5 This is the message we heard from Jesus[c] 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.
– 1 John 1:5-10
This morning, I opened to 1 John and began to read. The section above really stood out to me. It stood out because I have always assumed that “living in the light” meant that I was living within God’s will… or in other words, I was not sinning. Conversely, I have always believed that “living in the darkness” meant that I was living outside of God’s will… or I was living sinfully.
But with that understanding, this section of scripture contradicts itself REAL fast! Because verse eight clearly points out that we are all sinners. If we claim to not be sinners, we are fooling ourselves. Verse six says that there’s no way we can live in fellowship with God if we have sin in our lives (or if we are living in the darkness).
So then, if it is absolutely impossible to live without sin, and it is absolutely impossible to have fellowship with God if there is sin in our lives, then there’s no way we can possibly have fellowship with God. And with that logic, it is impossible to live in the light. But verse seven says if we possibly could somehow live a sin-free life (live in the light), then the blood of Jesus would cleanse us from all of our sins. HUH???
The entire passage began to confuse me! If I’m living sin-free then I don’t need the blood of Jesus to wash away my sins because I don’t have any sins to be washed away! But if I am living a sinful life, then it is impossible for me to fellowship with God and it is impossible for me to receive the cleansing that is promised to those who live sin-free lives.
I say all that confusing stuff to get to this point. My interpretation of living in light/darkness is obviously wrong! So what does it mean to live in the light or live in the darkness? I think verse nine explains all of this mumbo-jumbo very well and sheds some light (no pun intended) on my question:
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.
Confession is something that we like to pass over when we read through scripture. We like grace and mercy. We like faith and we even like baptism. But when it comes to confession, we like to pretend like all it means is just saying with your mouth, “Jesus is the lord of my life.” That might be a confession of faith, but this passage isn’t talking about confessing our faith. It is talking about confessing our sins.
John says everything in verses 5-8 about living in the light and having fellowship with God and each other and we are all sinners… he says it all to get to this point. We are all sinners and there’s nothing we can do to change that… “BUT if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us” so that we can be in the light as he is in the light. So what is living in the light all about? It’s all about confession of who we are! It’s all about being true and honest! It’s about breaking down our walls of pride and stepping out from behind our curtains of putting on a good face. Living in the light is being real! Living in the light is breaking down and humbly saying, “I am a sinner! I sin… a lot… each day. And there’s nothing I can do about that so I need you, Jesus, to cleanse me so that I can have fellowship with God.”
How freeing is that for you? I don’t have to hide who I really am. I can be honest with myself and with others. I can be honest with God! I can confess to him that I have a problem with patience, pride, lust, materialism, coveting, envy, anger, gossiping, controlling my thoughts, and chasing after things that this world has to offer. These are all real struggles of mine that, on a good day, I will struggle with and on a normal day, I will freely, willingly give in to.
It’s time we get back into the habit of confessing our sins to God and also to one another (James 5) so that we can freely live in the light as He is in the light!
