1 John 1: 5 – 10 NLT
“This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. 6 So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. 7 But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.
8 If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. 9 But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.”
“God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all.” What does that mean? Charles R. Swindoll gives an excellent definition in his Living Insights: 1, 2, and 3 John commentary:
“Light is a single term that captures the essence of God’s nature. It represents the holiness and purity of God. In John’s metaphor, God isn’t simply a source of light, a being brilliantly illumined by light, or a reflector of light. God is Light. As such, there’s no possibility of even a trace of darkness with Him. God is ALL LIGHT, ZERO DARKNESS.
What does this mean? It means that God is all good, with nothing bad. He is all pure, with nothing impure. He is all clean, with nothing dirty. He is all right, with nothing wrong. He is all truth, with nothing false.” (pages 30 – 31)
The Bible tells us that we are born in spiritual darkness; we have a sin nature. God’s perfection is something we will never attain ourselves in this life. Today, that’s an idea that really doesn’t go over all that well. We tend to say that most people are basically good; they might influenced by other ‘evil people’ such as Hitler. Or they can make slips, but it’s minor. Or they have been influenced by a dysfunctional childhood. We tend to blame others, not ourselves when things go wrong. But the Bible tells us that we have this basic sin nature.
“As the Scriptures say, “No one is righteous— not even one. No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God. All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one.” (Romans 3:10-12 NLT)
“Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil—the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else.” (Ephesians 2:1-3 NLT)
John says we try to avoid admitting we are sinful, that we are not perfect, in three ways:
“We say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth.” That is like ‘sticking our heads in the sand’. We would tell people that we love God and are Christ followers, but our actual behaviour doesn’t live up to what we say. Outside the church on Sunday, God doesn’t really factor into the way we live.
“If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth.” If we take a look at ourselves and think we are living very well, we don’t sin at all or very little, we are not facing up to the truth. Frankly, I suspect a lot of us do that. We aren’t cheating on our taxes, we aren’t lying to our bosses or family, we put in a good day’s work, etc.. We’re good people! But John tells us we are kidding ourselves. We haven’t really grasped that God is light – God is perfect.
“If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.” If we actually say that people don’t sin, then we don’t believe what the Bible says at all. The Bible is completely irrelevant to us.
This doctrine of God’s perfection and our sinfulness is not popular in today’s culture. We like to see things in shades of gray, not in black and white. Yet if we acknowledge that what the Bible says is true, there is wonderful news of hope. “If we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness”. (v. 9) I don’t think that means we can sin repeatedly and purposely; we can’t be flippant about God’s love and forgiveness. But if we are “living in the light” (v. 7), then forgiveness is ours for the asking when we mess up.
Psalm 32: 1 (NLT)
“Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight.”
Paul repeats this in Romans 4: 7 (NLT)
“Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sins are put out of sight.”
God is light, but he has made a way for us to have a relationship with him. “If we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness”.
Our song for today is Greatness of Our God by Newsboys.
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