1 John 1:7

1Jn_1:7

But if we walk in the light … we have fellowship one with another.

The Christian life a walk

1. The first aspect of the Christian life which this figure suggests is that it is a life begun in connection with a public profession. A man who goes out to walk does something in the face of the world. The eye of man can watch your steps, and observe your gait and your whole demeanour. Thus also is it in relation as Christian disciples. From the moment we take the side of Christ the eye of the world is upon us.

2. On the other hand, this figure also reminds us that the Christian life is a life with a definite goal in view. You consider it hardly worthy of you to be seen wandering about aimlessly and listlessly.

3. Not less distinctly, however, does this phrase remind us that the Christian life is to be a life of dauntless spirit and self-girt energy. When a man sets a walk before him, he goes out with the air of one who has a task to accomplish and is determined to carry it through. No other spirit will suffice in the course of the Christian life. (J. P. Lilley, M. A.)

Christian fellowship with God

It is here explained that a Christian man is enabled to maintain that habitual fellowship with God which is the very life of his spirit. The apostle thus speaks as one who pursues a great end, and seeks to attain it by two specified means.

I. The end--fellowship with God. This is described in the text as fellowship one with another. The fellowship of which the apostle speaks is not that between Christian and Christian, but rather that between the individual believer and his God. In the previous verse fellowship with God is the subject of remark, and it is natural to suppose that the subject is the same in the following sentence, which is simply a continuation of the train of thoughts. Then it will be observed that all the parties mentioned in the first clause of the text are Christians who walk in the light, and God who is in the light. It is reasonable to assume that it is of these same parties fellowship is predicated in the second clause of the sentence. Finally, the expression His Son in the last clause points to the same conclusion. Were the fellowship spoken of that between Christians, the pronoun His would be inappropriate. Instead of His Son, it should have read Gods Son. The expression one with another, used with reference to the Christians fellowship with God, conveys the idea that this fellowship is not a one-sided affair, of man with God, but mutual, of man with God and of God with man. To aspire to fellowship with God, therefore, in the fullest sense of the word, is not presumption; it is simply seeking to live up to our privilege as children of the era of grace. The aim set before us here, however, is too high for the taste of many. They are content with a more distant relation. They would have God be only the high, lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy, and desire not to know Him as one who dwelleth with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit. Such awe-struck reverence, when sincere, is not to be condemned; on the contrary, it may be admitted to be aa essential element of Christian piety. But, on the other hand, we must equally be on our guard against ignoring the gracious, social side of the Divine nature. We have to remember that God desireth not to dwell alone in solitude, however august; that He is a Father as well as a King, that He is as gracious as He is mighty, as loving as He is holy. Then shall we trust in and converse with God, as a man trusts in and converses with a fellow man who is a bosom friend, and be able to say without presumption, we have fellowship one with another.

II. The means towards this high end.

1. If we walk in the light, we have fellowship. Walking in the light means living holily. Light, in the vocabulary of the apostle John, is the emblem of holiness, and darkness of sin.

(1) Obviously, on good grounds, fellowship is based on congeniality of spirit. Righteous beings have fellowship with each other as soon as they understand each other. No being is indifferent to his kind, least of all a good, holy being. Good men are lovers of good men. As good men have fellowship with each other, so have they one and all fellowship with the one absolutely good Being. With God alone is perfect fellowship possible. Why? Because God alone is light, without any admixture of darkness. There is perfect moral simplicity and purity in Him. For this reason He can be better known than any brother man can be, and we can be better known by Him.

(2) Another important condition of abiding fellowship is satisfaction in each others character and company. Fellowship with friends is very refreshing. Yet there is a limit to the joy to be found in human fellowship. The most gifted mans stock of thought is apt to become exhausted, the most affectionate mans love may have too great a strain put upon it, and human tempers are often frail. But there is One whose mind hath in exhaustible riches whose love can bear the heaviest burden, who knows nothing of moods and tempers and caprices; in whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. That unique Being is God, In Him is no satiety, no disappointment. You can ever lift up to Him your soul in meditation, praise, or prayer, and find ever new delight, and a satisfaction to the heart you seek in vain elsewhere.

2. The other means for maintaining fellowship with God is habitual recourse to the blood of Christ. And the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth from all sin. Of no child of light can it be affirmed, as of God, that in him is no darkness at all. It is in truth a part of our holiness (as distinct from that of God) to see and acknowledge our sinfulness. Such owning of darkness is, in its own way, light; it is the light of truthfulness, sincerity, guilelessness. This is always a prominent feature of saintly character, because, though the quantity of sin may be steadily diminishing, the saint sees his sin in its darkness, with ever-increasing clearness, as he advances in the way of light, and hates it with ever-increasing intensity. How, then, is the sin that cleaveth to the Christian, and mars his fellowship with God, to be dealt with so that fellowship may not be disturbed thereby? The answer of the text is, it is to be cleansed away by habitual recourse to the blood of Christ. Consider the tendency of sin, of every single sin we commit. It is to make us plunge again into the darkness. An evil conscience very readily puts a man on one or other of two courses, both fatal--hiding his sin, or hiding himself from God. In the one case he virtually says he has no sin, that he may have boldness before God; in the other he admits his sin, and flees, like Adam, from the presence of God. Christs blood, regarded by the eye of faith, keeps a Christian from both these bad courses. It keeps from denying sin by removing the temptation to do so. What tempts man to deny sin is fear. One who keeps his eye ever fixed on the Cross of Christ has no need to fear. Faith in the power of Christs death to cancel much guilt keeps his soul free from guile. The same faith preserves the Christian from the other fatal course, that of hiding himself from God, and, so to speak, breaking of all fellowship with Him. There is great danger in this direction. Evil habits are a fruitful source of apostasy and irreligion. The sinner is too honest to deny his guilt, but he makes the acknowledgment in a wrong, ruinous way--by ceasing from faith, prayer, and all profession of piety. The Christian who has sinned does not act thus. Faith enables him to solve a very difficult, delicate problem, that of steering safely between hypocrisy and irreligion; the denial of sin on the one hand and the denial of God on the other. Through faith he can at once confess sin and hope for mercy. Every new application to the merits of Christ makes him more tender in conscience, more anxious to sin no more, were it only to avoid the scandal and disgrace of even seeming to trample under foot the Son of God and to treat the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified as a common thing.

3. These, then, are the appointed means for maintaining a close fellowship with God. The combination is not to be mistaken for legalism. Legalism means the practical abandonment of Christs merits as an aid to sanctification, and the substitution in its place of painful ascetic efforts at self-sanctification. Finding himself exposed to new visitations of sinful desire after conversion and initial forgiveness, the young Christian draws the conclusion that while he must depend on Christ for justification he must look to himself for sanctification. It is another bypath leading into darkness, into which earnest souls are strongly tempted to err, after first fervours and joys are past. The very emphatic language used by the apostle in appraising the merits of Christs blood supplies a valuable antidote against the delusion. The blood of Jesus Christ, he declares, cleanseth from all sin. He would have everyone hope for forgiveness, for Christs sake, of whatever sin or crime he may have been guilty. Then he represents Christs blood as possessed of a continuous cleansing power. The fountain is ever open for sin and for uncleanliness. (A. B. Bruce, D. D.)

Walking in the light

1. We are to live under the abiding impression of Gods holiness (verse 8). Other lights than that from God might not show us how spotted we are. Here, then, is the first evidence that we are living, not in the light of our own conceit, but in that which comes from without and above our lives--the God light we will be very humble and penitent sort of people. But this light of holiness of God, if it really falls upon us, will show itself in another way besides; it will stir us up to a resolution to cease from sin. Read 1Jn_2:3-5. A man who is contented with any negligence of duty is not in the light. Light is poured through the universe not merely as a luminator, that eyes may see in it; it has also a chemical power. It bleaches some things, it quickens others. Plants that would be but dry stalks are stirred by its touch in their finest atoms, and draw up nourishment from the earth, and shoot out leaves which turn as in gratefulness toward their benefactor, the quickening ray. So the light of Gods holiness quickens the soul morally. It stirs every fibre of conscience. It makes it rejoice in every true, noble, pure aspiration. It hungers and thirsts after righteousness. It lifts itself up toward the light.

II. But the other ray of the Divine character seems to have more impressed the mind of John--viz., that of Gods love and grace, or we may better say His love as shown in His grace. Here is the sublimest light that ever fell out of the heavens upon men. And the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. Light is cheering to the eye. Some men are miserable without a flood of it. Professor Clifford, the great scientist, used to draw his table close to the window; his strong, clear eye delighted in the day radiance almost as the eagles does. Augustine tells us that he had the same passionate fondness for it; This queen of colours, the pure light, bathing all I behold, soothes me … If absent, it saddens my mind; and then he longs for the soul light it signified--the light, he says, which Isaac saw when his fleshly eyes were heavy, which Jacob, when blind through great age, saw with his illumined heart … So, O all-creating Lord, I lift mine invisible eyes to Thee. But both these great men were especially enamoured of the light of the Cross. They knew, what some of us have found out, that the darkest spot on earth is not some dungeon or cavern, but the centre of our moral being where it enwraps the conscience. You can get rays for mental satisfaction by studying the wonders of the world about you; you may light up your loneliness by the beauty of loved faces; but no crack or crevice in the soul lets in cheering light upon the natural mans sense of sin, Expedients of human invention for the enlightening of this dark spot are as ineffectual as the candles which are put out by the darkness of the cavern into which they are dropped. But sunshine is not put out if its ray drop into a cavern. Having come ninety millions of miles through space, it could gleam on to the very centre of the earth if the opening were straight and facing the sun itself. So the God light gleaming from the Cross goes to the innermost and darkest spot in a mans soul if only the soul opens straight towards the Cross. And that opening straight towards the Cross is what is meant by faith; as the Bible expresses it, whose heart is perfectly toward Him. Note, by the way, the exact meaning of the word John uses here to express the cleansing of sin. The blood of Jesus cleanseth; present tense, is cleansing, not merely has cleansed. We are being cleansed continually. This is just the very ray of light some of you need to see. But note another effect of this grace light. It, too, like the light of righteousness, is not only an illuminator, but a force, making a change in the heart upon which it falls. It not only reveals Gods love and grace to us, but makes us loving and gracious to others (1Jn_2:9-10). No Christian can be a hard man, a cold and indifferent man, a proud and selfish man, any more than ice can abide in the summer sunshine. Alas for those about whom the darkness of doubts, regrets, remorse, and fears is gathering! And what but darkness does the natural world east about the soul? Some will say with Tennysons Rizpah, The night has crept into my heart, and begun to darken mine eyes. But think not of the night. The day bursts above you; the heaven is breaking through the sky which shuts down so closely over you. Look up! (J. M. Ludlow, D. D.)

Walking in the light

1. I have said that the representation of the nature of God as light set Him forth to us as the God of revelation. Hence a leading element of walking in the light must be the subjection of our own spiritual nature to the action of Gods Word.

2. Another feature of the nature of God as light was seen to be His absolute purity. This also, therefore, must be a characteristic of our walk as His children.

3. The last characteristic of the Divine nature suggested by the phrase God is light was moral and spiritual glory. To walk in the light, then, must be so to walk as that this glory may be reflected through us in the view of the world. In other terms, every element of the moral glory of God must be seen in our life and conduct. Hence, for instance, we are to walk in wisdom. We have also to walk in righteousness. No less manifestly are we to walk in love. (J. P. Lilley, M. A.)

Walking in the light and washed in the blood

You perceive in the text that the Christian is spoken of as a man who is in the light; but there is something more said of him than this. He is practically in the light, if we walk in the light. He walks in the light of faith, in another path than that which is trodden by men who have nothing but the light of sense. He sees Him who is invisible, and the sight of the invisible God operates upon his soul; he looks into eternity, he marks the dread reward of sin, and the blessed gift of God to those who trust in Jesus, and eternal realities have an effect upon his whole manner and conversation: hence he is a man in the light, walking in that light. There is a very strong description given here--If we walk in the light as He is in the light. When a schoolmaster writes the copy at the head of the page, he does not expect that the boy will come up to the copy; but then if the copy be not a perfect one, it is not fit to be imitated by a child; and so our God gives us Himself as the pattern and copy, Be ye imitators of God as dear children, for nothing short of Himself would be a worthy model. But what does it mean, that the Christian is to walk in the light as God is in the light? We conceive it to import likeness, but not degree. We are as truly in the light, we are as heartily in the light, we are as sincerely in the light, though we cannot be there in the same degree. Having thus briefly sketched the character of the genuine Christian, observe that he is the possessor of two privileges; the first is, fellowship with God. We have fellowship one with another; and the second is, complete cleansing from sin--and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. The first privilege we will have but a word upon; it is fellowship with God. He opens His heart to us and we open our heart to Him; we become friends; we are bound and knit together, so that being made partakers of the Divine nature, having escaped the corruption which is in the world through lust, we live like Enoch, having our conversation above the skies.

I. The first thing that struck me was the greatness of everything in the text. To what a magnificent scale everything is drawn.

1. Think how great the sin of Gods people is!

2. Then observe the greatness of the atonement offered. It must be no man, merely; it must be the God-man mediator, the fellow of Jehovah, co-equal and co-eternal with Him, who must bear the bitterness of Divine wrath which was due to sin.

3. Think again: we have here great love which provided such a sacrifice.

II. The next thing which sparkles in the text, is its simple solitariness, We have fellowship one with another; and then it is added, as a gloriously simple statement, the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.

1. Observe, here is nothing said about rites and ceremonies or about Christian experience as a means of cleansing.

2. Observe, again, that in the verse there is no hint given of any emotions, feelings, or attainments, as cooperating with the blood to take away sin. The blood is the alone atonement, the blood without any mixture of aught beside, completes and finishes the work, For ye are complete in Him.

III. A third brilliant flashes in the light, viz., the completeness of the cleansing. The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin--not from some sin, but from all sin.

IV. The next gem that studs the text is the thought of presentness. Cleanseth, says the text, not shall cleanse. The moment a sinner trusts Jesus, that sinner is as fully forgiven as he will be when the light of the glory of God shall shine upon his resurrection countenance.

V. Now, in the fifth place, the text presents to us very blessedly the thought of certainty. It is not perhaps the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from sin, the text speaks of it as a fact not to be disputed--it does do so.

VI. The sixth gem which adorns the text is the divinity of it. Does it not strike you that the verse is written in a God-like style? God seems to put away His pearls as if they were but common pebbles. The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin--as if it were as much a matter of everyday work as for a man to wash his hands.

VI. In the last place, just a hint upon the wisdom of the text. I cannot see sin pardoned by the substitutionary atonement of the Lord Jesus, without dedicating myself to the praise and glory of the great God of redeeming love. If God had devised a scheme by which sin could be pardoned, and yet the sinner live to himself, I do not know that the world or the man would be advantaged. Now henceforth at the foot of the Cross the bands which bound our soul to earth are loosened. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The supreme importance of moral purity

First, that Christianity is based upon the palpable facts in the history of an extraordinary person. The person is here said to be from the beginning--which was with the Father; is called the Word of life, Eternal life. Secondly, that these palpable facts were observed by competent witnesses, who have transmitted them to us for moral ends. The apostles were intellectually and morally competent.

I. Moral purity is the essence of the divine character. God is light. Light is mysterious in its essence. Who, by searching, can find out God? Light is revealing in its power; through it we see all things. The universe can only be rightly seen through God. Light is felicitating; the animal creation feels it. He is the one blessed God. Light is pure, and in this sense God is called light. There are three things which distinguish Gods holiness from that of any creature:--First, it is absolutely perfect. Not only has He never thought an erroneous thought, felt a wrong emotion, performed a wrong act, but He never can. In Him there is no darkness at all. Secondly, it is eternally independent. The holiness of all creatures is derived from without, and depends greatly upon the influences and aids of other beings. But Gods holiness is uncreated. The holiness of creatures is susceptible of change. Thirdly, it is universally felt. Where is it not felt? It is felt in heaven. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, is one of the anthems that resound through the upper world. It is felt in hell. All guilty consciences feel its burning flash. It is the consuming fire.. It is felt on earth. The compunctions of conscience.

II. That moral purity is the condition of fellowship with God. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, etc. Three things are implied here:--First, that fellowship with God is a possible thing. John assumes this as something that need scarcely be argued.

1. That the fellowship of a moral being with its Creator is antecedently probable. God is the Father of all intelligent spirits; and is it not probable that the Father and the child should have intercourse with each other?

2. Man is in possession of means suited to this end. If it be said that God is invisible--that we cannot commune with Him--we may reply by saying that man is invisible, and we do not commune with him. The spirit with which we commune in man we see not. How do we commune with man? Through his works. Through his words. Through memorials. We have something in our possession which belonged to another; given, perhaps, to us as a keepsake. Secondly, that fellowship with God is a desirable thing. John assumes this. Nothing is more desirable for man than this. Thirdly, that this fellowship will ever be characterised by a holy life. Purity is the condition of fellowship.

III. That moral purity is the end of Christs mediation. The blood of Jesus Christ, etc. (Homilist.)

Children of light

There are children of light and children of darkness. The latter shun the bright, the pure azure shining sky of truth with all its loving beams. Their world is like the world of insects, and is the world of night. Insects are all light shunners. Even those which, like the bee, labour during the daytime, prefer the shades of obscurity. The children of light are like the birds. The world of birds is the world of light--of song. Nearly all of them, says Michelet, live in the sun, fill themselves with it, or are inspired by it. Those of the south carry its reflected radiance on their wings; those of our colder climates in their songs; many of them follow it from land to land. (Scientific Illustrations, etc.)

The best life the product of the bestlight

A manufacturer of carmine, who was aware of the superiority of the French colour, went to Lyons and bargained with the most celebrated manufacturer in that city for the acquisition of his secret, for which he was to pay one thousand pounds. He was shown all the process, and saw a beautiful colour produced; but he found not the least difference in the French mode of fabrication and that which had been constantly adopted by himself. He appealed to his instructor, and insisted that he must have concealed something. The man assured him that he had not, and invited him to see the process a second time. He minutely examined the water and the materials, which were in every respect similar to his own, and then, very much surprised, said, I have lost my labour and my money, for the air of England does not permit us to make good carmine. Stay, said the Frenchman, dont deceive yourself- what kind of weather is it now? A bright, sunny day, replied the Englishman. And such are the days, said the Frenchman, on which I make my colour. Were I to attempt to manufacture it on a dark or cloudy day my results would be the same as yours. Let me advise you always to make carmine on bright, sunny days.

Interrupted fellowship

When they were laying the Atlantic cable the engineers found the communication interrupted, and when they had taken it up sufficiently they found the difficulty was occasioned by a small piece of wire, only about twice the length of a pin, which, by some means, had been driven through the covering of the cable, and carried off the electric fluid. So a very small thing will put us out of fellowship with God, and interrupt our communion with heaven, and the only secret of a constant communion is a constant cleansing from all sin. (Fellowship.)

The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin--

The evil and its remedy

(with Eze_9:9):--I shall have two texts this morning--the evil and its remedy. The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great; and The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.

I. I begin with the first doctrine, The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great. Some men imagine that the gospel was devised, in some way or other, to soften down the harshness of God towards sin. There is no more harsh condemnation of sin anywhere than in the gospel. Moses charges you with sin, and tells you that you are without excuse; but as for the gospel, it rends away from you every shadow of a covering. Nor does the gospel in any way what ever give man a hope that the claims of the law will be in any way loosened. What God hath said to the sinner in the law, He saith to the sinner in the gospel. If He declareth that the soul that sinneth it shall die, the testimony of the gospel is not contrary to the testimony of the law. Do you reply to this, that Christ has certainly softened down the law? I reply, that ye know not, then, the mission of Christ. Before Christ came sin seemed unto me to be but little; but when He came sin became exceeding sinful, and all its dread heinousness started out before the light. But, says one, surely the gospel does in some degree remove the greatness of our sin. Does it not soften the punishment of sin? Ah! no. Moses says, The soul that sinneth, it shall die. And now comes Jesus Christ, the man of a loving countenance. What other prophet was the author of such dread expressions as these?--He shall burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire, or, Where their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched. The proclamation of Christ today is the same as the utterance of Ezekiel, The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceeding great. One sin, remember, destroyed the whole human race. Think again what an imprudent and impertinent thing sin is. It is thing so audacious, so full of pride, that one need not marvel that even a sin in the little eye of man, should, when it is looked upon by the conscience in the light of heaven, appear to be great indeed. But think again, how great does your sin and mine seem, if we will but think of the ingratitude which has marked it. Oh, if we set our secret sins in the light of His mercy, if our transgressions are set side by side with His favours, we must each of us say, our sins indeed are exceeding great!

II. Well, cries one, there is very little comfort in that. It is enough to drive one to despair. Ah! such is the very design of this text. If I may have the pleasure of driving you to a despair of your self-righteousness and a despair of saving your own soul, I shall be thrice happy. We turn, therefore, from that terrible text to the second one, The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. There lies the blackness; here stands the Lord Jesus Christ. What will He do with it? He will do a far better thing than make an excuse or pretend in any way to speak lightly of it. He will cleanse it all away. Dwell on the word all. Our sins are great; every sin is great; but there are some that in our apprehension seem to be greater than others. There may be some sins of which a man cannot speak, but there is no sin which the blood of Christ cannot wash away. Blasphemy, however profane; lust, however bestial; covetousness, however far it may have gone into theft and rapine; breach of the commandments of God, however much of riot it may have run, all this may be pardoned and washed away through the blood of Jesus Christ. Just take the word all in another sense, not only as taking in all sorts of sin, but as comprehending the great aggregate mass of sin. Come here, sinner, thou with the grey head. Couldst thou bear to read thine own diary if thou hadst written there all thy acts? No; for though thou be the purest of mankind, thy thoughts, if they could have been recorded, would now, if thou couldst read them, make thee startle and wonder that thou art demon enough to have had such imaginations within thy soul. But put them all here, and all these sins the blood of Christ can wash away. Yet, once more, in the praise of this blood we must notice one further feature. There be some of you here who are saying, Ah I that shall be my hope when I come to die, that in the last hour of my extremity the blood of Christ will take my sins away; it is now my comfort to think that the blood of Christ shall wash, and purge, and purify the transgressions of life. But, mark! my text saith not so; it does not say the blood of Christ shall cleanse--that were a truth--but it says something greater than that--it says, The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth--cleanseth now. Come, soul, this moment come to Him that hung upon the Cross of Calvary! come now and be washed. But what meanest thou by coming? I mean this: come thou and put thy trust in Christ, and thou shalt be saved. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The atonement of Christ

Let us view the text--

I. As pointing out its value. It declares the way of pardon to be by the blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is the blood of Him whose name is Jesus; a name which causeth those who know it to be joyful in Him that bears it. It is the blood of one appointed and commissioned to save His people from the guilt, the power, the practice, and the love of sin.

II. As declaring its continual efficacy. The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth from all sin; it has a cleansing quality. Oh! what great reason have we all to lament the polluted state of man. When the apostle says, The blood of Christ cleanseth, it evidently implies that His blood is the only means of obtaining pardon. And this efficacy is perpetual.

III. As asserting its universal influence. It cleanseth, not all persons, but from all sin. Since it was the blood of so great a person as the Son,of God, it is as powerful to cleanse us from the greatest sin as from the least. It is a universal remedy. (F. Spencer.)

The Passion of our Lord our cleansing

I. The instrument of our cleansing is said to be the blood of Jesus Christ.

1. Now the blood is the life thereof, and therefore, in the first place, we obtain the idea that Christs life has been given in expiation of our sins, and we get the idea of satisfaction, inasmuch as the life of an innocent person has been taken in atonement for the sins of those of whom that innocent person is a constituent member.

2. But next, the idea of blood especially conveys to us that element of self-immolation and self-sacrifice which so markedly distinguishes the work of Christ. The blood is the most intimate and precious thing which a man can have.

3. Again, the idea of blood conveys to us the notion of priestly lustration and cleansing. It places before us the present office of Christ, who, having entered into the holy place once for all, forever appears before the celestial altar pleading His Passion before the eternal Father, and presenting His perpetual sacrifice.

II. Whose blood it is that cleanseth from all sin. Whose blood? It is the blood of Jesus Christi The apostle speaks of the Church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood. Gods own blood! What an awful and wonderful expression! and yet it only enunciates the truth, that God the Son has taken to Himself a human body, not to reign in, but to suffer in; not to be glorified in, but to die in; to suffer that we might rejoice, to die that we might live forever.

III. The effect of this potent outpouring of the life of God. It cleanseth us from all sin. It is not mere remission. It is not mere averting the punishment. It is not mere pronouncing man just when he is in fact unjust. It is all this and more. By cleansing we mean making that pure which before was foul, and this is what we attribute to the blood of Christ. We believe that in that blood there is such a virtue as to be able to transform the sinful nature of man into an imperfect but real image of the holiness of God; that before its might all that is base and unclean fades away, and that, like the chemists potent elexir, it transmutes the baser elements with which it comes into contact into a new and more perfect substance. Again, the blood of Christ suggests to us such cleansing as comes from washing. That sea of blood which flowed from the Saviours veins is the laver wherein our souls are washed from all the soils with which the indulgence of sin defiles them. No harboured guilt, no vain delight, no bosom iniquity can withstand the rushing flood of grace that pours into the soul. God will not save us without ourselves, as St. Augustine bears witness; and therefore the efficacy of all that God has done for us depends in one sense upon ourselves. (Bp. A. P. Forbes.)

The efficacy of the Redeemers blood

I. The blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, cleanses us from all sin by making an atonement for all the guilt of sin; by providing for our justification. Pardon is never partial; and for this simple reason--the atoning blood of Christ reaches to one sin as well as to another; it is satisfaction in full, and therefore, when the merit of it is received by faith, all past sin is freely, fully forgiven.

II. The blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, cleanseth us from all sin, by procuring for us that measure of the gracious influence of Gods Holy Spirit, which may deliver us from all the power and from all the principle of sin. In other Words, it provides for our sanctification.

1. This doctrine of deliverance from all sin contains nothing more than what the nature of sin, if properly understood, makes imperatively necessary. The evangelical covenant does not speak of the expulsion of degrees of sin, but of the expulsion of its principle.

2. The doctrine in question contains nothing beyond what it must be admitted the Divine Spirit is competent to perform.

3. Whatever exception may be taken to this doctrine of deliverance from all the power and principle of sin, the thing itself is indispensably necessary to our happiness.

4. We say nothing but what all orthodox Christians admit must be done sometime. The controversy, therefore, only turns upon the point when this momentous work is to be accomplished. If this work be done at all, it must be either in eternity or in time. If the work cannot take place in eternity, then it must in time. Shall I ask, How long before the spirit quit its tabernacle? Five minutes? an hour? a day? a week? Why then not a year? why then not now?

5. When we insist upon this principle, we insist on nothing but what uniformly appears on the inspired page (Psa_51:10; Mat_5:8; Eph_3:19). (James Bromley.)

Cleansing virtue of Christs blood

It is a short but a full panegyric of the virtue of the blood of Christ.

1. In regard of the effect--cleansing.

2. In regard of the cause of its efficacy. It is the blood of Jesus, a Saviour. The blood of the Son of God, of one in a special relation to the Father.

3. In regard to the extensiveness of it--all sin. No guilt so high but it can master; no stain so deep but it can purge. Doctrine: The blood of Christ hath a perpetual virtue, and doth actually and perfectly cleanse believers from all guilt. This blood is the expiation of our sin and the unlocking our chains, the price of our liberty and of the purity of Our souls. The redemption we have through it is expressly called the forgiveness of sin (Eph_1:7). As the blood of the typical sacrifices purified from ceremonial, so the blood of the Anti-typical Offering purifies from moral uncleanness.

The Scripture places remission wholly in this blood of the Redeemer.

1. The blood of Christ is to be considered morally in this act.

2. The cleansing is to be doubly considered. There is a cleansing from guilt and a cleansing from filth--both are the fruits of this blood. The guilt is removed by remission, the filth by purification. Christ doth both. The one upon the account of His merit, the other by His efficacy which He exerts by His Spirit. These both spring up from the death of Christ, yet they belong to two distinct offices of Christ. He justifies us as a surety, a sacrifice by suffering, as a Priest by merit. But He sanctifies us as a King by sending His Spirit to work efficaciously in our hearts. By virtue of His death there is no condemnation for sin (Rom_8:1-3). By virtue of the grace of His Spirit there is no dominion of sin (Rom_6:4-14).

3. This cleansing from guilt may be considered as meritorious or applicative. As the blood of Christ was offered to God this purification was meritoriously wrought; as particularly pleaded for a person it is actually wrought; as sprinkled upon the conscience it is sensibly wrought. The first merits the removal of guilt, the second solicits it, the third ensures it. The one was wrought upon the Cross, the other is acted upon His throne, and the third pronounced in the conscience. The first is expressed Rom_3:25 : His blood rendered God propitious. The second, Heb_9:12 : As He is entered into the holy of holies. The third, Heb_9:14 : Christ justifies as a sacrifice in a way of merit, and when this is pleaded God justifies as a Judge in a way of authority.

4. The evidence of this truth well appears.

5. From the credit it had for the expiation and cleansing of guilt before it was actually shed and reliance of believers in all ages on it. The blood of Christ was applied from the foundation of the world, though it was not shed till the fulness of time. We must distinguish the virtue of redemption from the work of redemption. The work was appointed in a certain time, but the virtue was not restrained to a certain time. Several considerations will clear this.

(1) The Scripture speaks but of one person designed for this great work (Joh_1:29). As God is the God of all that died before Christ came, as well as of those that lived after; so Christ is the Mediator of all that died before His coming, as well as of those that saw His day.

(2) This one Mediator was set forth ever since the fall of man, as the foundation of pardon and recovery.

(3) Though these promises and prophecies of the expiation and cleansing of sin were something obscure to them and though they did not exactly know the method, how it would be accomplished, yet that sin should be pardoned was fully revealed, and something of the method of it might be known unto them.

(4) The ancient patriarchs had faith, and were actually pardoned.

(5) And this might well be upon the account of the compact between the Father the Judge and the Son the Redeemer. Had he not promised the shedding of His blood, justice had dislodged the sinner from the world. This was the true and sole end of His incarnation and death. All the ends mentioned by the Angel Gabriel to Daniel centre in this and refer to it. To finish the transgression, make an end of sin, and make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness (Dan_9:24), and thereby should all the visions and prophecies concerning the Messiah and His work be fulfilled.

(6) This is the fundamental doctrine of the gospel. The apostle, therefore, with a particular emphasis, tells them this is a thing to be known and acknowledged by all that own Christianity (1Jn_3:5).

(7) There could be no other end of His shedding His blood but this. Since His death is called a sacrifice (Eph_5:2), a propitiation (1Jn_2:2; Rom_3:25), it can be for no other end but the cleansing of sin.

6. The cleansing sin is wrought solely by His own worth, as He is the Son of God. It is, therefore, said in the text the blood, not only of Jesus Christ but of the Son of God. The blood of Jesus received its value from His Sonship, the eternal relation He stood in to His Father.

Since sin is an infinite evil no mere creature can satisfy for it, nor can all the holy works of all the creatures be a compensation for one act of sin, because the vastest heap of all the holy actions of men and angels would never amount to an infinite goodness, which is necessary for the satisfaction of an infinite wrong.

1. Hence it follows that sin is perfectly cleansed by this blood.

(1) The blood of Christ doth not perfectly cleanse us here from sin, in regard of the sense of it. Some sparks of the fiery law will sometimes flash in our consciences and the peace of the gospel be put under a veil. Evidences may be blurred and guilt revived: Satan may accuse, and conscience knows not how to answer him. There will be startlings of unbelief, distrusts of God, and misty steams from the miry lake of nature. But it hath laid a perfect foundation, and the top stone of a full sense and comfort will be laid at last. Peace shall be as an illustrious sunshine without a cloud; a sweet calm without any whisper of a blustering tempest. As Gods justice shall read nothing for condemnation, so conscience shall read nothing for accusation. The blood of Christ will be perfect in the effects of it. The soul shall be without fault before the throne of God (Rev_14:5).

(2) The blood of Christ doth not perfectly cleanse us here from sin in regard of the stirrings of it. The Old Serpent will be sometimes stinging us and sometimes foiling us. But this blood shall perfect what it hath begun, and the troubled sea of corruption that sends forth mire and dirt shall be totally removed (Heb_12:23).

(3) But the blood of Christ perfectly cleanseth us from sin here in regard of condemnation and punishment. Thus it blots it out of the book of Gods justice; it is no more to be remembered in a way of legal and judicial sentence against the sinner. Though the nature of sin doth not cease to be sinful, yet the power of sin ceaseth to be condemning. Where the crime is not imputed the punishment ought not to be inflicted. It is inconsistent with the righteousness of God to be an appeased and yet a revenging Judge. When the cause of His anger is removed the effects of His anger are extinguished. Herein doth the pardon of sin properly consist in a remission of punishment. The crime cannot be remitted, but only in regard of punishment merited by it. If God should punish a man that is sprinkled with the blood of Christ it would be contrary both to His justice and mercy. To His justice because He hath accepted of the satisfaction made by Christ who paid the debt. It would be contrary to His mercy, for it would be cruelty to adjudge a person to punishment who is legally discharged.

(4) The effect of this blood shall appear perfect at the last in the final sentence. It cleanseth us initially here, completely hereafter. It cleanseth us here in law. Its virtue shall be manifest by a final sentence. There is here a secret grant passed in our consciences; there, a solemn publication of it before men and angels.

(5) Hence it cleanseth from all sin universally. He was delivered for our offences (Rom_4:25)--not for some few offences, but for all; and as He was delivered for them so He is accepted for them. Men have different sins, according to their various dispositions or constitutions. Every man hath his own way. And the iniquity of all those various sins of a different stamp and a contrary nature in regard of the acts and objects God hath made to meet at the Cross of Christ, and laid them all upon Him (Isa_53:6)--the sins of all believing persons, in all parts, in all ages of the world, from the first moment of mans sinning to the last sin committed on the earth.

I. How Christs blood cleanseth from sin. God the Father doth actually and efficiently justify; Christs blood doth meritoriously justify. God the Father is considered as Judge, Christ is considered as Priest and Sacrifice. This is done--

1. By taking sin upon Himself.

2. By accounting the righteousness and sufficiency of His sufferings to us.

(1) This cleansing of us by imputing this blood to us is by virtue of union and communion with Him.

(2) This union is made by faith, and upon this account we are said to be justified by faith.

II. The use. If the blood of Christ hath the only and perpetual virtue and doth actually and perfectly cleanse believers from all sin, then it affords us--

1. A use of instruction.

(1) Every man uninterested by faith in the blood of Christ is hopeless of a freedom from guilt while he continues in that state.

(2) No freedom from the guilt of sin is to be expected from mere mercy. The figure of this was notable in the legal economy. The mercy seat was not to be approached by the high priest without blood (Deu_9:7). Christ Himself typified by the high priest expects no mercy for any of His followers but by the merit of His blood. The very title of justification implies not only mercy but justice; and more justice than mercy, for justification is not upon a bare petition but a propitiation.

(3) There is no ground for the merits of saints or a cleansing purgatory.

(4) No mere creature can cleanse from sin. No finite thing can satisfy an infinite justice; no finite thing can remit or purchase the remission of an injury against an Infinite Being. A creature can no more cleanse a soul than it can frame and govern a world and redeem a captived sinner.

(5) There is no righteousness of our own, no services we can do, sufficient for so great a concern. To depend upon any or all of them, or anything in ourselves, is injurious to the value and worth of this blood; it is injurious also to ourselves; it is like the setting up a paper wall to keep off a dreadful fire, even that consuming one of Gods justice. And there is good reason for it.

(a) No righteousness of man is perfect, and there[ore no righteousness of man is justifying.

(b) The design of God was to justify us in such a way as to strip us of all matter of glorying in ourselves, and therefore it is not by any righteousness of our own.

(6) We are therefore justified by a righteousness imputed to us. The blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin. It is not physically or corporally applied to us, but juridically, and therefore imputed to us, and that for justification (Rom_5:9).

III. Use of comfort. The comfort of a believer hath a strong and lasting foundation in the blood of Christ.

1. The title is cheering. The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son. The titles of the blood of God and the righteousness of God are enough to answer all objections, and testify a virtue in it as incomprehensible as that of His Godhead which elevated it to an infinite value. What wounds are so deep that they cannot be healed by the sovereign balsam of so rich a blood? The blood of Christ is as much above the guilt of our sins as the excellency of His person is above the meanness of ours.

2. And who can fathom the comfort that is in the extensiveness of the object? All sin. All transgressions to it are like a grain of sand or the drop of a bucket to the ocean--no more seen or distinguished when it is swallowed up by that mass of waters. It is a plenteous redemption.

3. And doth not the word cleanse deserve a particular consideration? What doth that note but--

(1) Perfection? It cleanseth their guilt so that it shall not be found (Jer_50:20). What can justice demand more of us, more of our Saviour, than what hath been already paid?

(2) Continuance of justification. The present tense implies a continued act. Hence will follow security at the last judgment. His blood cleanseth from all sin here, and His voice shall absolve from all sin hereafter.

IV. Use of exhortation. Have recourse only to this blood upon all occasions since it only is able to cleanse us from all our guilt. (Bp. Hacket.)

The cleansing blood

1. The blood of the Cross was royal blood. It is called an honour to have in ones veins the blood of the house of Stuart, or of the house of Hapsburg. It is nothing when I point you to the outpouring blood of the King of the Universe? It is said that the Unitarians make too much of the humanity of Christ. I respond that we make too little. If some Roman surgeon, standing under the Cross, had caught one drop of the blood on his hand and analysed it, it would have been found to have the same plasma, the same disc, the same fibrine, the same albumen.

2. It was unmistakably human blood.

3. I go still further, and say it was a brothers blood. If you saw an entire stranger maltreated, and his life oozing away on the pavement, you would feel indignant. But if, coming along the street, you saw a company of villains beating out the life of your own brother the sight of his blood would make you mad. You would bound into the affray. That is your brother, maltreated on the Cross.

4. It was substitutionary blood. Our sins cried to heaven for vengeance. Some one must die. Shall it be us or Christ? Let it be me, said Jesus. (T. De Witt Talmage.)

The cleansing blood

I. Consider the connection of the text. The blood of Christ and its cleansing efficacy are associated with fellowship. The question is, what is the relation between them to which the apostle adverts? Without it we can have no fellowship with the Father (Heb_9:1-28; Heb_10:1-39). The penitent sinner, carrying the blood of Jesus in the hand of faith, and sprinkling the mercy seat, may have fellowship with the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The same law obtains in holding fellowship with the Son also. How impressively this lesson is taught in His own ordinance of the Supper. That ordinance is the out ward expression of fellowship with Him, and it thus teaches how that fellowship is to be enjoyed. Nor is there any other basis on which believers can hold fellowship with one another as the followers of Christ. They may truly say, The cup of blessing which we bless, etc. The death of Christ is the bond of their union. They are alike sinners, and have no hope but the death of Jesus. It is to be borne in mind also that fellowship in all these views with the Father, and the Son, and believers, as it is begun by the reception of this doctrine, must ever be maintained by the application of it. We can never come to God otherwise, and we may always come to Him by the peace-speaking blood of Jesus.

II. The blessed doctrine itself. The statement expresses both the efficacy of the blood of Christ and the reason of it.

1. Whence does the efficacy of the blood of Christ to cleanse from sin arise? Not merely from Divine appointment, although there was a Divine appointment. That appointment was made because it was seen by the Omniscient mind to be effectual. It constituted at once the power of God and the wisdom of God.

2. The efficacy itself--It cleanseth from all sin.

(1) There is original sin.

(2) There is again actual sin. Alas! how mightily does it prevail.

(3) There is, farther, the guilt of sin. How fearfully is it accumulated! Which of Gods commandments has not the sinner broken?

(4) So also is there the power of sin. It might be supposed this was not to be overcome.

(5) Yet again there are the sins of believers.

(6) Even the best services of believers, however, are not faultless. Often, while others applaud them, they are ashamed to lift up their faces to the Lord. They can look for acceptance only through the merit and mediation of Jesus Christ.

3. Blood must be sprinkled before it is made effectual. Under the law, all things were purged by blood. The book, the people, the tabernacle, and the vessels of the ministry, were sprinkled with blood. So must it be with our souls. It will not suffice that the blood of Christ has been shed. It must be applied to the conscience. (J. Morgan, D. D.)

Cleanseth from all sin

so that men are made like to God, in whom is no darkness (verse 5). The thought here is of sin and not of sins; of the spring,, the principle, and not of the separate manifestations. (Bp. Westcott.)

Cleanseth.

Not a coming to the fountain to be cleansed only, but a remaining in it, so that it may and can go on cleansing; the force of the tense a continuous present, always a present tense, not a present which the next moment becomes a past. (Frances R. Havergal.)

The blood

This word declares more vividly than any other could do three great realities of the Christian belief--the reality of the manhood of Jesus, the reality of His sufferings, the reality of His sacrifice. (Expositors Bible.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1 John

WALKING IN THE LIGHT

1Jn 1:7.

John was the Apostle of love, but he was also a ‘son of thunder.’ His intense moral earnestness and his very love made him hate evil, and sternly condemn it; and his words flash and roll as no other words in Scripture, except the words of the Lord of love. In the immediate context he has been laying down what is to him the very heart of his message, that ‘God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.’ There are spots in the sun, great tracts of blackness on its radiant disc; but in God is unmingled, perfect purity. That being so, it is clear that no man can be in sympathy or hold communion with Him, unless he, too, in his measure, is light.

So, with fiery indignation, John turns to the people, of whom there were some, even in the primitive Church, who made claims to a lofty spirituality and communion with God, and all the while were manifestly living in the darkness of sin. He will not mince matters with them. He roundly says that they are lying, and the worst sort of lie--an acted lie: ‘They do not the truth.’ Then, with a quick turn, he opposes to these pretenders the men who really are in fellowship with God, and in my text lays down the principle that walking in the light is essential to fellowship with God. Only, in his usual fashion, he turns the antithesis into a somewhat different form, so as to suggest another aspect of the truth, and instead of saying, as we might expect for the verbal accuracy of the contrast, ‘If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with God,’ he says, ‘we have fellowship one with another.’ Then he adds a still further result of that walk, ‘the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin.’

Now there are three things: walking in the light, which is the only Christian walk; the companions of those who walk in the light; and the progressive cleansing which is given.

I. Note this ‘Walking in the light,’ which is the only Christian walk.

In all languages, light is the natural symbol for three things: knowledge, joy, purity. The one ray is broken into its three constituent parts. But just as there are some surfaces which are sensitive to the violet rays, say, of the spectrum, and not to the others, so John’s intense moral earnestness makes him mainly sensitive to the symbolism which makes light the expression, not so much of knowledge or of joy, as of moral purity. And although that is not exclusively his use of the emblem, it is predominately so, and it is so here. To ‘walk in the light’ then, is, speaking generally, to have purity, righteousness, goodness, as the very element and atmosphere in which our progressive and changeful life is carried on.

Note, too, before I go further, that very significant antithesis: we ‘walk’; He is--God is in the light essentially, changelessly, undisturbedly, eternally; and the light in which He is, His ‘own calm home, His habitation from eternity,’ is light which has flowed out from Himself as a halo round the midnight moon. It is all one in substance to say God is in light, or, as the Psalmist has it, ‘He covered Himself with light as with a garment,’ and to say, ‘God is light.’

But, side by side with that changeless abiding in the perfect purity, which is inaccessible, the Apostle ventures to put, not in contrast only, but in parallel {as He is}, our changing, effortful, active, progressive life in the light {God is}; we walk.

So, then, the essential of a Christian character is that the light of purity and moral goodness shall be as the very orb, in the midst of which it stands and advances. That implies effort, and it implies activity, and it implies progress. And we are only Christians in the measure in which the conscious activities of our daily lives, and the deepest energies of our inward being, are bathed and saturated with this love of, and effort after, righteousness. It is vain, says John, to talk about fellowship with God, unless the fellowship is rooted in sympathy with Him in that which is the very heart of his Being, the perfect light of perfect holiness. Test your Christianity by that.

Then, still further, there is implied in this great requirement of walking in the light, not only activity and effort, and progress and purity, but also that the whole of the life shall be brought into relation with, and shall be moulded after, the pattern of the God in whom we profess to believe. Religion, in its deepest meaning, is the aspiration after likeness to the god. You see it in heathenism. Men make their gods after their own image, and then the god makes the worshippers after his image. Mars is the god of the soldier, and Venus goddess of the profligate, and Apollo god of the musical and the wise, etc., and in Christianity the deepest thing in it is aspiration and effort after likeness to God. Love is imitation; admiration, especially when it is raised to the highest degree and becomes adoration, is imitation. And the man that lies before God, like a mirror in the sunshine, receives on the still surface of his soul--but not, like the mirror, on the surface only, but down into its deepest depths--the reflected image of Him on Whom he gazes. ‘We all with unveiled face, mirroring glory, are changed into the same image.’ So to walk in the light is only possible when we are drawn into it, and our feeble feet made fit to tread upon the radiant glory, by the thought that He is in the light. To imitate Him is to be righteous. So do not let us forget that a correct creed, and devout emotions, ay! and a morality which has no connection with Him, are all imperfect, and that the end of all our religion, our orthodox creed and our sweet emotions and inward feelings of acceptance and favour and fellowship, are meant to converge on, and to produce this--a life and a character which lives and moves and has its being in a great orb of light and purity.

But another thing is included in this grand metaphor of my text. Not only does it enjoin upon us effort and activity and progress in the light and the linking of all our purity with God, but also, it bids us shroud no part of our conduct or our character either from ourselves or from Him. Bring it all out into the light. And although with a penitent heart, and a face suffused with blushes, we have sometimes to say, ‘See, Father, what I have done!’ it is far better that the revealing light should shine down upon us, and like the sunshine on wet linen, melt away the foulness which it touches, than that we should huddle the ugly thing up in a corner, to be one day revealed and transfixed by the flash of the light turned into lightning. ‘He that doeth the truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest.’

II. So much, then, for my first point; the second is: The companions of the men that walk in the light.

I have already pointed out that the accurate, perhaps pedantically accurate, form of the antithesis would have been: ‘If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with God.’ But John says, first, ‘we have fellowship one with another.’ Underlying that, as I shall have to say in a moment, there is the other thought: ‘We have fellowship with God.’ But he deals with the other side of the truth first. That just comes to this, that the only cement that perfectly knits men to each other is their common possession of that light, and the consequent fellowship with God. There are plenty of other bonds that draw us to one another; but these, if they are not strengthened by this deepest of all bonds, the affinity of souls, that are moving together in the realm of light and purity, are precarious, and apt to snap. Sin separates men quite as much as it separates each man from God. It is the wedge driven into the tree that rends it apart. Human society with its various bonds is like the iron hoop that may be put around the barrel staves, giving them a quasi-unity. The one thing that builds men together into a whole is that each shall be, as it were, embedded in the rock which is the foundation, and the building will rise into a holy temple in the Lord. Sin separates; as the prophet confessed, ‘All we like sheep have gone astray, every one to his own way,’ and the flock is broken up into a multitude of scattered sheep. Social enthusiasts may learn the lesson that the only way by which brotherhood among men can become anything else than a name, and probably end, as it did in the great French Revolution, in ‘brothers’ making the catacombs of their brethren under the guillotine, is that it shall be the corollary from the Fatherhood of God. If we walk in the light, not otherwise, we have ‘fellowship one with another.’

Then, still further, in this fellowship one with another, John presupposes the fellowship with God for each, which makes the possibility and the certainty of all being drawn into one family. He does not think it necessary to state, what is so plain and obvious, viz., that unless we are in sympathy with God, in our aspiration and effort after the light which is His home and ours, we have no real communion with Him. I said that sin separated man from man, and disrupted all the sweet bonds of amity, so that if men come into contact, being themselves in the darkness, they come into collision rather than into communion. A company of travellers in the night are isolated individuals. When the sun rises on their paths they are a company again. And in like manner, sin separates us from God, and if our hearts are turned towards, and denizens of, the darkness of impurity, then we have no communion with Him. He cannot come to us if we love the darkness. He

‘Can but listen at the gate,

And hear the household jar within.’

The tide of the Atlantic feels along the base of iron-bound cliffs on our western shores, and there is not a crevice into which it can come. So God moves about us, but is without us, so long as we walk in darkness. So let us remember that no union with Him is possible, except there be this common dwelling in the light. Two grains of quicksilver laid upon a polished surface will never unite if their surfaces be dusted over with minute impurities, or if the surface of one of them be. Clean away the motes, and they will coalesce and be one. A film of sin separates men from God. And if the film be removed the man dwells in God, and God in him.

III. That brings me to my last point: The progressive cleansing of those who dwell in the light.

‘The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin.’ Now if you will notice the whole context, and eminently the words a couple of verses after my text, you will see that the cleansing here meant is not the cleansing of forgiveness, but the cleansing of purifying. For the two things are articulately distinguished in the ninth verse: ‘He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’ So, to use theological terms, it is not justification, but sanctification that is meant here.

Then there is another thing to be noticed, and that is that when the Apostle speaks here about the blood of Christ, he is not thinking of that blood as shed on the Cross, the atoning sacrifice, but of that blood as transfused into the veins, the source there of our new life. The Old Testament says that ‘the blood is the life.’ Never mind about the statement being scientifically correct; it conveys the idea of the time, which underlies a great deal of Old and New Testament teaching. And when John says the blood of Jesus cleanses from ‘all sin,’ he says just the same thing as his brother Paul said, ‘the law of the spirit of life in Jesus Christ makes me free from the law of sin and death.’ That is to say, a growing cleansing from the dominion and the power of sin is granted to us, if we have the life of Jesus Christ breathed into our lives. The metaphor is a very strong one. They tell us--I know nothing about the truth of it--that sometimes it has been possible to revive a moribund man by transfusing into his veins blood from another. That is a picture of the only way by which you and I can become free from the tyranny that dominates us. We must have the life of Christ as the animating principle of our lives, the spirit of Jesus emancipating us from the power of sin and death.

So you see, there are two aspects of Christ’s great work set before us under that one metaphor of the blood in its two-fold form, first, as shed for us sinners on the Cross; second, as poured into our veins day by day. That works progressive cleansing. It covers the whole ground of all possible iniquity. Pardon is much, purifying is more. The sacrifice on the Cross is the basis of everything, but that sacrifice does not exhaust what Christ does for us. He died for our sins, and lives for our sanctifying. He died for us, He lives in us. Because He died, we are forgiven; because He lives, we are made pure. Only remember John’s ‘if.’ The ‘blood of Jesus will progressively cleanse us until it has cleansed us from all sin,’ on condition that we ‘walk in the light,’ not otherwise. If the main direction of our lives is towards the light; if we seek, by aspiration and by effort, and by deliberate choice, to live in holiness, then, and not else, will the power of the life of Jesus Christ deliver us from the power of sin and death.

Now, my text presupposes that the people to whom it is addressed, and whom it concerns, have already passed from darkness into light, if not wholly, yet in germ. But for those who have not so passed, there is something to be said before my text. And John says it immediately; here it is, ‘If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for our sins only, but for the whole world.’ So we have to begin with the blood shed for us, the means of our pardon, and then we have the advance of the blood sprinkled on us, the means of our cleansing. If by humble faith we take the dying Lord for our Saviour, and the channel of our forgiveness, we shall have the pardon of our sins. If we listen to the voice that says, ‘Ye were sometime darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord. Walk as children of the light,’ we shall have fellowship with the living Lord, and daily know more and more of the power of His cleansing blood, making us ‘meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1:7 Believers have fellowship with each other and with God as they live in the light. People cannot say they commune with God and then refuse to have fellowship with God’s people. This was the case with the Gnostics. The apostles of Christ had known Jesus Christ as God-in-the-flesh and were continuing to have spiritual fellowship with him (1:3).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

1Jn 1:7. Ὡς, as) Imitation of God is the test of fellowship with Him.—αὐτὸς, He Himself) God. So the Hebrews often say, הוא, He, that is, God. So αὐτὸς, 1Ma 3:22.—ἔστιν, is) This word is more inward, and more worthy of God, than to walk.—κοινωνίαν ἔχομεν, we have fellowship) that is, Then we truly say, that we have fellowship: for walking in the light certainly and immediately follows this.—μετ ̓ ἀλλήλων) mutual, between us and you: 1Jn 1:3: for ἀλλήλων, reciprocally, does not appear an appropriate expression respecting God and men: comp. Joh 20:17. It is however an abbreviated expression: in 1Jn 1:6, with Him, understand from 1Jn 1:7, and among ourselves [and one with another]: in 1Jn 1:7, among us [one with another], understand from 1Jn 1:6, with Him. Comp. Joh 14:10, note.—καὶ τὸ αἷμα, and the blood) Fellowship with the Son of God is described. Respecting the blood, comp. ch. 1Jn 5:6; Joh 6:53-56; Rev 1:5.—καθαρίζει ἡμᾶς, cleanseth us) by remission and taking away: comp. 1Jn 1:9.—πάσης, all) original and actual.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1Jn_1:7. This verse does not merely repeat in its antithetical form the preceding thought, but contains alsoas is peculiar to Johns lively fertility of ideasan expansion of it.

ἐὰν δὲ ἐν τῷ φωτὶ περιπατῶμεν] is contrasted not only with the preceding (ἐὰν) ἐν τῷ σκότει περιπατῶμεν, but also with ἐὰν εἴπωμεν, ὅτι κοιν. ἐχ. μετʼ αὐτοῦ (so also Ebrard), thus: if we do not merely say that we have fellowship with God, and yet at the same time walk in darkness, but if we really walk ἐν τῷ φωτί.

ἐν τῷ φωτὶ περιπατεῖν is not to strive after likeness to God (Lücke), but so to walk that the light (by which, however, we are not, with Weiss, to understand only knowledge) is the element in which our light moves; this, however, is a life which does not consist in striving after likeness to God, but which has this already as its own, or which is an ἔχειν κοινωνίαν μετʼ αὐτοῦ with Him who is light. This unity between walking in the light and fellowship with God is even more clearly brought out by the following words: ὡς αὐτός ἐστιν ἐν τῷ φωτί] ὡς, because it is the same element in which the true Christian walks and in which God lives and works (Düsterdieck, Brückner), inasmuch as the Christian has become θείας κοινωνὸς φύσεως (2Pe_1:4).

αὐτός refers back to αὐτοῦ, 1Jn_1:6, and is put for Θεός. The idea that God is in the light is the same as this that God is light; that which is the nature of God is also the element of His life; the expression used here is occasioned by the preceding ἐν τῷ φωτὶ περιπατεῖν; Ebrard incorrectly explains: God has chosen for His habitation the spheres of the sinless, holy, and pure life of the angels and those made perfect; there is not the slightest hint at such a conception in the context. As Weiss denies to the expression φῶς an ethical reference, and explains ἐν τῷ φωτὶ περιπατεῖν = to walk in a state of right knowledge, the clause ὡς αὐτός ἐστιν ἐν τῷ φωτί necessarily causes him a difficulty, which he can only solve by the supposition that an idea similar to that in 1Ti_6:16 was before the apostles mind, and that he institutes a parallel between the walk of the Christian in the light of true knowledge, and the dwelling of God in the brightness of His glory, in which it is plainly ignored that the second ἐν τῷ φωτί must necessarily have the same meaning as the first ἐν τῷ φωτί.

ἐστι is contrasted with περιπατῶμεν; the former is peculiar to God, the latter to men; the former (being) to Him who is eternal, the latter (walking) to him who is temporal.

κοινωνίαν ἔχομεν μετʼ ἀλλήλων] Several commentators wrongly deviate from the statement of the apostle, by interpreting as if μετʼ αὐτοῦ were used instead of μετʼ ἀλλήλων, as indeed the reading of some is (see the critical notes); or by understandingquite unsuitably

ἀλλήλων of God and men; so Calvin: quod dicit, societatem esse nobis mutuam, non simpliciter ad homines refertur, sed Deum in una parte, nos autem in altera; the same interpretation in Augustin, Beza, Socinus, Hornejus, Lange, Spener, Russmeyer, Ewald, etc. De Wette, it is true, interprets ἀλλήλων correctly, but supplies μετὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ, thus: we have fellowship one with another, namely with God; against this explanation are: first, that then John would not have mentioned the very leading thought; and, secondly, that a tautological idea results from it (Lücke), for a περιπατεῖν ἐν τῷ φωτί is only possible through the κοινωνία μετὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ, nay, even is the necessary proof of it. The subject here is much rather the fellowship of Christians with one another (Bede, Lyranus, Grotius, Wolf, Bengel, Semler, Lücke, Baumgarten-Crusius, Neander, Sander, Düsterdieck, Ebrard, Braune, Brückner, etc.), and indeed quite generally, not, as Bengel considers, so that the apostle and his readers (nos et vos) would be regarded as the two parts bound together. The brotherly fellowship of Christians with one another ἐν ἀγάπῃ presupposes therefore the walking in light, or in fellowship with God, of which it is the necessary consequence.

With such a walk a second element is, however, united, namely: καὶ τὸ αἷμα Ἰησοῦ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ καθαρίζει ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ πάσης ἁμαρτίας.

τὸ αἶμα Ἰησοῦ] is not a metonymical expression for the consideration of His death (Socinus, Episcopius, Grotius, etc.),[55] but: the blood which Jesus (thus spoken of here as incarnate) shed as an offering at His death; or: the bloody sacrificial death of the Lord (Düsterdieck, Ebrard, Braune).[56]

ΤΟῦ ΥἹΟῦ ΑὐΤΟῦ] is not merely added as a name of honour, but also not to indicate the close connection between the cause of God and Christ, as Baumgarten-Crusius says, but in order to bring out the identity of the crucified One with the Son of God (so also the incarnation of the Son of God); compare chap. 1Jn_5:6; at the same time, however, there lies in it an indication how the blood of Jesus can have the effect which the apostle attributes to it (so also Ebrard).

ΚΑΘΑΡΊΖΕΙ ἩΜᾶς ἈΠῸ ΠΆΣΗς ἉΜΑΡΤΊΑς] may mean either the cleansing from guilt, i.e. the forgiveness of sins (Bede, Socinus, a Lapide, Calov, Lange, Baumgarten-Crusius, Erdmann, Weiss, etc.), or cleansing from sin itself, its eradication (Lücke, Frommann, Düsterdieck, Ebrard, Myrberg, Braune, Ewald, etc.), or, finally, both together (Spener, Hornejus, Bengel, de Wette, Brückner). According to 1Jn_1:9, where ἀφιέναι τὰς ἁμαρτίας and ΚΑΘΑΡΊΖΕΙΝ ἈΠῸ ΠΆΣΗς ἈΔΙΚΊΑς are placed together and thus distinguished from one another, the second view must be regarded as the correct one,[57] as indeed the context also demands; for, as the fact that even the believer has still continually sin is in opposition to the exhortation to περιπατεῖν ἐν τῷ φωτί, the apostle had to point out that sin is ever disappearing more and more, and how, so that the walk which is troubled by it may still be considered as a walk in light, and that in spite of sin there may exist a fellowship with God, who is light. As ΠΕΡΙΠΑΤΕῖΝ ἘΝ Τῷ ΦΩΤΊ is given as the condition (not as the means, which the blood of Christ is) of ΚΑΘΑΡΊΖΕΣΘΑΙ, and as the subject here therefore is not the change, wrought by the blood of Christ, of man from a child of darkness into a child of light, but the growing transformation of him who has already become a child of light, the present καθαρίζει is not to be turned into the preterite, but is to be retained as the present; Spener: He purifies us ever more and more until the final perfect purity. Comp. Gospel of Joh_15:2.[58]

ἀπὸ πάσης ἉΜΑΡΤΊΑς, from every sin; sins are regarded as the single dark spots which still continually trouble the Christians walk in light. The καί which connects the two parts of the subordinate clause is explained by Oecumenius, Theophylact, Beza, Lange, Semler, etc. = nam. Sander recognises the grammatical incorrectness of this interpretation, but is of opinion that the second clause is to be taken as causal, as the basis and condition of the first; but even this is arbitrary. According to de Wette, καί connects directly with the idea of fellowship the progressive and highest perfection of it; but this view is founded on the incorrect assumption that the subject of the first clause is fellowship with God. Ebrard thinks that John in these two clauses together expresses the idea of ΚΟΙΝΩΝΊΑ with God, while he analyzes it forthwith into its two elements: the fellowship of believers with one another, and the fellowship and participation in the divine vital power; but it is in the first place incorrect to describe the ΚΟΙΝΩΝΊΑ ΜΕΤʼ ἈΛΛΉΛΩΝ as an clement of the κοινωνία μετὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ, and in the second place the purifying efficacy of the blood of Jesus can much less be regarded as an element of it; besides, Ebrard has clearly been induced to add the word participation, through the perception that the idea of fellowship is quite unsuitable to the second clause. While the ΚΟΙΝΩΝΊΑ ΜΕΤᾺ ΤΟῦ ΘΕΟῦ is manifestly presupposed before the ΠΕΡΙΠΑΤΕῖΝ ἘΝ Τῷ ΦΩΤΊ, these two clauses express rather the double fruit of our walk in light, of our living fellowship with God, who is light (Düsterdieck); but when John puts ΚΟΙΝΩΝΊΑ ΜΕΤʼ ἈΛΛΉΛΩΝ first, he thereby indicates that it is the sphere within which the purifying power of the blood of Christ operates on each individual (Brückner, Braune). Besides, it may be observed that the second clause is intended to point out the progressive growth of Christian life, and cannot therefore suitably precede the first clause.

[55] That the operation of the blood of Jesus on us is to be regarded as conditioned by faith is evident; but there is no justification in this for paraphrasing τὸ αἶμα by faith in the blood.

[56] It is unjustifiable for Myrberg to say: quum hic sanguis nominatur, de toto opere Christi Mediatoris, immo de toto Christo Deum nobis et nos Deo reconciliante ac opus divinum in nobis operante cogitare debemus.

[57] Against Erdmanns assertion: Quum notio αἴματος J. Christi in s. seriptis aeque ac mors ejus semper vim expiandi habeat atque idem quod ἱλασμός signifleet (1Jn_2:2), etiam h. l. expiatio ab apostolo designatur, qua sola fieri potest, ut peccata nobis condonentur, it is to be observed that in scripture the vis expiandi only is by no means ascribed to the blood of Christ; comp. 1Pe_1:18. In opposition to the assertion of Weiss, that we cannot imagine how the blood of Christ should effect a deliverance from sin, it may be stated that a forgiveness of sin which produces no deliverance from sin, is no true forgiveness; comp. Tit_2:14. Forgiveness is here to be associated with the thought only in so far as it is the necessary presupposition of that deliverance.

[58] In what this purifying efficacy of the αἶμα Ἰησοῦ is founded, John does not here say; but from the fact that in ver. 9 the ἀφιέναι τὰς ἁμαρτίας is put before the καθαρίζειν, and Christ in chap. 1Jn_2:2 is described as ἱλασμός, it follows, that according to John the purifying power is associated with the blood of Christ in so far as it is the blood of atonement. Ebrard improperly separates the two elements from one another, ascribing to the death of Christ the power of purifying our hearts from sin, because in Christs death sin is condemned; and, on the other hand, the power of making atonement and obtaining forgiveness, because in Christs death the debt was paid and mercy procured.When Frommann says: The power that purifies from sin does not exactly lie in the blood of Christ itself, but in the love of God, of which Christ in His bloody death is the most speaking token, and of the existence of which He supplies the most unquestionable evidence, this is clearly an inadmissible twisting of the apostles words.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

7.] (is not merely the contrasted hypothesis to ver. 6, but together with that contains a further unfolding of the subject): but if (see on ἐάν with the subj. above) we walk in the light (this walking in the light is explained by what follows, ὡς αὐτός ἐστιν ἐν τῷ φωτί, and by the apodosis, which gives the result of so walking,—viz. communion, &c. See Eph 5:8 ff. for the ethical details), as He (God) is in the light (because the Christian is made θείας κοινωνὸς φύσεως, 2Pe 1:4. ἔστιν ἐν τῷ φωτί is parallel with φῶς ἐστίν above, ver. 5. ἔστιν, as of Him who is eternal and fixed; περιπατῶμεν, as of us who are of time, moving onward: so Bede, “notanda distinctio verborum, quia Deum esse in luce dicit, nos autem in luce ambulare debere. Ambulant enim justi in luce, cum virtutum operibus servientes ad meliora proficiunt:” see note on ch. 2:6: τὸ φῶς is the element in which God dwelleth: cf. 1Ti 6:16. Notice that this walking in the light, as He is in the light, is no mere imitation of God, as Episcopius, al., but is an identity in the essential element of our daily walk with the essential element of God’s eternal being: not imitation, but coincidence and identity of the very atmosphere of life), we have communion with one another (these words, κοινωνίαν ἔχομεν μετʼ ἀλλήλων, are to be taken in their plain literal sense, and refer, not to our communion with God, which is assumed in our walking in the light as He is in the light, but to our mutual communion with one another by all having the same ground-element of life, viz. the light of the Lord, Isa 2:5. This has been very commonly misunderstood: e. g. by Œc. (ὥστε τῆς κοινωνίας ἐχόμενοι τῆς ἀλλήλων, δῆλον δὲ ὅτι τῆς ἡμῶν τε καὶ τοῦ φωτός, so Thl. also), Schol. in Oxf. Cat., Aug. (“ut possimus societatem habere cum illo”), Beza (“interpretor cum illo mutuam: agitur enim nunc de communione non sanctorum inter se, sed Dei et sanctorum”), Calv., Socinus, al.: even De Wette interprets “Gemeinschaft unter einander, namlich mit Gott” and Bengel wavers between the two. The words are taken rightly by Bede (who however regards them as putting forward mutual love as the necessary result of walking in the light), Erasmus, Lyra, Luther, Grot., Estius, (Bengel,) Lücke, Baumg.-Crus., Neander, Sander, Düsterd., al. The words are evidently an allusion to ver. 3, and as there communion with God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ is expressed, so here it lies in the background, but need not be supplied. De Wette’s remark is most true; Christian communion is then only real, when it is communion with God), and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanseth us from all sin (in order to understand rightly this important sentence, we must fix definitely two or three points regarding its connexion and construction. First then, καί connects it, as an additional result of our walking in the light, as He is in the light, with κοινωνίαν ἔχομεν μετʼ ἀλλήλων: just as in ch. 3:10, end, καὶ ὁ μὴ ἀγαπῶν τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ. Consequently, the proposition contained in it cannot be as Œc., Thl., Beza, Wolf, Sander, al., imagine, the ground (καὶ γάρ) of the former one, that “if we walk, &c., we have communion, &c.,” but follows as a co-ordinate result with κοιν. ἔχ. κ.τ.λ. Secondly, καθαρίζει is the present tense, and must be kept to its present meaning. This consideration precludes all such meanings as the former of the two given by Jerome (“quod scriptum est ‘et sanguis Jesu filii ejus mundat nos ab omni peccato’ tam in confessione baptismatis, quam in clementia pœnitudinis accipiendum est,” adv. Pelag. ii. 8, vol. ii. p. 750), and Bede (“sacramentum namque (καί) dominicæ passionis et præterita nobis omnia in baptismo pariter peccata laxavit (notice the past tense), et quidquid quotidiana fragilitate post baptisma commisimus ejusdem Redemtoris nostri gratia dimittit”): and as that of Calvin (“hæc igitur summa est, ut certo statuant fideles se acceptos esse Deo, quia sacrificio mortis Christi illis placatus est”), Calovius, Episcopius, al. Thirdly, the sense of καθαρίζει must be accurately ascertained and strictly kept to. In ver. 9, ἵνα καθαρίσῃ ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ πάσης ἀδικίας is plainly distinguished from ἵνα ἀφῇ ἡμῖν τὰς ἁμαρτίας: distinguished, as a further process; as, in a word, sanctification, distinct from justification. This meaning then, however much it may be supposed, that justification is implied or presupposed, must be held fast here. Fourthly, the sense of τὸ αἷμα Ἰησοῦ must be also clearly defined. The expression is an objective one, not a subjective: is spoken of that which is the objective cause ab extra, of our being cleansed from all sin. And this is the material Blood of Jesus the personal Redeemer, shed on the cross as a propitiatory sacrifice for the sin of the world. So we have the same Blood said in Col 1:20 to be the great medium of pacification between God and the world: so in Eph 1:7, to be the means of our ἀπολύτρωσις: so in Heb 9:14, which approaches very nearly to our passage, to cleanse (καθαρίζειν as here) our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. In all these places, and similar ones, whatever application to ourselves by faith or otherwise may lie in the background, it is not that which is spoken of, but the Blood of Christ itself, as the actual objective cause, once for all, of our reconciliation and sanctification. These considerations remove much of the difficulty and possible misunderstanding of the sentence. Thus understood, it will mean, much as in the second clause of Bede’s interpretation, that this our walking in light, itself necessarily grounded in communion with the Father and the Son, will bring about, that whatever sins we may still be betrayed into by the infirmity of our nature and the malice of the devil, from them the Blood of Jesus purifies us day by day. Observe, not, the application of that Blood: for we are speaking of a state of faith and holiness, in which that blood is continually applied: the περιπατεῖν ἐν τῷ φωτί is, in fact, the application: is that, which, as a subjective conditional element, makes that Blood of Christ’s cross to be to us a means of purifying from all sin. The whole doctrine of this verse is fully and admirably set forth in Düsterdieck. The sum of what he says may be thus stated. St. John, in accord with the other Apostles, sets forth the Death and Blood of Christ in two different aspects: 1) as the one sin-offering for the world, in which sense we are justified by the application of the Blood of Christ by faith, His satisfaction being imputed to us. 2) as a victory over Sin itself, His blood being the purifying medium, whereby we gradually, being already justified, become pure and clean from all sin. And this application of Christ’s blood is made by the Spirit which dwelleth in us. The former of these asserts the imputed righteousness of Christ put on us in justification: the latter, the inherent righteousness of Christ, wrought in us gradually in sanctification. And it is of this latter that he here is treating. Cf. next verse).

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

We walk in the light [εν τω φωτι περιπατωμεν] . The phrase occurs only in the First Epistle. Walk, as above. In the light, having our life in God, who is light.

He is in the light. God is forever and unchangeable in perfect light. Compare Psa 104:2; 1Ti 6:16. We walk, advancing in the light and by means of the light to more light. "The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day" (Pro 4:18).

One with another [μετ αλληλων] . Not, we with God and God with us, but with our brethren. Fellowship with God exhibits and proves itself by fellowship with Christians. See 1Jo 4:7, 12; 1Jo 3:11, 23.

Of Jesus Christ His Son. Omit Christ. The human name, Jesus, shows that His blood is available for man. The divine name, His Son, shows that it is efficacious. I shall be rendering a service to students of John's Epistles by giving, in a condensed form, Canon Westcott's note, classifying the several names of our Lord and their uses in the Epistles.

The name in John, as in the Bible elsewhere, has two distinct, but closely connected meanings.

1. The Revelation of the Divine Being by a special title.

2. The whole sum of the manifold revelations gathered up so as to form one supreme revelation.

The latter sense is illustrated in 3Jo 1:7, where "the name" absolutely includes the essential elements of the Christian creed, the complete revelation of Christ 's work in relation to God and man. Compare Joh 20:31; Act 5:41.

In 1Jo 2:12, the term is more limited, referring to Christ as He lived on earth and gave Himself for "the brethren." In 1Jo 3:23; 1Jo 5:13, the exact sense is defined by what follows.

ACTUAL NAMES USED.

(I.) His Son Jesus Christ. 1Jo 1:3; 1Jo 3:23; 1Jo 5:20. The divine antecedent is differently described in each case, and the difference colors the phrase. In 1Jo 1:23, the Father (compare John 3). In 1Jo 3:23, God. In 1Jo 5:20, He that is true. Thus the sonship of Christ is regarded in relation to God as Father, as God, and as satisfying the divine ideal which man is able to form. The whole phrase, His Son Jesus Christ, includes the two elements of the confessions which John makes prominent.

1. Jesus is the Son of God (iv. 15; 1Jo 5:5).

2. Jesus is the Christ (ii. 22; 1Jo 5:1).

The constituents of the compressed phrase are all used separately by John.

(1.) Jesus. 2 22; 1Jo 5:1; 1Jo 4:3 (where the correct reading omits Christ). The thought is that of the Lord in His perfect historic humanity.

(2.) Christ. 2 John 9. Pointing to the preparation made under the old covenant.

(3). Jesus Christ. 1Jo 2:1; 1Jo 5:6; 2 John 7. Combining the ideas of true humanity and messianic position.

In 1Jo 4:15, the reading is doubtful : Jesus or Jesus Christ.

on 4 2, see note.

(4.) The Son 1Jo 2:22, 23, 24; 1Jo 4:14; 1Jo 5:12. The absolute relation of Sonship to Fatherhood.

(5.) The Son of God. 1Jo 3:8; 1Jo 5:10, 12, 13, 20. Compare His Son (1Jo4 10; 1Jo 5:9), where the immediate antecedent is oJ Qeov God; and 1Jo 5:18, He that was begotten of God. Combination of the ideas of Christ 's divine dignity and divine sonship.

(6.) Jesus His (God 's) Son 1Jo 1:7. Two truths. The blood of Christ is available and efficacious.

(7). His (God 's) Son, His only Son 1Jo 4:9. The uniqueness of the gift is the manifestation of love.

The Son in various forms is eminently characteristic of the First and Second Epistles, in which it occurs more times than in all Paul 's Epistles. Kuriov Lord, is not found in the Epistles (omit from 2 John 3), but occurs in the Gospel, and often in Revelation.

The expression, the blood of Jesus His Son, is chosen with a profound insight. Though Ignatius uses the phrase blood of God yet the word blood is inappropriate to the Son conceived in His divine nature. The word Jesus brings out His human nature, in which He assumed a real body of flesh and blood, which blood was shed for us.

Cleanseth [καθαριζει] . See on Mr 7:19. Not only forgives but removes. Compare Tit 2:14; Heb 9:13 sq.; 22 sq.; Eph 5:26 sq.; Mt 5:8; 1Jo 3:3. Compare also ver. 9, where, forgive [αφη] and cleanse [καθαριση] occur, with an obvious difference of meaning. Note the present tense cleanseth. The cleansing is present and continuous. Alexander (Bishop of Derry) cites a striking passage from Victor Hugo (" Le Parricide "). The usurper Canute, who has had a share in his father 's death, expiring after a virtuous and glorious reign, walks towards the light of heaven. But first he cuts with his sword a shroud of snow from the top of Mt. Savo. As he advances towards heaven, a cloud forms, and drop by drop his shroud is soaked with a rain of blood.

All sin [πασης αμαρτιας] . The principle of sin in all its forms and manifestations; not the separate manifestations. Compare all joy (Jas 1:2); all patience (2Co 7:12); all wisdom (Eph 1:8); all diligence (2Pe 1:5).

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

God is said to be light of his own nature, and to be in light, that is to say, in that everlasting infinite blessedness: and we are said to walk in light, in that the beams of that light do shine unto us in the world.

A digression or going from the matter he is in with, to the remission of sins: for this our sanctification which walk in the light, is a testimony of our joining and knitting together, with Christ: but because this our light is very dark, we must needs obtain another benefit in Christ, to wit, that our sins may be forgiven us being sprinkled with his blood: and this in conclusion is the prop and stay of our salvation.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Compare Eph 5:8, Eph 5:11-14. "WE WALK"; "God is (essentially in His very nature as 'the light,' Jo1 1:5) in the light." WALKING in the light, the element in which God Himself is, constitutes the test of fellowship with Him. Christ, like us, walked in the light (Jo1 2:6). ALFORD notices, Walking in the light as He is in the light, is no mere imitation of God, but an identity in the essential element of our daily walk with the essential element of God's eternal being.

we have fellowship one with another--and of course with God (to be understood from Jo1 1:6). Without having fellowship with God there can be no true and Christian fellowship one with another (compare Jo1 1:3).

and--as the result of "walking in the light, as He is in the light."

the blood of Jesus . . . cleanseth us from all sin--daily contracted through the sinful weakness of the flesh, and the power of Satan and the world. He is speaking not of justification through His blood once for all, but of the present sanctification ("cleanseth" is present tense) which the believer, walking in the light and having fellowship with God and the saints, enjoys as His privilege. Compare Joh 13:10, Greek, "He that has been bathed, needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit." Compare Jo1 1:9, "cleanse us from all unrighteousness," a further step besides "forgiving us our sins." Christ's blood is the cleansing mean, whereby gradually, being already justified and in fellowship with God, we become clean from all sin which would mar our fellowship with God. Faith applies the cleansing, purifying blood. Some oldest manuscripts omit "Christ"; others retain it.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 7. But if we walk in the light] If, having received the principle of holiness from him, we live a holy and righteous life, deriving continual light, power, and life from him, then we have fellowship one with another; that is, we have communion with God, and God condescends to hold communion with us. This appears to be the intention of the apostle; and so he was understood by some versions and MSS., which, instead of μεταλληλων, with each other, have μεταυτον, with him. Those who are deeply experienced in Divine things converse with God, and God with them. What John says is no figure; God and a holy heart are in continual correspondence.

The blood of Jesus Christ] The meritorious efficacy of his passion and death has purged our consciences from dead works, and cleanseth us, καθαριζειημας, continues to cleanse us, i.e., to keep clean what it has made clean, (for it requires the same merit and energy to preserve holiness in the soul of man, as to produce it,) or, as several MSS. and some versions read, καθαριει and καθαρισει, will cleanse; speaking of those who are already justified, and are expecting full redemption in his blood.

And being cleansed from all sin is what every believer should look for, what he has a right to expect, and what he must have in this life, in order to be prepared to meet his God. Christ is not a partial Saviour, he saves to the uttermost, and he cleanses from ALL sin.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

7 But if we walk in the light. He now says, that the proof of our union with God is certain, if we are conformable to him; not that purity of life conciliates us to God, as the prior cause; but the Apostle means, that our union with God is made evident by the effect, that is, when his purity shines forth in us. And, doubtless, such is the fact; wherever God comes, all things are so imbued with his holiness, that he washes away all filth; for without him we have nothing but filth and darkness. It is hence evident, that no one leads a holy life, except he is united to God.

In saying, We have fellowship one with another, he does not speak simply of men; but he sets God on one side, and us on the other.

It may, however, be asked, “Who among men can so exhibit the light of God in his life, as that this likeness which John requires should exist; for it would be thus necessary, that he should be wholly pure and free from darkness.” To this I answer, that expressions of this kind are accommodated to the capacities of men; he is therefore said to be like God, who aspires to his likeness, however distant from it he may as yet be. The example ought not to be otherwise applied than according to this passage. He walks in darkness who is not ruled by the fear of God, and who does not, with a pure conscience, devote himself wholly to God, and seek to promote his glory. Then, on the other hand, he who in sincerity of heart spends his life, yea, every part of it, in the fear and service of God, and faithfully worships him, walks in the light, for he keeps the right way, though he may in many things offend and sigh under the burden of the flesh. Then, integrity of conscience is alone that which distinguishes light from darkness.

And the blood of Jesus Christ After having taught what is the bond of our union with God, he now shews what fruit flows from it, even that our sins are freely remitted. And this is the blessedness which David describes in the thirty-second Psalm, in order that we may know that we are most miserable until, being renewed by God’s Spirit, we serve him with a sincere heart. For who can be imagined more miserable than that man whom God hates and abominates, and over whose head is suspended both the wrath of God and eternal death?

This passage is remarkable; and from it we first learn, that the expiation of Christ, effected by his death, does then properly belong to us, when we, in uprightness of heart, do what is right and just for Christ is no redeemer except to those who turn from iniquity, and lead a new life. If, then, we desire to have God propitious to us, so as to forgive our sins, we ought not to forgive ourselves. In short, remission of sins cannot be separated from repentance, nor can the peace of God be in those hearts, where the fear God does not prevail.

Secondly, this passage shews that the gratuitous pardon of sins is given us not only once, but that it is a benefit perpetually residing in the Church, and daily offered to the faithful. For the Apostle here addresses the faithful; as doubtless no man has ever been, nor ever will be, who can otherwise please God, since all are guilty before him; for however strong a desire there may be in us of acting rightly, we always go haltingly to God. Yet what is half done obtains no approval with God. In the meantime, by new sins we continually separate ourselves, as far as we can, from the grace of God. Thus it is, that all the saints have need of the daily forgiveness of sins; for this alone keeps us in the family of God.

By saying, from all sin, he intimates that we are, on many accounts, guilty before God; so that doubtless there is no one who has not many vices. But he shews that no sins prevent the godly, and those who fear God, from obtaining his favor. He also points out the manner of obtaining pardon, and the cause of our cleansing, even because Christ expiated our sins by his blood; but he affirms that all the godly are undoubtedly partakers of this cleansing.

The whole of his doctrine has been wickedly perverted by the sophists; for they imagine that pardon of sins is given us, as it were, in baptism. They maintain that there only the blood of Christ avails; and they teach, that after baptism, God is not otherwise reconciled than by satisfactions. They, indeed, leave some part to the blood of Christ; but when they assign merit to works, even in the least degree, they wholly subvert what John teaches here, as to the way of expiating sins, and of being reconciled to God. For these two things can never harmonize together, to be cleansed by the blood of Christ, and to be cleansed by works: for John assigns not the half, but the whole, to the blood of Christ.

The sum of what is said, then, is, that the faithful know of a certainty, that they are accepted by God, because he has been reconciled to them through the sacrifice of the death of Christ. And sacrifice includes cleansing and satisfaction. Hence the power and efficiency of these belong to the blood of Christ alone.

Hereby is disproved and exposed the sacrilegious invention of the Papists as to indulgences; for as though the blood of Christ were not sufficient, they add, as a subsidy to it, the blood and merits of martyrs. At the same time, this blasphemy advances much further among us; for as they say that their keys, by which they hold as shut up the remission of sins, open a treasure made up partly of the blood and merits of martyrs, and partly of the worlds of supererogation, by which any sinner may redeem himself, no remission of sins remains for them but what is derogatory to the blood of Christ; for if their doctrine stands, the blood of Christ does not cleanse us, but comes in, as it were, as a partial aid. Thus consciences are held in suspense, which the Apostle here bids to rely on the blood of Christ.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

7. A further inference from the first principle laid down in 1Jn_1:5 : walking in the light involves not only fellowship with God but fellowship with the brethren. This verse takes the opposite hypothesis to that just considered and expands it. We often find (comp. 1Jn_1:9) that S. John while seeming to go back or repeat, really progresses and gives us something fresh. It would have enforced 1Jn_1:6, but it would have told us nothing fresh, to say ‘if we walk in the light, and say that we have fellowship with Him, we speak the truth, and do not lie’. And it is interesting to find that the craving to make this verse the exact antithesis of the preceding one has generated another reading, ‘we have fellowship with Him’, instead of ‘with one another’. This reading is as old as the second century, for Tertullian (De Pud. XIX.) quotes, ‘si vero’, inquit, ‘in lumine incedamus, communionem cum eo habebimus, et sanguis &c.’ Clement of Alexandria also seems to have known of this reading. This is evidence of the early date of our Epistle; for by the end of the second century important differences of reading had already arisen and become widely diffused.

as He is in the light] We walk, God is: we move through space and time; He is in eternity. Of Him who is everywhere, and knows no change, we can only say, ‘He is’. Comp. the similar thought of S. Paul; ‘Who only hath immortality, dwelling in light unapproachable’ (1Ti_6:16). That which is light must ever be in light. We then must make our spiritual atmosphere similar to His, that our thoughts and conduct may reflect Him.

fellowship one with another] This certainly refers to the mutual fellowship of Christians among themselves, as is clear from 1Jn_3:23, 1Jn_4:7; 1Jn_4:12; 2Jn_1:5. It does not refer to fellowship between God and man, as S. Augustine and others, desiring to make this verse parallel to 1Jn_1:6, have interpreted. S. John would scarcely express the relation between God and man by such a phrase as ‘we have fellowship with one another’ (μετ' ἀλλήλων). Contrast ‘I ascend unto My Father and your Father, and My God and your God’ (Joh_20:17). In that ‘thick darkness’, which prevailed ‘in all the land of Egypt three days, they saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days’ (Exo_10:22-23): i.e. there was an absolute cessation of fellowship. Society could not continue in the dark: but when the light returned, society was restored. So also in the spiritual world: when the light comes, individuals have that communion one with another which in darkness is impossible. In a similar spirit Cicero declares that real friendship is impossible without virtue (De Amic. vi. 20).

and the blood of Jesus Christ] Omit ‘Christ’ with all the oldest authorities: so also Wiclif and Tyndale’s first edition. The ‘and’ shews that this is a further consequence of walking in the light. “For this is the virtue of the Lord’s blood, that such as it has already purified from sin, and thenceforward has set in the light, it renders thenceforward pure, if they continue steadfastly walking in the light” (Tertull. De Mod. XIX.). One who walks in spiritual darkness cannot appropriate that cleansing from sin, which is wrought by the blood of Jesus, shed on the cross as a propitiation for sin.

His Son] Not redundant: (1) it is a passing contradiction of Cerinthus, who taught that Jesus was a mere man when His blood was shed, for the Divine element in His nature left Him when He was arrested in the garden; and of the Ebionites, who taught that He was a mere man from His birth to His death; (2) it explains how this blood can have such virtue: it is the blood of One who is the Son of God.

cleanseth] Note the present tense of what goes on continually; that constant cleansing which even the holiest Christians need (see on Joh_13:10). One who lives in the light knows his own frailty and is continually availing himself of the purifying power of Christ’s sacrificial death. “This passage shews that the gratuitous pardon of sins is given us not once only, but that it is a benefit perpetually residing in the Church, and daily offered to the faithful” (Calvin). Note also the ‘all’; there is no limit to its cleansing power: even grievous sinners can be restored to the likeness of God, in whom is no darkness at all. This refutes by anticipation the error of the Novatians, who denied pardon to mortal sins after baptism. Comp. ‘How much more shall the blood of Christ … cleanse your conscience’ (Heb_9:14), and ‘These are they which come out of the great tribulation, and they washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb’ (Rev_7:14).

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But if we walk in the light,.... Are persons enlightened by the Spirit of God, so as to have a true sight and sense of sin, to know Christ, and the way of salvation by him; and are children of the light, and are going on and increasing in spiritual light and knowledge; walk on in Christ, the light, by faith, and in the light and truth of the Gospel, and as becomes it, and as children of light; and as such who are called out of darkness into marvellous light:

as he is in the light; according to the light which he has given, who is light itself, is in it, and dwells in it. This "as" denotes not equality, but likeness: when this is the case, then it is a clear point, that

we have fellowship one with another; not with the saints, with the apostles, and other Christians, but with God: "we have mutual communion", as the Arabic version renders it; God with us, and we with him. Some copies read, "with him", as in Jo1 1:6; and such a reading the sense requires; and agreeably to this the Ethiopic version renders it, "and we are partakers among ourselves with him"; that is, we all jointly and mutually appear to be like him, and partake of his nature, and have communion with him; and not only so, but with his Son Jesus Christ, as appears from our having a share in the cleansing efficacy of his blood:

and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin: there is a pollution on human nature, which is original, natural, universal, and internal, and is such that nothing can remove but the blood of Christ; not ceremonial ablutions and sacrifices, nor moral duties, nor evangelical performances, or submission to Gospel ordinances, and particularly baptism, which is not the putting away the faith of the flesh; nor even the graces of the Spirit, no, not faith, no otherwise than as it has to do with this blood; for this cleansing is not to be understood of sanctification, for that more properly belongs to the Spirit of God, and besides, does not cleanse from all sin; for notwithstanding this, sin is in the saints: but either of the atonement of sin, by the sacrifice of Christ, and so of a complete justification from it by his blood, which is put for both his active and passive obedience, the one being finished in the other; or rather of the pardon of sin, procured by the blood of Christ, and the application of that blood to the conscience, which purges it from dead works, and which has a continued virtue in it for that purpose. Christ's blood, being applied by the Spirit of God, has been always cleansing from sin; it had this virtue in it, and was of this use, even before it was actually shed, to the Old Testament saints; whence Christ is said to be the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world; and it has the same efficacy now as when first shed, and will have to the end of the world; and being sprinkled upon the conscience, by the Spirit of God, it takes away the sins of believers, and cleanses from them, as fast as the corruption of nature rises, or sins appear; and removes them out of their sight, and speaks peace to their souls; and which is owing, as to the dignity of Christ's person and the value of his sacrifice, so to his continual intercession, advocacy, and mediation; and which reaches to all sin, original and actual, secret and open sins; sins of heart, thought, lip, and life; sins of omission and commission, greater or lesser sins, committed against light and knowledge, grace and mercy, law and Gospel, all but the sin against the Holy Ghost; and in this Christ was the antitype of the scape goat, of which the Jews say (g), that

"it atoned for all the transgressions of the law, whether small or great, sins of presumption, or of ignorance, known, or not known, which were against an affirmative or negative command, which deserved cutting off (by the hand of God), or death by the sanhedrim.''

The Arabic and Ethiopic versions render it, "from all our sins"; and this must be ascribed to the greatness of his person, as the Son of God; wherefore the emphasis lies on these words, "his Son": the Son of God, who is equal with God, and is truly and properly God: as it must be the blood of man that must, according to the law, be shed, to atone for and expiate sin, and cleanse from it, and that of an innocent man, who is holy, harmless, and without sin; so it must not be the blood of a mere man, though ever so holy, but the blood of one that is God as well as man; see Act 20:28. The divine nature of the Son of God, being in union with the human nature, put virtue into his blood to produce such an effect, which still continues, and will, as long as there is any occlusion for it.

(g) Misn. Shebuot, c. 1. sect. 6.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

7 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 cleanseth us from all sin.

Ver. 7. We have fellowship one, &c.] That is, God and we; inasmuch as we are made partakers of the divine nature, and are pure as God is pure, 1Jn 3:3, in quality though not in an equality. We have fellowship with God: 1. In his holiness. 2. In his happiness.

And the blood of Jesus] That whereas God’s pure eye can soon find many a foul flaw in the best of us (our righteousness being mixed, as light and darkness, dimness at least, in a painted glass, dyed with some obscure and dim colour, it is transparent and giveth good, but not clear and pure light), lo, here is a ready remedy, a sweet support, "the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." And God beholding us in the face of his Son, seeth nothing amiss in us; no more than David did in lame Mephibosheth, when he beheld in him the features of his friend Jonathan.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But if we walk in the light - Compare the notes at 1Jo 1:5. Walking in the light may include the three following things:

Leading lives of holiness and purity; that is, the Christian must be characteristically a holy man, a light in the world, by his example.

(2)Walking in the truth; that is, embracing the truth in opposition to all error of paganism and infidelity, and having clear, spiritual views of truth, such as the unrenewed never have. See 2Co 4:6; 1Co 2:9-15; Eph 1:18.

(3)Enjoying the comforts of religion; that is, having the joy which religion is fitted to impart, and which it does impart to its true friends, Psa 94:19; Isa 57:8; 2Co 1:3; 2Co 13:11. Compare the notes at Joh 12:35.

As he is in the light - In the same kind of light that he has. The measure of light which we may have is not the same in degree, but it is of the same kind. The true Christian in his character and feelings resembles God.

We have fellowship one with another - As we all partake of his feelings and views, we shall resemble each other. Loving the same God, embracing the same views of religion, and living for the same ends, we shall of course have much that is common to us all, and thus shall have fellowship with each other.

And the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin - See the sentiment here expressed fully explained in the notes at Heb 9:14. When it is said that his blood cleanses us from all sin, the expression must mean one of two things - either that it is through that blood that all past sin is forgiven, or that that blood will ultimately purify us from all transgression, and make us perfectly holy. The general meaning is plain, that in regard to any and every sin of which we may be conscious, there is efficacy in that blood to remove it, and to make us wholly pure. There is no stain made by sin so deep that the blood of Christ cannot take it entirely away from the soul. The connection here, or the reason why this is introduced here, seems to be this: The apostle is stating the substance of the message which he had received, 1Jo 1:5. The first or leading part of it was, that God is light, and in him is no darkness, and that his religion requires that all his friends should resemble him by their walking in the light. Another, and a material part of the same message was, that provision was made in his religion for cleansing the soul from sin, and making it like God. No system of religion intended for man could be adapted to his condition which did not contain this provision, and this did contain it in the most full and ample manner. Of course, however, it is meant that that blood cleanses from all sin only on the conditions on which its efficacy can be made available to man - by repentance for the past, and by a cordial reception of the Saviour through faith.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

But if we walk; which is a continued and progressive motion, i.e. do persevere and improve in holiness.

In the light; being transformed into the holy image and likeness of God, and showing themselves the children of light, as he is light, and the Father of lights. We have fellowship one with another; have fellowship with him, μετ αυτου, as one copy reads: however, we must comprehend God, and this the contexture of discourse shows.

And the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin; καθαριζει lest our purity and holiness should be thought to have deserved such a privilege, it is cautiously added,

and the blood, &c. is that which alone expiates, or makes atonement for our sins (the proper notion of cleansing here). Our former sinfulness and present imperfect holiness render it impossible God should admit us to communion with him for our own sakes, or without such an intervening sacrifice; καθαρματα usually signifying expiations. And if we further extend the notion of cleansing, so as to comprehend internal subjective purification, (which also the word may admit), the further meaning is, that even that purifying influence, whereby we are qualified for present holy walking with God, and for final blessedness in him, we owe to the merit and procurement of the Redeemer’s blood.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

7. Walk in the light—A beautiful image of a true and holy life. It implies purity, truth, transparency; and all these are as light, identified in thought with the blessed nature and substance of God himself.

Fellowship—I, we, and God have a common fellowship and threefold oneness in this one common light. We are all light unified.

Blood… cleanseth—We must beware of the great error of making this wonderful image of being washed and cleansed in the blood of Jesus a literality. There is no vat of actual blood into which our bodies or souls are plunged. And there is no literal cleansing. This glowing imagery so reigns in parts of the New Testament, especially in John’s writings, as well as in our sermons and hymns, that many Christians pass their whole lives without once looking through the figure into the literal. They are thence liable to be deceived by arguments based on the figure which have no base in the literal. This figure simply means, first, that our sins are, upon our faith, forgiven us on account of the death of Christ; and, second, that the Holy Spirit being given in consequence of that death, does, in the completeness of that work, so strengthen and energize our moral and spiritual powers that we are able to reject temptation and avoid sin; and just in the measure and fulness of that power in exercise is the entireness of our sanctification. When that divinely-bestowed power is complete, the sanctification is entire. But it is to be noted, that while our pardon is immediate from Christ’s blood, our sanctification is mediate through the Spirit purchased by his blood. We are justified by Christ; we are sanctified by the Spirit.

All sin—That is, from all guilt and practice of sin, not from all sinward liability or tendency, so but that apostasy is possible.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The contrary hypothesis is now stated, and the thought is carried a stage further (cf. verse 9). He again speaks conditionally ejan, and does so untilgwn 1Jn_2:3; after which the participial substantive oJ le oj ajapwn oJ miswn represents the conditional clause. The change of verbs is significant: we walk, God is, in the light. We move through time; he is in eternity. Our activity involves change; his does not. Like the sun, he both is Light and dwells in the light; and if we walk in the light, which is his atmosphere, we have fellowship one with another. Darkness is an unsocial condition, and this the light expels. From verse 6 we might have expected, "we have fellowship with him;" and some inferior authorities read met aujtou. But St. John"s repetitions are not mere repetitions: the thought is always recur or reset to carry us a step further (cf. verses 3, 4). Having fellowship with one another is a sure result of that fellowship with God which is involved in walking in the light. "Here is a reply to those who would restrain Catholic communion to their own sect" (Wordsworth). Another result of walking in the light is that the blood of Jesus (his sacrificial death) cleanses us day by day continually (present tense) from our frequent sins of frailty. This cleansing is not the same as forgiveness of sins (verse 9). The latter is the case of oJ leloumenov, the man that is bathed; (Joh_13:10) the former is the frequent washing of the feet. (cf. Rev_7:14 Rev_22:14) The expression, the blood of Jesus, in Christian theology, "is dogma with pathos. It implies, as no other word could do, the reality

(1) of the human body of Jesus,

(2) of his sufferings,

(3) of his sacrifice.

By his blood new life-blood is infused into human nature.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

But if we walk in the light - In all holiness. As God is (a deeper word than walk, and more worthy of God) in the light, then we may truly say, we have fellowship one with another - We who have seen, and you who have not seen, do alike enjoy that fellowship with God. The imitation of God being the only sure proof of our having fellowship with him. And the blood of Jesus Christ his Son - With the grace purchased thereby. Cleanseth us from all sin - Both original and actual, taking away all the guilt and all the power.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

light

What it is to "walk in the light" is explained by 1Jn 1:8-10. "All things.. .are made manifest by the light" Eph 5:13 The presence of God brings the consciousness of sin in the nature 1Jn 1:8 and sins in the life 1Jn 1:9; 1Jn 1:10. The blood of Christ is the divine provision for both. To walk in the light is to live in fellowship with the Father and the Son. Sin interrupts, but confession restores that fellowship. Immediate confession keeps the fellowship unbroken.

light (See Scofield "Exo 27:20")

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Note here, 1. The pollution and uncleanness of sin implied and supposed in the word cleansing; sin is the great pollution and defilement of the soul, and universal pollution, an abiding pollution, a mortal pollution, and yet an insensible pollution.

Note, 2. The remedy which the wisdom of God has provided against this malady, the soul’s pollution by sin, and that is the blood of his Son; this cleanseth meritoriously, called therefore the blood of God, as being the blood of him that is truly and really God.

Note, 3. The extent of the efficacy and virtue of this blood.

1. In regard of the universality of the disease, it cleanseth from all sin.

2. In regard of the permanency of the remedy, which, is expressed in the present tense, it cleanseth:

implying, that this blood doth never lose its efficacy; it cleanses still no less than it did the first moment it was shed; nay, it cleanseth virtual before it was shed; all the patriarchs and prophets were justified, and saved by faith in his blood, who was the Lamb slain from the beginning of the world, in the decree and purpose of God.

Eternal thanks to our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, whose blood cleanseth from the guilt and filth of all sin.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

7. But if we walk in the light. We walk in the light by following Christ, the Light of the world. We have fellowship. All who are walking in the light have the common life. The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. Cleansed by the blood of Christ, and thus made holy, we are fitted for the heavenly communion.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

7. After Ἰησοῦ omit Χριστοῦ with [443][444][445] against [446][447][448] with Syr. and Vulg.

[443] 4th century. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the monastery of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai, and now at Petersburg. All three Epistles.

[444] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.

[445] 5th century. A palimpsest: the original writing has been partially rubbed out and the works of Ephraem the Syrian have been written over it. In the National Library at Paris. Part of the First and Third Epistles; 1Jn 1:1 to 1Jn 4:2; 3Jn 1:3-14. Of the whole N.T. the only Books entirely missing are 2 John and 2 Thessalonians.

[446] 5th century. Brought by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, from Alexandria, and afterwards presented by him to Charles I. in 1628. In the British Museum. All three Epistles.

[447] 9th century. All three Epistles.

[448] 9th century. All three Epistles.

In all these six cases [449][450] have the right reading.

[449] 4th century. Discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 at the monastery of S. Catherine on Mount Sinai, and now at Petersburg. All three Epistles.

[450] 4th century. Brought to Rome about 1460. It is entered in the earliest catalogue of the Vatican Library, 1475. All three Epistles.

7. A further inference from the first principle laid down in 1Jn 1:5: walking in the light involves not only fellowship with God but fellowship with the brethren. This verse takes the opposite hypothesis to that just considered and expands it. We often find (comp. 1Jn 1:9) that S. John while seeming to go back or repeat, really progresses and gives us something fresh. It would have enforced 1Jn 1:6, but it would have told us nothing fresh, to say ‘if we walk in the light, and say that we have fellowship with Him, we speak the truth, and do not lie.’ And it is interesting to find that the craving to make this verse the exact antithesis of the preceding one has generated another reading, ‘we have fellowship with Him,’ instead of ‘with one another.’ This reading is as old as the second century, for Tertullian (De Pud. XIX.) quotes, ‘si vero,’ inquit, ‘in lumine incedamus, communionem cum eo habebimus, et sanguis &c.’ Clement of Alexandria also seems to have known of this reading. Another ancient corruption is ‘with God’ (Harl.). This is evidence of the early date of our Epistle; for by the end of the second century important differences of reading had already arisen and become widely diffused.

περιπατῶμεν, ὡς αὐτὸς ἔστιν. We walk; God is. We move through space and time; He is in eternity. We progress from grace to grace, becoming sons of light by believing on the Light (Joh 12:36; Eph 5:8-9). Of Him who is absolute Perfection, and knows no progress or change, we can only say ‘He is.’ That which is light must ever be in the light: comp. ἀναβαλλόμενος φῶς ὡς ἱμάτιον (Psa 104:2), and φῶς οἰκῶν ἀπρόσιτον (1Ti 6:16), which embodies the same thought. Αὐτός, as commonly, but not invariably (see on 1Jn 1:5 and 1Jn 2:12), in this Epistle, means God, not Christ. Imitatio Dei, criterium communionis cum illo (Bengel).

It is very possibly from this antithesis of walking in light and walking in darkness that the figure of “The Two Ways,” called in the Διδαχὴ τῶν δώδεκα Ἀποστόλων (i–vi) ὁδὸς τῆς ζωῆς and ὁδὸς τοῦ θανάτου, and in the Epistle of Barnabas (xviii–xxi) ὀδὸς τοῦ φωτός and ὁδὸς τοῦ σκότους, took its rise.

κοινωνίαν ἔχ. μετʼ ἀλλήλων. It is quite clear from 1Jn 3:23; 1Jn 4:7; 1Jn 4:12; 2Jn 1:5 that this refers to the mutual fellowship of Christians among themselves, and not to fellowship between God and man, as S. Augustine, Calvin, and others (desiring to make this verse parallel to 1Jn 1:6), have interpreted. But such barren repetitions are not in S. John’s manner: he repeats in order to progress. Moreover he would scarcely have expressed the relation between God and man by a phrase which seems to imply equality between those united in fellowship. Contrast ‘I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God’ (Joh 20:17). He would rather have said ‘We have fellowship with Him, and He with us.’ The communion of Christians with one another is a consequence of their walking in the light. In that ‘thick darkness’ which prevailed ‘in all the land of Egypt three days, they saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days (Exo 10:22-23): i.e. there was an absolute cessation of fellowship. Society could not continue in the dark: but when the light returned, society was restored. So also in the spiritual world; when the light comes, individuals have that communion one with another which in darkness is impossible. In a similar spirit Cicero declares that real friendship is impossible without virtue (De Amic. vi. 20).

καὶ τὸ αἶμα Ἰησοῦ. Comp. Rev 5:9; Rev 7:14; Rev 12:11. The καί indicates that this is a further consequence of walking in the light. One who is walking in spiritual darkness cannot appropriate that cleansing from sin, which is wrought by the blood of Jesus, shed on the Cross and offered to God as a propitiation for sin. It is by His death that we participate in His life, and the sphere in which life is found is light. The addition of τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ is not at all redundant: (1) it is a passing contradiction of Cerinthus, who taught that Jesus was a mere man when His blood was shed, for the Divine element in His nature left Him when He was arrested in the garden; and of the Ebionites, who taught that He was a mere man from His birth to His death; (2) it explains how this blood can have such virtue: it is the blood of One who is the Son of God. Early Christian writers used very extreme language in expressing this truth. Clement of Rome (II) speaks of the παθήματα of God; Ignatius (Eph. i) of αἶμα Θεοῦ, (Rom. VI) of τὸ πάθος τοῦ Θεοῦ. Tatian (ad Graec. XIII.) has τοῦ πεπονθότος Θεοῦ, Tertullian (de Carn. Christi, v.) passiones Dei, and (ad Uxor. II. iii) sanguine Dei. See Lightfoot, Appendix to Clement, p. 402.

καθαρίζει. Note the present tense of what goes on continually, that constant cleansing which even the holiest Christians need (see on Joh 13:10). One who lives in the light knows his own frailty and is continually availing himself of the purifying power of Christ’s sacrificial death. ‘This passage shews that the gratuitous pardon of sins is given us not once only, but that it is a benefit perpetually residing in the Church, and daily offered to the faithful’ (Calvin). Note also the ‘all’; there is no limit to its cleansing power: even grievous sinners can be restored to the likeness of God, in whom is no darkness at all. This refutes by anticipation the error of the Novatians, who denied pardon to mortal sins after baptism. Comp. ‘How much more shall the blood of Christ … cleanse your conscience’ (Heb 9:14), and ‘These are they which come out of the great tribulation, and they washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb’ (Rev 7:14). And ‘apart from shedding of blood there is no remission’ (Heb 9:25). For ἁμαρτία in the singular, sin regarded as one great plague, comp. 1Jn 3:4; Joh 8:21; Joh 16:8; and especially Joh 1:29. But the addition of πάσης without the article shews us that this plague has many forms: ‘from every (kind of) sin.’ Winer, 137. Comp. Mat 12:31. Clement of Alexandria (Strom. III. iv.) quotes 1Jn 1:6-7 (with the formula φησὶν ὁ Ἰωάννης ἐν τῇ ἐπιστολῇ) and omits πάσης.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.