That which was from [the] beginning, that which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes; that which we contemplated, and our hands handled, concerning the word of life;
This letter opens with no greeting, no author's name, and no finished sentence. It opens by pointing at Someone. Two questions come up at once. Which "beginning" does John mean, since it is not the wording of his Gospel? And why does he say that which instead of who?
John's Gospel starts "in the beginning"; the letter starts from the beginning. Darby once read the phrase as a statement of Christ's pre-existence. Writing to someone who still held that view, he explains why he changed his mind:
As to 1 John 1:1, for a time, long ago, I thought as you do, and you cannot separate the pre-existence of the divine nature from the person. However, I think that in saying, "That which is from the beginning," the Spirit speaks of what Jesus was on earth, of what John had seen and handled. In the Gospel, "in the beginning," relates to the whole previous existence of God — that is, the phrase states the eternal existence of Christ as the Word. John's great subject is the manifestation of God, and of divine life on earth.
Kelly argues the same from the phrase itself. It marks a point in time, not eternity:
The phrase "from the beginning" never means "in the beginning," even when it is used of Him Who was also the Eternal One. By its very nature it points to a relation in time. We see this in Luke 1:2. There "those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word" can only mean from the time Christ was shown openly in public testimony... The phrase therefore does not and can not refer to eternity but to what was before its witnesses in time.
The wording is strange, and there is a reason for it. No words can tell out the whole Person:
He says: "That which was from the beginning," not who, as we would expect. He is speaking, as he tells us, of the Word of life. But in the presence of such a One he can only speak of "what we have heard and seen." The whole Person was not told out in full, because it was impossible that He should be told out in full. That accounts for the odd wording.
The four verbs are not repetition. Each one brings the witnesses nearer. Where the ESV has "looked upon" and "touched," other translations read "contemplated" and "handled" — the words used below:
First he mentions what they had heard. But you can hear a person and not be near to that person. They were closer than that, he writes: "which we have seen with our eyes." Yet you can see a person and still not be close to him. They had more than a passing look: "which we have contemplated." That is more than seeing. It means gazing with purpose, with desire and with admiration. Then comes a statement of still greater nearness: "our hands have handled." John and the other disciples knew Him, the Word of Life, closely.
John knew what a vision was — he had them at Patmos. But the incarnation, Christ's coming in a real body, could be touched:
At Patmos, what John saw was a vision. But he saw Jesus in this world with his own eyes. That was no vision, for the incarnation was a divine reality... To stress that the incarnation was real, he says, "and our hands handled." Both before and after His death their hands had handled the body of the Lord Jesus. John had been in closest touch with Him; he had leaned on His chest.
Eternal life could have reached us as a set of statements. It came another way:
Eternal life has not only been described to us in abstract doctrinal statements. It has been expressed in a living Person. The apostles saw Him with their eyes, contemplated Him as an Object before them, and handled Him with their hands. This Person is called the Word of life, because as the Word He perfectly expressed the life.
The verse also answers a claim. Teachers of that day said the apostles gave only a seed that later thinkers had grown:
This is the testimony of eye-witnesses. The apostle's language fits the situation of the believers, who at that time were threatened by the heresy of the Gnostics. These teachers laid claim to development. They said: the Gospels have given us the truth as a seed, and now we have its full growth. Not so, replies the apostle of God. We have that which was in the beginning, and it is great and perfect enough to allow no development. These false teachers also denied that the Christ had come in flesh. John says the opposite: we have seen Him and have handled Him.
- Beginning. Not eternity past, but the point where the eternal Word began to be seen and heard on earth.
- Shown. The life appeared in a living Person: they heard Him, then saw Him, then contemplated Him, then handled Him.
- Handled. Touch is the test. You cannot handle a vision, so His body was real — before His death and after it.
- Expressed. He is the Word of life: as the Word, He expressed the life instead of leaving it as doctrine alone.
- Finished. What John saw at the beginning needs no improvement. Hands that touched Christ answer every claim to move past Him.
(and the life has been manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and report to you the eternal life, which was with the Father, and has been manifested to us)
Verse 2 interrupts John's opening sentence to press one fact: the life that belongs to eternity stepped into time where people could see it. Everything that follows in the letter rests on that — what this life is, where it was before, and how anyone who was not there can receive it.
The whole of verse 2 sits inside brackets. One writer points out how we can spot it:
We can see it by looking at the main parenthesis that encloses verse 2. What makes it clear is the repetition of "…seen and heard…" in verse 3. Why does John repeat himself? It is because he is returning from a diverted train of thought back to the main track.
"The life was made manifest" is the hinge of the sentence, and of the letter. Life is one of those words no one can pin down — and God's answer to that was not a sentence but a Son:
"Life" is a word that stands for a quality very hard to define. Scientists and philosophers may try to define it, but their definitions will never satisfy the heart or mind. God did not tell us the meaning of life, eternal life, by putting words in a dictionary. He manifested it in the person of His own Son in this world.
This is what governs the rest of the letter:
"And the life was made manifest": this is the keynote of the letter. It is not, as at first, hearing and seeing. It is now seeing, bearing witness, and reporting the eternal life to God's people. That life had the character of being with the Father [that is, in eternity], and was made manifest to us in time when He lived here on earth.
The phrase points back before the Son ever took flesh. It rules out the idea that this life started when it appeared:
That life had always been with the Father, for it was the life of Divine persons. But it was never seen until the Son took flesh and blood… The Son taking flesh added nothing to it, and could add nothing to it. What appeared was what had always been… It would be a fatal mistake to think that it began when it appeared.
Commentators also read the phrase as describing what kind of life it is, not only where it used to be:
The life was eternal life, but it also was "with the Father." That statement gives the character of the life. It does not simply say that the life was with the Father. It says the life was that kind of life.
John does not say the Son brought eternal life. He says the Son is eternal life. Yet God gives that same life to us:
It is not possible for us to separate the life from the Person — "He is the true God and eternal life" (1 John 5:20). But we can tell the life apart from the Person, and see that this life can be given to us — "God gave us eternal life, and this life is in His Son" (1 John 5:11).
"We have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you" describes two routes to the same life:
The apostles received this life directly. God's people receive it through the testimony given about this life.
They passed on only what their eyes and ears took in. That limit still marks healthy teaching:
John did not report his impressions of Christ. He did not try to describe how it felt to touch Him… The truths about Christ Himself are the basis and the substance of Christian fellowship, and they bring us full joy. Beware of Christian teaching that focuses mainly on our own feelings.
Notice the order: the fact came first, the witnesses second.
Notice that the Holy Spirit begins with the infinite truth as it really is, a fact truly present here on earth, before a single chosen witness had heard or seen it… Here is the foundation; not Adam, but Christ. It is the Word made flesh, the Person of Christ.
- With the Father. The life had no beginning. It belonged to eternity before it belonged to history, and the Son taking flesh added nothing to it.
- Manifested. God answered the question "what is life?" not with a definition but with a Person seen, heard and handled on earth.
- Personal. The eternal life is Christ Himself — inseparable from Him, yet given to us, because this life is in His Son.
- Witnessed. The apostles received it directly. Everyone since receives it through their testimony, which reports only what they saw and heard.
- Foundational. The fact stood before any witness existed. So the Person of Christ — not our impressions of Him — is the ground that nothing can shift.
that which we have seen and heard we report to you, that *ye* also may have fellowship with us; and our fellowship [is] indeed with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.
John had seen and heard the One he preaches, and he passes that on so that his readers may share what he shares. Then comes the startling part: that fellowship reaches the Father and His Son Jesus Christ.
The word means more than friendliness or kindness. One writer draws a sharp line between sympathy and fellowship:
There is great confusion about what fellowship is. People confuse love with fellowship. Sympathy is not fellowship; that is my coming down to your level, suiting myself to you. Fellowship is more the bringing of you up to my level. Christ comes down to my level to sympathise with me. But He does it to lift me above my circumstances, and to bring me into fellowship with Himself. Fellowship is heart knit to heart. It is a shared mind, a shared object, aim, desire, interest, and affection. Now just think that God has brought us into fellowship with Himself. The way He speaks of fellowship in this chapter is overwhelming. It is not just fellowship with the apostles through their writings, but fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.
The apostles reported what they had seen and heard, so that others could stand where they stood. One commentator points out that the last of these eyewitnesses was about to die. He asks what could steady us more:
Soon the last apostle would be gone. But suppose he had lived until now. What could he write that is more comforting and reassuring than this? The fellowship the apostles had at Pentecost still stands. Fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ still stands too, for us to enjoy by faith today, because of eternal life in the Son — theirs and ours alike. So the declared purpose of this message from God is that we might have the same fellowship the apostles had with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. His gracious aim in it is to fill our hearts with joy.
John does not speak of fellowship with God in general. He names the Father, and then the Son:
Why does he say that our fellowship is with the Father? The Father delights in His Son, the Lord Jesus; He finds all His joy in Him. So when we learn to find our joy in the Lord Jesus, when we learn to appreciate Him, we have fellowship with the Father. John had learnt to share a common object with God the Father, but he does not limit it to that. John says, "and with His Son Jesus Christ." The Lord Jesus delighted in the Father. He loved to show the Father and make Him known.
These men gained no place among the religious leaders of their day. Their new standing was not a step up in that world. It was right outside it:
They did not become the companions of the scribes. They did not enter the fellowship of the proud Pharisees. They gained no place beside the chief priest, and the royal court never looked on them with favour. No — they were carried beyond all these. They were carried beyond the highest and most exclusive circles on earth, and beyond angels too, into a wholly divine circle.
People often quote this verse to settle who may join a congregation. One writer warns against reading it that way, though he grants that the two are linked:
Some people tell us that fellowship with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ is the only fellowship Scripture ever speaks of. So they take it to mean Church fellowship. This is a serious mistake. It is true that no one really shares in Church fellowship without sharing in the fellowship of the Father and the Son… but they are different things. You can see this, because some share in the fellowship of the Father and the Son who do not share in Church fellowship.
This fellowship also guards us. One writer says that entering it keeps sin out:
If we enter into the holy fellowship that 1 John 1:3 speaks of, we shall be preserved. Enjoying that fellowship shuts sin out. And sin shuts us out of that enjoyment, until we confess it.
- Seen — the apostles told what they had seen and heard, so that others could share it too.
- Shared — fellowship is not sympathy. It is shared thought, aim, desire and affection. Christ comes down to lift us to His level.
- Named — the Father's joy is His Son, the Son's joy is the Father; to share their delight is to have fellowship with both.
- Beyond — this circle lies past every exclusive group on earth, and past angels, in God's own company.
- Kept — the fellowship itself abides. Enjoying it shuts sin out, and confession restores what sin interrupts.
And these things write we to you that your joy may be full.
John has just described what the apostles saw, heard and handled, and the fellowship it opens to others. Verse 4 gives his reason for writing it down: joy, brought to the full.
This verse states the aim of the whole letter. One writer traces the line from the apostles' report, through fellowship, to its end.
The apostle writes in verse 4 that he writes these things so that their joy may be full. This is the aim of this book. He had already said that they might have their fellowship with them. Now he was going to write about the Father and the Son. He was going to write about the things they needed if they wanted fellowship with the apostles — and the apostles had fellowship with the Lord Jesus and with the Father. The end goal of fellowship is joy.
The phrase points backwards, to the opening verses. That fixes where the joy comes from — and rules out another source people often look to.
"These things," as set out in the opening verses of the letter, are divine life shown in the person of Christ, and divine life given through Him to all who believe. So the believer's own struggle and experience, however real and true and valuable, is set aside as a source of joy.
This joy rests on more than peace with God. It rests on something the Son alone had, and then gave to us.
He introduced the coming down of divine love in the person of the Lord Jesus. He is the eternal life that was with the Father before the world was. He came to spend Himself on us, to give us what He alone had, what belonged to Him alone. No man and no angel had it. Neither Adam, newly created, nor the archangel had that eternal life — only the Son of God... Communion with the Father and with the Son was the consequence. It is not just a question of peace with God, nor of anything that only leads to that. It is the great and blessed truth of a communion that flows out of having Christ the Son of God, and eternal life in Him.
Kelly puts this fullness in the present, not only in heaven.
...so that the chosen witnesses, and all who believe their report and like them have eternal life in Him, might share the same blessed fellowship. That is fellowship with the Father and with His Son, in the fullest joy now and for ever. No higher joy than this fellowship will be in heaven, and it is our unbelief if it is not ours now on earth.
So why is this joy not constant? One writer names the reason and the cure.
Why then is fullness of joy not the constant, unbroken experience of every child of God? Because we make room for other things that do not fit this fellowship. In practice they hide the unspeakable blessedness of what is for ever and unchangeably our true heritage. Our eyes and hearts become taken up with mere material things, or even evil things, and there is no spiritual joy in these. A full revelation of God in Christ is the source of full joy. Let our souls find their pure delight in this, and we shall have full joy.
Sin does not end the fellowship, but it blocks the enjoyment of it.
One significant consequence of our sins is that a barrier comes in to hinder the practical enjoyment of this fellowship. When we confess our sins, God faithfully and righteously removes this consequence, this barrier, opening the way for our joy to be restored.
Translations divide here. The ESV reads "our joy may be complete," while older versions read "your joy may be full." One writer settles it from the way John writes elsewhere.
Some Bibles instead of 'your joy' have 'our joy'. How do we know which is correct?... It becomes evident from referring to a concordance. Each of the ten times John mentions his writing, it is always tied to a result in the lives of his readers... Whenever he says 'I write' or, 'I have written', it is always linked with 'you' or 'your'. So his aim here is the joy his writing would produce in us.
- Cause — the report. "These things" are divine life shown in Christ and given to believers. That report, not our own experience, fills the heart.
- Gift — the fellowship. Christ gives what He alone had — eternal life — and communion with the Father and the Son follows from having Him.
- Reach — now, not later. Heaven holds no higher joy than this fellowship. Unbelief is what leaves it untasted on earth.
- Result — full joy. Joy is the announced end goal of the whole letter, the intended outcome of fellowship.
- Guard — confession. Full joy fails when the heart is busy elsewhere. Confession clears the barrier and the joy returns.
And this is the message which we have heard from him, and declare to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
John opens his letter with something he did not see but heard. It is a message from Christ Himself about God's own nature. What does it mean that God is light, and why does John put this message first?
The opening verses describe what the apostles saw in Christ. Verse 5 turns to something they heard and passed on. One writer weighs the wording, and asks who "him" is:
Along with the manifestation of perfect grace comes the inseparable message of holiness. This is due to God, and necessary for the saints. They had heard it from Christ Himself. The message is not "about Him" but "from Him" — not a manifestation of love, but a message against sin. It is also the first place where the apostle mixes God with Christ, because He is God. The message comes from "Him": this might mean God, but he had just been speaking of Christ. Such a transition perplexes the commentators; but it is a beauty, not a blemish.
The same writer marks what this message is not:
It is not the law but a message. Grace does not put us under law. But it does tell us God's own judgment on everything contrary to His nature.
John does not define the word. Another writer reads it from the nature of light itself:
Light is transparent, perfectly transparent. It is the symbol of intrinsic purity, of God's moral character. To say "God is light" is to say He is holy; not only relatively, but absolutely so. Light does not change, and God cannot be corrupted or tarnished. No moral poison can enter His moral nature. No evil, no sin can ever originate or be in Him... "God is light" tells us that His moral discernment is absolutely perfect. It is a moral impossibility for God to look on sin with pleasure.
The second half of the verse rules out any shade in Him. Light and love must be held together:
We all know how common it is for people to talk about God as love. Some push it to an extreme: not just that God is love, but that love is God. Much less do we hear the message that He is light... But if it is a truth that God is love, He is a great deal more than love. "Light" is a burning word. It expresses the intrinsic and absolute purity of His nature. "Love" expresses that same nature in sovereign action towards others, and in Himself as well. He never sacrifices His light to His love. If anyone thought of Him that way, it would bring the greatest loss on His children.
Another writer ties the two statements to the cross: light is His character, "which made the death of His Son a necessity," while love is His nature, "which led Him to give His Son."
Light does not only shine. It shows what is really there:
Light makes things visible. In the dark nothing is seen as it is. In a dark room there is no difference between a chair and a table. The difference exists, but it is not seen. So it is in the spiritual darkness of our nature. Good and evil, the things of God and the things of the world, are all blended and confused. The evil is there, but apart from God's grace it is not judged. Bring the light of God's truth into the soul, and everything is spiritually discerned, for God is light.
Under the law God hid Himself. One writer sets the two eras side by side:
God had said to Israel that He would dwell in thick darkness. At Sinai He told them to keep away: if even an animal touched the mountain, they were to stone it. There was much good there, but He stayed hidden behind His covering of darkness. God acted towards Israel, but did not show Himself. Now the veil is torn from top to bottom, and all is light. The truth we are in has this very nature: God now stands openly revealed. Whoever comes in through the torn veil stands in the light of God's holiness. That light is perfect purity in itself, and it shows up everything that is not.
Placed where it is, the verse becomes a measuring line for what people say about themselves:
The apostles received the manifestation of life through what they saw in Christ. They received the message of light through what they heard from Him. It stands here as the standard by which the claims of men may be measured... It tests the claims of all who say they have this fellowship.
- Heard — The apostles saw the life. This truth they heard from Christ, and they pass it on as a message, not a law.
- Light — Light is pure through and through. Nothing can stain God, nothing can fool Him, and He takes no pleasure in sin.
- Unmixed — "No darkness at all" means no shading and no trade-off; He never gives up His light for the sake of His love.
- Exposing — Light makes manifest. What sin really is stays blurred until God's light enters the room of the soul.
- Open — The God who once dwelt in thick darkness now stands revealed. The torn veil sets us in that light, not shut out from it.
If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not practise the truth.
John has just announced that God is light. Now he turns that announcement into a test. Verse 6 is the first of three claims he weighs. It asks one question: do a person's words about God match the way they live?
This verse begins a run of claims that John tests one by one.
There are in verses 6-10 three "if we says," all of them important in the extreme. The first is this verse. Can we name a clearer or more open break from the very nature of Christianity? It is saying, but not doing. This was bad enough in Israel. But how sad it is now, when the light and the love have shone out so fully to us, whom God has given life by the word of truth!
Who is the "we" in this verse? The answer is wider than it first looks.
How many people, as I have heard many myself, assume as a matter of fact that "we" must always mean the family of God! It often is, and generally so. But it is not always true… God also deals with people according to what they profess. John speaks here of departures from the truth that had already begun in his day and that spread through the professing Christian world in ours… Someone who is not a Christian might pass himself off as one for a long time. He need not be a deceiver; he might deceive himself and think he was a Christian.
The claim fails because of who God is.
If you say you have that kind of fellowship, and walk in darkness, it is all false. Darkness cannot have fellowship with light… God does not change the holiness of His nature. So claiming to have fellowship with that nature, while we walk in darkness, is all false.
One distinction here keeps struggling believers from misreading the verse.
The question here is where we walk, not how. God brings us to Himself, and He is light. From then on we walk there, poor as the walk may be… But if we pretend to walk in the light while we are still in the dark, our life is nothing but a lie.
So a Christian's failure — even serious failure — is not what this verse describes.
He may slip through carelessness. He may give in to self-will, or let the desires of the flesh or of the mind carry him away. All of that is sinful and out of keeping with the light. But serious as this is, God's love in Christ forgave him when he was an enemy and saved him when he was lost. That same love provides restoring grace… and never calls such sad failure "walking in darkness." … Those who walk in darkness have neither life nor light; they need God to awaken them and give them life. The Christian who falls needs only to repent and have the interrupted fellowship restored.
John says more than that such a person speaks falsely. He points to something the person fails to do.
Verse 6 supposes the case of someone who only claims it: "If we say," and so on. It states the broad principle, whoever the speaker may be. The need of it is only too clear where unreality in the things of God prevails — saying and not doing; singing hymns that express fresh, bright, heartfelt enjoyment of the love of God and of Christ, while there is not a trace of it in the life. The word that meets this is very sharp. To walk in darkness is to walk as if God had never revealed Himself in Christ… "Doing the truth" is a weighty word (see John 3:21).
Where a person walks answers what they claim about themselves.
Take anyone who professes this link of fellowship with God — and many are in that state — but walks in darkness at the same time. The very sphere of their walk gives the lie to what they claim. They only claim godliness; they are not believers at all. They have no fellowship, nothing in common with the God they profess to know. They have no real knowledge of God's holy nature. They do not walk in honest communion with the blessed light of God. They have no heart appreciation of the blessed Person of Christ, who Himself is "the light."
- Light first. God's nature sets the standard. Darkness cannot share anything with light, because God never softens His holiness to fit a person's claim.
- Say, then walk. The issue is not doctrine held but life lived — saying and not doing. The place where a person walks either backs their words or exposes them.
- "We" is wide. The words cover anyone who claims the name. God deals with people by what they profess, and a person can fool others — or even himself — for years.
- Where, not how. This verse measures where a person walks, not how well. When a believer slips, grace restores him, and God's love never calls that walking in darkness.
- Do the truth. Truth is something you practise, not only claim. A claim with no trace of it in the life is a lie the whole life keeps telling.
But if we walk in the light as *he* is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin.
John tests every claim to share life with God by asking where a person walks. This verse ties that walk to fellowship with other believers and to cleansing blood — but does walking "in the light" mean how well we live, or where God has put us?
Commentators repeatedly draw a line between walking in the light and walking according to the light. The distinction is about location rather than performance.
"If we walk in the light," etc. (1 John 1), refers to our standing, not to our practical ways. It is not how but where you walk; that is, not in the world nor in Jewish shadows, but "in the light."
That does not make the phrase abstract. Being in the light means living with nothing hidden, and dealing at once with whatever the light exposes.
But what is this walk in the light? It does not mean to live a perfect and sinless life. Walking in the light is not the question of how we walk but where we walk, and the place where the believer walks is the light. It means to walk daily in His presence. Our will and conscience are in the light and presence of God, judging everything that does not answer to that light. We bring whatever is not right at once into His presence. There the light exposes it, and we confess it, judge it and put it away.
The light here is God Himself fully made known, and it is where God has placed us.
And note, this is not only about the first moment of conversion, when that light reached us as poor wretched sinners. It is just as much about what comes afterwards, in all our course as Christians here in this world. We are brought into the light — that is, into this full revealing of God. That is our Christian place before God. It is not a question of walking according to the light; of course we ought. But we are brought into the light. God sets us in a distinct position before Him, and these words express it: "in the light." We are before the eyes of God, and our walk should be before the eyes of God, lit by the full revelation of what He is.
The middle clause is not organised togetherness. It follows from a shared life that surfaces even between strangers.
Verse 7 gives three parts of our Christian condition, looked at as men walking down here. First, we walk in the light as God is in the light, everything judged according to Him with whom we have fellowship. Next comes what the world knows nothing of: "we have fellowship with one another." That is, I have the same divine nature as every Christian, and the same Holy Spirit lives in me. So there must be fellowship. I meet a perfect stranger travelling, and there may be more communion with him than with someone I have known all my life, just because the divine life is there.
Being fully exposed to God might seem the last place to feel secure. Writers here turn that round: the light is exactly where the blood's value is measured.
This light of God into which I am brought shows me, not my sins, but the value of that blood which cleanses from every kind of sin. This is not a constant action going on in the believer, as many would make it out, but what the blood of Jesus does — it "cleanses," and this not partially, but "from every sin."
At the cross we learned what the blood covered in our past. In the light we learn more.
When you come to the cross as a guilty sinner, you learn the value of the blood of Christ, as applied to all that you have done; here in the light you learn the value of the blood as blotting out all that you are capable of doing. It is the same blood, but seen in a deeper, fuller way.
The light does not leave us pretending, and it does not leave us weighed down.
Walking in the light shows us what we are, and we cannot say that we have no sin. But we have no sense of sin resting on us before a holy God. We know that sin is in us, yet we have the assurance of being cleansed from it by His precious blood.
Some read the present tense as cleansing that has to be repeated. One writer answers with everyday examples.
The word is "cleanses" — the present tense. From this some have deduced that the blood is to be continually applied. But the present tense is also used to describe the nature or character of anything; just as we say, "Cork floats." "Fire burns." "Soap washes." Such are their respective natures. So it is the nature of the blood of Christ to cleanse from all sin. That blessed property is inherent in it.
The practical result is that the believer's guilt is a closed question.
Scripture knows nothing of a re-application of the blood of Christ to the believer. Once cleansed, he is cleansed for ever… the blood, once shed and presented before God, is ever there in all its value for our souls, so that the question of guilt can never more be raised against us.
- Place — the verse says where the believer walks, not how well he performs.
- Presence — that place is God fully made known. Our will and conscience stand in the open before Him, and what the light shows up we confess and put away.
- People — one life and one Spirit make fellowship with every believer who walks there, sometimes with a stranger more than with an old friend.
- Proof — in the light what stands out is not our sins but the worth of the blood, cleansing "from every sin," not partially.
- Permanence — "cleanses" states the blood's nature, as fire burns. Cleansed once is cleansed for ever, and guilt is never raised again.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
Near the start of his letter, John lists claims that people who call themselves Christians might make. He tests each one against the light. This claim is not about a past act but about what we are now. So what does it deny, who does it fool, and why does it prove itself false?
In this verse "sin" is singular. Commentators press that point: the claim denies not a record of wrongdoing, but the source it flows from.
This false claim would deny that we have a sinful nature, "We have no sin." It refers to sin in our nature. The next (v.10) refers to sins committed in practice. One of the very first principles of scripture is that of "trees bearing fruit … each according to its kind." (Gen. 1:12). Apples grow on an apple tree, plums on a plum tree and sins on a sin tree! If believers do not have a sinful nature then it is not possible for them to commit sins. What pathetic self-deception!
That distinction matters, because God does not treat the two the same way.
The evil principle we are born with is often simply called sin. The evil actions, words and thoughts that come from having this corrupt nature are called sins… This distinction matters all the more when we find in Scripture that God does forgive our sinful deeds — that is, our sins — through the shedding of the blood of Christ. Yet He never forgives sin in the flesh. He "condemns" or judges it.
Light shows what is really there. So it leaves us no room to hide what we are by nature.
The light requires us to confess what we are by nature. To say we have no sin is not only ignoring a truth; it is also deceiving ourselves. In that case the truth is not in us. If Christ, who is the truth, lives in us, we must know that we carry a sinful nature about with us.
Notice how far the claim actually goes.
This is the height of self-deception. We assume not only that we have not sinned, but that we are without sin — without even a leaning towards anything that displeases God. We imagine we have reached the stage of Christian life where sin is completely absent. This kind of false holiness is a foolish and evil delusion.
And notice who is actually fooled:
Note that we do not deceive God, or other people, but only ourselves.
The closing phrase is unusual. One writer reads it as more than simple ignorance.
But "the truth is not in us" seems to be a little different from the truth not being known by us at all. No doubt every Christian is expected to know the truth by God's teaching. Here, at any rate, the odd wording stands out. It traces the self-deception to the truth not being ours inside. The truth should be "in us," not just believed and admitted by us.
Kelly also weighs who actually talks this way.
This statement is so strong that it makes you doubt whether people so deluded could really be Christians… Yet quite a few hold these theories, and it would be wrong to think they were not Christians. They probably mean that they never give in to sin. Even that is a bold thing for them to say.
Admitting that sin is in us is not the same as saying it rules us. The verse before it supplies the answer.
No intelligent Christian says he has no sin. The flesh, in which there is no good thing, is always there. But as to salvation, if the Spirit of God dwells in us, we are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, even though the flesh is in us. And the words just before this verse are "the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin" — God's answer to the flesh being there.
The denial does not last, because life keeps disproving it.
The old nature stays unchanged and unchangeable, side by side, so to speak, with the new nature… And the folly of those who have deceived themselves in this way will show itself sooner or later. It has often come out in an outburst of temper, a display of pride, or a bad fall.
- Root — the claim John rejects denies our sinful nature, not just sinful deeds; sins grow on a sin tree, so denying the tree means claiming you cannot sin at all.
- Light — walking in God's light does not remove what is inside us; it requires us to confess what we are by nature.
- Deception — the claim fools no one but the claimant, and time exposes it through a fall, an outburst, or pride.
- Truth — the failure is not that they do not know the truth, but that it is not theirs inside; truth should be in us, not just believed and admitted.
- Cleansing — the honest admission rests on the sentence just before it: the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. That is God's answer to the flesh still being there.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us [our] sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
God is light, and the letter has just said that anyone who claims to have no sin is fooling himself — so how can people who still sin stay in real fellowship with Him? The promise turns on two things: what confession means, and why this verse calls forgiveness just instead of kind.
The verse does not say "if we ask to be forgiven." It names a different act, and commentators press the difference hard.
It is a much easier thing for a child to ask for pardon for some fault than to confess it. We may ask pardon for some particular sin, and Scripture gives us no ground to know it is gone. But when we confess it, faith knows it is gone. The moment I have judged myself about it, I am entitled to know that it is gone.
Asking for pardon leaves room for excuses. Real confession, one writer argues, strips those away and leaves only two facts in the room.
Coming to God merely to seek forgiveness may or may not be accompanied with full confession. If someone only wants forgiveness, he will plead his circumstances and his weakness as excuses. He wants God to have some ground for forgiving other than what is in God Himself. But in true confession there is no talk of the pressure of circumstances or of one's own weakness... It is a question solely of "Your grace" and my self-will. His grace would have kept me; I refused it.
The verse could have said God is merciful. It says He is faithful and just, and that raises the question: faithful to whom?
Faithful and just towards whom? Towards Christ! Christ bore our sins in His own body on the cross (1 Peter 2:24). When you confess your sins to God, believing that Christ bore them on the cross, God would be unfaithful and unjust towards Christ if He didn't forgive you. It would be the same as if God said, "I am not satisfied with what Christ did when He died for your sins, so I must still hold them against you." Christ paid the debt in full. Can you imagine God being so unjust to Christ as to still hold you accountable?
If a believer's sins are already forgiven, why does this verse still offer forgiveness? One writer answers that Scripture uses the word in two senses, and this verse covers both.
Scripture speaks of forgiveness in a second sense too. A child of God sins, and his communion with God is broken. When he confesses that sin, he is forgiven — not in the sense that the sin was never charged to him, as in Romans 4:7-8, but in the sense that his communion and joy are restored. This verse (1 John 1:9) is a general statement. It fits the sinner who comes to God for the first time and confesses his sins: he is forgiven once for all, on the ground of Christ's death. It also fits the child of God who has sinned and confesses: he receives the Father's forgiveness as a child.
Forgiveness deals with guilt; the second half of the promise deals with defilement. Commentators are careful to say what this cleansing is not.
Unrighteousness in a Christian calls for confession. We need not only the sense of God's pardon, but also the removal of the stain that sin leaves on the spirit. This cleansing does not come by applying the blood to the believer again. It comes through the word of God working on the defiled spirit.
There is a practical result too. Confession does something to us as well as for us.
Confession of sin means the judgment in our own hearts and minds of what we confess. And that means cleansing from its influence and deliverance from its power.
Confession does not begin with us. The next verses of the letter introduce an Advocate with the Father. A second Advocate works inside the believer.
If anyone sins, the blessed Advocate above pleads with the Father for him. He presents the full worth of His atoning work. He prays for the one who has failed, because He Himself bore the judgment of that very sin. Then the other Advocate, the Spirit, works in the conscience. He produces repentance and confession. He brings the soul back into the light, with the sweet sense that the sin is forgiven, the unrighteousness cleansed, and the communion fully restored. "He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake." (Psalm 23:3)
- Light exposes. God's light shows the sin, and the Spirit works in the conscience so the sin is judged and owned rather than covered.
- Confession, not excuses. Excuses ask God to forgive on some other ground. True confession drops the defence and owns self-will against His grace.
- Justice, not pity. God is faithful and just because Christ bore those sins. To refuse a confessing soul would wrong Christ Himself.
- Two forgivenesses, one verse. The sinner coming for the first time is forgiven once for all. The child who has sinned receives the Father's forgiveness, and broken communion is restored.
- Cleansing, then restoration. God forgives the guilt and removes the stain. The Word does that cleansing, not a fresh application of the blood, and the soul comes back into the light.
If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
John closes this chapter about walking in the light with a third false claim: someone denies ever having sinned. The charge is not that such a person is mistaken, but that he contradicts God Himself.
Three times in this chapter someone "says" something that the light exposes. Each answer is heavier than the last. One writer lays the sequence out side by side:
There are three points in 1 John 1... "If we say we have fellowship with Him"; "If we say we have no sin"; "If we say we have not sinned." In the first case, "we lie and do not practice the truth." In the second, "We deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." In the third, "We make God a liar, and His word is not in us." In the first, what we claim contradicts how we live... In the second, we judge ourselves falsely and are self-deceived... "If we say we have not sinned," then "we make God a liar," for He has said we have. And His word, in which He has declared it, is not in us, though we may pretend to accept it outwardly.
Misleading yourself is bad. Calling God a liar is far worse:
To "mislead ourselves" was bad in the presence of the light that ought to show us as we are. Yet it was a small thing compared with making God a liar. There you dare to blaspheme. There you attack God recklessly at the most sensitive point of His honour. For what matters more to God than His truthfulness or His holiness?
Verse 8 and verse 10 are often blurred together, but the wording differs deliberately — one is about a present nature, the other about a past record.
To "say that we have no sin" (verse 8) is ignorance of myself. "If we say that we have not sinned" (verse 10) is a plain denial of God's testimony. But "have not sinned" looks back at the past; it does not speak of our sinning now. "We have no sin" is present, because it is a nature in me which the truth makes me know.
The same distinction shows why the second denial reaches further than the first — it touches what God has publicly said about the whole human race:
We can see therefore a necessary difference between this assertion that "we have not sinned" and that "we have no sin." The one speaks of acts committed; the other may go deeper, to search out the sin which is in our nature.
Verse 8 offers no test — self-deception exposes itself. Verse 10 does offer one, and it is a written statement you either accept or contradict.
There is a test for this claim: the Word of God. To make such an absurd statement is to set ourselves against the Word of God and to make Him a liar. He states clearly that we have sinned, and that ends the matter. We cannot contradict His Word and still have His Word living in us.
God does not treat this claim as an honest mistake:
He does not say that they are mistaken, or ignorant, or deceived. He says that they call Him a liar. No one takes it lightly to be called a liar, even though all men are liars. How much more, then, does God — the God Who is light by nature — feel the insolent refusal of His creature to accept His word.
Commentators differ on the target. Some read it as a description of an unconverted person, however religious:
This again is the proud arrogance of unbelief, denying that its actions have been sinful. This superior, self-deceiving attitude belongs only to someone with no life at all... Honestly facing sin is one of the clearest effects of being in the light.
Others apply it to believers who claim a sinless life, and trace the claim to neglect of Scripture:
Some have applied this verse to the unsaved. It has nothing to do with the sinner. It relates to a true believer who presumes to claim that he lives without sinning. And the reason why children of God make such unscriptural claims is that they pay no attention to His Word.
Where His word is missing, the denial follows. Where His word is present, confession follows — and that is where every believer began.
Where His word is in us, we admit gladly and humbly that we have sinned... And what do we say, we who belong to Christ on high? What did we say as we came out of darkness into light? Did we not begin with that? Yes, we began with what we never forget. All truly converted souls say, "We have sinned."
- Three claims. "We have fellowship" while walking in darkness is a lie. "We have no sin" is self-deception. "We have not sinned" makes God a liar. The same light exposes all three, and each answer is graver than the last.
- Two words. "No sin" denies a present nature. "Not sinned" denies the past. The second denies God's own testimony that we have sinned.
- One test. His word is the test. To contradict that word is to prove it is not in us.
- The charge. God does not call such a person mistaken or ignorant. He treats the claim as calling Him a liar, at the very point of His honour.
- The reversal. Where His word is in us, we say what He says. Every believer's first words were "we have sinned" — the confession that verse 10 refuses.