The Word of Life
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4 We write this to make our joy complete.
Walking in the Light
5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.
My Understanding: As soon as I read this first chapter in I John, it rang a tone of familiarity with me. John, the human author (God’s scribe), also wrote the Gospel of John. Both the Gospel of John, chapter 1, and I John begin with a description of Jesus Christ, and both descriptions follow a similar pattern. Yet, both of these eye witness accounts of Jesus Christ go beyond a mere accounting of who Jesus was and is. Both versions also describe what Jesus did and then what our response should be to Jesus based upon both who He is and what He did for us. So, I believe the Lord would have me examine those three aspects of this chapter as paralleled with the Gospel of John and also cross-referencing Colossians 1.
Who Jesus was and is
Jesus is the Son of God, he is the second person of our triune God, and he is God. He was with God from the beginning, and all things were made by him, i.e. he is also our creator. He was before all things and in him all things hold together, i.e. he sustains all things by his powerful word. He came from the Father in heaven. He is the Light and he is the Word of Life. He is eternal life. He became flesh and dwelled among mankind on the earth. He is God, the One and Only, who is at the Father’s (God the Father’s) side. He is the image of the invisible God. All the fullness of God dwells in him. He is supreme over all things. He has made the Father known to us. He is full of grace and truth. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. He is the great I AM. He reigns forever in majesty.
What Jesus did for us
Jesus Christ, God the Son, left heaven, took upon himself human flesh, he lived among us, he was tempted as we are tempted, yet without sin. He suffered as we suffer, only far beyond any suffering any of us could even begin to imagine, for his greatest suffering was when he took upon himself the sins of the entire world when they hung him on a cross and crucified him. He committed no crime, and yet he was crucified alongside criminals as though he, too, was a criminal. He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with suffering. He was wounded for our sins and the punishment of our sin was upon him. By his stripes we are healed (See Isaiah 53). Through Christ Jesus, God reconciled all things to himself by making peace through Jesus’ blood shed on the cross. Even though he was the creator of all things, when he was in the world, the world did not recognize him. Even his own people did not receive him. He was betrayed, denied and abandoned by his closest companions. His own people scourged him, mocked him, spat upon him and then crucified him as a common criminal. He was hated for who he was.
Yet, he loved us so much that, while we were yet sinners, he died for us. When he took our sins upon himself, our sins were crucified and buried with him, yet he rose from the dead in victory, triumphing over hell, Satan, death and sin – the penalty of sin and the control of sin over our lives on a day-to-day basis. He went through all of this because he loves us and he wants us to be free from sin, not just so that we can go to be with him in heaven one day, but so we can be free from living according to our flesh natures while we are still on this earth, and so we can be free to walk in victory and in obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ. He freed us and called us to live holy and godly lives, to be his slaves, to be slaves of righteousness, to put our lives on the altar as living sacrifices, to die to our old way of lives and the pattern of this world, to be transformed in the renewing of our minds, to put on our new natures in Christ Jesus, and to yield to the rule of a new master, Jesus Christ.
What our response should be
We must first of all humble ourselves before Almighty God and admit (weep over the fact that) we are sinners in need of a Savior. We must confess (own up to) our sins, i.e. we must admit and agree with God and call sin what it is – sin. We must have a heart desire to want to be free from sin and to have a life change. We must believe in Jesus Christ, in who he is (his divine character) and in what he did for us when he died on the cross for our sins and when he rose from the grave, triumphing over our sin, death, hell and Satan. We must receive him into our lives to be our Lord and Savior. We must walk in the light (the truth of the gospel; teachings of Jesus) he gives us and no longer walk in darkness, i.e. we must repent (turn from our sin and turn to following the Lord with our lives). If we claim that we are in a relationship with Jesus Christ and we say that we are saved and that he is our Savior, and yet we continue to walk (lifestyle) in darkness, then we are liars and we do not live by the truth, because God is light and no darkness dwells in him.
What this is saying is that we cannot rest our salvation in some one-time decision we made at an altar or some intellectual or emotional decision we made to acknowledge what Jesus did for us on the cross, apart from true repentance and obedience to Jesus Christ. True faith and belief involve repentance and obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no way around this. We must confess our sins, we must turn from walking in darkness and we must walk in the light of the truth of Christ’s teachings and of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Anything less than that is a slap in the face to what Jesus (God) did for us in dying for our sins, and it makes a mockery out of his crucifixion and his payment for our sin. He did not die so we would continue living in sin, thinking that we now have our ticket into heaven.
This does not mean we will be sinless, as we learn in the next chapter, but it means that daily we confess and repent of any known sin in our lives and daily we recommit ourselves to walking in faith and obedience to Jesus Christ. If you are relying upon some decision at an altar to secure your place in heaven but you have not repented of your sin and you are still walking in the flesh and you are not walking in the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ and obedience to him, then think again. You don’t want to spend eternity without him forever and miss out on his grace and the victory he provided for you via his death and resurrection. Humble yourselves today before the Lord Jesus, repent of your sins, and make that decision tonight to make him the Lord and master of your lives so that you can live in victory now, and so that you can be with him forever in victory!
His Favor / An Original Work / April 18, 2011
Behold your King!
Worship the Lord, He’s the great I AM; the perfect Lamb.
Jesus, our Redeemer, our Savior, sustainer,
The heavens declare!
The risen One;
He gave His life as a sacrifice. He paid the price.
Our blessed provider, our Lord, magnify Him,
For He’s God’s Son!
Our God is King.
He reigns forever in majesty. He set us free.
Without Him forever, we won’t know his favor,
In victory!
Music, Page 1
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Music, Page 2
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