Monthly Archive for February, 2001

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1 John 1:9b

Published on February 18, 2001 in 1 John. 2 Comments
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 “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
 
 
our sins,
 
Sins in the plural refer to acts of sins, particular sins (not the sin capacity or sin nature). These are sins that we know as sins. The moment a believer sins, he breaks his fellowship with God. Immediate confession of a particular sin restores that fellowship. 
 
PRINCIPLE: We confess personal sins, not deny them. 
 
APPLICATION: The Lord Jesus takes care of our broken fellowship with God in glory. He intercedes for you personally. If we confess our sins, Jesus will take care of every thing else. The basis of forgives is not our morality but the substitutionary death of Christ to take our place in suffering for sin. 
 
He 7: 25 “Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those [believers] who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.”
 
We confess our sins; we do not deny them. Note that we are not to ask God to forgive our sins. God forgave our sins at the moment we trusted the death of Christ to pay for our sins. God has already forgiven the believer in Christ. 
 
The idea of confession is calling sin what God calls it – anger, jealousy, pride, malice, bitterness. We call sin exactly what God calls it. We do not cover it up. We do not squirt perfume on it. We do not rename it. Confession means to name sin the kind of sin it is, label it for what God says it is. 
 
If you are irritable and angry then admit to God that you were angry. If you are full of pride, tell God you are a proud person. If you are selfish, tell God you are selfish. Call the particular sin for what it is before God. Don’t call it by distorted terms such as a “mistake.” That is a fancy toe dance away from admitting your guilt. Just say, “Lord, I am angry, proud, selfish and bitter.” 
 
Tell God the truth. Be honest with Him. There is no way to fellowship with God and not be on the level with Him. You do not confess private sins in public but in private communion with God. This is a matter between you and God alone. If your sin involves someone else then you want to deal with that later. Go to the person at that time and get it straight. 
 
We do not have the right to regret our sins once we confess them. Feeling sorry for sin is an attempt to displace the work of Christ. Jesus accepted the responsibility for our sins on the cross. He personally paid the price for our sins. Therefore, the Christian should have no delusions about his ability to satisfy an absolutely holy God by something he does. Only Jesus can do that. 
 
Some people believe that if they feel sorry for their sins, they will not do it again. Sorrow has nothing to do with resisting sin. Only a person controlled by the Holy Spirit can resist sin.

 

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1 John 1:9

Published on February 17, 2001 in 1 John. 4 Comments
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“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
 
Verse 9 is the reverse of verse 8.  Confession of sin is the opposite to the claim that we are not guilty of sin.  This verse is a counter-claim to verse eight that Christians are not guilty of sin.  The Christian who denies guilt deceives himself. 
 
Verse 7 is cleansing from the principle of sin whereas verse 9 is cleansing from the practice of sin. 
If
The “if” here is hypothetical.  Maybe we will confess and maybe we will not confess.  It is conditional on our will or volition. 
we confess
The word “confess” means to speak the same thing, to assent, accord, agree with, concede, acknowledge.  The idea is to confess by means of admitting guilt.  Confession is saying what God says about our sins – that they are violations of God’s character.  Sins are not blunders or mistakes but desecration of the character of God.  There is a danger in losing fellowship with God if we conceal our sins. 
PRINCIPLE:  Confession is the basis for fellowship with God because it acknowledges any violations of His character. 
APPLICATION:  Walking in the light involves increased consciousness of our sinful unrighteousness and taking active steps to rid ourselves of that sin by claiming God’s forgiveness and cleansing through open confession of sin before God. 
Believers who desire to walk with God confess their sin openly and frankly to God.  We make the judgment that our sins are awful before God.  We agree with God in condemning sin. 
Confession does not mean to plead with God for forgiveness, feel sorry for sin, to pray for forgiveness, to feel sorry for sins or to make restitution for our sins.  No, the idea is to accept the idea that our sins violate an absolutely holy God and that our only solution for sin is the death of Christ on the cross. 
Some claim that there is no need to confess sin because we already have forgiveness (Ep 1:7).  This idea confuses positional forgiveness with experiential forgiveness.  God finally and fully forgives us in our positional forgiveness.  In this sense, we never need forgiveness again.  God forensically forgives us forever in positional forgiveness.  However, when it comes to fellowship with God, we need to confess specific violations to God’s character. 
The forgiveness of 1:9 is experiential forgiveness.  God always bases our experiential forgiveness on our positional forgiveness.  A son may fall out of disfavor with his family but he is still a member of the family.  The issue in experiential forgiveness is not acceptance by God but fellowship with Him.  Continual forgiveness allows us to fellowship with God on an ongoing basis. 
We always view sin for what it really is – a violation of God’s character.  That is why God will forgive our sin based only on the cross of Christ.  God forgave sin when Christ paid the penalty for that sin.  Jesus meets all of the Father’s holy demands by His payment for sins on the cross.  Jesus died in the sinner’s stead; He died in our place.  It cost Jesus Christ a great deal to qualify us for forgiveness. 
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1 John 1:8b

Published on February 16, 2001 in 1 John. 0 Comments
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“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
 
and the truth is not in us
Self-deception arises from openness to false teaching (2:18,26; 3:7; 4:3,6).  Christians constantly face frontal attacks from the demonic world of false teaching.  Those who bite on false teaching render their Christian lives weak and dull. 
PRINCIPLE:  Self-deception preempts truth as an efficacious principle in our lives. 
APPLICATION:  Truth in the Bible is more than flat or abstract ideas about the Bible because biblical truth requires an engagement of what we believe with our lives.  We live out truth by believing truth, doing truth.  If we deceive ourselves, truth cannot be in us.  It shuts out truth.  If truth truly rests in us, it exposes the awfulness of our sin so that we cannot lightly explain it away. 
Just because we are not aware of sin in our lives, that does not mean that we are free from transgression.  A Spirit-filled believer does not deceive himself.  He is radically honest with himself for fear that he might step out of favor with God. 
We need to discover again the power of biblical Christianity.  When we walk with God based on truth, we live in the power of God.  Christianity is primarily a relationship, not a religion.  When a Christian steps out of fellowship with God, he loses the vitality of Christianity.  He no longer has the power for living he once had.  His Christianity becomes orthodox, dull and dead.  He deceives himself that he walks with God. 
Believers who walk in integrity do not hide their sin but face it and admit it.  God wants us to call sin for what it is (1:9).  He wants us to admit our need for the blood of Christ to cleanse us from our sin.  Sensitivity to truth always makes us more aware of personal sin. 
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1 John 1:8

Published on February 15, 2001 in 1 John. 0 Comments
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“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
 
Verse 8 gives the second false claim of spirituality.  Some Christians in John’s day erroneously contend that they have no guilt due to their sin.  They listened to Cerinthus, a false teacher living in Ephesus, who gave them the song and dance that they do not need to accept guilt for their sin. 
If we say that we have no sin,
John asserts that some of his readers denied personal guilt for their state of sin.  Christians will not admit a condition of sin if they do not face up to how they violate God.  Denial of a condition of sin blunts repentance from sin.  An unexamined life is a weak and ineffective life. 
we deceive ourselves,
The first claim in verse 6 was a lie but the claim of this verse is self-deception.  We just kid ourselves if we think that we do not have the capacity to sin.  Denial of sin is self-deception and defies the veracity of God.  It is possible to cheat ourselves. 
PRINCIPLE:  Denial of the existence of sin in our lives is self-deception and blunts our ability to repent of sin. 
APPLICATION:  Some believers hop on the latest trends of spirituality no matter how astray they might be from the Word of God.  False teachers usually have great personalities and can communicate effectively.  They are normally sweet and likeable people.  That is the primary reason Bible believing Christians fall for their false teaching. 
Many Christians today believe the lies that they create their own destiny, that they are independent and that they sustain themselves.  This is autonomy from God. 
Sin always breaks fellowship with God.  Rebellion against God’s truth always leads us into self-deception and error.  We fool no one but ourselves.  We need to be honest about the sin that is in our lives so that we can deal with it effectively. 
Ga 6: 3 “For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.”
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1 John 1:7c

Published on February 14, 2001 in 1 John. 1 Comment
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“But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
 
 
cleanses us
 
Cleansing from sin is a prerequisite for fellowship with God. The blood of Christ continually cleanses the believer from sin (present tense). To the degree that we live in the light of who God is, we can fellowship with Him. This is no fresh removal of sin but that Jesus removes our sin on the ground of His expiatory death on the cross. Both justification and sanctification rest on the blood of Christ. 
 
We get our English word “cathartic” from the Greek word for “cleanses.” The blood of Christ cleanses us from sin on a temporal, daily basis. 
 
from all sin
 
Note that the blood of Christ cleanses us from “all sin.” God cleanses all sin, not some sin. The idea is that the blood of Christ cleanses us from any and every sin that we might commit. There is no sin beyond the cleansing power of the cross. He cleanses us from sins committed consciously or unconsciously. 
 
Christ can cleanse us from any sin that might occur. God has just claims against us because of our personal sin but Jesus’ blood satisfies the holy demands of God. The death of Christ on the cross fully saves sinners. 
 
PRINCIPLE: Cleansing from sin is a prerequisite for fellowship with God. 
 
APPLICATION: In addition to positional sanctification, believers need a progressive sanctification. God sanctifies us positionally one time at the point of salvation 1 Co 6:11). After salvation, we need to continually grow in holiness. That is the progressive cleansing of 1:7 and 1:9. 
 
Just as light and darkness cannot co-exist with one another, so sin and God cannot co-exist together. God is absolute perfection and cannot co-exist with sin in any sense. A believer with active, unconfessed sin in his life cannot walk or fellowship with God. He cannot lose his standing with God but he can lose his fellowship with God. 
 
Fellowship with God as a Christian depends on confession of sin. A carnal Christian cannot fellowship with God. However, God cleanses the carnal Christian if he confesses his sin. There is a cleansing after salvation (1:9). The basis of forgiveness after we become a Christian is the same as when we became Christians. 
 
When we become Christians, we establish an eternal relationship with God. However, at the moment sin comes into our lives, we break fellowship with God. Sin puts a cloud between us. There is something between the soul and the Savior. Your son is still your son even though he may have shamed the family. He is still in the family although there is a strain on your fellowship. 
 
Walking in the light means that we hide nothing from God. We do not rationalize our sin away but admit it and deal with it. 
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1 John 1:7b

Published on February 13, 2001 in 1 John. 0 Comments
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“But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
 
 
and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son
 
The “blood of Jesus Christ” is a metonymy [a figure of speech used for the name of one thing for that of another associated with it] for the death of Jesus on the cross. It does not refer to His literal blood (it took His literal blood to make possible the sacrificial substitution of His life for ours). 
 
Note the name “Jesus” here – “Jesus Christ His Son.” “Jesus” is the human name of Christ. Jesus was more than a human for He was the “Son;” He was God Himself. The Gnostics taught that he was a mere man. However, He is more; He is the God-man. 
 
PRINCIPLE: Fellowship with God is possible because of the everlasting worth of the blood of Christ.
 
APPLICATION: The Bible everywhere asserts the redemptive value of blood (Ex 11:4-6; 12:13; He 9:20-22). Although Jesus shed His blood 2000 years ago, His blood still cleanses today. Fellowship with God is possible because of the lasting value of the blood of Christ. His blood is efficacious for any sin we might commit. 
 
Ac 20: 28 “Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.”
 
Ro 3: 25 “…whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed…’
 
Ro 5: 9 “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.”
 
Co 1: 20 “…and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.”
 
Ep 1: 7 “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace…”
 
Ep 2: 13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”
 
He 9: 22 “And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.”
 
He 13: 12 “Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered outside the gate.”
 
He 13: 20 “Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant…”
 
Re 1: 5 “…and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth.
To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood…”
 
Re 5: 9 “And they sang a new song, saying:
            ‘You are worthy to take the scroll,
            And to open its seals;
            For You were slain,
            And have redeemed us to God by Your blood
            Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation…”
 
The blood of Christ applies to only those who believe. Christ died for all but only those who engage with the promises can receive God’s forgiveness. We can do nothing to receive cleansing. We accept it by faith. It is only when the believer confesses his sins that his forgiveness becomes actual.
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1 John 1:7

Published on February 12, 2001 in 1 John. 0 Comments
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“But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
 
 
Verse 7 introduces the counter-claim to the false claim in verse 6 of walking in fellowship with God. 
 
But if we walk in the light
 
Believers who want to walk with God must walk in the light. We fellowship with God on God’s terms and not on our terms. We conform to God; God does not conform to us. 
 
Ep 5:8 8 “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light… 11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. 13 But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. 14 Therefore He says:
            ‘Awake, you who sleep,
            Arise from the dead,
And Christ will give you light.’”
 
Co 1: 12 “…giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. 13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, 14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.”
 
as He is in the light,
 
The basis of fellowship with God is God Himself. When we walk in the light, we walk according to the light. God is in the light for He exists in the sphere of truth and righteousness. 
 
1 Ti 6:16 “…who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen.”
 
we have fellowship with one another,
 
“Fellowship with one another” is not fellowship with other Christians but fellowship with God. When we walk according to the character of God, we can fellowship with God. Genuine fellowship with God can only occur if we live in the sphere of God’s character [light]. 
 
We can fellowship with God because we hold something in common with Him. Christians have continuity of fellowship with Him because the blood of Christ resolves the sin issue. We can walk in the light because of Christ, not because of human merit. 
 
PRINCIPLE: God determines our fellowship with Him on His character, not our character. 
 
APPLICATION: Walking in darkness is walking out of phase with God, not in accordance with the truth. Darkness is absence of light. When we step out of phase with God, we walk in darkness. We turn our volition away from the truth of God concerning our lives. This makes us susceptible to not examine ourselves honestly. If we do not examine ourselves, we will not apply truth to experience. We then walk in delusion. 
 
Ep 5: 11 “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.”
 
When we walk in the light, we become easier to live with. We are more compassionate and gracious. We walk without pretense before others. We are transparent and genuine with others. We are transparent with God. 
 
1 Pe 2: 9 “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light…
 
The nearer we get to God the more terrible our sin seems to us. Living in fellowship with God means that we do not demonstrate our anger as often as we used to do. We live according to our claim to walk with the God of light. We are not as critical and negative as we used to be. 
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1 John 1:6

Published on February 11, 2001 in 1 John. 1 Comment
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“If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.”
 
 
This verse is the first of 3 false claims of spirituality (1:6,8,10). All these claims to spirituality are irreconcilable with the God whose character is pure, unadulterated light. John contrasts each claim against the truth.
 
If we say that we have fellowship with Him,
 
“Fellowship” means to share with. We cannot commune with God in fellowship while living in darkness. 
 
and walk in darkness,
 
If we allow unconfessed sin to lounge in our souls, we cannot fellowship with God because sin and God are antagonistic to each other. If we deny that sin breaks fellowship with God, we undermine the idea unadulterated flawlessness in God.  
 
The word “walk” means to walk around as a pattern of life. The person who walks in darkness is in a condition of unconfessed sin. He is out of phase with the character of God [“light”]. He does not resolve Himself to the absoluteness of God in his daily walk because he continues with unresolved sin in his life. 
 
we lie
 
When we deny the incompatibility of God with sin, we enter self-evident self-deception. Any claim contrary to absolute perfection in God is a falsehood. 
 
and do not practice the truth
 
It is one thing to believe truth but it is another to do truth. In biblical Christianity, truth is not only thinking and believing but also doing or acting. We must follow truth as well as believe it. Spirituality is impossible without showing itself in morality. Truth is more than creed or doctrine because genuine truth always affects our comportment.
 
Truth always illuminates the soul. Darkness is the absence of light. Wherever there is no light, there is darkness. Truth resides in the translucent atmosphere where we can see our impurities against the absolute character of God. 
 
PRINCIPLE: We cannot fellowship with a God of absolute perfection without confessing our sins. 
 
APPLICATION: Those who claim to fellowship with God but continue in sin without confessing their sin, just kid themselves. They are not in fellowship. 
 
A crucial element to the Christian life is the recognition and acknowledgement of our sin. If we do not confess our sin, we walk in darkness. We reserve a dark side to our soul. Darkness is the absence of life. Walking in the light means that we are open to God. We are not afraid to expose any aspect of our lives to Him. 
 
God cannot fellowship with us while we have unconfessed sin in our lives otherwise that would involve God in our sin. The person who rides in a getaway car from a bank robbery is just as guilty as the men who robbed the bank. God always is true to His integrity and honesty. 
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1 John 1:5b

Published on February 10, 2001 in 1 John. 0 Comments
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“This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.”

 
and in Him is no darkness at all
 
The Greek is very emphatic – “no darkness whatsoever.” There is not even a speck of darkness in the nature of God. 
 
God’s light is mutually exclusive from any amount or any kind of darkness. He is absolute in His being. He has no mixture but is pure in His character and actions. There is an absolute dichotomy between light and darkness in the nature of God. 
 
Ja 1:17 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.”
 
Christ is the light (Jn 8:12), that is, the revelation of God, the truth. Darkness is error and inconsistent with the nature of God because God is not compounded in His being. He does not have the slightest defect or imperfection in His nature. John’s argument is that it is impossible to fellowship with an absolute God with human worth. 
 
Yet, there is a dilemma in this fellowship. How can Christians who are not absolute fellowship with Someone who is absolute? What does a frail, sinful human being have in common with an absolute God? We cannot diminish the perfection of God for if we do, we diminish God Himself. Neither can we cannot deny our sinfulness. 
 
There is only one way, the only way to fellowship with an absolute God – by the bloodstained banner of the cross (1:7). It is only through the cross that we have the right to fellowship with such a God. 
 
Co 1: 13 “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, 14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.”
 
Any assertion that God is not absolute is blasphemous and dangerous. This would imply that God is not one but dual in His being. He would be both righteous and unrighteous. He would be light and darkness, yin and yang. The Bible asserts that here is no darkness in Him whatsoever.
 
Any darkness is mutually exclusive from God, therefore, He is absolute. God’s light can never mix with any form or degree of darkness. His righteousness excludes darkness. This is the basis of our spirituality. Light reveals but darkness conceals. Walking in darkness is the unwillingness to see our sin or acknowledge our what is true. Walking in the light demands that we confess our sin, not deny it. Since there is no darkness in God whatsoever, Christians cannot co-exist with sin and with God at the same time. There is a dichotomy of light and darkness. 
 
1 Th 5: 5 “You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness.”
 
1 Pet 2: 9 “But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light…”
 
We can comprehend God’s absolute nature solely in God’s Word. That is why the believer who wants to walk with God must search the Scripture. He cannot allow the claims of man to distort the unadulterated Word of God about who God is. That is what happened in John’s day. Note the claims of 1:6,8,10. All these claims for spirituality deny the principles of the Word of God that God is absolute in His being. Those who deny this deny His word (1:6,8,10). 
 
PRINCIPLE: Mutual fellowship depends on mutual knowledge. 
 
APPLICATION: Our ability to see in the dark is limited but if there is light then we have the ability see. This is the principle of revelation. God revealed Himself to the human race in such a way that no member of the human race will ever have an excuse for not responding to God and having eternal life. 
 
Jo 8: 12 “Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.’”
 
2 Co 4:6 “For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
 
God’s absoluteness exposes our sin and condemns it. There is no scintilla of sin in God for He is perfect in all that He is. It is impossible for God to sin. Immutability cannot sin. 
 
Jo 3: 19 “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. 21 But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”
 
A non-Christian cannot have fellowship with God in eternity because of the existence of at least one sin in his life. A Christian cannot fellowship with God in time if he has one unconfessed sin in his life. God declared him perfect as the perfection that there is in the righteousness of Christ so he can have eternal fellowship with God. The believer can never lose the perfection of this righteousness. 
 
1 Co 1: 30 “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption— 31 that, as it is written, ‘He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.’”
 
The non-Christian can have eternal fellowship with God by accepting the righteousness of Christ by faith. The Christian can have fellowship with God in time by confessing is sin (1:9). He can never lose his positional status before God. 
 
Ep 5: 8 “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), 10 finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. 11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. 13 But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. 14 Therefore He says:
            ‘Awake, you who sleep,
            Arise from the dead,
And Christ will give you light.’”
 
2 Co 6: 14 “Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?”
Is 9:2 “The people who walked in darkness
Have seen a great light;
Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death,
Upon them a light has shined.”
 
 
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1 John 1:5

Published on February 9, 2001 in 1 John. 0 Comments
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“This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.”
 
 
We come to the first major division in the epistle. John now turns to the fundaments of fellowship with God. We measure the reality of our fellowship with God by the principles in 1:5-2:2. 
 
Verse 5 sets the stage for everything that follows to 2:2. God’s character is the standard for salvation and it is the standard for sanctification. He is the standard against which we evaluate everything in the Christian life. His character lays bare our phony and false claims: 1) that sin has no bearing on fellowship (1:6), 2) that we are not responsible for our sin (1:8) and 3) denying the fact that we sin (1:10). 
 
This is the message which we have heard from Him
 
John’s message came by direct revelation from the Lord Jesus Christ (1:1-2). 
 
Ga 1:12 “For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
 
The word “message” occurs only twice in the New Testament, here and 3:11. The idea is promise. There is a promise in resolving the daunting thought that God is absolute.
 
and declare to you,
 
The word “declare” means announce. The Son announced the message to the apostles in 1:3; now the apostles announce His message to the church. 
 
 that God is light
 
John often describes God as “light” (Jn 1:4-5, 7-9; 3:19-21; 8:12; 9:5; 12:35-36, 46; Re. 21:23). God is absolutely pure in all that He is whether it is truth or character. He is totally set apart from how man is; He is “holy”. God’s nature is completely incompatible with sin. This is the argument in 1:6,8,10. Christians who claim that they can sin and at the same time have fellowship with God are inconsistent with the nature of God. John argues against this idea with three “if we say” claims or slogans. Those who have active, unconfessed sin their lives cannot fellowship with an absolute God. 
 
Three “if, then” clauses argue for how we can fellowship with God (1:7,9; 2:1-2). Jesus Christ and His work is the basis for fellowship with an absolute God. Jesus argues His death on the cross as our Advocate [lawyer]. It is only His death that can expiate our sin before such a God. 
 
We cannot reverse the statement “God is light” to “light is God.” Christians do not worship the sun or light. Since “God is light”, what light is to the physical sphere, God is to us on a spiritual sphere. God is the Revealer – especially of His holiness. We do not discover God; He reveals Himself for His nature in itself is self-revealing. 
 
Ps 27:1 “The Lord is my light and my salvation;
Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life;
Of whom shall I be afraid?”
 
Jo 12: 36 “’While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.’ These things Jesus spoke, and departed, and was hidden from them.”
 
1 Ti 6: 16 “…who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen.”
 
PRINCIPLE: What God is in Himself determines what we should be.
 
APPLICATION: God is more than a light or even the light; however, one of His attributes is light. He is light. This is one of His essential conditions. He subsists in inscrutable, incomparable, exquisite light. He cannot tolerate sin to any degree. That is why there is no hope within us to measure up to the character of God (Ro 3:10,23).
 
There is no shadow of turning in God. There is no shade much less any darkness. He is so infinitely holy that He is mutually exclusive from sin. God in essence has certain characteristics. God is righteous and just both in Himself and in His expression to others. 
 
God is immutable; He cannot change His attitude toward Himself and He cannot change His attitude toward Himself. We change our attitudes constantly toward God but He can never change His character or attitudes toward us. We can count on what He promises us. He is always faithful to Himself and to us. His promises last for time and eternity. God is perfectly stable; we can always count on Him. 
 
2 Ti 2: 13 “If we are faithless,
He remains faithful;
He cannot deny Himself.”
 
God cannot deny Himself or His word. He can never go back on His word because He is immutable. Human character is unstable but God is always stable. God knows each of our unfaithful acts toward Him. He does not treat us on the basis of how we treat Him; He always treats us on the basis or His own character. 
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