Letters of John 1John 1:5-6 God is Light and our fellowship with him, pt 1

into first john here uh first john one five and six god is light and i'll just read um I'll read from verse one, and as a review, verse one, what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands concerning the word of life, and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life. which was with the Father and was manifested to us, that we have seen and heard and we proclaim to you also, so that too, you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.

These things we write so that your joy may be made complete. And our verses for today, five and six are, This is the message that we have heard from him and announced to you that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him, and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But And this is next week's verses, just in context here, verse seven. But if we walk in the light, as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus's son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. So there's what we're studying in these weeks, past weeks and coming weeks.

So 1 John 1 5, this is the message that we heard from him and announced to you that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. This is a What he says is he's setting up the fact that he got this message directly communicated to himself, John. I'm speaking of John and the apostles. When Christ was here on the earth with him, Christ said, I am the light of the world. And they heard that. And it's a special message, a special revelation from God that God is light. and it's for our benefit and the benefit of the hearers of this First John Epistle here.

Last week's Verse three had this word declare, appangelo, appangelo. It's a verb, it's a present tense, active voice, indicative mood. So it's fact mood. And it just means a simple announcement, a simple reporting of the facts, or it can mean to bring back tidings, But that was in verse three. But in verse five here, that word for announce is anangelo.

You see the slight differentiation of the prefix there, opangelo versus anangelo. Same parsing as above, but the commentators didn't make much mention of it, but I think there's something there. the differentiation of words, a slight differentiation of words. And I think that Opangelo is, they physically saw this, they physically saw the things that Christ did themselves, and they heard them, and they even felt them, as John says earlier in this epistle. But in verse 5, I think the difference of the word, anangelo, means that they, they received it from another source and that is God, and God passed it to God gave it to them and they're passing along, instead of being a, an eyewitness reporting of these facts, and I'm not married to that but I think that's why there's the difference of those two Greek words. And one commentator mentioned that, but there you go. So I'm just putting that out there for you. So they have this message that they received from God, and now they're passing it along to the hearers.

And the message is, God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. Very simple. And if I can pretend I'm Roger for a minute. kind of break out this, it's very simple to break up because it's so simple. God is our noun, our subject, and is, is a verb, it's in me, and light is the direct object and the noun, God is light. You can't get any more simpler than that, that sentence, it's a complete sentence all in self.

In the interlinear, it reads like this, God, light is, and darkness in him, not, is none. So that, and you can see that, And I don't know the Greek, but that not is none, that's probably a double negative, if I were to guess. So darkness can't be in God, they're diametrically opposed.

Andrew, for some reason, I've got as a modifier of God is light, is this a expression of the status quo? Oh yeah, that's good, yeah, that's good. Because is is a status quo verb, isn't it? So it's status quo is just how a thing exists on its own, so.

You could actually translate this, he is not even, it's a double negative. Oh, okay, it is a double negative, Roy, you say? Yeah, is first and then the verb and then the Udimiya is the not even at all. So I don't know how to say it better, not even at all, I think. Not even, okay, great.

Okay, thanks. Yeah, I was, on my part, that was just a guess, that would be a double negative, but it sounds like, yeah, you agree with that. So that's good. So, Let's look at this light factor to God is light. There's no definite article. in the Greek. So when there's not a definite article, it expresses an essential quality or an essential nature of God, or as Bob pointed out, how he exists in the status quo. It's not a simile. It's not saying God is like light. It's also not an analogy, nor is it a metaphor. It's just It's just like we've been saying all morning, a status quo thing.

And it's his essential, his absolute nature and character is light. So what does this light represent though? And this is from a Wiest. And Wiest, it kind of brings out his essential character, his nature in, And it describes his ethical, spiritual, moral, immaterial, his purity, his purifying qualities, his glory, of course, and the fact that he's glorious. Light represents truth and holiness, especially. And then I added in there, after Weist's list, knowledge. And life, I put in there because I got that from John 1, 4, in him was life, and the life was the light of men.

So that's our characteristics of the noun light, and in Greek it's phos, right? P-H-O-S is the Greek word. So, Kind of piggybacking on what Roy was saying, that darkness is excluded in God. And the force of the Greek, we says, is there's not even one bit of darkness in God. And that's the double negative we have there.

Light has an illuminate quality. Someone mentioned the Samaritan woman and how Christ came to her, got a drink of water, but Christ's light and is the fact that he could just see this woman's life and her sins and he illuminated her sins and her shortcomings, right, if you remember her. her being surprised that he knew all of her shortcomings. But light also brings in forgiveness and healing.

And I quote Malachi 4.2 here. But unto you that fear my name shall the son of righteousness arise with healing in his wings. And the son of righteousness, of course, the sun bringing light.

J.B. Stoney, I paraphrase something he said, and he said, the law finds you out and condemns you. Light exposes you down to the roots, but makes known to you forgiveness and salvation. But of course, the law doesn't bring in forgiveness or salvation, does it? It just condemns you.

So let's look at the qualities of darkness. Here in this first five, its character is, darkness is evil. And this is my list, you might wanna add to this or subtract from it. Evil, it represents sin, Satan, the sin nature, death, as opposed to life. immorality, shadow, vice, blindness, of course, wickedness, void, doom, oppression, cruelty, as in the current situation in your crane, ignorance, as opposed to knowledge like light.

So that's our characteristics of darkness. Used together, they're used together several times in scripture, as in John 12, 46. I've come as a light into the world so that everyone who believes in me will not remain in darkness, Christ said. 2 Corinthians 4, 6, for God who said, light shall shine out of the darkness, is the one who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. And there I've underlined the fact that light is connected to knowledge, the knowledge of God, And there we have the glory of God in that verse. And of course, the face of Christ.

And I think of 2 Corinthians 3.18 when I think of that. or the fact that he was transfigured before John at one time, you know, glorious. And he admitted light when he was transformed on the mountain. Ephesians 5a, for you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. And we'll look at that more of walking in the light a little later on in this lesson.

Isaiah 520, woe to you who call evil good and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. It's an Old Testament use of light and dark in context. And then Isaiah nine two, the people who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them. And whenever I hear that verse, think of that verse, I always think of Handel's Messiah, part one, number 11. the people who walk in darkness.

And I even, if you want to check it out on YouTube, that's the tune sung by a, it's a male singer. It's very good if you haven't heard that. You've probably heard it, but you don't remember it, but it's just that verse set to music so well. And I always think of it. So I always reference it.

So here's a very simple diagram of visual I've come up with for this morning. that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. On the left hand, you have light. On the right hand side, you have a sphere of dark or black. And in God, light and darkness are mutually exclusive. And I tried to illustrate that by those arrows. They're mutually exclusive, can't exist in God at the same time. There's no way that that can happen.

Oh, and by the way, I want to throw out a warning about if someone prints out this lesson, you might want to skip these pages with that big black circle because that will wreck your printer cartridge with all that black ink. So Andrew, if I might interject this, this kind of begins a theme in the epistle. There's ultimately this contrast between light and darkness, which continues throughout the epistle.

So I think maybe I should wait for you to go to verse seven before I raise the issue, but I'll wait. So let's wait. Oh, OK. Yeah, because he does pivot from this in verse seven when he starts talking. We kind of are brought back into it in verse seven, and that is, yeah, the walk and, you know, confession of sin in verse nine. So yeah, we'll get, but I'm only going to verse six today.

Well, I mean, six, I think six too. I meant to say six, but. Okay, great. I have seven or eight next week, so the challenge continues, but anyway. So when you get to six, maybe I can raise the point and we can see what your thoughts are. Yeah, see what I have. Okay, great.

Um, so here's another illustration that God is not this way. He's not, um, God is not this a little dark, a little light. Oh, there's someone with their microphone on out there. In the world, there you go. So he is not this, right? He's not like a Venn diagram where he has a little darkness in the middle. I wish I could have shaded that where they connect as a gray, but I wasn't able to. But that would, in a normal kind of thing, that shared section would be gray. So there's no gray in God either. So this is what he's not.

It could be, John could be specifically in this verse addressing a heresy or a Gnostic heresy that existed then. So he could be specifically addressing these Nicolaitans or antinomianists, kind of hard to say, but those who are against the law, who have this notion that They abused the flesh.

They were the adherents of the sect of Nicolaitans specifically. They absolutely and unquestionably committed fornication without restraint. That's according to Weiss. So there's this group of professing Christians who lived it up in a fleshly manner and all kinds of things. said they were of Christ or they were of God. So he's also addressing this group of the sect that's going on at the time. In a very gentle manner, he doesn't mention them by name, but he just asked this question of them. And we'll get to that in a few slides here.

God is also not this yin-yang type of thing in modern Taoism or ancient Taoism. So he's not a shared, he doesn't have any evil. He's not good and evil at the same time like the Taoists believe. And that's their symbol for light and dark. God is half light, half dark. So he's not that, there's my, red line there.

So more on this sect and what was going on at the time. They had gods that could cheat and lie. Gods who were licentious and unchaste, who were spiteful, who could be spiteful and malignant to men. Gods that were quarrelsome and abusive towards each other. They had been accustomed to think that God, the Godhead as a mixed nature, like the Taoist symbol communicates. So that God was like their own nature, good and evil, only on the largest scale. He could be kind and cruel, pure and wanton, and made of darkness and light.

And that's Findlay who quoted that. So God is not that. So now we come to verse six, and verse six starts out with a test. And first of several tests that John has in this first part of this epistle. So in verse six, he says, if we say that we have fellowship in him, yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. So the test, is if we say we have fellowship in him, that's a hypothesis he's making.

If the word if is a conjunction, it's an indefinite conjunction, and it's an uncertain test of the condition. So we say, That's a verb, it's a aorist tense, active voice, and the mood is subjunctive, and that's the important part here. It's a mood of potentiality and possibility. So it's a third-class conditional statement. So it's saying maybe, maybe, or maybe not.

So if you say you have fellowship with him, and John's not saying that's true, he's just making this hypothesis. That fellowship, that word fellowship is from last week, Roy covered that koinonia, close association or shared interest or shared community life. And I'm quoting Roy's slides from last week, quoting Danker. And I'm adding to that definition of koinonia or fellowship to be an association, communion, joint participation with God, intimacy with God, conversation with God. Those sorts of things is all wrapped up in fellowship. Roy did a such a good job at kind of bringing this out last week on fellowship.

But they dovetail verse three and verse six. So in verse three, he's talking about our fellowship with the father and indeed with his son, Jesus Christ. And so that's a positive statement of fellowship or koinonia there. Here it's in this test, so it can be a negative, it stayed in the negative, because we're saying we have fellowship with God, but yet walking in the darkness. So I think they're closely related, verse three and verse six.

There's an underlying subject that John is covering here. So you see the test case. If we say we have fellowship with God, but we walk in darkness, then And there's what makes it that third class conditional sentence. Then we are liars. And that makes it logical. Here's the other tests in John coming up. These hypothetical tests of faith.

First John 1.8, if we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

1 John 1.10, if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

And 1 John 4.20, which we'll get to in the future, here's the test. If someone says, I love God, yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For the one who does not love his brother who he has seen cannot love God, whom he has not seen.

So these, I checked these out and that, how it begins, if we say that is all in the subjunctive mood, this mode of possibility. So they're all tests there. So Andrew, back to the point, then I think, you know, this theme again continues throughout the epistle. So, you know, there's some pretty strong statements here.

And so the issue is, you know, we're not schizophrenic, are we? I mean, in other words, two natures. I mean, we have two natures, biblically and scripturally, but yet I mean, we all fall short off and on right so in a sense that makes you fall back on first, first john nine and 10 chapter one nine and 10, but then walking What does it mean to walk in darkness versus to walk in light and. you know, I sense that, you know, it's kind of like the circadian rhythms, the sun comes up and it goes down kind of thing, right? So what are your thoughts about how to rightly divide the word of truth in terms of the walk versus the sin that's always in us? And if you read The Hungry Heart today, we're reminded of that, so.

Right. Well, let me, let me get to the word walk here and then. Okay, good. Go ahead. Yeah, and then maybe it will, Maybe you'll see something in that I'm, and then maybe add in if I've missed anything. So, So I'm dealing with the word walk now in this test of first John 1, 6, and that word is peripeteo. And it's regulating or conducting or ordering one's life in a particular manner.

And in this case, it's in darkness. And to your point, Bob, I think it's very difficult you can, a Christ-crucified believer who is aware of the deeper facts of the work of the cross really can't have this peripeteo in darkness because it's regulating and conducting and ordering one's life is the force of the Greek word in there.

So it's actually, I think it's an impossibility. I think John is addressing these people who aren't really believers in verse five and six. So not necessarily applied to us yet. You know what I'm saying? So there's this sphere of darkness and they are just, Let me have Weiss say what he says, because it's really good.

This person is said to be walking in the darkness, which is not in God, namely sin. The verb is a present subjunctive, which speaks of habitual action. Thus, the person is sinning habitually, continuously, and shows that he is an unsafe person. No child of God sins habitually to the exclusion of any righteous acts. We learned that from John's use of modes and tenses, as we proceed in this exegesis, furthermore, he walks in darkness. The case of the noun is locative of sphere. He walks at his orders, his behavior conducts himself in the sphere of darkness of sin. His actions and words are in sphered by sin. So, This is, it's, I guess in, I can't see it because I'm not a Greek guy, but it's, the force of it is that they're really in this darkness, really walking in darkness in this verse.

So you're saying this is not possible for the believer then? That's your interpretation. Right, yeah. But I think with us, we'd be convicted by the Holy Spirit, you know, quickly and forcefully, and then we'd confess our sins and get back into right fellowship with God. And he covers that in the next few verses. I think he brings us back into it in the next few verses. And this is, I would say it applies to unsaved persons. I disagree. Oh, really? OK. Yeah.

I like what Zane Hodges has to say in his book. He says, to say we have fellowship with him is a false claim if at the same time we are walking in darkness. Since God is light and totally free from darkness, a person who walks in darkness is moving in a moral and spiritual sphere from which God is absent. He is moving in the realm of evil while God remains in a realm of holiness. Thus, the believer who walks in sin has lost touch with a completely holy God. If he nevertheless claims fellowship with such a person, he is telling a falsehood and acting inconsistently with the truth. We lie and do not practice the truth.

So I believe a believer can walk in the sphere of darkness. And it's pretty evident if you look at people's lives, it's possible. Yeah, I think it's It's a whole discussion on our daily, you know, we sin. And of course, when we sin, we're not in the light and we are in darkness, but that's, I guess I'm taking it to be a temporary situation. Yeah, hopefully it wouldn't last that long, but you know, there are believers who I believe are saved, and yet they have rejected the walk of light. Yeah. Darkness.

Yeah, I guess it could happen. Someone could be so off the deep end, and at some point is born again, has the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, but But yet, or maybe, I always think if someone is on drugs or something, or is in an accident where they have a brain injured and it makes them incapable of ever having any, it's hard to say, isn't it? But that could be true. I could- One of the things, could I, Yeah.

Go ahead, Rob. Maybe one of the things that we need to keep in mind is John is writing under the direction of the Holy Spirit here about reality. What is real and what is unreal? And he uses it in parallel to Moses came with the law. Christ came with grace and truth. Same word is here. Reality.

And one of the things that happens when we commit sin, when we do sin, we are self-deceived. We have taken the bait, so to speak, using Hal Meroy or Dad's words there, and gone down the slippery slope of unreality, thinking that that's the best path to walk, whereas the real path is God's path. absolute reality, what is good. And that's what John is bringing out here, because he continues with the we in the text. He doesn't use if someone, or indefinite here, but himself as well as us, we can walk in darkness. I would tend to agree the Holy Spirit here wants us to take it that way. We could lie. We could tell God, we could be self-deceived to the point that we would, in darkness, because of the joy that we think we're going to get at it, would lie to God. And that's what John is saying here.

I walked away I was saved as a child and I walked away for eight years and now looking back I know the Holy Spirit was working on my heart but I was walking in darkness during those eight years so I agree that a person can be saved and still walking in darkness and the Holy Spirit will bring them back to himself in his time and in his way. Yeah, and I guess I was looking at it like this. this permanent state of darkness and or a professing one who professes but really never doesn't have the wasn't he ever born again. But yeah, everyone's point is really good. You've changed my mind that this could be not a permanent thing, but a walk or so maybe evident in some believers' life at some point in time. Andrew to build on that a little bit I think the way you described it a few minutes ago was the idea of a walk in darkness is one whose life is entirely regulated by darkness. It's really how you conduct your entire life. One could be saved, I think, Jim, and fall into that. I think there are a couple of examples I know of. So all that aside, I think this is this is possible. I kind of like the black and white.

I think John is black and white because he said, says later, if you sin, you're not of God. Oh, we know we know we're of God. We may fall, fall short and sin. Yet verses 9 to 10 tell us we confess our sins and we renew the fellowship that he calls us to.

But I think the idea of a believer being saved, maybe at a young age or maybe as an adult, who then, you know, takes a partition and walks in darkness for a period of time, well, I think is someone who said the spirit continues to work and finally they wake up to the fact that that's where they're at.

Anyway, Yeah. Yeah. Especially, you know, the condition of, I mentioned drugs or alcoholism. I mean, you don't, that's hard to, that, and you can't, that's something that it's, it controls you. You don't control that. And that's, you're going to walk in that for a while, aren't you?

You know, one final comment, and I think you alluded to this before, and I said this in verses one and two, you know, God has placed the epistle of John in the right place in terms of order in the New Testament. Because unless you're founded in Paul, you really then could get very confused by the epistle of John because he's more black and white. And unless you know that not only have your sins been forgiven, but you've been co-crucified. So the likeness is what we're created in.

But now, if we, in fact, depart from that and walk in darkness, this, I think, is possible, as you nicely, James, has pointed out. Hopefully, it wouldn't be of long lasting darkness that you're walking in. But sometimes it is. You can never predict that. Yeah. And then there's cases where if it in his will, or he'll take you out of this world, won't he? If, yeah, right. So he won't let you be that way for that long before he maybe takes you home.

But I have some, verses over here on the left in the sphere of light, about walking in the light or conducting our life in the sphere of the light of God. So abide in me, can you see that or is it too small? Well, it's only small for me, I'm the only one. Okay. So I have John 15, 15 four over there in the sphere of light, abide in me and I in you. you'll walk in the light then.

I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life, John 8, 12. Walk while you have the light so that the darkness will not overtake you. He who walks in darkness does not know where he goes, John 12, 35. Christ addresses this a lot in the gospel of John. a walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. One of the things that we're skirting the use of is reality versus unreality. Light versus darkness. God is real. Anything other than Him is unreal. Yeah. That's what John is emphasizing. Right, right.

Ephesians 5.9 or 5.8, I can't even read this small writing. For you were formerly darkness, but now you are the light of in the Lord. Walk as children of the light. Yeah, and I'd agree with you, Roy, that, you know, walking in sin and all the things that Yeah, the lost are in a state of unreality. I agree with that.

So here's God's essence right around this sphere of light. Here's who he is. He's love, he's grace, he's merciful, all powerful, all knowing. He's righteous, infinite, sovereign. So we have been placed And this is the good news that we've been placed in there. We've been placed in that sphere by baptism, right, in Romans 6, 3, and 4. So positionally, we're there all the time, can't be taken out of this sphere. It's just our walk can be otherwise, right?

F.B. Hull says there is no communication or fellowship at all between the two. They are diametrically opposed, this darkness and the light. So here in Anatta, Roger here, I brought back the final thoughts. Except I don't have a picture of Vani, so I had to go with this guy. I think his name is Manuel or something. He's sitting on the beach.

So a lady went into a Bible and track depot, and she wished to purchase an illuminated copy of the text, God is Light. The shop assistant examined his stock carefully. And And at last, the clerk said, I'm sorry, ma'am, I don't have a copy of the text you wish to purchase. I have a large supply of the text that tracked God is love in all these nice designs, different colors and different pictures, but we have no demand for the text, God is light. So I forgot who I get this from. I didn't reference, I'll reference him after the class and credit him for the story. But he says, herein lies a sad story.

One would have thought it impossible to overemphasize these wonderful words, God is love. This is certainly true if this grand truth is held in due proportion to other scripture truths. But when emphasis on the truth God is love is made to such an extent as to obscure the truth that God is light, there's something very fundamentally wrong. Were God only love, there'd be no hell. Were he only light, there'd be no heaven. Were he only love, the heaven gained by such as we would be without holiness, justice, and truth. And I said, God is light and God is love.

They must go hand in hand in the working of his eternal essence and his will, right? Yeah, it is true that churches and things they really overemphasize to the exclusion of God is like they overemphasize God is love. And so you don't have this, you don't have this righteousness brought into and his holiness and his characters judgment when you only deal with God is love, you know, so yeah. So I'll stop there over time. So I'll just close out in prayer here.

Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for this study and this illuminating study. And we thank you for the fact that you are light and you are You exert justice on the world and our lives, but you are also full of mercy and grace, and we thank you for that, Lord, and we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.