Fellowship with the God of Light (1 John 1:5-7)

Sometimes a company wants a slogan or a mission statement that summarises what it is focused on. If someone said to us, ‘Tell me about God in three words,’ what would we say? We might respond, ‘Oh, that is not possible.’ But John here uses three words, and later on he has another three-word statement, ‘God is love.’ Of course, a slogan or mission statement is designed that questions will be asked about it, and something similar happens with John’s description about God. Indeed, John himself expands on it when he says that there is no darkness in God. 

 

We can see from the context that by God John means the Father. (James calls him the Father of lights, which seems to be a reference to him as Creator.) John says here that Jesus revealed the Father, although there is not much in the Gospels about specific teaching about the Father as light. It has been suggested that what John means is that Jesus in his life revealed what the Father was like, that he as the Light revealed that the Father is the Light, when he interacted with people.

 

When we want to know important matters about a person, we need to know that our source is reliable. John here reveals that his information about God came from Jesus Christ; during his three years of public ministry the Saviour had instructed his apostles about the nature of God. Jesus is the trustworthiest authority that a person can have because he possesses infallible information about God. 

 

John here summarises the message of Jesus in verse 5 and then proceeds to draw two conclusions from it. One conclusion is negative (v. 6) and the other conclusion is positive (v. 7). In his description, John uses images to illustrate what he is saying. He refers to light and darkness, and he uses those images to help us understand the points that he is making. For example, he says that God is light, that he lives in the light, and that believers can walk in the light. In contrast, he says that in God there is no darkness but holds out the possibility that believers can walk in darkness. 

 

The message of Jesus about God the Father

Needless to say, our understanding of who God is will be important. After all, if we are wrong about who he is, then we will go astray in numerous ways. John lived in a time when there was a lot of interest in who God was. There were many gods who were worshipped and philosophers liked to debate matters about them. Some of them even deduced that they could not know everything about God, as we can see in the decision of the philosophers in Athens to create an idol called ‘the unknown God’.

 

The Bible has a different way of speaking about God. Its authors admit that we cannot know everything about him. Yet that is not a reason for speculation. Instead, it is a reason for reverence. What can we not know about God? We know that he is omniscient, but we do not know all that he knows, nor will we. We know that he is omnipotent, but we do not know the full degree of his power, nor will we. We know that he is wise, but we do not know all his wisdom, nor will we, no matter how often we become aware of it. We know that he is love, but we do not know the fulness of his love by experience, nor will we, even after millennia of experiencing it in heaven. We can go through all the attributes of the Father, affirm them with reverence, yet have to confess that he is always beyond our ability to contain or explain.

 

So when we come to think about the Father being light, we begin by saying that we cannot know exactly, know completely, what that means. When John says that God is light, he means light in the sense of shining without defects. He may have in mind the sun as an illustration because from our perspective it looks bright and has no darkness in it. But the sun may have defects. Perhaps it could shine brighter, perhaps it could be warmer. But God has no defects. In other words, he is perfect.

 

It is the case that God is sinless, that he possesses no flaws. His character is unchangeable, and he does not go up and down in competence. He has no weaknesses, he has no dilemmas, and he has no areas that he hides because he is inadequate in them. He is above us, he is elevated above us, he is high above us. But he is not high above us in the sense that the top of Mount Everest is several miles above sea level. Rather God is infinitely above us. We cannot compute the distance, nor can we shorten it. Always he remains great. In other words, he is holy. This is his permanent position, elevated and exalted.

 

When we think of holiness, we often do so by contrasting it with what is unholy. We do that because we are sinners. But what do sinless creatures do? An example of this occurring is the incident recorded in Isaiah 6. There are three speakers on that occasion. There are the seraphim, there is God and there is Isaiah. Isaiah’s response after seeing the splendour of God is to confess his imperfection, even although he is in the process of worshipping the Lord. He acknowledges that he is a man of unclean lips. 

 

But that is not the response of the seraphim. They are overcome by the splendour of God (they cover their eyes), they are aware of his glory covering the earth, and they are aware of their littleness in his presence. They know much more about God than Isaiah did, yet they confess that the Lord’s holiness is high. But even they are limited in how to describe it. All they can do is repeat the word ‘holy’ three times, which is a way of expressing maximum possession, highlighting his exalted status.

 

The perfection of God is something that should astound us. We are familiar with our definition of God in the Shorter Catechism. It includes several of his attributes: he has being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth. But the catechism answer is not merely listing them. It also says that regarding each of them God has them infinitely, eternally and unchangeably. This means that God is balanced, that his attributes are equal, that he has them fully, and is therefore always perfect. 

 

In him there is no darkness. There is not a flaw on any of his attributes. His power cannot be reduced so that he is moved even an inch; his knowledge cannot be lost, so that he has to search around for information; his wisdom cannot be in a location where he does not know what to do; he is never attracted by sin; he is never going to do what is wrong; his glory is his perfection, and his perfection is his glory. 

 

What is extraordinary about all this from our point of view is that this great God is our heavenly Father, that his equally great Son is our Saviour, and that the equally great Holy Spirit is our indwelling sanctifier. When we say that we have come to know him, we are saying something incredible. But John goes on to say that it is easy to find out if we know the Father or not, and he does so in the next verses.

 

We realise that some people have the privilege of spending time in the Queen’s presence. When they meet the Queen, they have been told beforehand what they should wear and what they should do. A failure to do what is required is a statement of great disrespect. How can we tell if we are in the presence of the Father, that we are engaged in fellowship with him?

 

The condemnation

John uses the phrase ‘if we say’ several times in his letter. When he uses it, he could be quoting some statements of false teachers who claimed that sinful practices did not prevent them having fellowship with God. There was a notion around that what a person did in the body did not matter; what was important, for them, was the inside of a person. But John would not have any of it. What a person does is very important and can prevent an individual having fellowship with God.

What does John mean by the phrase ‘in darkness’? He means the world without God. Not just the physical world, but also the spiritual world. When we say, ‘without God’, we are not denying his omnipresence. But we are affirming his absence in the sense of his saving grace being enjoyed by sinners. We are not to use his omnipresence to deny his special presence that occurs when he draws near in blessing.

 

The wrong practice is described as ‘walking in darkness’. Walking indicates continuation. John does not have in mind a believer who merely slips and finds himself overcome by a sin. Rather he is describing someone who is content with the darkness, who finds no problem with walking around the sinful world, enjoying what it offers, living according to its values.

 

The darkness in which such a person walks is both inward and outward. In a sense, the outward is easy to recognise – it is the world and all its sinful activities and ambitions. We can see such things and say that they are darkness. But there is also an inner darkness, a darkness of the heart. What would be the features of such a dark soul? The person in this state seldom thinks about God in his perfect character, seldom thinks about Jesus and seldom expresses love and thankfulness to him, seldom is concerned if his actions are grieving the Spirit and exists happily without the fellowship of Christians. 

 

When a person says that he is walking with God while living in that way, what is he saying? He is not only saying something about himself; he is also saying something about God. He is saying that God does not mind walking with him in the darkness. And John says that is a lie. God cannot do that because he is elevated above it. Therefore, says, John, such a person is not a true follower of Jesus.

 

The commendation

John says that there is another location where people walk, which he describes as ‘in the light’. He is not referring to heaven by this description, even although he says that God the Father is also there, with his people. It could be a true description of heaven, of course, if that was what John was speaking about, but he adds something to his description which is not needed in heaven – the need of cleansing from sin. 

 

Since it is not heaven, the world of glory, and since it is not the darkness, the world of sin, it must be a location between them. It is the world of grace, the world where his favour is shown, where is mercy is received, where his kindness is displayed to unworthy sinners.

 

John mentions two privileges of the world of grace. One is fellowship and the other is cleansing. When he says that ‘we have fellowship one with another’, he is not merely saying that believers have fellowship with one another. That is true, but he is also saying that they have fellowship with God, that he is present with them as well. 

 

What is it like to walk about the world of grace? John’s description indicates that it is not usual to walk solitary. Instead, they share the products of the world of grace in the sense that having tried them they speak about them to one another. In fact, the possession of such blessings has this effect that they want to speak about them. This does not mean that they dominate conversations because they have to be listeners as well as sharers. But they engage in the practice mentioned by Malachi, a practice that so pleased God that he listened in with great delight. ‘Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name’ (Mal. 3:16).

 

What can they speak about? They can speak about God, about Jesus and his offices, about the Holy Spirit and his gracious workings, about the different features of salvation such as justification, adoption and sanctification, about the promises of the Bible, about the circumstances of providence, about the prospect of heaven – in other words, about real life. There is a lot to speak about when walking in the light.

 

The other privilege that they have while walking in the light is cleansing by the blood of Christ. This cleansing is not really focussed on the sins they committed before conversion, although obviously they have been cleansed from them. Rather, this cleansing is concerned with sins that they commit while walking in the light, that they commit in the world of grace.

 

Christians do commit sins and from one point of view they are more serious. For example, the God they sinned against before conversion was a stranger to them; the God they sin against as Christians is their Father, their Redeemer, their Sanctifier. Or the sins we committed before conversion were often sins of ignorance, but that is not usually the case after conversion. Therefore, it is wonderful that the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin.

 

There is also another aspect to the sins of Christians and that is connected to the fact that they, while in the world of grace, never do anything perfectly. A Christian has never offered a perfect prayer – its words may have been correct, but how intense was it? Not intense enough for perfection. This is not to be an issue of beating ourselves up about and forcing ourselves into legalistic behaviour by ticking boxes in which we imagine we have improved. Rather it is to make us grateful for the ongoing cleansing of the blood of Jesus.

 

In addition, the Christian in the world of grace will be aware of indwelling sin. This will show itself in all sorts of ways. It will listen to temptations, it will suggest alternative actions, it will bring unwanted imaginations, it will highlight self. It will make Romans 7 real in the life of a believer.

 

How long can I have fellowship in the world of grace? All the time. How long will I need the cleansing of the blood of Jesus in the world of grace? All the time.