“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 Jn 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 of 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 the truth, but it is another to do the truth. In biblical Christianity, truth is not only thinking and believing but also doing or acting. We must follow the 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 kid themselves. They are not in fellowship.
A crucial element to the Christian life is the recognition and acknowledgment 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.
Can anyone deny the truth of this principle??? Everyone therefore, should strive to have fellowship with God.
I have confessed Jesus Christ as Lord & Savior & really do try to live a Christian life.
I pray regularly, go to church, try to keep the Ten Commandments, etc. Nonetheless, I do continue to struggle with certain sins. I find myself in a cycle of confessing them, followed by a change in conduct/direction for a time but then find myself reverting back and repeating the whole process of confession, conviction & asking the Holy Spirit to give me His strength to permanently change & create righteous desires in me.
Upon reading this verse I find myself asking this question, "if I am truly saved then why do I keep battling this same particular sin?"
Rebecca, the way you describe yourself it appears that you are truly a Christian. First, it is important to realize that we will never reach a stage of sinless perfection until we get to glory. That is why we need to "keep on confessing our sins" (1 Jn 1:9). Please keep reading First John because the whole book is about how to have fellowship with God.
There are two dimensions to living the Christian life: 1) fellowship with God 2) and maturity. You truly seek to have fellowship with God but do not have the stability to stay in fellowship. Staying in fellowship involves two things: 1) walking in the Spirit (Ga 5:16) and 2) maturity. Regarding maturity, please read two pages: the first is a general article dealing with the subject of maturity http://versebyversecommentary.com/articles/living-by-the-book/ The second article you may want to read a section at a time: http://versebyversecommentary.com/articles/the-edification-construct-discussion-guide/
The later article has to do with building an edification construct. The more we build that construct we go through less cycles of sinning.
Hope this helps.
Rebecca, evidently I put the wrong hyper-link to the edification construct. It is now fixed in my answer.
“If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” I'v never seen a verse so much misunderstood as this one ( as also 1Jn3:4 ) To« walk in darkness »is a direct reference to John 8:12 ,where Jesus says : I am the light of the world ,he who follows me shall not walk in darkness,but shall have the light of life » Therefore ,it is Jesus himself who teaches that to walk in darkness is to not follow him and not having Life and, and nothing else. And to have life there is only one way ,to believe and receive the word – God made flesh. ! And Jn.1:5-6-7 has also another direct reference – John 12:46 ,«I have come as the light of the world and he who believes in me does not abide in darkness.» and this also says that he who has true faith in Jesus Christ does not abide where he walks ,that is to say in darkness. Where is the mention of any sin except one sole one. The unique one mentioned by Jesus in John 16:7. Unbelief towards the unique Begotten son of God.Therefore according to all 4 Gospels : Believe in Christ and you do not abide or dwell in Darkness where you walk . Disbelieve in Christ and you walk without the Lord Jesus Christ- the true light that came into the world, coze walking in darkness is walking where there is no light,that walking without Jesus is the only walk that is the walking in darkness.
“1 John 1:6” This is what is to understood with this truth.« “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk without believing Jesus, we lie because there is only one mediator between God and men ,only Jesus Christ.1 Tim.2:5. and we do not practice the truth ,which is a direst reference with John 3:21,= conversion and and nothing else. «
« “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk without following Jesus but but still insist having fellowship because you believe in Mohamet or Boudda or whoever but not Jesus Christ you decieve yourself an you are living a lie. You do not practice the truth, which only means practicing the word of God in Jesus Christ or said differently- practicing the word of Christ which unendingly say do what i say- BELIEVE IN ME
walking in darkness only means one sole thing : Not believing in the only begotten son. It has nothing to do with the law that cannot justify . Justify means which cannot save therefore it cannot say if your are or not save or not,coze then it would have the power to justify that is to say it would have the power to say – you are justified.
Richard, your arguments have a fatal flaw. It is wrong to use other passages of Scripture to interpret the one under consideration. Both the immediate context, extended context and the argument of the given Bible book are the most important principles of interpretation. If you look at my Introduction (hyperlinked at the top of the page) you will see that the argument of the book is how the Christian can have daily fellowship with God. Verse 3 explicitly states that the issue of the book is fellowship with John and others as well as with the Father and His Son. If they stay in fellowship their "joy will be complete" (v.4). Verse 6 then continues the argument of "fellowship," not salvation. Note the first person "we" in this passage. The book is addressed to Christians. There is nothing in context that argues he is speaking to non-Christians.
Hello thanks for this beautifully teaching.it helps allot in my assingments on phos(light).May God bless you more to spread his gospel in this world.
Thank you powerful teaching. Clear and straight forward. May the Lord the continue to use you.
But if we already believe in Jesus and our sins are forgiven the day we acknowledge him as Lord, why then do we need to continue confessing our sins?
Joseph, our sins are positionally forgiven at the moment we believe that Jesus died for our sins. In God’s eyes that remains true forever. However, we can step out of phase with the Lord as a believer. Confession (verse 9) means that we acknowledge that Jesus has already forgiven me for a sin that I commit as a believer, I acknowledge that to Him. When I do that He puts me in temporal fellowship with Him. I already have eternal fellowship with Him.
Hi Grant ~ Thank you for your on-line commentary! I’ve been reading your work on the Edification Construct.
Would you define that term for me? Thank you!
Lavonne, if you go to this study and under Session 4, you will find the definition: https://versebyversecommentary.com/articles/christian-maturity/the-edification-construct-discussion-guide/