I by Lloyd T. Anderson, Pastor, Bethany Baptist Church, West Covina, California is a new creature: old things are passed away.” The cure for those in this group we are now considering is twofold. Verse 7 says: “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleans- eth us from all sin.” The first part of the cure is to walk in the light. Remember that the Scripture does not say walk according to the light. Where we walk determines how we walk; therefore, we should walk in the light. “All things . . . are made manifest by light” (Eph. 5:13), and to walk in the light is to walk in the presence of God, and that in itself will bring consciousness of sin that may be in us. Samos states; “For a person to walk in the light requires that he must first have received Christ as personal Saviour. The light of God’s Word must first of all have lighted up that person’s heart and convicted him of his sin. That same light re veals to us the holiness of God and brings us to a reverential fear of Him, something foreign to the nat ural man (Rom. 3:18).” That same light reveals to us how Christ has come to reconcile us to God. To us is offered “the righteous ness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference” (Rom. 3:22). Following this, we have the ad monition as stated in Colossians 2:6: “As ye have th e re fo re received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him.” The walking there you will notice is not according “to” Him but “in” Him. Walking in the light then is possible only through faith in Christ. The second cure is cleansing by the 32
FIRST JOHN CHAPTER ONE; VERSE 7 W ebb states : “The first group claim to have fellowship with God, but they continue to walk in darkness. Their conduct d isproves their claim. The claim of course would also mean that they have eter nal life, are joint-heirs with Christ, that they live a godly life, and that they have the likes and dislikes com mon to those who have the new life in Christ. But they walk in dark ness.” Matson declares: “There is a point to note here, one that is very im portant, in connection with an un derstanding of I John. John often uses what is known as the present indicative tense which means in the Greek a good deal more than some thing’s taking place in present time. The emphasis is not on the time element so much as on the action of the verb. In the present tense, the action is continued or is habitual action. So this passage could be translated, ‘If we habitually or con tinually walk in darkness, and claim to have fellowship with Christ, we are lying.’ ” How similar this sounds to the message that was given to the church in Sardis where we have the words: “And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.” There is the ever-present dange r in our churches that we drift into a dead orthodoxy. Apparently this is what happened to Sardis, and this is what John is warning about. There are many today, who trust in a name and conformity to exter nal practices, who have never known the peace and purity which Christ gives. “If any man be in Christ, he
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker