What does it mean to walk in darkness (1 John 1:6)?

To walk in the light is another thing from walking according to the light. It is to walk in full day, in the clearness of the full revelation of what God is. To walk in darkness is to walk without the knowledge of God.

Chapter 1:5-7 The message they had heard of Him and which they declared to others is, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. Light, perfect, pure light is God's nature; He is absolutely holy, with no darkness in Him at all. That God is light was manifested in the life of the Lord Jesus, for He was and is holy. Fellowship with the Father and the Son means, therefore, to have fellowship with light, and that excludes a walk in darkness. "if we say that we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness we lie and do not the truth." If one professes to have fellowship with God and walks in darkness, he lies, for darkness can have no fellowship with light. "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."

But what is this walk in the light? It is not the same thing as walking according to the light. It does not mean to live a perfect and sinless life. Walking in the light is not the question of how we wait but where we walk, and the place where the believer walks is the light. It means to walk daily in His presence, with our will and conscience in the light and presence of God, judging everything that does not answer to that light. Whatever is not right is brought at once in His presence, exposed to the light, confessed, judged and put away. Such is the walk in the light which fellowship with God demands. The result of such a walk in the light is mutual fellowship among believers, because each has the same nature of God and the same Spirit, the same Christ as the object before the heart and the same Father. It cannot be otherwise. Then there is another thing stated, "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." Walking in the light shows us what we are and we cannot say that we have no sin. But we have no consciousness of sin resting upon us before a holy God, though we know that sin is in us, but we have the assurance of being cleansed from it by His precious blood. Such is the blessed position of a true Christian. Fellowship with the Father and with His Son, walking in the light as He is in the light, fellowship one with another and the cleansing power of the blood.

Some believers read this as if it says, 'if we walk according to the light' but this is not the real meaning of walking in the light. To walk in the light as He is in the light is to live in a position where God's revealed nature illuminates and exposes all that we do - whether good or evil. Those who walk in darkness have no real relationship with the living and true God. His nature has no bearing on the character of their lives. Their sins are not exposed to their consciences as are ours who know God and who walk in the light. From Paul's teaching we may say that although the flesh is in us we are not in the flesh. From John's we may say that although we do not walk in darkness there is darkness in us. The light in which we now walk exposes that darkness, inducing us to confess our sins.

The first thing we have here, in virtue of the life God has given to us, is the fulness of the privileges of the saints in Christ. They have fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. But in the next place he brings a second point out, and it is this: If you say you have that kind of fellowship, and walk in darkness, it is all false, because darkness cannot have fellowship with light. If you have perfect grace bringing in divine life - the life that was manifested in the Person of Christ, and then communicated to us, he next says, It is light. God does not change the holiness of His nature; and therefore the pretence to have fellowship with it, if we are walking in darkness, is all false.

A. 1. — It is strange that any one should fail to see that the Epistle is strikingly practical. For even in this opening chapter, the apostle shows that it is not what one may "say," but what is the walk of the one so saying? "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." If we are brought to God we are brought to Him who is "light." At one time we were darkness, but now are we light in the Lord, and hence our walk is to be as of" children of light." As a christian I am brought into that fellowship which is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. What communion hath light with darkness? If I say that I have fellowship with Him and am walking in the darkness out of which every christian is brought (1 Peter 2:9. 10), my speech and my walk are in contradiction, and I do not the truth. I am not a christian at all. On the other hand if my walk is in the light, I have fellowship with every other whose walk is therein, because of the precious blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, which avails alike for every believer. This light of God into which I am brought, makes manifest, not my sins, but the value of that blood which cleanseth from every kind of sin. As the same writer says, "To Him that loveth us, washed us from our sins in His own blood … be glory, etc." It is not a constant action going on in the believer, as many evangelicals would make it out, but what the blood of Jesus does — it "cleanses," and this not partially, but "from every sin." And this is done once for all when I have believed the "word of truth, the gospel of your salvation." For the sins of the believer we have the advocacy of Christ on high with Him Who ever remains our "Father" (for our relationship as children beloved of God can never be broken, though not so our communion), and here on earth "the washing of water by the word" in the power of the Spirit to our consciences.

If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.” Whoever, or however many may profess this link of fellowship with God (and there are many in such a state), but at the same time walk in darkness, then the very sphere of their walk gives the lie to their profession: they are mere false professors of godliness, 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, no walk in honest communion with the blessed light of God, no heart appreciation of the blessed Person of Christ, Who Himself is “the light,” the very manifestation of God in light.

The point here is not whether we always walk according to the light that we have received. We are all found offenders as to this at some time or other, as we know to our sorrow. To "walk in darkness" is to walk in ignorance of the light that has shone in Christ. A reference to Isaiah 50:10-11, at this point may be helpful. The one who "walks in darkness and has no light" is to "trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God." However, even in Isaiah's day there were those who preferred to "kindle a fire" and walk in the light of the fire and the sparks that they kindled. It was just like this in John's day, and still is so in our own. There are all too many false teachers who prefer the sparks of their own kindling to the light of God's revelation. Consequently they and their followers are in darkness in spite of all their pretensions, and they have no fellowship with Him.

It was for the apostle Paul to treat of this two-sided justification, unknown to theologians of every school; but our apostle, more thoroughly than any, speaks of life eternal, our new and divine nature, and contrasts its reality in true Christians with its falsity in those whose walk denies that life and the truth. To talk of fellowship with God, while walking In the unremoved darkness of fallen nature, is a living lie or rather the lie of death. The Christian from his start leaves darkness and walks in the light. There is no presumption in this, but faith. "I am the light of the world" [Israel never did or could say so]: he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life" (John 8:12). He may slip by negligence, he may yield to self-will, or be carried away by lusts of the flesh or of the mind: all sinful and inconsistent with the light. But serious as this is, divine love in Christ that forgave him when an enemy, and saved him when lost, provides restoring grace, as we shall see in the next chapter, and never calls any such sad inconsistency "walking in darkness." The relationship abides with our erring children: how much more with God's? Those who walk in darkness, according to our apostle, lie and do not the truth. They have neither life nor light and need to be awakened and quickened. The fallen Christian needs only to repent and have the fellowship restored which was interrupted. Instead of forfeiting the light, it is in the light that he thoroughly humbles himself for his offence.

This truth is laid down as the foundation of what follows; and hence the Apostle proceeds to supply a test of its reality, whereby he shows that it is not enough to say that we have it, for if we are in its possession our whole sphere and position are changed — we are brought, that is to say, into the light. He thus declares the message that he had heard of Him, that "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." This being the case, if our fellowship be with the Father and the Son, we must also be in the light, and could not be in the darkness. If therefore, 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, we have fellowship with one another (and our fellowship is with the Father and the Son — be it remembered), and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.

Those who walk in the darkness, are those, then, who, whatever their pretensions, have never received the message of the Apostle, and those who walk in the light are, on the other hand, those who have received it, and with it, eternal life, and have thereby been brought into the holy circle of fellowship with the Father and the Son, into the light as God is in the light. They are two contrasted classes — not two different classes of Christians, but the two contrasted classes really of believers and unbelievers. Darkness is the moral sphere in which the latter walk, as light is that of the former. This will explain the word "walk," because it is the circle or sphere in which the respective classes live and move and have their being, light and darkness designating the moral character of each. (Compare Eph. 5:8; 1 Peter 2:9.)

It is continually asked whether "walking in the light" is expressive of our standing, or of our practical condition. Because of the word "walk," it is supposed by many that it must refer to the believer's daily walk. Two or three considerations, drawn from the passage and its context, will elicit its true significance. It is evident then, in the first place, that "walking in darkness" in verse 6 is an absolute contrast with walking in the light in verse 7; and that both expressions flow from the declaration in verse 5, "that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all." Bearing this in mind, it will be at once seen that "walking in the light" covers all who are introduced into the sphere of the revelation of what God is in Christ; that it includes therefore, in other words, all Christians; and hence that "walking in darkness" comprises all who are outside this sphere — all who are unconverted, all who do not possess eternal life. It must ever be remembered that for John there are only two spheres — light and darkness; just as we read in the gospel, — "And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." It should be remarked, moreover, that it is "walking in the light" "as He (God) is in the light;" not according to the light, which would indicate our practical walk, but "in the light as He is in the light," which cannot mean other than the circle or sphere in which God in His nature, His holiness, is absolutely revealed. All therefore are either in the light or in the darkness. Why, then, it may be enquired, is the word "walk" employed? Because it is never supposed in Scripture that the practical condition of the believer will be otherwise than in accordance with his standing. The greatest possible damage is done to souls in insisting upon standing irrespective of state; and, therefore, if John speaks of our walking in the light as God is the light, he assumes that we shall live, and move, and have our being in this circle. The following words will explain this still further: "It is not 'if we walk according to the light' that is the practical consequence in this world, even when we are not directly enjoying communion, but we walk in the light when we walk with God fully revealed to soul and conscience. It is a real thing in life, we walk, but [it is] more than walking according to light. It is a walking in the presence of a fully-revealed God, the conscience, and spiritual judgment, and apprehension being in the light as He is — what God is, perfectly seen, and everything by it, and all clear as it is in light and for the soul. If we walk thus with God inwardly, all is judged inwardly, and our life is only the expression of the working of God in power in the life which we have of Him, of Christ in us (wisdom and power)."* It is also in this sphere, and only there, that Christian fellowship is enjoyed. This is readily understood, because outside of it is darkness — where God is not. Lastly, we are reminded of the foundation of this blessedness, the abiding efficacy of the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, which cleanseth from all sin, from the defilement of every sin, and which has thus made it possible for us to be in the light, as God is in the light, in peace, confidence, and liberty. It is, therefore, no question here of the application of the blood, but simply one of its perfect and abiding efficacy. To speak of the continuous application of the blood, as is often done, is to miss the teaching of this scripture, and to contradict some of the plainest statements of the Word, as, for example, in Hebrews 10:1-18. But after unfolding to us the wondrous place in the light into which we are brought before God, and the truth that it is only in that circle we can have fellowship one with another, it is very blessed to be reminded of the source of the cleansing, which enables us to occupy our place.