Bible Commentaries
1 John 1

Verse 1

LIFE EXPERIENCED BY THE APOSTLES

1 John 1:1. What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands han­dled, concerning the Word of Life . . .

In this verse we have the testimony of those who knew the Lord in person and who walked with Him when He was on earth. What an experience these men must have had! Have you ever stopped to think how wonderful it must have been?

They lived with the Saviour.

They accompanied Him for three-and-a-half years.

They traveled with Him, ate with Him, slept with Him.

They listened to His gracious words.

They heard His claims of deity and saw His miracles.

What a blessed sight to see Him heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, open the eyes of the blind, re­buke the fever.

They were with Him when He fed the hungry and when He stilled the storm. No wonder they cried out,

Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him? (Mark 4:41).

Consider, for example the feeding of the five thousand. He took the little boy’s lunch of five loaves and two fishes, and looking up to heaven, He blessed them, broke them, and gave them to the disciples.

Then, as the disciples gave the food to the multi­tude, it was multiplied. When they had fed the

multitude, each disciple had a basketful left (Mat­thew 14:15-21).

My, what an experience was theirs! We could spend much time thinking of the wonderful, mi­raculous things that happened in those three-and­a-half years. This is what John is talking about in this verse.

You absolutely could not fool these men. They knew!

1 John 1:1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled.

Whom did they see and hear? The Word of Life! He can be as real to you as He was to His disciples.

My friend, you may not know much about doc­trine, but if you have received the Saviour, you can have a real experience with God, just as these men did.

You can experience His presence.

You can rejoice in His fellowship.

You can revel in His strength and power and can have full joy in Him.

You can know His tenderness, His love, His com­fort.

I have often wondered how these men felt when they went with Jesus to the tomb of Lazarus.

You will recall that Jesus said, “Remove the stone.”

Martha objected. “Don’t do it! Leave it there be­cause he is already in corruption, for he has been dead four days.”

Jesus answered, “Did I not say to you, if you be­lieve, you will see the glory of God?”

When they had taken away the stone, He said, “Lazarus, come forth!”

Then said Jesus, Unbind him, and let him go (John 11:38-44).

The shocked apostles had just seen resurrection.

Remember this when you come to times of sorrow, when friends or family are taken home to God. You, too, will one day see resurrection; and
you, too, can know what it is to experience the

very presence of the One who said, “Because I live, you shall live also” (John 14:19). “I am the resur­rection and the life; he who believes in Me, shall live even if he dies” (John 11:25).

John knew Him as a Man among men. He knew Him as the risen Saviour. He was the one who had his head upon His bosom. He had heard, had seen, had touched the Word of Life. So, in this verse he is able to tell us what he really knows.

We too can know! I am sure that as we consider together the truths of this wonderful Epistle, the Word of Life will become more real and more pre­cious to us.

Verse 2

TESTIMONY GIVEN BY THE APOSTLES

1 John 1:2. and the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness, and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us--

The apostles not only experienced His pres­ence, but they could not keep still about it.

Dear Peter could say to the Sanhedrin, “We can­not stop speaking what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20).

Even though they were threatened, they could not help but tell everything they knew about the Saviour. They were told to be quiet about this Je­sus and not to talk about His being raised from the dead.

Peter said unto them,

Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge; for we cannot stop speaking what we have seen and heard (Acts 4:19-20).

This second verse of the Epistle tells us of their witness.

They told their friends.

They told everyone.

These converted commercial fishermen were transformed into flaming evangels of the gos­pel. They rejoiced in the fact that their Saviour lived; that the One with whom they had walked on earth before the cross had been raised from the dead; that He is the eternal son of God.

These disciples had heard our Saviour’s last words before He ascended to the Father, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you (Matthew 28:18-20).

My friend, all over the world today, hundreds upon hundreds of God’s servants, live in shacks and grass huts, in the filth and dirt of some of those countries. Yet they have gone gladly, willing to sacrifice everything. What for? Because they love the Saviour and have experienced the bless­edness of life in Him and cannot help but tell what they have seen and heard and know.

Perhaps you have belonged to a church all your life and you know all the doctrine of your church, but have not really experienced this life in Christ. Is this true of you? Or has the truth of the Word of God become a reality in your own heart and in your own life?

When John uses “we,” he is speaking for all the Apostles who said, “We have heard . . . we have seen . . . and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us.”

Can you say the same thing?

Do you remember the blind man in John 9:1-41? When the Pharisees spoke of Jesus, they said, We know that this man is a sinner (John 9:24).

The blind man replied,

Whether he is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I do know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see (John 9:25).

I can say to you today, my friend, as a personal testimony, that once I was blind but now I see. Once I was lost and now am found. Once I was afar off and now have been brought near. Once I was a child of wrath, but now I am a child of God. I can say with Paul,

I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day (2 Timothy 1:12).

One day I shall stand in His presence conformed to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29). You cannot deny this! Not only does God’s Word declare it, but my experience confirms it to my heart. His life has been manifested to me and in me. I know Him, and I want to tell you about Him. I want you to know Him, too.

Friend, do you know Jesus Christ as your Saviour? Are these things real to you? Or is it just simply doctrine—cold, cold doctrine? This can be­come a living reality in your life if you mean busi­ness with God. God means business with you.

Why did Jesus Christ become manifest in the flesh? So that you might have life: real life, eternal life, satisfying life, resurrection life!

Where can this life be found? It can be found in Jesus Christ, God’s Son, the Incarnate Word of God. I plead with your heart today, using the words of our Saviour when He said,

Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28).

Again,

The one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out (John 6:37).

It makes no difference what your past experi­ence has been, or how bad, how weak, how troubled you are now. His heart and His arms are al­ways open to receive you. Why don’t you come? This is a personal matter between you and Him. May you have that joy today!

Verse 3

THE APOSTLE’S DESIRE FOR US

1 John 1:3. What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, that you also may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.

“What we have seen and heard!” Notice, this is the third time he has mentioned it!

“What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you.”

What for?

“That you also may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.”

We are telling you that which we have seen and heard so that you might have the same intimacy with God that we have.

My Christian friend, do you know that the great yearning of God’s heart is for your fellow­ship?

How much of your time do you give to God? Sunday morning? Sunday school, maybe? Do you actually get into the Word of God and learn what He has to say to you? Do you have fellowship with Him in His Word? This is what John is talking about in this third verse.

Having spoken of his experience in verse one, and of his testimony in verse two, he now comes to his desire in verse three. John says that he is min­istering the truth to us in order to bring us not only into relationship with the living God, (stated so clearly in John’s Gospel), but also into intimate fellowship with Him.

Now, I want to stop here a moment, because it is difficult for me to put into words how I feel about this verse. John is saying to us, “We are preaching and teaching, ministering and sacrific­ing so that you might clearly understand and enter into this same fellowship with us.”

John, what is this fellowship? It is true that we are brought into relationship with God through faith in Christ, but here, John is pleading that we may know in our experience day by day, this fel­lowship with God.

The enjoyment of spiritual life can come only as we walk in fellowship with God. A Spirit-filled life is the enjoyment of divine life; it is that life of fel­lowship. There is no higher experience for a be­liever, either on earth or in heaven, than the ex­perience of personal, intimate fellowship with the living, sovereign, eternal God. The most amazing thing is that the grace of God has made this provi­sion. His grace has redeemed us.

But what is the purpose of all this redemp­tion? God is going to have a people who will ap­preciate His love, His grace, His kindness, His very heart, and with whom He can have fellowship.

There are examples of this in the Old Testament:

Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend (Exodus 33:11).

Since then no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face (Deuteronomy 34:10).

This is the great desire of God’s heart! God had asked David to seek His face.

“When Thou didst say, ‘Seek My face,’ my heart said to Thee, ‘Thy face, O LORD, I shall seek’” (Psalms 27:8).

Notice that the request comes first from God. “David, I want your fellowship.”

David answers, “That’s just what I want, Lord; I want Your fellowship.”

This word “fellowship” carries with it the thought of partnership. It is like building a home with your beloved. You come to live together in that home, and your life is one of loving partner­ship. Fellowship with God is being a partner with Him in His life, in His purpose, in His love, in all He is.

Let me illustrate what I mean. Paul asks,

Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? . . . Do you not know that we shall judge angels? . . . Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you? (1 Corinthians 6:2-3; 1 Corinthians 6:19).

He says,

We are God’s fellow workers (1 Corinthians 3:9).

If we know these things, then how should we live among men?

We are partakers with God, not only in His life, but in His purpose and in His will. This is to say, we are partners with God in His program of all that He is doing on earth and all that He is going to do in eternity. We are on “God’s team” and therefore we must walk in union with God. We must walk in fellowship with Him.

So then, what is God’s purpose for men? It is that men might be redeemed. God is building a church, and He has called us to have a place as partners with Him in the building of His church. This is what John is talking about.

Allow me to paraphrase, “What we have heard and what we have seen, we are declaring to you that you might have partnership with us. Our partnership is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.”

My, what a calling! Partners with God! No won­der Paul could say that we are to walk according to the calling with which we have been called (Ephesians 4:1).

Jesus said, I am in my Father, and you in Me, and I in you (John 14:20).

He who has the Son has the life (1 John 5:12).

We may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world (1 John 4:17).

We are not going to wait until we get to heaven to have eternal life or to have a relationship with God or to have fellowship with God. We have this relationship, this union with God, right now, and we experience this life by entering into fellowship with God. No wonder the next verse goes on to speak of our joy!

Verse 4

THE RESULT OF FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD

1 John 1:4. And these things we write, so that our joy may be made complete.

The source of our joy is in God Himself, because of our relationship with Him. It thrills our hearts to know that we are the children of One who is God. The nature of our joy is having fellowship with Him. The extent of our joy is that it should be full. Full joy is God’s desire for every one of His children.

“These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full” (John 15:11).

“Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be made full” (John 16:24).

“But now I come to Thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy made full in themselves” (John 17:13).

The witness of John the Baptist concerning Jesus was, “This joy of mine has been made full” (John 3:29).

Christian friend, are you experiencing full joy? Perhaps you say, “No, I’m in sorrow. I’m dis­tressed because of my own frailty.”

One man told me that he had more joy before he was a Christian than after he became a Christian. No, friend, there is no real joy before one becomes a Christian. That is happiness. One may have been happy because of circumstances. When the circumstances were good, there was happiness; when the circumstances were bad, there was unhappiness. I am not talking about that kind of up-and-down experience. I am talking about a joy that is God-given.

These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you (John 15:11).

Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you (John 14:27).

Because I live, you shall live also (John 14:19).

But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who be­came to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption (1 Corinthians 1:30).

Jesus is my joy, my peace, my life, my right­eousness. Circumstances do not affect this God-given joy!This does not mean that we are always going to be hilarious, or be putting on a false front, or be trying to make-believe that we are happy. Instead, there comes a settledness, a quiet satisfaction, an assurance, a peace, a joy that is beyond the un­derstanding of men. The circumstances of life do not affect this joy or this peace.

John is saying, “This is why I am writing to you, that your joy may be full.”

Verse 5

FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD

WHO IS LIGHT

FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD WHO IS RIGHTEOUS

FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD WHO IS LOVE

1 John 1:5 And this is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.

We have come now to the first main division of the book. There are three statements concern­ing the nature of God in this Epistle:

God is light; that is, God is absolute in holiness. God is righteous; that is, He is right in everything He does, and every act of His is right.

God is love; that is, love characterizes the energy of His nature toward men.

The first of these statements is that God is light and in Him is no trace of darkness. We read of our Saviour in 1 Timothy 6:16,

“Who alone possesses immortality and dwells in un­approachable light.”

This is God’s absolute holiness in character.

God, being light, must reveal Himself. Re­member that in Exodus 19:9 at the giving of the law the Lord said,

Behold, I shall come to you in a thick cloud.

The people were full of fear and trembled. But now, God has come out into the light!

The darkness is passing away, and the true light is al­ready shining (1 John 2:8).

God has revealed Himself. He has come out into the light in Christ Jesus, who has purged our sins, who has removed the barrier between God and man, who has rent the veil.

“God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son” (Hebrews 1:1-2).

However, we find that when He came, men refused the light. In the Gospel of John we read,

In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness; and the darkness did not comprehend it.

There came a man, sent from God, whose name was John.

He came for a witness, that he might bear witness of the light, that all might believe through him.

He was not the light, but came that he might bear wit­ness of the light.

There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man” (John 1:6-9).

Do you mean to tell me that men were in such moral darkness, such spiritual darkness, that God had to send someone to bear witness of the Light? That is true. They would not hear the witness nor would they turn to the One who is the true Light, so they remained in darkness.

The purpose of light is to dispel darkness. When light shines, the darkness is gone. Men were in darkness concerning God, but He came into the world to shine in our hearts,

“to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).

He came that we might know Him; that we might know truly who He is and what we are; that we might know His person, the One who is “full of

grace and truth” (John 1:14); that we might know His purpose in redeeming us, in giving us the gift of eternal life and bringing us into relationship and fellowship with Himself; that He might bring us “out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

We are not now in darkness, but we are in Him in whom is no darkness at all.

“For you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8).

Verses 6-8

THE TEST OF OUR PROFESSION

If we claim to be in fellowship with God, cer­tainly we must be willing to be tested. If we come to believe certain truths and consider our­selves to be a certain type of person, then we will prove it by the way we live and walk. So we read:

1 John 1:6. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth;

1 John 1:7. 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.

1 John 1:8. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

Many people say that they can understand how we can have fellowship with a God who is love but cannot understand how we can have fellow­ship with a God who is absolute in holiness, with One who is absolutely righteous in His character and in His acts, with One who is light and in whom is no darkness at all.

Listen, friend, the most amazing truth of all time is that our Saviour left the glory and came to earth for the purpose of preparing a people with whom He could have fellowship. The barrier between God and man has been removed and God is accessible.

“Since therefore, brethren, we have confidence to en­ter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith” (Hebrews 10:19-22).

This is a wonderful fact. But we need to ask ourselves some questions from these first passages in 1 John. Do I draw near? Do I walk in fellowship with Him?

The following verses present to us the test of our profession. Notice:

“If we say” in verse six 1 John 1:6

“If we walk” in verse seven 1 John 1:7

“If we say” in verse eight 1 John 1:8

“If we confess” in verse nine 1 John 1:9

“If we say” in verse ten 1 John 1:10

“The one who says” in chapter two, verses 4, 6, 9. 1 John 2:4; 1 John 2:6; 1 John 2:9

Christianity is more than doctrine; it is more than just talking about truth. A Christian is one in whom truth lives. There can be no real life at all until we are in right relationship with the Saviour. And the truth does not live in us unless we are in fellowship with Him. If we are in fellowship with Him and if we make a profession of such fellow­ship, then we will be tested.

1 John 1:6. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

John puts it into very simple language. If we claim to belong to the kingdom of light and claim to have fellowship with God but are walking in darkness, then we certainly are not telling the truth. It is impossible to walk in darkness when we are in right relationship with the One who is light. This would be an absolute inconsistency.

Also, we will notice, as we read the Epistle, that John talks about light and darkness; and there is no gray zone between. We are either in light or in the kingdom of darkness. We are either children of God or we are the children of the devil.

Do you remember that amazing passage written by Paul in Colossians?

“Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. For He de­livered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Colossians 1:12-13).

This translation into a new kingdom occurred the moment you and I accepted the Saviour. Every real Christian is in the kingdom of light, has been removed from the kingdom of darkness, and has been translated into the kingdom of His dear Son. We are no longer in the dark.

God no longer sees us in the kingdom of darkness. If we have received Jesus Christ as our Saviour, God declares us to be in His kingdom. But if we say that we are in fellowship with God who is light and are living in darkness, we are not telling the truth. We cannot for one moment live in the kingdom of darkness after He has translated us into the kingdom of light

I think Paul had this same thought in mind in his writing:

“But may it never be that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14).

Whether one is a Jew or Gentile does not make any difference, for in Christ Jesus “neither is cir­cumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation” (Galatians 6:15).

We are a new creation! Paul restates this in the letter to Corinth where he is speaking of the risen, glorified Christ and of any man who is in this Christ, this risen Christ.

Though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore if any

man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come (2 Corin­thians 5:16, 17).

This is the position into which God has placed His people. This does not mean that we will not fail God. We will discuss that in a moment. Even in our failure, we are still in the kingdom of light. This is where we live.

John clearly states that a person is either in the light or in the dark. If we say that we are living in the kingdom of light, in God’s kingdom, in fellow­ship with God, and we walk in darkness and live like those who are in the dark, then we are liars.

He states the same truth in the second chap­ter. He is speaking about the unsaved person when he writes that

The one who says he is in the light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now. . . . But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes (1 John 2:9; 1 John 2:11).

Is it not wonderful to know that when you trusted the Saviour, God took you out of the king­dom of darkness and put you into the kingdom of God’s dear Son? We are no longer seen in sin but in Christ. We are no longer in darkness, but in light. We are no longer under judgment, but are righteous in Christ.

However, we must face the fact that Chris­tians do fail God. Christians do sin. In fact, verse eight tells us that

1 John 1:8. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

Let us never fool ourselves. People who boast about not sinning are actually proud of what they are or think they are. And what is pride but the root sin? We do fail God, every one of us.

This passage is not talking about how we walk but where we walk. If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, and if we fail God, then the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. He keeps on keeping us clean.

Remember, this is talking about those who are walking in the light, not those who are in the kingdom of darkness. This is talking about God’s people. Where do we walk? We walk in the light. Do we always walk in fellowship with the One who is light? I am sorry to say, “No!” But when we do fail, we are restored because the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin.

There is a difference between relationship to Christ and fellowship with Him. Here John is not talking about relationship with God. That has been settled forever. There is only one place where a Christian can walk and that is in the light, in the kingdom of God.

Here he is talking about fellowship with God who is light. The Christian who fails God breaks fellowship with God. This does not take him out of the kingdom of God. It does not change his posi­tion before God. He is still a member of God’s fam­ily.

God, who is absolute in holiness, has prepared a people who are able to come into His presence.

It is a marvelous, wonderful, glorious thing that God has taken men and women who had rebelled against Him, who had been ungodly, who had been sinners, and has forgiven them, justified them, translated them out of the kingdom of dark­ness into the kingdom of His dear Son forever.

In this kingdom of His Son, we who have been redeemed do still fail God because our bodies are not yet glorified. However, our lives are no longer characterized by sin.

1:8. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves.

Indeed, we do not deceive anybody else, certainly not those who live around us.

Some people say, “I do not sin. I only make mistakes.”

Well, my friend, let us label sin as sin. Let us not try to rationalize it away. That which is out of the will of God, which does not conform to the very character of God, is sin. 1 John 3:4 tells us that sin is lawlessness.

Let us remember that the cleansing is for those who are walking in the light. Did you ever stop to think that those who are told to confess their sin are those who are in the kingdom of light, who are in touch with the Saviour? The man who is not in Christ Jesus, who is in the world, who walks in the kingdom of darkness, is the man who does not care whether or not he is in sin.

When one points out to such a person that he is a sinner, his answer is likely to be, “I’m just as good as you are!”

Of course, that may be true. But is that what he is going to tell God?

Can he stand in the presence of God with such a poor excuse? The man out of Christ does not think about his sin with great concern. The really concerned man is the one who has come to the Saviour. The more one knows the Saviour, the more one realizes his own weakness and failure. Permit me to give some examples of this from the Scriptures.

Job is the oldest book in the Bible and is possi­bly the oldest book ever written. Job lived around 1500 to 2000 B.C. In the first two chapters of that book God is talking with Satan concerning Job.

He said to Satan, “Have you seen my servant Job? He is a good man. He loves the good and hates the evil. You cannot find a flaw in Job.”

Then God began to deal with Job. Job was good, but he was also self-righteous. When he walked down the streets, the young men would bow before him. When he sat in the gates of the city, everyone had respect for him. They listened to his counsel.

Yet God permitted Job to go through a terrible time of testing. He was smitten with a loathsome disease. His philosophical friends came and sat down with him and spent seven days just sitting and weeping because of the awful condition of Job. Through many of the chapters of Job, these

friends tried to reason with him about his condi­tion. Then Elihu, the servant of God, came; and he could not get anywhere with Job. Finally God came on the scene and met Job.

Do you know what Job said when he had seen the Lord?

“I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees Thee; therefore I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6).

You do not find an unsaved man saying that! This is a good man. What made him say it? He had had a glimpse of Christ. The trouble today is that people have never seen Christ in all His beauty and righteousness. Most people have dethroned Christ. They make Him a teacher or a good man or a moralist with wonderful, ethical instructions. They will not give Him His rightful place as the Son of God, God manifest in the flesh. The result is that they have no conviction of sin.

Consider Isaiah who was possibly one of the most astounding men of his day. This man prophesied during the reign of four kings. He went into the presence of the kings of Israel and felt per­fectly at ease. He was one of the greatest prophets in the Old Testament, the prophet of redemption. Yet, listen to him in chapter six:

“In the year of King Uzziah’s death, I saw the Lord sit­ting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him . . . and one called out to another and said, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:1-3).

What a wonderful picture. And then this man cried out,

Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of un­clean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts (Isaiah 6:5).

What opened Isaiah’s eyes to his condition? See­ing the Lord. What people know more about sin and the awfulness of sin than those who walk in the light? The very light of God shines into the darkness of men’s hearts and consciences.

There is nothing in the whole book of Daniel that is derogatory about Daniel, the prophet. In fact, he is called a comely person. Yet, after he saw the Lord, he said,

My natural color (comeliness, KJV) turned to a deathly pallor (corruption, KJV) (Daniel 10:8).

Consider Peter in Luke, chapter five. The Lord was preaching to the crowd from the boat and He said to Peter, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”

Peter answered, “Master, we have worked hard all night and caught nothing, but at Your bidding I will let down the nets.” In obedience to Christ they caught a harvest of fish. Then what did Peter do? He fell down at the knee of Jesus and said, “De­part from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” (Luke 5:1-8).

What moved Peter to say that? He had seen the revelation of the Son of God.

What I am trying to get to your heart is this: When we have seen the Lord, when we really know Him, then we recognize our own sinfulness and our own inability to do the things we should do. We realize the need to walk continually in fellow­ship with Him.

When we do walk in the light and are in fellow­ship with the One who is light, then we will have fellowship one with another. And the blood of Je­sus Christ will cleanse us from all sin. Why should we need cleansing if we are sinless and without weakness and failure?

Again I come back to it. When we accepted the Saviour, we were transformed into the children of God and took our place in the kingdom of light.

This is where we are. This is where we live. This is where we walk. But there are times when we fail God. This breaks our fellowship with God

who is light—not the relationship but the fellow­ship.

When this happens, we can know that He has made provision for us. We rejoice in the fact that the blood of Jesus Christ keeps on keeping us clean. When our fellowship with Him is broken, He will restore and cleanse us.

May you live in wonderful fellowship with Him today!

Verses 9-10

THE PROVISION FOR THE
RESTORATION OF FELLOWSHIP

1 John 1:9. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:10. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

When the Lord Jesus died to put away our sins, He did a perfect work. He made it possible for us to come into right relationship with God, to become His children, to be pardoned every sin, and to be fitted for His presence. This relationship cannot be broken. Even though we fail and are weak and stumbling, we are still the objects of His love.

“Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end” (John 13:1).

The great yearning of God’s heart is that His people, His children, might have real fellowship with Him. I love to watch school children run home to Mother and see her take them in her arms and hug them. I have wondered, how do we, the children of God, treat the living God who redeemed us?

We boast about being His children, but how much fellowship do we have with Him? How much do we seek to please His heart? Paul’s hope was that Christ should be “exalted in my body, whether by life or by death” (Philippians 1:20).

In verse eight it was stated that the reality of sinfulness may be denied by some. “If we say that we have no sin . . .” There are those who say there is no principle of sin in a person and that sin is just a hallucination of the mind.

When we read verse nine, however, we must admit the reality of sin along with Isaiah and Job and Daniel and Peter. We admit that Christians do sin. We also accept the divine provision for resto­ration to fellowship. Walking in the light brings a consciousness of guilt which breaks the fellow­ship.

We cannot divorce verse seven from verse nine. In verse seven, the very walking in the light of God’s Word or in the light of His Person reveals what we are. We acknowledge the fact that we do sin and that God is righteous. Then in verse nine, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all un­righteousness.”

It is not “faithful and merciful” nor even “faithful and loving” but “faithful and just (righteous) to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all un­righteousness.” Let me assure you of one thing. God will keep His Word! When we confess our sins, we are forgiven and cleansed.

This is different from the way we entered into re­lationship with God. At the cross we received for­giveness. The moment we became Christians we were forgiven every sin. He did not ask us to con­fess our sin. He asked us to receive the Saviour. The moment we took Jesus Christ as our Saviour, on the ground of His wonderful grace, He forgave our sin.

“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, ACCORDING TO THE RICHES OF HIS GRACE” (Ephesians 1:7).

“And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, for­giving each other, just as God in Christ (FOR CHRIST’S SAKE-KJV) also has forgiven you” (Ephe­sians 4:32).

“I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you FOR HIS NAME’S SAKE” (1 John 2:12).

We are forgiven according to the riches of His grace, for Christ’s sake, for His name’s sake. This is true for all God’s people!

However, restoration to fellowship is depend­ent upon confession. There are Christians who say that it is all right to sin over and over and to go on sinning because all they need to do is con­fess. Let us not fool ourselves. That is not true confession.

Honest confession includes a sorrow for what we have done and a desire to do what is right. If we feel that we can continue to sin because we can confess and be forgiven, we have no conception of the heart and character of God. We have no un­derstanding of the absolute righteousness and ho­liness of the One with whom we have fellowship. Our fellowship is with God who is light!

Listen, my friend, if you say that you can con­fess your sin, be forgiven, and go right on sinning, then not only do you fail to understand the holi­ness of God, but you do not have an appreciation of what He has done for you nor do you under­stand your position in Him. You can be sure that if you are a child of God, you will be disciplined by Him.

“For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines” (He­brews 12:6).

Why? That we might yield “the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (Hebrews 12:11) .

Please, be honest and real in your confession. When you confess your sin, name the thing which has broken the fellowship. Don’t get down beside your bed at night and say, “Dear Lord, forgive me for my sins today.” This is not true confession. When we confess, we should tell the Lord the thing that we have done and ask His forgiveness and cleansing.

When we have sinned against someone else, we should also go to them.

Keep short accounts with God.

Do not wait until Sunday morning to confess a sin.

Do not wait until the awareness of wrong-doing wears off.

Even Abraham, the friend of God, reaped the fruitage of unjudged sin in his life. We cannot get away from the fact that God must judge sin.

We may say, “But I am a child of God.”

Well and good! A child of God may be out of fel­lowship with God, for sin breaks fellowship. How often, then, should we confess? As often as we sin. When we confess, we are forgiven and cleansed.

Is it not true that oftentimes, after we confess our sin, we go on about our work and we are still thinking about the sin that we have committed? I have experienced this and probably you have, too. The result is that it is the sin which is on our mind.

Soon we find ourselves doing the same thing again. Why not believe what He has said?

1 John 1:9. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and TO CLEANSE US from all unrighteousness.

The moment we do this, our fellowship is re­stored. Then let us really believe this and turn our thought from ourselves and our sin to Jesus Christ, the Saviour.

It is possible for a believer to live every day in fellowship with Christ. We may fail God, but we come to the Lord sometimes with a broken heart. We don’t even know why we did what we did. A man came to me for counseling, and he had done something that really shocked me.

I asked, “Why in the world did you do it?”

He answered, “Mr. Mitchell, I don’t know why I did it. I am so ashamed and sorry. I want to be forgiven and cleansed.”

I tell you, it is a wonderful thing to go with a man in that condition, one who really means business with God, to the throne of grace to be cleansed. God has made known to us the wonder­ful provision for fellowship with Him and when we meet the condition, He will keep His promise. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all un­righteousness.”i

When you realize that something has come be­tween you and your Lord, do not go another hour out of fellowship with Him. You are not waiting for God. He is waiting for you. Confess your sin and be cleansed. He knows all about it. He is your Fa­ther. Then enjoy the day in fellowship with Him. It will delight the heart of God, and it will fill you with great joy.

Let us turn to the Old Testament for a wonderful illustration of the truth of God’s provision for the restoration of fellowship. After the Israelites had come out of Egypt, they suffered thirst; and they cried unto Moses and Aaron, who, in turn, cried unto God.

God said,

“Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb; and you shall smite the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink” (Exodus 17:6).

Moses took the rod of God and smote the rock, and water came forth, life-giving water, for the people who were thirsty. Nothing is said about the condition of the people except that they were thirsty, and God met their need in a very remark­able way (Exodus 17:1-7).

In the Book of Numbers 20:7-8, they were thirsty again, and they were ready to kill Moses; so Moses came before the Lord.

“And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, Take the rod; and you and your brother Aaron assemble the congrega­tion and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it may yield its water. You shall thus bring forth water for them out of the rock.”

Now, mark the change. You speak to the rock. You remember how Moses came to the people and said,

“Listen now, you rebels; shall WE bring forth water for you out of this rock?” And he smote the rock twice. The water came out, but Moses came under the judgment of God (Numbers 20:2-13).

Why did he?

What had he done wrong?

Let us turn to the New Testament to see.

1 Corinthians 10:1-33 reiterates the history of Israel, and Paul writes that

“they were drinking from a spiritual Rock which fol­lowed them; and the Rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:4).

In other words, the rock in Exodus 17:1-16 is a type of Christ, who was smitten for us. Because Christ was smitten for us, we receive that life-giving wa­ter. That is, when we come to the One who died for us and rose again and when we accept Him as our Saviour, then we are cleansed and forgiven every sin. We receive life eternal.

But now, even as Christians, we sin. What shall we do?

Go back to the cross and be saved over again? No!

Christ dies for our sins only once.

We need to speak to the Rock. God had told Moses to speak to the rock and it would give forth its water. We are to confess our sins. We go to the throne.

We do not go back to the cross.

In the Book of Hebrews we are encouraged,

“Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy, and may find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

Come with boldness!

To whom is this written?

To those Christians who are in need of mercy. Who needs mercy? The Christians who fail. To these He says, “Come, do not be afraid. Confess your sins. Speak to the Rock.”

The Rock was smitten for us once—once for­ever. He perfectly completed the task He came to do. He will never again go to the cross. He gave His life once for all. Notice how the following verses emphasize this:

“But now ONCE at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sac­rifice of Himself (Hebrews 9:26).

“But He, having offered ONE sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God” (He­brews 10:12).

“For the death that He died, He died to sin, ONCE FOR ALL; but the life that He lives, He lives to God” (Romans 6:10).b

I would like to speak of this from a different viewpoint. Riches of grace are ours because of Christ’s sacrifice for us. We are saved according to the riches of His grace.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith” (Ephesians 2:8).

Riches of grace proceed from the cross. Now that we are believers, our daily needs are met according to His riches in glory.

Paul prayed that we might be made powerfully strong according to the riches of His glory (Ephe­sians 3:16,17).

Again, in Philippians 4:19,

And my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

It is by the riches of grace that we are saved. It is by the riches of glory that our present needs are met. We do not go back to the cross to be saved over again. We do confess our sins to the One who is now on the throne, and He has promised to for­give and cleanse.

Let us consider one more example. In John 13:1-38 our Lord began to wash the disciples’ feet and Pe­ter said, “Lord, You shall never wash my feet.”

The Lord answered, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.”

“Well, Lord, if it means that, why don’t You just wash me completely?”

The Lord’s amazing answer was,

He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you. For He knew the one who was betraying Him; for this reason He said, Not all of you are clean (John 13:4-11).

At the cross we were bathed. His present min­istry is to keep us clean.

If you have accepted the Saviour, and yet your life has been robbed of joy, of blessing, and of peace, you cannot go back to the cross. You have access to the throne of God. Speak to the One who is on the throne.

Tell Him about your sin, your weakness, your frailty, your failure. He will forgive and cleanse and will fill your life with joy and peace as you walk in fellowship with Him.

Let us be occupied with Him! Let us live for His glory! Let us be ambitious to be found pleasing to God!