#DailyDevotion Are You Walking In The Light Or The Darkness?
1 John 1:1—2:2 IT WAS THERE FROM THE BEGINNING, we heard It, we saw It with our eyes, we looked at It, and our hands touched It — we’re writing about the Word of Life.2That Life showed Itself and we saw It, and now we testify and tell you about the everlasting Life that was with the Father and showed Itself to us. 3We saw and heard It, and we tell you about It so that you, too, will have It in fellowship with us. Our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. 4We’re writing this so that our joy may be complete. 5This is what we heard Him tell us and we’re telling you: God is Light, and there is nothing dark in Him. 6If we say we share what He has but live in the dark, we’re lying and not living the truth.7If we live in the light as He is in the light, we have it in fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, washes us clean from every sin. 8If we say we don’t have any sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth isn’t in us. 9If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just, to forgive our sins and wash us clean from all unrighteousness. 10If we say we haven’t sinned, we make Him a liar, and His Word is not in us. 2 1My children, I’m writing this to you to keep you from sinning. If anyone sins, we have One to plead for us with the Father — Jesus Christ, Who is righteous. 2He is the payment for our sins, and not for ours only but for the whole world.
John sometimes seems to have a convoluted way of saying some things but I guess that is necessary to speak about the truths or rather Truth that he speaks. It is difficult to express things incomprehensible things in human speech. His opening chapter here follows pretty much the pattern of the first chapter of his Gospel.
Arche, a Greek word meaning beginning, source or commencement (as a source sometimes rulers). John uses it here and the beginning of his Gospel. Mark and Luke also have it at the beginning of their Gospels. The word should evoke in you chapter one of Genesis which was the beginning of creation. When these writers use this word at the beginning of their work I believe they are making a statement. What is that statement? Jesus has begun something new, a new age. The old, which we are living in, is passing away.
Like his Gospel that begins with the Word, who was with God in the beginning and is God, who becomes flesh, who is Life and Light and was beheld by men, so here in the beginning of his epistle, Jesus is the Word of Life and the Light of men. John and the apostles beheld him who is everlasting Life and was taught by him. Jesus is this Everlasting Life in the flesh and he has revealed himself to the world. Jesus has given himself to the world, to you, so you may have fellowship, participate in his life with God the Father.
To have fellowship or participate in the Light and Life of God, we are called to confess we were in the dark and walked in darkness. We have sinned. We expose our sins to the Light of God in Christ Jesus. When we do this, Jesus becomes our advocate with the Father. He pleads his blood for us as the payment for our sins. Having received the forgiveness of sins, this forgiveness transforms our lives so we don’t have to sin but rather bear the fruit of the Spirit who comes to dwell in us. Jesus light and life becomes our light and life and makes itself manifest in how we walk out our days.
Heavenly Father, grant that we do not hide our sins from you but rather confess them, exposing them to the light so they may be forgiven by our advocate Jesus Christ so we may live and walk in his light. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.