another lying about their spouses cooking are not telling the same lie – but they are all lies. Regardless of their motive or their impact, they all make concession for the one who looked at perfect and mighty God and said, “I could do better.” Isaiah 14:12–15 speaks of the nature of Satan, saying,

“How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ But you are brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit.”

This also isn’t a free pass to brutalize people with, “telling them how it really is.” 1 Corinthians 13:4–6 tells us that,

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.”

Love is patient, and kind, and rejoices in the Truth, and as we’ll read about extensively when we get to 1 John 3, God is Love. If God is Love, meaning He fully possesses all the qualities and characteristics of Love, and He is Truth, then Truth is not a weapon, but a message of Love. This doesn’t mean it’s always going to be received well – remember that the world is blind and in the dark and doesn’t understand Love or Truth, but it does mean that we can’t use Truth as a cudgel to speak our mind, and wound others with a lack of tact and grace. What we can see without question from today’s passage, is that lies, being fundamentally Satanic and rooted in the darkness, and Truth, being literally manifested in the Spirit of the Living God, and person of Jesus Christ, have no company with one another. Christians still sin. This is sometimes a difficult thing to understand, both for Christians and for those observing us from a worldly perspective. God is perfect, we are not. His Spirit perfects us in the process of sanctification, but in this life we are still hampered by the temptations of our flesh. What’s often telling is how frequent the sin is, and what the response is. If you’re stumbling over the same sin again and again, with no change in behavior, no distress over your actions, and no repentance, your behavior would suggest that you’re not taking it seriously as a sin. There have been times in my life where, in the right scenario, I might lie quite casually. Now, lying feels more like trying to pull my left shoe onto my right foot. It’s wrong, it’s against the design, and it’s uncomfortable. I don’t say this to testify to my own virtue – but to share an identifiable hallmark of the Spirit that you might read and compare to. That’s not me that’s making me feel uncomfortable with trying to hold sin, what’s convicting isn’t my own backward sense of righteousness, it’s the work of the Light that’s in me.  “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.” If we walk in the Light, praise be to God, we can see. We’re given clarity as to right and wrong, and as John says, we have fellowship with each other, we find ourselves in a community of fellow believers, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb of God. But then we see this caution, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” Galatians 5:2–6 says,

“Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.”

In reading this, don’t get bogged down in the “circumcision” part, and remember what circumcision is a sign of – coming under the Law. If you say to yourself, “I can live righteously, I can come under and keep the Law,” then you’re a fool. Romans 3:23 tells us,

“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”

Not some, not most, but all. Psalm 53:2–3 says,

“God looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all fallen away; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.”

If you could keep the Law, if you could live without sin, then it would not have been necessary for Jesus to die for the sins of man. He had to do it, because only God could prevail in a task that was impossible for mankind. If we, through the Light and Truth of the Spirit, acknowledge our sin, reject it, and repent of it, then we are washed clean by the sacrifice of Jesus. If we proclaim that we have no sin, then we lie – to ourselves, and to whoever we declare this to. We spurn the mercy and grace of God, we choose blind delusion over sight. We reject the Light in favor of the dark, the Truth out of devotion to the lie.

3.      The Divide Between the Word and the World

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”

The Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches show a great degree of focus on confession – so much so that I find it to be counter Biblical. The idea that you can, or even should confess your sin to a church elder, or brother, or sister in Christ makes a tremendous amount of sense – not in respect to forgiveness, but concerning the accountability that we see encouraged among believers. The idea that you have to confess your sin to a priest however, seems more in line with the priesthood and sacrificial system of the Law as opposed to our redemption in Christ. 1 Peter 2:9 says,

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

We are all raised to priesthood in a sense. But we also see that the dynamic and responsibilities of this priesthood do not revolve around making atonement for sin, but rather sharing the glory of God with those who are still in darkness. Hebrews 4:14–16 says of Jesus,

“Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

While there may be great benefit in the brotherly accountability of confessing your sins to a fellow Christian, it is your confession before Jesus, your Great High Priest, the one who made full atonement for you that matters. While I would argue that the Catholic and Orthodox churches take elements of confession too far, I also see cases where we protestants overcorrect, and neglect the significance of confession. What we want in our flesh is to take comfort in the idea that we’re not that bad. Touching on what we talked about in the last section (since this is all so deeply interconnected), it is far more comfortable to lie about our sin, to yield to temptation and gratify the flesh. Isaiah 5:20 tells us,

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”

It’s impossible to confess something that you’re not acknowledging as sin, just as you couldn’t confess to committing a crime if you considered your actions to be legal. But when we reject the reality of our unworthiness, and our sin nature, we make ourselves inhospitable to the Word of God. John began his gospel, saying in John 1:1,

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

In John 17:15–19, during the High Priestly Prayer we see Jesus pray,

“I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.”

So either we make ourselves one with the spirit of the world, and invite this to dictate our hearts and minds, or we are made right before God through the blood of Jesus, and we are separated from the world, indwelled by the Spirit that is the Word of Truth. There is a divide, a chasm that’s as wide as eternity, and this separation is without compromise. There is Light and dark, Truth and lies, the Word and the lack thereof. There is no bleeding over, no yin-yang philosophy where each side holds a little of the other. There is no acceptable lie, no toleration of false teaching, no partial salvation. We have to understand the Truth of who Christ is before we can understand who we are, and in understanding who we are, grasp our desperate need for Him. In this there is Light that is the Life and hope of all mankind – in rejecting the sacrifice of the risen Savior there is only the pain and isolation of the outer darkness. John makes this abundantly clear and calls us all to glorify God, and to walk in the Light.

Pastor Chris’ sermon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUGMV2-X6cc