First John Bible Studies

This is an example of John's symbolic theme of light vs. darkness. And the reference is to moral darkness. Walking in darkness means to have a lifestyle characterized by the absence of God, by the absence of good. It is living as if God does not exist or matter. It is living in evil, selfishness, and sin, and the opposite of all that is good. It is to be surrounded by all that is shameful.
This proposition is juxtaposed to the previous claim that we are having fellowship with God. If we talk God with our mouths, but live like the devil with our actions. It is a reasonable possibility to claim that we are having fellowship with God. And it is certainly possible to walk in darkness. But John is pointing out the unreasonableness of claiming to be in fellowship with God, while at the same time, walking in darkness. These two realities don't match, as demonstrated in the following conclusions. And that is why some translate this phrase, ...even though we walk in the darkness.

If the condition above is true, they we are hypocritical about our character and relationship with God. We are lying. We are living a falsehood. Our claim to be in fellowship with God is not true. We need to recognize the falsehood of our claims to be in fellowship with God when our lives do not match this claim.

Literally, this says, we are not doing the truth. This obviously means we are not putting the truth into practice; we are not acting according to the truth.
These two phrases apply to outright pretenders - to those who know they are pretending to be Christian, and know that they really are not. And it applies to those who have been deceived into thinking that are Christians, that they are in God's Kingdom, when they have not truly been changed. This is part of the tests that John gave, by which his readers could know if they indeed have eternal life. And therefore, it is a challenge for those who fail the test to genuinely believe in God's Son in order to find life.
But it also apples to all of us whenever we do not live up to the standards of God's total purity. We need to stop being OK with that. We need to stop settling for living in a way that does not completely honor God and conform to His purity. We need to recognize the falsehood of our claims to be in fellowship with God when our lives do not match this claim. We should beware of trusting ourselves, because we often lie to ourselves. Sometimes we are too hard on ourselves, but often, we are too easy on ourselves. Because the standard is God's perfection. God is light, with no darkness at all. And here John is protecting us from the error of letting ourselves be comfortable with any hypocritical disconnect between our claims and our lifestyle. That does not mean that we should stop making claims or confessions about our relationship with God. It means that we should strive to match our character to our claims. If we claim to be in fellowship with God, our lifestyle should be in conformity with God.
At this point, all of John's readers should be panicking, because none of us are free from this hypocrisy at all times. Our lifestyle is not pure like God. As is John's style, he stated the truth in black and white, all or nothing contrasts. And he was fencing off two opposite errors. So, we should wait to hear the other side of the story before we give in to despair. But we should not use an awareness of John's exaggerated style to let ourselves off the hook too easily. We should all take this warning seriously and examine ourselves. But we should not automatically conclude that if we are not perfect, then we are not a genuine Christian. That would be to overreact into an opposite error, which John will address later in this passage. Neither should we give up in despair over our lack of perfection, which would be an opposite error, which John addressed in the next verse. We should not be hypocritical about our character, but we can, and we should, strive to live a lifestyle that reflects our claims to know God.

This refers back to verse 5, where God is light, with no darkness. And it is in contrast to walking in darkness, from the previous verse. Throughout the New Testament, living in the light describes a godly lifestyle as opposed to a sinful lifestyle (see Jn. 3:19-21, Eph. 5:8-14).
John wrote that we should walk in the light, not walk as the light. In other words, John is not here saying that we need to be perfect. He is not saying that we need to live a lifestyle on our own initiative and strength as a condition for something to happen. Rather, we are to walk in the light, as He is in the light. We are to walk in conformity with Him, on His initiative and strength. Just as walking in the darkness means to live a lifestyle influenced by darkness and opposed to God's character, walking in the light means to live a lifestyle influenced and empowered by God's character.
In John's time, this meant to stay faithful to the church, and to John's teaching, instead of going along with the false teachers. In our time, this means to stay faithful to Christ and the Christian lifestyle instead of going along with the many voices tempting us away from Christ to other worldviews and lifestyles.

And the standard is Jesus Himself, not our culture or other Christians. The standard is perfection, even though we walk in the light imperfectly. We should aim for perfection, but not despair if we fail to be perfect. Because the quality of our walk is not the issue, it is whether it is in the light. Are we walking on the side of darkness? or on the side of light? Are we living in the environment and mindset where God is absent, and of no consequence? Or in the environment and mindset where God is present and Christ is central to everything?

There is a question about what John meant when he wrote fellowship with one another. Does that mean that we each have fellowship with God? Or that we have fellowship with other believers? The answer is yes. As we saw in v. 3, earlier in this chapter, the fellowship is among believers, because it is mutual relationship with the Father through the Son. Those who walk in darkness may claim to have fellowship with God. But those who walk in the light actually do have fellowship with God.

This is more evidence that a perfect lifestyle is not a requirement for walking in the light. It is the aim, but not the prerequisite. The cleansing from sin is the result of coming to the light. It is not the way that we earn our way into the light. We don't cleanse ourselves; we just go to the One Who does. We are cleansed by the blood of Jesus, God's Son. The blood of His violent death on the cross is the means of our forgiveness and spiritual cleansing. There is no other way for us to be clean, but for our penalty to have been paid by Him.
And John wrote that His blood cleanses us from all sin. When we are justified by His blood, every sin is covered. Not just the easy ones, not just the small ones, not just the ones we have stopped doing, not just the ones we have made restitution for. And we are being sanctified and cleansed from every sin. Not just the easy ones. The salvation which Christ does is comprehensive and complete, even as we live in the already/not yet tension for a while. The blood of His Son is cleansing us from every sin. As we walk in the light, we are being cleansed, and our lifestyle is being conformed to His.

Just like 6a, this is a formula to introduce a hypothetical attitude expressed in speech, of which John will then show the consequences. This is another example of the confess/deny themes in First John. In this case, the hypothetical speaker is denying something is true, which John will argue is indeed true. So, like verse 6, the content of what is denied is important, but the emphasis is also on the fact that the speaker is denying the truth of what is stated.

If we say that we don't have sin. If we deny that sin is still a part of our lives. This is more than just denying that we do specific sinful acts. It is denying that sin is part of us. This denial can come in many forms. In our own day, it often comes in various excuses put in psychological language: I'm just a product of my upbringing. I'm just a victim of society. I act this way because of various systemic forces beyond my control. And in the church, it can often take the form of a naive perfectionism. This is to forget the already/not yet tension that we live in. It is to think that we already have the perfection that waits for us in the not yet. That is, thinking that somehow, I have arrived, because I no longer do those major sins that I used to do. Or I don't do those 'gross' sins that other people do. Therefore, they are sinners, but I am not. We make categories of acceptable sins which 'just happen' to be those sins which we still do. And we think they are not as sinful as other people's sins. And by these mental gymnastics, we start to think that we have attained a level of sinlessness that others do not have. And there are many other possible forms of this denial of sin that we could fall into. But John simply said that if we deny that we have sin, then certain things are true of us.

All our psychological excuses for our behavior are just that - excuses. Yes, your background and society has influenced you. These things influence everyone. But they do not determine you. Augustine once observed that the same sun makes wax melt and clay harden; the same shaking makes perfume smell sweet and rotten water stink. We all have good and bad circumstances to various degrees. But the way that we respond to them demonstrates the state of our heart more than these circumstances determine the state of our heart.
And redefinition of sin is just a dodge, refusing to acknowledge the truth. Sin is sin, even if it is not the same kind of sin as someone else. And if we don't honestly own it, especially to ourselves, we are not just deceiving others, we are lying to ourselves. We deceive ourselves if we think that we are sinless or that our sins don't matter. Sometimes it is easy to spot when other people lie to us, because we know their bad motives. But when we lie to ourselves, we agree with our motives and believe them to be pure. And we have learned various self-defense mechanisms to shelter ourselves from harsh realities. So, it is very difficult to spot our own lies. Therefore, don't trust yourself to judge yourself. That is why we need John to confront us with the fact that denial of sin is the denial of reality. And the real world will always come back to bite us if we deny it.

Truth and deceit are mutually exclusive. This is a harsh statement - to say that the truth does not reside in us. But if the condition above is true, then this statement is true. And is meant to shock us into change. John said, in essence, if we deny our sin, Christ is not in us. The presence of Christ in our life makes us more conscious of our sin, not less. Because God is pure and will not allow us to continue in sin. God is light, and His light shows all the darkness still in our life. And Christ confronts sin, not to condemn us, but to cleanse us.

This is stated as the effect of our confession, described in the previous proposition. Of course, our confession does not make God faithful and just. He has always been faithful and just, and does not need our confession in order to be so. But John wrote this in such a way as to emphasize God's faithfulness and justice in the way that He responds to our confession of sin. God's attributes are the main clause, the forgiveness is subordinate, coming from God's attributes (see Runge, Discourse Grammar of the Greek New Testament, p. 229). This verse is about God's character, and all the benefits flow from that. This verse is about His faithfulness and justice, and our confession is just the occasion for us to experience it. The effects of our confession flow from His faithful, just nature more than they are the result of our confession. And these benefits come to us through the cross of Christ, which displayed God's faithful justice and purchased our forgiveness and cleansing. Our confession is the the occasion He uses to display His faithfulness and justice. He is faithful - to His own character, to His promises, and to His covenant provision in Christ. And He is just - He follows through with the verdict of justification provided by Christ on the cross.

This is the same phrase as 6a and 8a. See the comments on those propositions.

This phrase is similar to 8b. They have the same overall meaning, but also have different emphases. The emphasis in 8b is that we have sin - that is, sin is a part of who we are. The emphasis in this verse is that we have sinned - that is, that we actually committed sinful thoughts, attitudes and activities. And the tense in this verse emphasized that we have done this, and the consequences of our having sinned are a reality.
The condition is that we deny that we have sinned, thereby denying our guilt and the consequences of being in a sinful state. If we deny sin or minimize it, or treat it as if it is not a big deal. If we try to excuse our sin or shift the blame to someone or something else. If we refuse to admit that we have committed intentional acts of selfish, sinful rebellion against God and His standards, then, John wrote, the following statements apply to us.

This proposition is similar to 6d where John said we are lying. But in this verse, instead of saying that we lie, John said that we make God to be a liar. Now, of course, this does not mean that we cause God to actually become a liar. God cannot, and will never lie. Rather, it means that we claim that God is lying. We claim the exact opposite of what God says, which is the opposite of what it means to confess. We claim that we are right, and conclude that God must therefore be wrong. We claim that we are telling the truth, and so if God says different, then He must be lying. We claim God is wrong in order to make ourselves right. We condemn God in order to justify ourselves.
But John is not buying it, and neither is God. And neither should we. It is much more plausible that God is right and we are wrong - that God is telling the truth and we are lying. John stated this phrase in shocking terms in order to shock us into seeing the truth. If we say that we have not sinned, we are contradicting God, and so we must be wrong. And we should confess it instead of accusing God in order to cover for our sin and deception.

This is similar to 8d, where John wrote the truth is not in us. In this verse, His Word is parallel to the truth. In John 17:17, Jesus equated the two when He said, Your Word is truth.
If we contradict God, then it shows that His Word is not in us. We have not yet heard, believed, and internalized the truth from God to the extent that we should have. If God's Word - His truth - really takes up residence in our minds, hearts, and lives, then we will acknowledge that we have sinned in order to embrace the solution to our sin in Christ. Just like Jesus said, Those who are healthy don't need a doctor. (Matt. 9:12, Mk. 2:17, Lk. 5:31). In the same way, we need to admit we have the disease of sin, in order to seek the cure. We need to admit we need Jesus in order to find Jesus and embrace Him for all that He is on our behalf. We need to admit that we are not perfect, quite the contrary. We are sinful and sick and helpless to solve the problem on our own. We need a savior. And until we admit this, the truth is not in us. We are not living in the truth, but in some bizarre fantasy world, which will damn us unless we break free from its deception.

This is one of the statements in First John where he told his readers why he was writing - that is, what he was trying to accomplish by writing to them (see also 1:4, 2:26, and 5:13). These statements not only inform the readers of John's intension, they also serve to highlight the statements he was making as important and to strongly encourage his readers to fulfill the purpose he was intending for them.

This is one of the purposes of John writing: so that his readers would not sin. This is an implied command, Don't sin! And we constantly need to hear this, first as a command not to sin. We still sin, and we shouldn't. Don't be complacent. Don't make peace with any sin in your life at all. Don't get lazy about combating sin. God is light with NO darkness at all. Therefore, we should no longer allow any darkness in our lives. But this is also a promise and and encouragement that we don't have to sin. We can overcome. We can not sin. We won't be completely sinless in this life. But we can sin a lot less than we used to. And we can continually progress in our victory over sin. Throughout this letter, John strongly stated that we must, and we will, overcome sin if we are born from God. So, keep fighting sin, never give in. Don't sin.

Even as we are pursuing perfection in our fight against sin, John is realistic that we will not reach perfection and will need a remedy for our failures. So, he gave us wisdom for those times when we do sin. And this is introduced with another conditional statement if someone would sin....