A Cleansing Fellowship Series

1 JOHN 1: 5-7 [LIFE, LIGHT & LOVE SERIES]

A CLEANSING FELLOWSHIP

[Last week if you remember I spoked about establishing fellowship with God.] All Christian fellowship originates in God. To have fellowship with God opens the door to fellowship with the brethren. The right kind of relationship with God sustains and grows fellowship with others.

There are conditions to joyful fellowship with God. To have fellowship with God, you must have something in common with Him. You must have a spiritual nature and be developing a moral character like the God with whom you desired to fellowship. Those who would experience this relationship must not only share a like spiritual nature, they must also be constantly connected with God. This daily connection with God we call walking with God.

If we are walking with God we must live in God¡¯s light. A redemptive joyful fellowship is only possible as we abide or walk in God’s light (CIT). If we will live in God¡¯s light, the blood of Jesus Christ will continually cleanse us from all our sin. This ¡°Cleansing Fellowship¡± is rooted in the Christian’s abiding relationship with God.

I. AWAKING LIGHT, 5.

II. WALKING IN DARKNESS, 6.

III. WALKING IN LIGHT, 7.

The Apostles learned from Jesus that God is true light. Verse 5, ¡°And this is the message which we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is light and in Him nothing at all is darkness.¡±

Fellowship with God is dependent on reception of and obedience to the divine message. The message delivered here is that God is light. If you wish to have fellowship with God you must live in God¡¯s light.

This message is not a discovery we make about God, nor an inference or deduction which we draw. It is a divine or authoritative revelation to us, from Him, from Christ Jesus. The apostles hand on to all men what they received directly from Christ. The sum and substance of this message is two fold. First positive, God is light; next negative, in Him is no darkness at all. Light represents what is good, true and holy. Darkness represents what is evil, false, and sinful.

God is light is a metaphor, a figure of speech. No figure borrowed from the material world could give the idea of lucidity and perfection so fully as light. It suggests illumination, clarity, knowledge, intelligence, truth, purity, happiness and holiness. Light also implies integrity, truthfulness and authenticity. When used for God, it indicates excellence without limits and without taint. A power whose nature it is to communicate itself by going everywhere except where it is shut out. It is also the nature of light to shine and reveal [or enlighten] what was once hidden.

"Let there be light" was the first decree of the Creator. On this act of creation all the rest depend. Light is the necessary condition of life, growth and activity. Light displays or reveals the intellectual, moral and spiritual spheres as well as the material universe. All these similarities to light and its properties exist because they are reflections of the divine nature.

Light is diffusive, penetrating, searching; spreading itself over all space, and entering into every hole and corner. It is quickening and enlivening; a minister of healthy vigor and growth to all living creatures, plants and animals alike, including man himself. It is pleasant also; a source of relief and gladness to those who bask in its bright and joyous rays [Candlish, Robert S.; First John. Kregel Expositor Series. Grand Rapids. 1979. pp 34-35]. There are two properties of light though that may be singled out as specially relevant to this great depiction [or comparison]; its ability to reveal and its inviolability. First, light reveals. Light exposes by displaying itself. Light exposes things so they are revealed, discovered or seen to be as they are. The only way it can expose things is because light itself is clear, pure, and does not have any murky qualities. Because it is totally exposed or clear, it exposes all things [including whether something is good or evil]..

Light is always clear, transparent, evident and open as far as its influence extends. The entrance of light spreads reality all around. Darkness allows falsehoods and lies, and fosters unrealities. Light is the naked truth. Its very invisibility is exposes what is or exists. It is not seen because it is so pure.

A second characteristic of light is ¡°incontaminatability¡± or inviolability. Light is inviolable [i.e. unassailable, incorruptible, un-contaminatable] in that while it comes in contact with all things, it is itself affected by nothing. It kisses the disgusting and repulsive, it embraces foul pollution, it enters into the inner most recesses of rottenness in which unclean souls revile. And it remains the same clear element of light still; taking no soil; contracting no stain or disease, its brightness not dimmed nor its integrity marred. It endures as undefiled, clean and clear.