(1 John 1:5-2:2)
2. Walk in the Light (1 John 1:5-2:2)
And this is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you. What is it? They saw, they touched the Word of life with their hands. God's only Son, who was from the beginning, became for a while visible and palpable. For what purpose did he come? What did he make known to us that was new? What did he wish to teach? Why did he do what he did—the Word becoming flesh, God who is over all things suffering what he did not deserve and accepting blows from hands he himself had made? Let us listen: for if the teaching doesn't bear fruit, then the report of what happened—that Christ was born, that he suffered—is only a diversion for the mind and not a support. What momentous thing do you hear?
Listen: God is light, he says, and in him is no darkness at all. He speaks of light, but his words are obscure. May the light he has spoken of so illumine our hearts that we may come to understand his words! This is what we proclaim: that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
Who would dare to say that there is darkness in God? Or to ask what that light is, or the darkness? These questions apply to what our eyes can see. God is light, someone says—and so are the sun and the moon, so are lamps. There must exist something far greater than these, far more extraordinary, something that far surpasses them. To the extent that God is beyond what he has created, that a maker is beyond what he has made, that wisdom is beyond what is made by wisdom, so also must this light be far beyond all things.
And perhaps we will come near it if we can recognize what this light is, and if we devote ourselves to it so that we are illumined by it. Of ourselves we are darkness; but if we are illu-
WALKIN THELIGHT /
mined by that light we can be light. And it doesn't bring shame upon us, because we do this for ourselves. Who are they who are ashamed of themselves? It's those who recognize that they are sinners. And who are not put to shame by the light? It's those who are illumined by it. What does it mean, to be illumined by the light? Those who see themselves darkened by their sins, but desire to be illumined by the light, draw near to it. That is why the psalm tells us, "'Draw near to him and be illumined, and your faces will not be ashamed." The light won't shame you if, when it shows you that you are foul and deformed, these things displease you. Then you may perceive the beauty of the light. This is what John wants to teach us.
Again, if God is light, and in him is no darkness at all, and if we must have communion with him, then darkness must be driven out of us, because darkness can have no communion with light. You have the words of the apostle Paul too: ""What communion has light with darkness?" And so ask yourself now, "What shall I do? How will I become light? I am living in sin and iniquity. Despair and sadness are stealing into me. There is salvation only in communion with God." God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. Sins are darkness. It is the Apostle who tells us that the devil and his angels are the rulers of this present darkness, and he wouldn't call them rulers of darkness unless they were the rulers of sinners, the ones who dominate the wicked.
What are we to do, my friends? We must have communion with God, because that is our only hope of life eternal. But our iniquities are dark, and they press upon us so that we cannot have communion with God. What hope have we then? Didn't I promise that I would say something during these days to bring you gladness? If I don't, there is only sadness. God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. What will become of us?
Let us listen. Perhaps John will console us; perhaps he will lift us up and give us hope so that we will not falter on our way. We are running, running toward our home. If we despair of reaching it, it is by our despair that we fail. God wants us to
6 / LOVEONE ANOTHER, MY FRIENDS reach it. In order to have us there with him he nourishes us on the way. And so let us listen: If we say that we have communion with him and we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. Let us not say that we have communion with him if we are walking in darkness. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have communion with one another. So let us walk in the light, as he is in the light, so that we may have communion with him.
But what are we to do about our sins? Listen to what follows: and the blood of Jesus his Son will cleanse us from all offense. God has taken all our anxiety from us. It is right for us to celebrate the Passover in which the Lord's blood, which cleanses us from all offense, was poured out. Let us be at peace! The devil held a "bond of servitude" against us, but it has been canceled by the blood of Christ. The blood of Jesus his Son will cleanse us, he says, from all offense.
What does it mean to say from all offense? Those newly baptized, whom we call infants, have been cleansed from all their sins in Christ's name, and by the blood of him they have now acknowledged. They came in old, they went out young, as infants. Their old life was a deterioration, their new life is a regeneration. But what of us? Our past sins have been pardoned too, not just theirs. But after all of our sins have been pardoned and abolished, as we live among the temptations of this world, perhaps we contract others. Let us then do what we can: let us confess what we are, so that the One who is always what he is may heal us.
For see what is said next: If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Therefore if you confess that you are a sinner, the truth is in you. The truth itself is light. Your life does not yet have its perfect splendor because there are sins in it, but you have begun to be illumined because there is confession of sins in it. See what follows: If we confess our offenses, he is faithful and just in forgiving us our offenses and in cleansing us from all unrighteousness. We confess not just our past sins but all those we contract from this life. No one can exist in this flesh without some light sins at least. But you shouldn't think lightly of those sins we call light. If you think lightly of them when you weigh them, be afraid when you count them! Many light objects make one huge one; many drops fill a river; many grains make a heap.
And what hope have we? Before everything else there is confession of sins, lest one of us reckon himself to be righteous and raise his nose in the air before God, who sees what he is, this person who once didn't even exist. Before everything else, then, confession. And then love. What do they say of it? "Love buries a multitude of sins."
Now let us see whether John isn't enjoining us to love because faults come upon us while we are unaware, and it is only love that destroys them. Pride destroys love and so we can say that humility strengthens it. Love destroys our faults. Humility pertains to the confession we make when we confess that we are sinners. This is true humility; not the words we say when we are afraid that we'll antagonize people by our conceit if we describe ourselves as righteous. Tell people what you are and tell God what you are. If you don't tell God what you really are, he'll condemn what he finds in you. If you don't want this to happen, then condemn yourself. Do you want him to forgive you? Then acknowledge what you are and say to him, "Turn away your face from my sins." Say this to him, too, from the same psalm: "for I know my unrighteousness."
If we confess our offenses, he is faithful and just in forgiving us our offenses and in cleansing us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned we make him a liar and his word is not in us. If you say you haven't sinned, you are making him a liar while attempting to make a truthful person of yourself. But how can God be a liar and a human being truthful when Scripture tells us just the opposite when it says, "Every person is a liar; God alone is true." And so God is true in himself, it is through him that you are true, because in yourself you are a liar.
Do you think that John is promising you that you won't be punished for your sins when he says that God is faithful and just in cleansing us from all unrighteousness? Do you think you can say to yourself, **Let's sin, let's do what we want without anxiety, because Christ cleanses us, he is faithful and just, and he cleanses us from all unrighteousness"? John takes away from you a vicious security and instills a profitable fear. Is it a vicious security you want? Be solicitous! He is faithful and just in forgiving us our offenses, if we are always dissatisfied with ourselves and are willing to change so long as we are not perfect.
And so what follows? My little children, I am writing this to you so that you may not sin. But suppose that sin steals up on you out of your human situation? What will happen then? Should you despair? Listen: and if any one does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the one who makes expiation for our sins. And so he is our advocate. Live so that you don't sin, but if some sin steals up on you out of the circumstances of your life, look at it right away, regret it, condemn it; and when you've condemned your sin you'll come to your Judge without anxiety. There you have an advocate. Don't be afraid of losing your case, which you have confessed. Sometimes in affairs of this life people entrust themselves to an eloquent speaker and are saved. You are entrusting yourself to the Word, and will you be lost? Of course not. So shout out: We have an advocate with the Father!
And see how John himself preserves his humility. He was a great and righteous man; he drank the secrets of the mysteries from the Lord's breast. From Christ's breast he drank in the mystery of his divinity, so that he could write, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God." This great man didn't say that you have an advocate with the Father, he said we have. He chose to include himself among sinners, so that he would have Christ as his advocate. Friends, it is Jesus Christ the righteous one whom we have as our advocate with the Father; he is the expiation for our sins.
But someone will ask, ''Don't the saints intercede for us? Don't the bishops and leaders in the Church intercede for the people?" But look in the Scriptures and see that the leaders also recommend that they themselves be included in the prayers of people. Paul writes to the Colossians: "Pray for us also." The Apostle prays for the people and they pray for him. I pray for you, my friends, and you too, please pray for me. Let all members pray for one another, and let our Head intercede for us all!
Don't be surprised, then, that John goes on to shut the mouths of those who divide God's church, who would detach themselves and say, "'Lo, here is the Christ!" or, "There he is!" who want to exhibit in a part the one who gained the whole and possesses the whole. When he has said that he is the... expiation for our sins, John immediately adds, and not for ours only but also for those of the whole world. It is certain that **we have found it in the fields of the woods," we have found the Church in every nation, we find the Church throughout the whole world. Don't follow those who pretend to make others righteous but who really cut off parts of the whole. Belong to that mountain which has filled the whole Earth, because Christ is the. . . expiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for those of the whole world, which he purchased with his own blood.