1 John 1:5-7

DISCOURSE: 2431
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING CONFORMED TO GOD’S IMAGE

1 John 1:5. This then is the message which me have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.

IN fulfilling the ministerial office, it is not sufficient that we set before our people the evidences of Christianity, or inculcate the performance of some moral duties: we are messengers from God to men; and we must “declare to them the message which we have received from him.” We must not alter or conceal any part of that which we have been commanded to deliver; but must make known the whole counsel of God; and, having declared it with all plainness and fidelity, must urge the acceptance of it with all the energy we possess.
We have a message then from God to you: we are commanded to open to you the Divine character, and to call you by the most impressive arguments to become conformed to his image. In discharging this duty we proceed to set before you,

I. The character of God—

The term “light,” in Scripture, has various acceptations; but there are two things which we shall notice as more particularly comprehended in it in the words before us. It is the property of light to discover all things; and it is perfectly pure and incapable of pollution: when therefore it is said, that “God is light,” we must understand it as designating,

1. His infinite knowledge—

[God is “a God of knowledge [Note: 1 Samuel 2:3.].” “There is no creature which is not manifest in his sight.” The transactions of darkness are not hid from him: he sees the adulterer, that avails himself of the darkness of the night to visit his guilty paramour. His eye is upon the thief, that lays his hand upon his neighbour’s property. He notices the fraudulent dealer, who sells by false weights and measures, or takes advantage of the purchaser’s ignorance to get rid of a bad commodity, and to exact of him a higher price than it is worth. Nor is it the actions only that God inspects; his eyes are not only on our ways, but on our very hearts. We are apt to think that “the thick clouds are a covering to him, so that he cannot see [Note: Job 22:13.];” but “the darkness and light to him are both alike [Note: Psalms 139:11.]:” “He searcheth the heart, and trieth the reins [Note: Jeremiah 17:10.]:” “He knows the things that come into our minds, every one of them [Note: Ezekiel 11:5.]:” “He weigheth our spirits [Note: Proverbs 16:2.],” and discerns the precise quantity of good or evil that there is in all our thoughts and desires: yea, “He knows the imaginations that we go about, even now, years before” the thoughts are distinctly formed in our hearts [Note: Deuteronomy 31:21.]. Our inmost souls are as much open to his view, as the sacrifices were to the priest, when he had flayed them for the purpose of examining the flesh, and cut them open to inspect their inward parts [Note: This is the idea suggested, Hebrews 4:13.]. In short, “with him is no darkness at all:” “hell and destruction are before him; much more the hearts of the children of men [Note: Proverbs 15:11.].”]

2. His unspotted holiness—

[“Light” is perhaps the only thing which is incapable of being polluted; and therefore is peculiarly fit to represent the immaculate purity of God.
God is a holy Being; yea, “glorious in holiness,” as well as in every other perfection. “He hateth all the workers of iniquity:” “He is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity [Note: Habakkuk 1:13.],” without the utmost abhorrence of it. In this respect also, as well as in the former, “there is no darkness at all in him:” there is none in his nature; there is none in his dispensations.

Consider his nature: Which of his attributes has the smallest mixture of unholiness? His sovereignty is not a weak partiality, but a holy exertion of his will, according to his own determinate and eternal counsels. His justice is not a rigorous severity, but a holy regard to the honour of his broken law. His mercy is not a weak exercise of pity at the expense of justice and truth, but a holy display of his unbounded compassion, in a way that at the same time illustrates and maguifies all his other perfections.

Consider his dispensations: these, it is true, are oftentimes inscrutable to us; yet is he “righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works [Note: Psalms 145:17.].” We are sometimes indeed ready, through unbelief, to question his wisdom and his goodness [Note: Psalms 73:12.]. When we see the wicked triumphing, and the righteous suffering under the accumulated trials of persecution from man and desertion from God, we are apt to be offended, and to ask, whether there be a God that ruleth in the earth? But in both these respects is his holiness expressly vindicated in the sacred writings: the martyrs that are now in glory, at the same time that they expostulate, as it were, with God on the subject of his forbearance towards their persecutors, address him as “holy and true [Note: Revelation 6:10.]:” and David, when complaining bitterly of the dereliction that he suffered, takes especial care to acknowledge that, in the midst of all, his holiness is unimpeached; “O God, I cry in the day-time, but thou hearest not; and in the night-season I am not silent; but thou art holy [Note: Psalms 22:1.].” When therefore we are not able to comprehend the reason of God’s dispensations, we must still confess, that though “clouds and darkness are round about him, righteousness and judgment are the basis of his throne [Note: Psalms 97:2.].”]

The next part of the message points out to us,

II.

The necessity and benefit of a conformity to him—

The saints are said to be renewed after the Divine image: and it is worthy of particular observation, that the only two points in which this renovation is said to consist, are knowledge [Note: Colossians 3:10.], and holiness [Note: Ephesians 4:24.]. We see then from hence wherein that conformity, which we are to attain, consists: it consists in knowledge and in holiness, or, as my text expresses it, in “walking in the light as he is in the light:” our minds must be enlightened with the knowledge of God’s truth; and our hearts must be purified in the performance of his will.

Let us notice then,

1. The necessity of this conformity—

[Many will pretend to have communion with God, while they are ignorant of the salvation revealed in the Gospel, and living in the habitual indulgence of sin. But, while they thus “walk in darkness,” what “fellowship can they have with God?” What access can they have to him, when they do not so much as know the way of “access to him through the rent vail of the Redeemer’s flesh [Note: Hebrews 10:19.]?” and what regard can they feel in their hearts towards him, while they are under the allowed dominion of worldly and carnal lusts? Their profession is a system of falsehood and hypocrisy: “they lie, and do not the truth:” they may work up themselves to ecstacies if they will; but they neither have, nor can have, any fellowship with God; for how “shall the throne of iniquity (or one in whom sin reigns) have fellowship with him [Note: Psalms 94:20.]?” “What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness [Note: 2 Corinthians 6:14.]?”]

2. The benefit of this conformity—

[If a person be walking unfeignedly and progressively in the study of God’s will, and in obedience to it, he possesses two great and unspeakable benefits; namely, communion with God, and acceptance before him.

He has communion with God [Note: The opposition between the 6th and 7th verses shews that ver. 7 does not relate to the communion of the saints with each other, but to their fellowship with God.]. God loves the humble, diligent, obedient servant: “He will come to him,” and “lift, up the light of his countenance upon him,” and “manifest himself to him as he does not unto the world.” He will “shed abroad his love in his heart,” and “give him a spirit of adoption, whereby he shall cry, Abba, Father.” The person himself may not be very conversant with raptures: but, whether he be more or less sensible of God’s favour to him, it is manifest that he has fellowship with God: his knowledge of the Gospel proves that God has taught him; and his experience; of its sanctifying power proves that God has strengthened and supported him.

He has also acceptance before God: he is not like an unpardoned sinner: Jesus Christ has washed away his sins in the fountain of his blood; yea, every day, every hour, every moment, is he cleansing him from the pollution that adheres to his best services. This cleansing is a continued act of Christ [Note: “Cleanseth.”]: and through it the soul maintains its peace with God, and is regarded by God “without spot or blemish [Note: Ephesians 5:26.].” Cleansed by Jesus from “the iniquity of his holy things,” he is presented “faultless before the presence of God’s glory with exceeding joy [Note: Jude, ver. 24.].”

Such are the benefits of cleaving to Christ, and “walking as he walked:” and a life devoted to God is not so properly the means of obtaining these benefits, as it is the evidence that we already possess them.]

From this most instructive subject we may learn,
1.

The connexion between faith and works—

[One man hopes to be saved by his works, while he disregards faith in Christ: another hopes that his faith will save him, though it never produce good works. But both of these deceive their own souls: for no man can do such works as the Gospel requires, unless he embrace the truths which it reveals: and, if he could do them, they would be utterly insufficient to justify him before God. On the other hand, “the faith that is without works, is dead:” and as it differs not from the faith of devils, so will it bring us no better portion than theirs. Knowledge is necessary to produce holiness; and holiness is necessary to evince that our knowledge is truly spiritual and saving. It is not by separating them from each other, but by uniting them together, that we are to “walk in the light as God is in the light.”]

2. The connexion between duty and happiness—

[The greater part of the world expect happiness in the ways of sin: but God has warned us that there is “no peace to the wicked.” There is no real happiness but in fellowship with God: and there is no fellowship with him, without a conformity to him. If then we would be happy in this world, we should be religious: we should study to know and do the will of God. Then we should be happy in sickness as well as in health, and in the prospect of death no less than in the midst of earthly enjoyments.]

3. The connexion between grace and glory—

[The saints in glory are called “saints in light;” and in order to partake of their inheritance, we must be “made meet for it [Note: Colossians 1:12.].” An unregenerate sinner would not be happy, even if he were in heaven. There is a total difference of character between them that are saved and them that perish: those who are saved, love God, and delight in him, and make it the labour of their souls to glorify him: whereas they who perish, would, if they were able, pluck him from his throne: it would be glad tidings to them if they were informed that he exists no longer. Such precisely is the difference between saints and sinners in this world; the one find all their happiness in serving God; the other say in their hearts, “We wish there were no God.” Neither the one nor the other indeed attain the same degree of holiness or wickedness in this world that they will in the next: but in all other respects their characters will continue the same that they are in this life. If ever then we would have fellowship with God in heaven, we must begin it here: and, if ever we would dwell with him in the regions of everlasting light, we must now be “brought out of darkness into the marvellous light of his Gospel [Note: 1 Peter 2:9.],” and “walk henceforth as children of the light and of the day [Note: Ephesians 5:8.].”]