(Chap. 1:6-10.)
(Continued from page 67.)
We have seen that God has put Himself in the light. The invisible God has made Himself visible in His Son become Man. Faith owns Him thus.
If then, for faith, God is in the light, believers are in the light also. On the authority of the divine testimony they can say that they know God. They can truthfully affirm that they have community of life with the Father and the Son. It is not a question of development in the knowledge of God:it is true of the babe in Christ. Though their acquaintance with God may not be based on long continued companionship with Him, they have an apprehension of what He is in His nature and character.
This apprehension is, in greater or less measure, in every soul that sets to its seal that the testimony of God is true, 1:e.-in every soul that is born of God. Feeble as his intelligence and apprehension may be, he is not speaking falsely when he says he knows God and has fellowship with the Father and the Son. He is in the light where he sees God- what He is. He is not in the darkness; he does not belong to it; he has passed out of it as surely as he has passed out of death into life. He is now one of those who live to Him who died and rose again (2 Cor. 5:15); he lives and walks in the light.
It is necessary to notice here the expression "Walking in the light." It is important to apprehend the mind of the Spirit. The expression refers to a fact-not to the degree in which that fact is realized. The expression denotes the moral condition in which the children of God are by virtue of their new birth and the manifestation of the life they have been born into. The apostle is not speaking of their practical consistency with the light, but of their essential and necessary relation to it. They are in the light. It is the moral sphere to which they belong, with which they are connected. How far they are faithful or unfaithful is not in question here.
Now, for an unbeliever to say he is in the light, or to profess that he has community of life with God, is to make a false claim. He is in relation to the darkness, belongs to it, does not know God, has not the life eternal. He is not practicing, not even feebly, the truth. He claims to be in relationship with God, to be His child, to be a sharer in His nature and life, but the claim is not true. Now that the light has come and is shining, those who are in it can judge and denounce as untrue the boastful professions of those who are not in it.
Verse 7 is a precious text for every child of God. There are two things affirmed in it of those who are in connection with the light. First, those who walk in the light with God now manifested, are now in the light with Him, participating in life with Him. They are one family. What a bond! What a blessed tie! How intimate and close the relation of one child of God to every other child of God. It is a relation of nature and life, always subsisting, abiding forever. Here again the apostle is speaking of the unchanging fact, an abiding fact, whether we are faithful or unfaithful.
Of course, if we are faithful or unfaithful has much to do with our practical enjoyment of the ever subsisting bond. The normal outflow of the common tie is often interfered with through what violates its distinctive character, but the tie once formed abides. It is an eternal tie; He who lives from everlasting to everlasting being the source of it, and in which, through grace, we have been brought.
The rest of the verse is the declaration of a most important truth. Every child of God, every one born of Him (who is thus a participator in the life eternal) stands before the face of God in all the value of the priceless blood of Christ. The light in which God has put Himself shows that. What a blessed revelation! God Himself is in the light ; the sin in us is in the light; and though we see it to be utterly abhorrent to God, yet the same light that shows this manifests how God removes all the defilement there is in us. The blood of Jesus Christ His Son is shown to be God's provision for it, and it is a perfect provision. The light itself can discover no sin in us for which that blood is not an absolute remedy.
Here I would make a practical observation. Those who come to the light, drawn there by the power of the grace of Him who is light, find the light manifests their deeds. Now this manifestation is not simply for the moment in which we first come to the light. It is a continuous work:the light constantly detecting in him the contrarieties to the light; but in this searching of the heart, the light shines as well on God's remedy for the contrarieties detected, and manifests its absolute perfection as a remedy. This sustains the soul before the light. No sin can possibly be discovered by the light for which God has not provided, or for which He is not perfectly sufficient. Hence the child of God can say, No matter what evil in me may be searched out by the light in which I walk, my abiding standing there is secured. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, in its infinite value and eternal efficacy, is what cleanses me before God. In the consciousness of this I may say, Let the defiling evil in me be searched out :nothing can possibly be brought out to light that can alter the abiding place of favor and blessing in which God has put me on the ground of the merits and value of the blood of Christ.
What peace! what rest! A sinful creature in myself, put before the face of One who makes me realize as I abide with Him how unlike Him I am, but to realize also that He who is thus constantly searching out the defiling evil that is in me is ever looking upon me as perfectly and eternally cleansed from it! May God grant to His beloved people to have an ever-deepening sense of this.
But to return. In verses Sand g the apostle deals with another pretension which the light manifests to be untrue. What characterizes those who through grace have come to the light is the confession of what that light manifests. It shows that men are sinful, that sinners practice sin. For any man to say he is not a sinner is to deny the truth; it is resisting the testimony of the light. The very claim makes manifest that those who make it are not in the realization of the truth. The truth is not in them. They are deceiving themselves.
It must be kept in mind the apostle is not here contemplating failure in the children of God to fully realize the truth. While it is true that the child of God may have such a feeble sense of the truth that he may be betrayed into similar language to that of the mere pretender, it is not characteristic of him as one who is in the light. John is reasoning in the abstract, not concrete. He is speaking of what is characteristic, of principles, not persons.
It is not characteristic of one born of God to deny that in himself he is a sinful man (see Luke 5:8), or pretend that he does not sin. The measure of his realization of what he is in himself is quite another matter. Speaking characteristically, as John does, he sets to his seal that the testimony of God is true, he accepts the truth, he owns as true of himself what the light has shown to be the truth.
To acknowledge oneself a sinful man is to acknowledge the commissions of sins. And if the confession of having a sinful nature is characteristic of a child of God, it is also true, speaking still characteristically, that he confesses his sins. It is not simply that he confesses his sins when he first comes as a sinner seeking a Saviour, but as he walks in the light he owns the continuous exposures of his sins. The light in which he walks is constantly detecting them and manifesting them.
But then as a child of faith he is the heir of God's promise:"I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more" (Jer. 31:34). The believer is a son of Abraham and has the privilege of appropriating the promise to himself. The God who gave the promise is faithful; therefore, characteristically speaking, the believer has the divine assurance that his sins are forgiven.
But it may be asked, Are not his sins a violation of righteousness ? and do they not defile ? The answer is, God is just in fulfilling His promise of forgiveness and remembering the sins no more. He has provided a remedy-a way of cleansing. He has given His own Son to bear the due of sins. Purification of sins has been made (Heb. i:3), and the Maker of it has the right of cleansing all who believe on Him. It would be unjust to Christ if God did not apply the purification to the one who believes on Christ Jesus. The believer, then, whatever the record of his sins, and however conscious of being sinful in himself, has the divine assurance that in the sight of God he is perfectly cleansed, and stands before His face eternally forgiven. As identified with the interests of Christ here on earth he is subject to divine discipline, correction or reproof. He is not exempt from the government of God. But as in Christ, he is cleansed from every unrighteousness.
Again, as stated in verse 10, if men claim they are not sinners by practice they contradict the testimony of God who declares that all have sinned. The light in which believers walk shows the claim is absolutely false. Any one making the audacious pretension that man is not fallen, has not the truth of God dwelling in him. All believers, characteristically speaking, set to their seal that God's testimony is true. The word of God dwells in them; it may be often in feebleness, very defectively realized, but as a class what marks them, all of them, is submission to what the light has made manifest, 1:e., that man without exception is a sinner both by nature and practice. These haughty pretenders, then, are in and of the darkness which comprehends not the light (John i:5).
But the children of faith-being born of God and in the light, while confessing that grace has cleansed them from all defilement, do not deny that in themselves they are sinners both by nature and practice. The degree in which all this is realized is not the apostle's subject in these verses. This we must keep in mind to avoid confusion and misunderstanding. C. Crain
(To be continued.)