1 John 1

The fact of Jesus Christ is a great mystery that is difficult to comprehend. He is from the beginning. As the apostle John wrote in another place, “All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.” There is much here to contemplate, but apostles like John not only had to think about the glory of the Son of God. They saw the resurrected Jesus with their own eyes, and they touched Him with their hands.

We have not seen or touched Jesus the way that they did, but we have heard their testimony, and we believe. The apostles were sent out by Christ as eyewitnesses of the glory of heaven's King. They then proclaimed the truth about Him and spoke words of eternal life to Jews and Gentiles who would receive the Savior. The message that they proclaimed was all about the Lord Jesus, this mysterious God-Man who was with the Father before He was made manifest to His disciples.

Through hearing and believing, people everywhere were brought into a new community of divine power and love, the church. As people embrace the reality of Christ, they have fellowship with all who believe in Jesus. Even those who have believed and have gone before us into heavenly realms are united with us in worship, as are all those who call upon the Name of the Lord today throughout the earth. All have fellowship with the Father and the Son, and this true fellowship with God is the basis for a real connection with those who are in the body of Christ, both on earth and in heaven. This consideration of our union with Christ and our consequent oneness in the whole body of Christ is an excellent theme for your meditation as you live on this side of the heaven/earth divide in the present world of sin and suffering. With a true eternal connection to Jesus, you can have a genuine sense of the fullness of heavenly joy, despite an honest recognition of the misery that is also a fact of our present existence.

Though this world may be dark, we can be the ones who are walking in the light. God is perfect light. There is no darkness in Him. Darkness is the absence of light, and God is not missing any light at all. The God of the Jews has never had to borrow light from any competing spirituality in order to be the true God of light. In His light, we see light, and we experience light.

This light includes the glory of God's moral perfections. If we say that we adore the holiness of God and the righteousness of Jesus Christ, we need to walk in the light as He is in the light. Though our legal standing in God's courtroom is the same for all Christians, since it is based only on the perfect obedience of Jesus, we can experience more or less fellowship with God and His people based on how we choose to live. If we insist on a life of selfish lawlessness, how can we honestly say that we are living out the truth of Christ? But if we sincerely pursue the pathway of following the Lord of light, though we sin, the blood of Christ, the Lamb of God, cleanses us from all unrighteousness. The person who claims to have no sin is kidding himself. The man who walks in the light of Christ confesses his sin, and finds the fullest forgiveness and cleansing from Almighty God as one who has been saved by the blood of the Lamb.

Christ did not die in order to provide cover for proud hypocrites who claim to have no sin. Those who have some measure of true fellowship with God acknowledge their sin before Him, and they walk in the cleansing power that comes from the life and death of Jesus.

What is sin, and how can we claim that God is just, if he forgives guilty people and even cleanses them from all unrighteousness?

Sin is anything that is against the law of God. We owe God the perfect and perpetual love as His servants. This love is to be expressed in sincere worship and a life of love toward our neighbor. Consider your duty to love for your neighbor. You have been given directives in the fifth through tenth commandments about this duty. You must honor all lawful superiors, and not be self-willed and insubordinate. You must care for the lives of others, turning away from all treatment that would unjustly denigrate a fellow human being created in God's image. You must not destroy your own or others' marriages with thoughts, words, and actions of infidelity and improper passions. You must be deeply committed to truth and speak as someone who desires that truth would be known and loved by everyone. You must pursue a live of contentment, trusting that the Lord is your Provider, that His earthly portion for you is according to His good plan, and that His heavenly provision for all His beloved children will surely be bountiful.

If we are to tell the truth about sin, we must plainly admit that we have been very far from the perfect perpetual obedience that these good commands require. Justice insists that the guilty be punished, and we are guilty. How is that we can be forgiven, and that God can still be just when He determines to cleanse us from all unrighteousness?

God has placed all the weight of our sins, past, present, and future, on one perfect Lamb. The death of Jesus preserves God's justice. His eternal Son became the guilty one by willingly taking on our sin. He then took the full punishment that we deserve in His death. This is why we can confess our sins to God and expect something good. God promised to provide a way of forgiveness for us, and He has faithfully done so in Christ. All those who have heard and believed the Word of Christ, and who are now united by faith to the resurrected Redeemer, can boldly seek the glories of heavenly fellowship with God and His church, knowing that, because of the cross, God is just when He forgives us and cleanses us from all unrighteousness.