1 John 1:6-7

The atoning provision for fellowship in the light of God, viewed generally and with specific reference to the Christian life.

1 John 1:6-7. If we say: this is a keyword throughout the section, and marks off the utterly unchristian or antichristian spirit from the perfect opposite which in each case follows it. Surely there is here no union of the apostle with his hearers, any more than in St. Paul's ‘shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?' ‘We' is the universal we of mankind, though it may have special allusion to the Gnostics, who said precisely, in their theory and practice, what is here alleged. They affirmed that, the seed of light being in them, they might live enveloped in darkness and sensuality without losing the prerogative of their knowledge.

That we have fellowship with him, and walk in the darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: we lie in the ‘saying,' and in the ‘walking' do not the truth; ‘the truth' being the outward manifestation, ‘as truth is in Jesus' (Ephesians 4:21), of the light of holiness, its revealed directory of word and deed.

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light. Mark the decorous emphasis on ‘walk' and ‘is:' our ‘walk' is the fellowship with His ‘being.'

We have fellowship one with another: our fellowship with God is not a lie, but a reality; we ‘have' the fellowship that it is supposed we also ‘say' we have. And our walk does not impeach us; for provision is made to enable us ‘to do the truth.'

And the blood of Jesus his son cleanseth us from all sin. The ‘and' does not mean ‘for,' in the sense that the cleansing is the fellowship; nor ‘and therefore,' as if the fellowship were the condition of the cleansing. The converse of that would be nearer the truth. The two clauses are simply co-ordinate; the ‘and' as it were explaining and obviating objection. We have fellowship with God we, the universal ‘we,' but how can these things be, seeing that the light of Divine holiness detects in us nothing but sin? Here then comes in the counterpart or undertone of the great message. We have fellowship with God through His Son, but through Jesus the crucified Saviour, His Son, who ‘came by water and blood.' the blood, however, being made prominent now as the sacrificial expiation carried into the sanctuary for sin. This is the first of many allusions to the atonement, and must be remembered throughout the Epistle: the blood itself not the Person of Christ here, nor faith in Him, nor faith in it is the objective ground of our deliverance from sin. Its use here is explained by the leading theme, the holiness of God, the sphere of which distinctively is not the judicial court of satisfaction, nor the household where regeneration is introduced, but the temple where the sacrificial blood was offered. The link between it and our cleansing is not yet exhibited. The term ‘cleanseth' is to be similarly explained. It includes in the phraseology of the temple the whole privilege of deliverance from sin viewed as the pollution detected and repelled by holiness: it is not sanctification internal as opposed to justification imputed, but cleansing as including both in the terms of the altar economy. It is the present tense, however; and simply preaches a perpetual removal of all sin as pollution in the sight and in the light of God.