Verse 3 says, “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” The word translated “declare” means to hand over, not just to show you my hymn book, for example, but also to hand it over to you. When we hand this life over to others, the outcome is fellowship. If we have life, we are in the fellowship. We hand this eternal life over to others that they may have fellowship with us, with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.
Verses 4 and 5 say, “And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” God’s being light to us is subjective. The context makes clear that God is light when we have life and are in the fellowship of life. In this fellowship of life is light. All these key words-Word, life, light, and God- are also found in John 1. The difference is that in the Gospel they are objective, whereas in the Epistles the reality of these words is within us. The light is in the fellowship; any darkness means that something is wrong.
Verse 6 continues, “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.” With some of the saints, we can sense a transparency. As we talk and fellowship with them, there is no sense of any darkness or opaqueness. With others this is not so; perhaps only one part is transparent and the rest of their being is in darkness. You may be in darkness, yet say you are not. You may be deceived by the enemy and unintentionally tell a lie. Unconsciously you are deceiving others because of darkness within.
“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” (v. 7). Since light is God Himself, to walk in the light is to walk in God. We may go to a fellowship meeting or to someone’s home for fellowship and yet not have any true fellowship. Fellowship is not possible if we are in darkness. We may have outward contact, but without the flow of life within there is no true fellowship. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood cleanses us from all sin. If we are walking in God and are in the fellowship, our real situation will be exposed. We shall see that in this matter we were wrong and in that matter mistaken. Surely we shall confess and ask the Lord’s forgiveness. This confession comes spontaneously from the light in the fellowship. Then the blood cleanses, even without our applying it. Too often we apply the blood in darkness, outside the fellowship and in death. With such a loose, light attitude the blood does not cleanse.
The real abiding in Christ is a fine, sensitive matter. That is why we must go to the Lord day by day to spend time in His presence and to have Him check whether we are in life, in the fellowship, in the exposing light, and fully under the cleansing of the blood. If we are, we shall have the assurance that we are transparent, with nothing between Him and us. This is abiding. To abide in Christ we need the fellowship, the light, the enlightening, the confessing, and the cleansing.
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