1-3 John - 1st John 1:5-6 God is light and our fellowship with him - Part 1

We have only two verses this morning, and two verses doesn't sound like a whole lot, but the way that John has structured this letter, there's the potential for this to be a lot of material. And I actually had to make the decision to stop, because the doctrines that John touches on in the beginning of this section are broad and interrelated.

You should have a handout and that's going to say 1 John 1 5-6 God is light and there's also a supplement and the supplement on one side is going to have a graph or chart and then it's going to say comparison of Genesis to two of John's writings. That should be the two sets. Do we have enough for everybody? My mom said she'd make 15, and I think we might be just at 15. Alright, so let's take a look at this. If you've got your Bibles, please join me in turning to 1 John 1, 5-6. And just for the sake of Continuity. I'm going to go ahead and start reading at verse 1.

So 1 John 1.1 and then we'll read through 7 actually.

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. What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. These things we write so that our joy may be made complete.

This is the message 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 that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 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 his Son cleanses us from all sin.

Roger went over the first four verses over the last two weeks, and what are some of the highlights of those first four verses? Specifically that the Word was Jesus Christ. Okay, the Word was Jesus Christ. That He was from the beginning. He was from the beginning.

Alright. Was there any particular witnesses to these sorts of facts or testimony that's there? And for the recording, many people are nodding. They're nodding yes. I find this letter to be, and actually the patterns between the first two, or John's gospel and this first letter here, to be really, really rich in relationship and doctrine.

So this morning as we go over these things, I apologize if a few things feel like rabbit trails, but I really did have to stop myself because there is so much interrelationship between the doctrines that John touches on as we take a look at this passage.

The first thing is that he says we have this message. And one of the things I think is important is that John in this letter This epistle uses the first person plural a lot. He says, we, we, we, we, all over the place, not we, we, we, all the way home.

But this is the message that we have heard from him. So there's a plurality of people that John is writing on behalf of. So there is this message that came, but what's the source of this message? Who gave them the message? He tells us. This should be pretty direct. It says from Him. From Him. Who is Him? God the Father. Okay. Is it God the Father? I believe that he's actually saying from the Son, in this context. But since the two are one, we'll go Trinitarian and say, sure, God the Father. But he has a source, and it's a first-hand source.

One of the things that I think is important is that Philosophically, there's a concept of empirical evidence. Is anybody familiar with the term empirical? Okay, I'm seeing some nodding and some not nodding. Empirical means that you saw and that you touched it, and that you experienced it, and that there was a first-hand nature to the empirical things, or a first-hand nature to things, and that's empirical. If I told you that I knew somebody that had done this one thing, that's not empirical evidence. That's anecdotal, secondary evidence. Huh? It's hearsay, okay.

But John writes from the first person plural, which means he's not alone. He could corroborate with other people and he could tell you, we have this actual evidence together, jointly, and we can all testify to the veracity of the message. And it came, the source was Christ.

Now the next question, I've got the question here, what is the importance of John's having a message? Why does it matter that John has the message? Instead of Billy Bob, you know, some random person. I'm pretty sure Billy Bob was not a common New Testament era name. But why does it matter that John had this message?

He was a disciple. He was one of the twelve. John was not only a disciple, but he was a founding leader in the church that God used to establish the church. So it's not just anybody that's having a message. It is one of the people that God established to begin laying the foundation for the church. What is John's message?

What does he tell us the message is right here in this verse? That God is pretty neat. God is light. So the message is God is light. What's the importance of John's message for believers? Why does it matter to believers that God is light? There's some false messages going out. It's time to combat them.

Okay, that's definitely one relevant application of God being light. Really, this is a really wide-open question. We could discuss some philosophical things, so I really wanted to put this out here. We've already discussed the empirical evidence question.

The importance of John's message for believers is that he is telling you about the one whom you have a relationship with. If I came to you and I told you about your spouse or your best friend and it was false information, you would know it because you know that person. John says, I have fellowship in the preceding verses and I have fellowship with this God and I'm telling you about him whom I have fellowship with. And so there's a first-hand empirical nature, and the importance for us as believers is that we are learning about the very nature of our God and His Son.

Now I have right here, this is more nerdy charts, and you should start to expect more of these just as we go through. This is on the back side of the supplement. It might be black and white, and I apologize for the fact that the yellow and green don't really transfer. Did some folks not get a supplement handout? Okay, who doesn't have a supplemental handout? Over in the corner. Alright.

Well, you're in luck. Well, as much as luck can be had at church, there's one left. And since you're married, you can share it. You share so many other things in church. So we have here, God is light, in him there is no darkness. And then on the second, on the bottom part there, you see God is a real being. Now you'll notice that the first I know it didn't show up very well. I always forget that we copy in black and white and I should have just made color copies and I apologize for that. Hopefully the text is readable and that's the important part. In him there is no darkness. So that's clear in his message. He says in him there is no darkness. That's a verbatim recording of the translation.

But then I wanted to just kind of go over some forking doctrines. These are doctrines that relate to these concepts. It's implying darkness, or implying darkness implies imperfection. I used implied twice, I apologize. That's redundant. But if there is no darkness in God, that means that the darkness, which implies imperfection, is not there. Is our God imperfect? No. But he's emphasizing that. Look, there is not even just a little bit of imperfection.

If you were living in the culture at the time, you'd have been surrounded by secular people, and maybe you're familiar with this, you probably are also surrounded by secular people at this time, but at their time they would have had all kinds of mythological gods and deities who would have been unreliable. How many of you have seen any of the Greek mythology movies that have been put out over the last, I don't know, 40 or 50 years? Jason and the Argonauts and recently there was that Titans movie in 3D. I accidentally went to that on opening night, that was a mistake.

But the thing that's interesting about this is that what you have is there's several elements, and I'm going to draw with chalk. You have an issue with continuity of being, and I'll talk about this in just a second. Continuity of being, and you have flaws. Okay, so the first part of this is obvious that I'm concerned that we would have secular deities that have flaws.

Okay, that's the easy part How how would they pray to their deities the secular deities at the time with flaws? What kind of prayers and offerings would you make Yeah, you try to get them off your back or appease them and hope that they might be nice to you I Because they might not be nice to you, right? That's part of the flaws.

Where did many of the Greek mythological and Roman mythological demigods or semi-gods come from? Was it from the faithfulness of Zeus? Or was Zeus known as stepping outside of the boundaries of his heavenly marital relationship Okay, so you have a problem.

The other thing that you have with this is continuity of being. I've used this term once or twice before in previous classes. I think I might have mentioned it in relations. Continuity of being is the idea that you are part of a longer chain of beings in the universe, but there is no distinction between the creator and the creation. Is that a definition that makes sense? Let me give you an example.

Does evolution teach that there is a creator? Big Bang Theory evolution teaches that there is a creator. No it does not. So the alternative is that life started from what? You can pretty much name anything because we don't know. It came through amazingly unique and fortuitous single-celled organisms that happened to be able to respond to things around them and it developed. But as living organisms developed in a secular evolutionary context, there's a continuity of being.

I am actually not morally or ethically or biologically superior in an evolutionary context. In reincarnation, there's a popular world religion idea, you have continuity of being. What happens if I blow it? in a reincarnation context. What would I come and I die? What would I come back as? Something supposedly lower.

Do you guys remember that sports star Bo Jackson, several decades ago, that was just doing it for Nike? You know, Bo knows this, that, and the other thing. Bo knows how to play the guitar, and football, and baseball, and tennis, and all those Bo knows things. I read an interview with him.

He wanted to be reincarnated as a dolphin. He thought that was pretty awesome. But it's continuity of being. Continuity of being is this concept that there is no distinction between creator and creation. John wants to make sure that we understand that distinction. That really does happen.

Next on this graph here is darkness represents absence of God's presence. If God was present and he is light, then there wouldn't be darkness. I was talking about this passage with my daughters on the way here and I said, Abby and Amy, will there be a sun in heaven? Will there be an S-U-N sun in heaven? No. Where will our light source be? And Abby knew right away, so I'm glad that they're teaching them useful things in Sunday school. That's not to say that I didn't think they were, but she knew immediately. She said, oh, Dad, that God's going to be our light. Awesome. So she knows. Darkness in other places in Scripture is used as judgment. And I've got some cross-references in the handout. You can take a look at those later on if you so desire. But darkness is used as judgment.

So God separates himself. In hell, will God be hanging out? Let's not say there will be fire. There will be light. It just won't be God's light. So God is light. The next thing I wanted to emphasize from this passage is that God is a real being. John is not writing about some hypothetical being that didn't really exist. He's talking about the real God of the real universe. And that is what we would call a supposition. That is the thing that he is already just taking for granted that God is real and God exists.

Derivative theological points from that, and I tell you this is rabbit trails but they're important. God is a creator who wanted to be known. How did John know that God was light? He was there, God showed himself through the Son to him. And we'll get to it, but in Matthew at the Mount of Transfiguration, the Son reveals himself to John and a few of the disciples. And when he does, what does he reveal himself as? What does his face show like? Radiant light. And his clothes were pure white.

So we have a creator who wants to be known and reveals himself. He created a universe that could understand him. I think that's a really, really, really important concept. How many of you have run into people in the secular world around you that, well, I'm an agnostic. I don't really know that I could know. except for that God created them. Paul uses this in Romans. He says they have no argument.

God surrounded them by a creation that he created that clearly shows his presence and existence. Next thing here, light gets its definition in God. Just like love and grace and other characteristics get their definition in God, light gets its definition in God. We know that there's light. because of God and his having created it in his existence, his radiant essence, his glory creates light and that's where the original source of light is. And then lastly, God is real and he's the, I put non-created creator here, but he's the uncaused cause, would be the more proper way to write that.

So there we go, there's your pretty chart of the week. Now I wanted to take a look at other texts here, and this is on the other side of your supplement, and this should have photocopied much better than the first one. This is homework, okay? So next week, have a look over this.

Use a pencil or a pen or a marker or something, and mark the similar words between Genesis 1.1-5, John 1.1-9, and 1 John 1.1-7.

Sure if you want to use a highlighter and use yellow that's fine but John is not accidentally forming his structure of these books and I said that when I did the introduction but I think it's important to recognize that if you were a recipient of these letters and you had read any parts of the Old Testament you would have most certainly been familiar with Genesis.

The first five books were super critical to the life of the Jew and so they would have been familiar with Genesis 1, 1 through 5. Even if they were illiterate they would have had it read to them by people who were over and over and over again. When he writes John 1, 1-9, he uses the same structure and the same set of arguments where he says, in the beginning. So Genesis 1, 1-5, in the beginning God created the heavens. John 1, 1-9, in the beginning was the Word. John 1, 1-7, what was from the beginning?

He's very concerned about this beginning and he's very concerned that the readers are familiar with these concepts. So go ahead and take a look at the fact that God, beginning, and light and God beginning in light, and God beginning in light, repeat in those three.

Just look at it. I just found it edifying. But we won't go into it because it's three different passages to study. Well, if we did that, we'd be here for quite some time. Roger would have to have an elder discussion with me and say, I'd like to talk to you about your teaching style. So, we'll continue this.

We've already talked about that first question, what evidence does secular man have for beginning things? The beginning things, there is no secular evidence. There is no witness. If we go and we look at science and the things that science knows about the beginning, the actual evidence is I think it would have to be stated hypothetical at best. Who are the witnesses of beginning things? The nature of evolutionary science, apart from God, is that it must be derivative in its understanding.

There is no witness. One of the concepts they have is that things are the same in the past as they are now. Similar to continuity of being, but also that the process is just the same as it was then as it is now. There were no unique events historically. Everything is consistently developing. The idea here is that if John is talking about beginning things, we understand the context for them. We have already talked about these questions on the last slide, so I got my order slightly swapped there.

God is the source of light. Why does God's being the source and definer of light matter to the world at large? The secular world. Humanity. Donna? This may just be simplistic, but I always think, you know, as God being light, imagine the world without light. means we couldn't function, we would die.

The earth would certainly not be the habitation that it is. If you take God, who is the source of light, out of the equation, this is the opposite of what Donna is basically saying, or another way to restate what Donna said. If you take God, and he is the author of light, out of the equation, suddenly the world gets dark. Suddenly the world can't comprehend this light concept, it becomes a problem. The light reveals the other half of our human existence and that is, where does evil come from?

It's easy to get caught up in current events around us. But I've seen so many, and even some closer friends recently, somebody posted on Facebook, just a ranting tirade against the state of politics in the United States. Really mad about it. Just like, Oh, I don't trust the Democrats and I don't trust the Republicans and they're all lying. But his problem was the political parties. You didn't understand beginnings. You didn't understand that you don't get to have truth for free. It has to come from somewhere. Underlying philosophical problem is that if you don't have a basis for truth, you can't be complaining that it doesn't happen often enough.

So, God being the source of light and the source of truth, and he mentions truth a little later, it's an important issue. What does it matter to the believer that God is the source of light? I think I asked a variation on that a little bit earlier. You have a relationship with God, the source of light.

Now, is everybody familiar with the term deism? If I say deism, In my history class they really wanted me to know that the founding fathers of this country were deists, not Christians. We won't go into that, that is really a rabbit trail. But what does deism say? Does anybody have any working definition for deism?

Tom? God started it all and then just walked away. Okay, he started it all but he doesn't get actively involved. Christianity says that God is actively involved. Deism says he started it. We believe there is a higher being. Welcome to AA. But he's not actually involved, other than maybe he might help you stop drinking. But we won't go into that rabbit trail either. But how does this fly in the face of Deism?

That God is light and is actively involved with revealing himself to the world. Revealing his light. John demands that they accept that God was actively involved with humanity and participating in history. So let's take a look at, I've got the next section here is actually Old Testament passages about God being white. And we won't read all of them because there's enough of them here that we would probably spend too much time. Well, Genesis 1 we've already taken a brief look at.

God is light. He created light and he brought light into the universe. I think it's amazing that the first thing it's recorded that God did was to say, let there be light. Let me bring a part of myself and my very radiant essence and my being into the scope of the universe. I'm involved. I'm here now. There's God. We'll keep that going.

But let's take a look at, if you've been in the main service, my dad already talked about the pillar of smoke and fire was God's presence with his people. So we won't look at that directly. He also talked about God's interacting with Moses. When Moses came off Mount Sinai, his face was glowing and he had to put a veil on.

So God is light, and even humans being around God's light cause them to have a radiating reflection of that. Let's take a look at Isaiah 9, chapter 9, verses 1 and 2. As I was studying this, I was pretty excited, I'm not going to lie. It's a really neat passage. We'll only take a brief look at it. Isaiah 9 verses 1 and 2. Would somebody go ahead and read that out loud?

Nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation when at first she lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali. and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the wave of the sea beyond Jordan and Galilee of the nations.

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light. They dwell in the land of the shadow of death. Upon them hath the light shined. All right, so this is that the King James is, I mean, I'm not going to lie, that's a little complex in its language. I'm going to reread just a little bit of that in the New American Standard.

And he says, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who walk in darkness will see a great light. Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them. This is a prophecy of somebody important. This is a prophecy in the Old Testament of God's light shining forth from a specific place. from Galilee. Who was from Galilee? Christ. Jesus was from Galilee. So even when John references the light, those who are familiar with Isaiah were going to pick up on this nuance that, wait a minute, there's light here and there's light in Christ and there's light in the Father and this was prophesied.

As we continue on through Isaiah, Isaiah 60 verse 19. Let's go ahead and flip through there. That should be moving right in most Bibles. I won't guarantee that. If you had a Hebrew Bible, it would be going the other direction. I'm just kidding, because I think it's just reading right to left.

So, Isaiah 60, verse 19. No longer will you have the sun for light by day, nor for brightness will the moon give you light, but you will have the Lord for an everlasting light, and your God for your glory. So the Lord in the New Heavens and the New Earth, and we read that in a broader context, the Lord will be our source of light.

I mentioned that earlier in talking about that with my children. So now let's continue moving right in our Bibles. Let's turn to Matthew chapter 17. So now we've crossed the threshold into the Gospels. Matthew 17 and particularly verse 2. But we'll actually start in verse 1 because there's an important name there.

6 days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up on a high mountain by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his garments became as white as light. And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with him. And he keeps going on here, but I think it's important to recognize that John was a witness to the transfiguration. So when he said that he saw and heard, here is an account from a secondary witness. This is Matthew, who was not present for this, but did the research and found out as he was preparing to write the book, or his account of the gospel, that these things took place.

And as you go through the four Gospels, you will find that each one of them accounts for the transfiguration and they each account that Christ shone the light of God. So since John is only referencing one of the Godhead, we either have to conclude that there's some kind of inconsistency or that there's another doctrinal concept. What's the other doctrinal concept that he might possibly be presenting here? if God is light, but also the Sun is light. The Trinity. That's right. So we see a consistency in the Godhead that they have a consistent being. We use the word being because anytime you get into the Trinity you start to have vocabulary problems because our finite language has a hard time describing the infinite God.

Why would, now that we've gone through some of these passages, why would John tell the believers something they probably already knew? He says, I've got this message for you, and then he tells them the God is light, which if they had read any of these Old Testament passages they'd have been familiar with.

Why would he do that? Do you think he was short on things to say? Reinforcing it. Okay, he's going to reinforce the doctrinal concept. This is a validity of what he's going to say after this. He's going to say, you already know this is true. This is my message.

You know it's true from the Old Testament. You know it's true in the New Testament. And I'm going to continue expositing truths that are derived from this concept. Why is it important for the Old Testament to say the same thing about God as the New Testament?

Continuity. Consistency. If we had a truth, if the Bible was full of errors and inconsistencies, that would be a problem. I've seen charts where people try to show errors and mistakes in the Bible, and most of the time they are drawing lines between the Old and New Testament where certain specific doctrines like you're under the law and you're not under the law come into play, where there's a chronological issue.

But for almost all of the doctrines that are consistent throughout scripture, we have a character of God that is the same. And this helps as we progress through the order of scriptures. When we take a look at Revelation, which John also is blessed to have received, what's the character of God? Is God not light? It's even more radiant light references to God. So the consistency through scripture is important.

The recipients of this letter are going to go, okay, I already know this, but I know that John is not coming up with something new, describing something different. So, we're not going to jump to the fellowship part yet. In him there is no darkness. We already talked about the fact that if there was darkness, there would be a problem. You would have a God who is unreliable. But John uses the idea of repetition. Just in case, just in case you didn't get that God is singularly light, there is not singularly any darkness in him. There's not even one speck of darkness. There's not a small percentage. It's not a 99.999.

What's that? Is that dove soap? 99.999% ivory? Can you tell how often I use their products? We're really pure, almost, but God is actually very purely 100% light. So now we're going to get to the fun part, and this is the part that's a cliffhanger ending that's going to lead into next week's lesson.

John says if we say that we have, let's just flip back here and reread the text, If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. This was going to be a tough verse initially because it's like, uh oh, we're talking about, are people lying? Are they losing their salvation? What's happening here? And I want to point out several things.

The first is that the if is a hypothetical if. He's going to present you with something that is a hypothetical statement. And the second thing is that the Greek construct actually uses language that is built on the hypothetical as well. So just in case if wasn't hypothetical enough for you, if we say that we have fellowship with him, and then lie is also a hypothetical construct.

It bears out, is it subjunctive? My grammar vocabulary memory is a little weak. Randy, can I insert just a little bit of commercial here? A commercial? Let me turn off the recording. What it is, if you get back to this part here, go down from say, verse 6, go down through all those next verses, all of them are prefixed with if, if, if, if, which means since I would say it would be translated as this being a fact, or this being a fact should in some translations probably put it as since instead of if.

I don't think that's a safe interpretation. The problem is that if we take those ifs to be factual propositions that are already true, we run into some logical problems such as The first being that he is writing in the first person plural. If in the first person plural he says we're liars, then the rest of the letter doesn't have a lot of use for us. In the first person plural, we see if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all righteousness. That is one of those cases where, yes, that is a factual type of proposition. But then he says, if we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.

That is a factual proposition as well. But you cannot take each one of those to be factual propositions unless you want to have... you've got to have your tap dance shoes on. You've got to dance around a lot of theological issues that come up from taking those as all being factual propositions. Yeah. I think it's done in all the various translations. Yeah. Or it's not. No, it's always. Actually, they're all accidents. Adjunctive means maybe you will. Maybe you won't. Yeah. If it's conditional, you can take each one of those.

If you don't confess your sins, he's not going to forgive them. Now does that mean you're not going to heaven? It just means you're out of fellowship. So you have to take it into context. Fellowship is a context here. He's saying, are you going to agree with me that I'm light? Are you going to walk in darkness and not in light? Believers do that. We do that to our own peril. But we can do that.

This is why I wanted, when I did the intro class, I brought up the concept of the Semitic Totality Concept. I'm going to write it down again. It is in your handout. I think it's two L's. Or is it one L? Shoot. And the idea is that culturally, if it was true, you did it.

And so John, when he writes this letter, he says, if we have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. It is logically inconsistent for someone with a Jewish, Middle Eastern background. Okay, that's Semite, that's what that is. It is logically inconsistent for you to know something is true and not do it. That's why you would be a liar. So he's building a logical thing that culturally for them, if you were a Jewish reader, or familiar with the Jewish mindset at the time, this would be like, oh, okay, yeah, he's just saying we need to be consistent. We need to be consistent with our theology. If we know it's true, we've got to do it.

And so, if he doesn't have truth in him, then he's a liar. But how do we deal with the fact that that John is not actually saying that about himself. Because he's already told us in the first four verses that he's not a liar. So he's not saying that this is factually true of themselves, that they actually have fellowship but they've been lying to us.

You've got to keep your fellowship hat on. You can't start thinking, well, does this jeopardize my position? If I lie and push him out, lose my salvation. He's not talking about that. He's talking about fellowship. We started back last week with fellowship. He's following that fellowship saying, If you say you have fellowship with me, does your walk match your talk? And that's the Semitic Totality concept.

Now, let's keep going though, because I also, when I did the introduction, said we've got to be careful that we don't just pull in Pauline doctrine, except, and here I'm going to make the exception, let's take a look at 2 Corinthians 6.14. Let's see what Paul has to say about this. Because we don't want to mix our appalling and yawning doctrines and take shortcuts. But, let's turn there.

2 Corinthians 6.14. And if you get there before me, go ahead and start reading, please.

Be ye not unequally yielded together among your brothers and leaders, for what fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness, and what communion hath light with darkness. So Paul is saying the same thing, so there is an overlap here where their doctrines are saying the same thing. This light and dark issue is very prominent in both Paul's theology and in John's theology. If we take a look at what Paul says, is he talking about the same thing when he says that there should be no mixing of light and dark?

He's talking about relationships in this context. But there is a principle that is clearly stated. He states it three different ways. These things don't belong together. Our modern idiom is oil and water. And of course if Bob were here he'd smirk because his job in chemistry is to make emulsifiers so that they work together. He's told me that. Sorry Bob, you're not here but I filled in for you.

But we have this concept where the fellowship is important. I've already done that. John presents the problem of the lie in this hypothetical situation and he's going to address it in the coming verses, but we're left with a cliffhanger ending to the Sunday School lesson. And we've already talked about the importance of truth in Semitic thinking.

If you aren't sure about this Semitic totality concept, I have here in the handout, see Colossians 3.9.

So let's turn there together and let's see what Paul writes in Colossians 3.9. This is how messed up Western thinking is. Let me put it to the best direction. We're Western, by the way.

Colossians 3.90 says, Do not lie to one another, since you have laid aside the old self with its evil practices. Paul actually had to tell these people, who were primarily of a Gentile influence, don't lie to one another. He also told the Ephesians, don't steal. The truth is you didn't want that to happen to you, but it was okay if you did it to somebody else.

In a Western mindset. But that's not the way that the Jews and the Middle Easterners tended to think. And so we need to recognize that as we take a look at, or as we read through 1 John, but including verse 6. We don't want to have lies and lying. For them, that was a no-brainer. For us, Paul had to tell the Gentiles, they don't lie, really, I mean it. No workarounds.

We're going to continue next week. I don't know if the second bell rang or not, but we're done with my section here. We're going to continue next week with 7 and 8. So we'll be talking about, he's going to continue on, 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 his 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. Another tough passage, I can't wait to have to dig into those. Any thoughts or questions? Disagreements? Oh, I've got lots of hands, so I'm off to... Where do we want to start? We'll start here, I'll just move across. Steve.

Well, just kind of going back to one of your earlier questions, how does deism How does this fly in the face of theism? So, so far we've seen the word a lot, fellowship, and that's what is a major thing that flies in the face of it. Absolutely. That is a key important doctrine. The Johnson cover?

The point, God created it but walked away from it. Or at least doesn't interact with it. That's lack of fellowship. And it's a big problem for the deists. They can't actually take scripture at face value. They've got to dance around it. Even though they say the scripture would be at least somewhat right in revealing that a God did something. We can't actually take it at face value. Yeah?

Yeah, I was thinking, before we're saved and generally speaking in secular society, people I think try to make God in their own image. They have a standard and God is is kind of like me, you know, I wouldn't do that because that isn't nice or whatever. And they think that God, and He's no bigger than that in their mind, and therefore they're okay with Him. Or they're going to go to heaven because He's like them.

And I think even after we recognize that and we're saved, and we recognize we needed the Savior, and then we can still sort of do that in a way allow ourselves to get off the hook, as far as our own sin is concerned, and it's pretty little, you know, like wildlife or whatever it might be, something that we consider small, and yet it's truly from the source of darkness. And so our fellowship is broken, and we need to know that in order to fellowship with human reality. There's a quote from Mark Twain that I think is actually pretty relevant.

God created man in his image. Man returned the favor. Mark Twain was certainly not a theologian, but that actually is relevant all the time. There is a God and you're not him. So that's just a fun quote. I agree. We try to force characteristics of God I'm sorry, characteristic is man, I'm God, and it's a big flaky problem. That's why it's so important that God is light, and He's pure light, and He's not just slightly off.

Alright, what else? We have more hands. Go for it. In the first part, it says, we have seen with our own eyes. My question is, who is the we? And it says, we say that we have fellowship with them. that is first? Tom wants to answer you, go for it Tom. Yeah, well he has just as much as in nature Yeah, the we is John and the people he's riding with.

We don't know who that is. It's frustrating. It's the first person. I actually looked it up and I printed it out because I knew this was coming up. I actually have an inner linear here with the morphing, the morphology. But the nature of the we is first person plural. But when he gets into the, if we say, that is actually hypothetical, and he's using it to make the point that we, as believers, we, and he's including the recipients of the letter, and so therefore I'm going to boldly stick myself in there. If we say that we have fellowship, but we're walking in sin, and we're lying, then we're separated from him.

But then he's going to deal with that in the coming verses and say, OK, so how do we deal with that problem? Because I know that you're panicking now because you're thinking, oh, shoot, I've screwed up. And so he's going to continue on and deal with that in the coming next several verses.

If he didn't deal with it, this would be probably one of those books that No one would teach. Because you're like, I don't know! How do we deal with this? There's no grace! But he brings grace in and in the coming verses he says, but the Son has paid for these sins so we can walk in fellowship with Him. Confess our sins and move on. This is not easy. I went to teach through this when I was legalistic. And I was like, yeah! I'm awesome! We're going to be righteous!

And then we got to the end of it and I was like oh no wait a minute I still sin and I didn't have an answer so he's going to continue on but but the the fact he includes himself in this as an apostle tells us it's in part tells us it's hypothetical that this if If we say we have fellowship, but we don't really, and we're lying, it has nothing to do with the loss of salvation. It has to do with walking in fellowship with God, not changing our relationship with God. This is the position-conditioning concept. And Becky, the position-conditioning concept is like a whole class. After class we can talk about it. It's a very wonderful but serious rabbit trail. Any other thoughts or questions? There are more hands than I have. Bud, go for it. I've also got another thing.

Suppose we have this advocacy with the Father in heaven, the Lord Jesus. But He's our advocate there. Yes. And He's advocating on our behalf. And we sin, we confess our sin. He's faithful and just to forgive those sins and to cleanse us from all immorality. Yeah. He's not going to send us to hell. us to confess our sin to Him and clear that. And that's what I'm saying, if we don't lose our salvation... that and the other stuff too. One thing at a time.

The Holy Spirit will make the calls. Let them be the young. He's clearly writing to believers because he uses phrases like, my little children. And then when he begins talking to the fathers and the young men and the children, he's speaking to them about concepts that are only applicable to believers. We need to wind down. The bell's rung. Let me close in prayer real quick and then we'll keep talking.

Heavenly Father, thank you for the opportunity to study your word. Thank you for being light and revealing yourself to us. We just ask that as we study these passages they would become clear and we wouldn't find confusion in them. We thank you and we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.