ARE WE LIVING IN LIGHT OR DARKNESS?
1 John 1:5-7 (NIV 1984) 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.
Are we living in light or darkness? There is a disconnect that can come between our profession and our practice, explained here by the Apostle John in terms of light and darkness. Darkness refers to a spiritual disorientation that becomes a breeding ground for lies, evil, ignorance, badness, impurity, and hate; it is a synonym for evil (Jn 3:19-21). Light, on the other hand, is the opposite and refers to spiritual clarity, resulting in truth, righteousness, revelation, goodness, purity, and love. God is light. It is a wonderful truth that God is love, but we cannot appreciate that until we understand that God is light. There is no shortage of people who claim the love of God but do not live in the light of God. While they may claim to be in God’s light, they are the sort who go on living how they want, full of darkness and spiritual confusion, where right and wrong are flipped. John is clear, they are lying to themselves; they are living in darkness, not light. We call this hypocrisy.
To some degree, inconsistencies and hypocrisies are found in all of us, but the question is, what do we do when we discover them? If we accept them, normalize them, and keep them integrated into our lives, we are living a lie. Calling oneself a “Gay Christian”, to employ a modern example, is to use a sinful lifestyle as an adjective to modify a noun that stands in direct opposition to its modification. This is hypocrisy at best, and sacrilege at worst. It would be the same as using the phrases, “Lying Christian”, “Greedy Christian”, “Murderous Christian”, “Child-Molesting Christian”, or “Mean-spirited Christian”, all terms of contradiction, terms of darkness, not light. This is not rocket science. Once I was given a very nice watch from a fellow believer. It appeared to be a very expensive watch, and I was thinking of selling it and helping fund my generous friend’s ministry; however, after doing some research, I noticed discrepancies between my watch and ones like it on the Internet. I was able to obtain the company’s contact information and send them pictures of my watch; it took them about twelve seconds to identify it as a fake. How were they able to do this? They knew intricately what an authentic watch looked like. My generous friend was probably unaware it was a fake when he gave it to me. When we live in the darkness of this sinful world, yet claim we are walking in the light, it is clear to someone who loves light and lives in light to see through our facade. We are lying to ourselves, and many around us know it, even if we do not.
John is saying that those who are living in the darkness are not living in fellowship with Christ. A believer can sin in such a way as to be out of fellowship with Christ but still be saved, as one escaping through flames (1 Cor 3:15); but, they can also sin in such a way that they walk away from their faith (See Hebrews 6:6), or reveal that they never had faith to begin with (see Matt 7:21-23).
To walk in the light brings fellowship with God, and the blood of Jesus goes on purifying us. Here is hope for the struggling believer, one who refuses to normalize their sin and incorporate it into their life, who refuses to live in darkness, and, though imperfectly, chooses to pursue truth and righteousness. Walking in the light does not mean we never sin, but that we set our disposition against it. We confess it, declare war on it, and receive forgiveness from it. Believers are on an upward journey toward the light, where a greater revelation of Jesus is received and experienced. It is not perfection, but it aims at it, normalizing and incorporating righteous standards, mercy, and the continued cleansing made possible through the blood of Jesus. This is what it means to live in the light. Are we living in light or darkness?
