1 John 1:6

1 John 1:6

Light and Darkness: Sin and Purification.

I. The expressions, "light" and "darkness," were wonderfully suitable for those to whom St. John wrote. The Ephesians had paid a special worship to Artemis or Diana. They connected her with the moon, the night ruler. They had paid a worship, in common with the other Greeks, to Apollo; him they connected with the sun that rules the day. They connected them, I say, with these beautiful objects; but they were never satisfied with doing so. They worshipped the visible things from which they thought that the light proceeded. All the time they felt that men were better than these things; therefore, if they worshipped these things, they must also worship men. St. John had believed that God had revealed Himself, not in the sun or in the moon, but in a humble and crucified Man. With this conviction becoming every hour deeper and deeper in his mind, he had settled in the city where Apollo and Diana were worshipped. Hut he did not think that the Ephesians had been wrong when they dreamt of a God of light. That was a true dream; Christ had come to fulfil it. That light which belongs especially to man, that light by which he is to guide his steps, that light which keeps men in fellowship with each other, that was His own true light, His own proper nature; that was what God had manifested to men in His Son.

II. "If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another." The darkness of which St. John speaks is an utterly unsocial condition. A man thinks about himself, dwells in himself; the rest of the universe lies in shadow. It is not that he has not continual transactions with other people; it is not that they do not supply him with things that he wants; it is not that he could dispense with them. But all they do is only contemplated in reference to himself; they work, and suffer, and think for him. Our selfishness is too strong for all, however bright, in earth, and sea, and air to overcome. It is not too strong for God to overcome. We may walk day by day as if we were in His presence, as if He were looking at us and guiding us, and guiding all our brethren and all this universe. And then we have fellowship one with another. If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, wherever we are, in lonely rooms or in crowded streets, we may have fellowship with each other; we may see each other, not as reflections of ourselves, but as images of Him.

III. "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Instead of the fancy that we are without sin being a proof how clearly the light is shining into us, it is a proof that we are shutting out the light, for that would reveal to us our own inclination to flee from it and choose the darkness. God's faithfulness and justice are the enemies of our sins; therefore to them we may turn from our sins. They are the refuges from the darkness that is in us. He forgives us that He may cleanse us. The forgiveness is itself a part of the cleansing. He manifests His righteousness to us that we may trust Him. By trusting Him we are delivered from the suspicion which is the very essence of sin.

F. D. Maurice, The Epistles of St. John,p. 34.

References: 1 John 1:7. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xi., No. 663; vol. iv., No. 223; Ibid., Evening by Evening,pp. 206, 246; Homilist,4th series, vol. i., p. 181; W. J. Woods, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xvi., p. 194; R. W. Dale, Ibid.,vol. xxvii., p. 184; J. Edmunds, Fifteen Sermons,p. 80.