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Scripture Reading: 1 John 1:5-7
In the foregoing message we pointed out that the believers’ relationship in life with God is unbreakable, but their fellowship with Him can be broken. The former is unconditional and has been settled once for all; however, the latter is conditional and may fluctuate. Let us now go on in this message to consider the first condition that must be fulfilled if we are to maintain the divine fellowship: the confessing of sins (1:5—2:2).
In 1:5 John says, “And this is the message which we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” This verse speaks of God. In order to maintain fellowship with God, we need to abide in God. We have seen that in this Epistle there are seven mysteries: the divine life, the fellowship of the divine life, the anointing of the Triune God, abiding in the Lord, the divine birth, the divine seed, and the water, the blood, and the Spirit. Here we are concerned with the mystery of abiding. In the Gospel of John, the Lord Jesus said, “Abide in Me, and I in you” (15:4). Because He is the vine and we are the branches, we need to abide in Him. This revelation concerning abiding is a great matter and a crucial one. We all need to abide in God.
What does it mean to abide in God? Many years ago, I thought that to abide is merely to stay or remain. The Chinese version of the Bible uses the word “dwell.” More than three hundred years ago, when the King James Version was translated, in English the word “abide” did have the connotation of dwell. However, this connotation has largely been lost, and today the word abide primarily means to stay or remain. Actually, “dwell” is a more accurate rendering of the Greek. To abide in God, therefore, is to dwell in Him. Not only should we stay in God — we should dwell in Him. We should live, act, move, and have our being in God.
This thought corresponds to that conveyed by the word “walk” in verse 7, where we are told to walk in the light. The Greek word translated “walk” means to move, act, and have our being. As we remain in God, we should dwell in Him and have our being in Him. God is our true dwelling place, our home. Hence, wherever God goes, we should go with Him and in Him. Because God is our dwelling place, we need to dwell in Him.
We need to know not only who God is but also what God is. First John 1:5 tells us that God is light and that in Him is no darkness at all. The very God in whom we dwell is light. The first aspect of the first condition of maintaining our fellowship with God is to dwell in God as light. When the house in which we dwell is full of light, we also are in light, not in darkness. In a similar way, when we dwell in God, we dwell in light, for God is light.
If we do not dwell in God, our fellowship with Him will immediately be broken. Whenever we do not dwell in God, we are out of the divine fellowship. However, our life relationship with God is not broken. For example, whether a child’s behavior is good or bad, he still has a relationship in life with his father. Whether a child stays at home or tries to run away, the relationship in life with his father remains unbroken. However, the child may not remain in fellowship with his father. There may be times when he does not want to be in the same room with his father or talk with him face to face. This is because the fellowship has been broken, although the life relationship remains. Our life relationship with God cannot be broken. But our fellowship with Him will be broken if we do not abide in Him as the divine light.
We have pointed out that Spirit is the nature of God’s Person, love is the nature of God’s essence, and light is the nature of God’s expression. Light, therefore, is God’s expression; it is God shining. Hence, when we dwell in God, who is the shining One, we are in light.
In 1:5 John says that in God there is no darkness at all. As light is the nature of God in His expression, so darkness is the nature of Satan in his evil works (3:8). Thank God that He has delivered us out of the satanic darkness into the divine light (Acts 26:18; 1 Pet. 2:9). The divine light is the divine life in the Son operating in us. This light shines in the darkness within us, and the darkness cannot overcome it (John 1:4-5). When we follow this light, we shall by no means walk in darkness (John 8:12), which according to the context (1 John 1:7-10) is the darkness of sin.
In 1:7a John says, “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.” To “walk” here means to live, behave, and have our being. We walk in the light, but God is in the light because He is light. “The light is the element in which God dwells (cf. 1 Tim. 6:16)....this walking in the light, as He is in the light, is no mere imitation of God,...but is an identity in the essential element of our daily walk with the essential element of God’s eternal being: not imitation, but coincidence and identity of the very atmosphere of life” (Alford).
When we walk and live in the light of God, we have jointly the co-enjoyment of the Triune God and the co-participation in His divine purpose. The fellowship of the divine life brings us the divine light, and the divine light keeps us in the fellowship, that is, in the joint enjoyment of God and joint participation in His purpose.
In verse 6 John speaks of walking in darkness. To walk habitually in the darkness is to live, behave, and have one’s being in the nature of Satan’s evil works. According to 2:11, to walk in the darkness equals to practice sin (3:4, 8).
To walk in the divine light is not merely to dwell in this light; it is to live, move, act, do things, and have our being in the divine light, the light which is actually God Himself. When we dwell, live, and have our being in God, we walk in the divine light, which is the expression of God.
When the divine light shines, we see all the different truths, and these truths are realities. But when we do not have the divine light but are rather in darkness, we have the sense that everything is vanity and emptiness. I would ask you to consider your experience. When you are in the divine light, you can see the truth, the reality. For example, when you are in the light, God is a reality to you, and the divine life is also a reality. Furthermore, God’s holiness, love, and grace are all realities to you. When we walk in the light, we see one reality after another. However, when we are in darkness, nothing is real to us. On the contrary, everything is empty, vain. When we are in darkness, we do not have any reality because we do not see anything. Instead of the sense of reality, we have the sense of emptiness and vanity.
When we dwell in God, we are in the fellowship. When we are in this fellowship, we are in light. Then as we walk in the light, Christ, the Spirit, the church, the Body, and the members of the Body are all real to us. We may testify and say, “Praise the Lord that I see Christ, the Spirit, the church, the Body, and the ground of the church! How wonderful! All this is real to me.”
However, suppose a sister is offended by an elder. Although the elder had no intention of offending her, nonetheless something he said offended her because she is sensitive. Perhaps the elder said that all the sisters, no matter what their background may be, are fragile. This word offended the sister, and she said to herself, “I love the Lord very much, and I also love the church and am for the church. Why does this elder say that the sisters are fragile?” Because she is offended, the “switch” is turned off, and immediately she is in darkness. As a result, instead of enjoying the church life, she begins to be unhappy with the church. The church is no longer real to her, and she no longer cares about the church ground. She may say, “What is the church anyway? And what is the church ground? I don’t care about the ground of the church.” If she stays in darkness, she will eventually find that Christ, the Spirit, and the divine life are no longer real to her in her experience. She may say, “What is Christ? He is far away in the heavens. What is eternal life? This life doesn’t mean much to me.” This is an illustration of the fact that whenever we are in darkness, all the divine things become vain and empty to us.
Suppose after a period of time the sister who has been offended and is in darkness repents. The Lord is merciful and for no apparent reason, she turns to the Lord and says, “O Lord, forgive me.” Immediately, the “switch” is turned on, and the light begins to shine again. Then this sister will experience the cleansing of the Lord’s precious blood, and the divine things will become real once more.
Has this not been your experience? I can testify that I have experienced this a number of times. I know what it is to suffer from the “disease” of being in darkness and of being recovered to the fellowship in the divine life. From experience I know that when we are in the light, the divine things are real to us, but when we are in darkness, these things are not real to us.
If we would be in the divine fellowship, we need to abide in God as light, and we need to walk in the divine light. The divine light is versus the satanic darkness. The real issue here is not a question of right or wrong; it is a question of light or darkness. You do not need to consider whether what an elder says is right or wrong, but consider whether you are in light or in darkness. If you are in darkness, this indicates that you are out of the divine fellowship.
Light is the expression of God, and darkness is the expression of Satan. If we say, “I don’t care for the church, and Christ is far away in the heavens — He is not in me,” we are speaking lies, and these lies are the expression of satanic darkness. In order to have the broken fellowship recovered, we must condemn darkness. We may think that we are right. But if we are in darkness, we need to confess and say, “Lord, why am I in darkness? There must be something wrong with me. Lord, even though I don’t realize in what way I am wrong, I know that I am wrong because I am in darkness. Lord, I ask You to forgive me and cleanse me.” If we do this, light will come to us. I speak of this from my own experience. A number of times I realized that I was in darkness, although I did not know in what way I was wrong. Therefore, I went to the Lord and told Him that I was in darkness. As a result, the light began to shine again.
Darkness may be compared to a stop sign on a street corner. Darkness is a sign that we are wrong in some way. Even if we do not know what is wrong, because we have the sign of darkness within us, we need to confess our situation to the Lord and say, “Lord, please forgive me. Although I do not know where I am wrong, I still ask You to forgive me. Lord, I sense darkness within me. I am completely surrounded with darkness, and I cannot bear it. Lord, because I am in darkness, I ask You to forgive me and cleanse me with Your precious blood.” If you confess to the Lord in this way, light will come. Then the light will show you in what matter you are wrong. If you confess that matter to the Lord, you will receive more light. This is the way to keep ourselves in God. This is also the way to recover and restore the broken fellowship. If we take this way, we shall maintain a proper fellowship in the divine light.
Let us read all of 1:6: “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in the darkness, we lie and are not practicing the truth.” To lie is of Satan. He is the father of liars (John 8:44). His nature is a lie, and it brings in death and darkness. With darkness is falsehood, the opposite of the truth. The satanic darkness is versus the divine light, and the satanic lie is versus the divine truth. As the divine truth is the expression of the divine light, so the satanic lie is the expression of the satanic darkness. If we say that we have fellowship with God, who is light, and walk in the darkness, we lie, we are in the expression of the satanic darkness, and we do not practice the truth in the expression of the divine light. This verse inoculates against the heretical teaching of the Antinomians, who teach freedom from the obligation of the moral law and say that a person may live in sin and at the same time have fellowship with God.
If we would maintain the divine fellowship, we must not only walk in the divine light, but also practice the divine truth, which is versus the satanic lie. The Greek word rendered “practicing” in 1:6 is poieo. This verb denotes doing things habitually and continually by abiding in these things. Hence, it is used in verse 6 in the sense of practice. This word is also used in 2:17, 29; 3:4 (twice), 7, 8, 9, 10, 22; 5:2; Romans 1:32, and various other places.
To practice the truth is to live the truth habitually, not merely to do it occasionally. To practice the truth is to do it constantly, continuously, unceasingly. This can be compared to breathing, which is constant, continuous, habitual. While we are speaking, we are breathing. There is no need for us to make up our minds to breathe or to try to energize ourselves to breathe, for breathing is natural and habitual. Hence, breathing is a practice. In a similar way, when we abide in God as light and when we walk in the divine light, we spontaneously practice the truth habitually.
Suppose a certain believer is in darkness. Because he is in darkness, whatever he does, whatever he practices, is wrong. He may try to go in a certain direction, but that will be wrong. If he tries to go in another direction, that also will be wrong. But if this believer is in the light, he will automatically practice the truth. He will live, behave, and talk to others in a proper way. This is to practice the truth.
If we are in the light, we shall see the church as a reality. We shall also see the Body and the members of the Body as realities. We shall see that we are a particular member of the Body. But if we are in darkness, we may think that we are a great member of the Body, such as the shoulder, when actually we may be a small member, such as the little finger. This is another illustration of the fact that to be in darkness is to be in emptiness, vanity. But to walk according to what we see of the reality in the light is to practice the truth.
Often when we are in darkness we practice things that are nonsensical. For example, if a young person is in darkness, he may criticize an older brother in the Lord. This criticism is altogether nonsensical, for it is in darkness. This young person does not know what he is saying, and his criticism is vain and empty. He is not practicing the truth, because he does not see the truth.
It is when we are in the light that we see the truth. If we are in the light, whatever we do will be real. Not only shall we practice what is right and proper; we shall do what is real. This means that whatever we do is a reality. Habitually and automatically, we shall practice the truth, the reality. If we do this, we shall keep ourselves in the divine fellowship.
