I John 1:7
Most preachers and teachers say that John meant by walking in the light doing righteous acts or being obedient to God. If walking in the light meant walking in obedience to God or doing righteous acts then why would John reference the cleansing of sin while we walked in the light?
There would be no sin to cleanse if walking in the light meant walking in righteousness.
Walking in the light is a reference to living in another realm.
John says we are in the light “as Jesus is in the light.” Jesus is in a place. He is in the light. To walk in the light is to be where Jesus is. The Apostle Paul said we believers have been translated from this kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the beloved Son. Into the kingdom of light.
When you read down further in John’s letter you can see John saying that walking in darkness is synonymous with being spiritually dead and walking in the light is synonymous with being spiritually alive.
John is not saying a believer can walk in the light but sometimes walks in the darkness. Impossible.
Paul said we were once darkness but now we are light in the Lord. We are light as Jesus was the light of the world. A believer acting fleshly at times is not the same thing as walking in darkness according to the Apostle John.
Look at every reference to “walking in darkness” in John’s letter and you will see what he means by “walking in the light.” The point John is making is that we now have fellowship with the Father and the Son because we are WHERE THEY ARE. THEY ARE IN THE LIGHT. WE HAVE BEEN BROUGHT INTO THE LIGHT BY THE POWER OF GOD.
Jesus told Paul that I send you to open the eyes of the blind and to bring them from the darkness into the light with the message of the finished work of Jesus. John was drawing a contrast between the Gnostics who claimed to be in fellowship with God because of their so-called special knowledge but they denied that they were sinners in need of forgiveness and in need of a Savior. John said the Gnostics walked in darkness. The believer walked in the light because their sin had been cleansed once for all time and being in the light has nothing to do with our acts of righteousness but rather the one act of death by Jesus when He gave Himself for us and became sin for us. This truth catapults us into the light to be where He is.
That verse is almost always taught like John is saying “as long as you walk in obedience to God, then, and only then, will you have fellowship with God.” That teaching basically puts the believer back under the law and makes fellowship with God conditional upon our good works. That teaching is gross error.
If you remember that John is contrasting the true believer with the false teachings of the Gnostics then the “if” simply means “if you are a true believer in Jesus” (i.e., if we walk in the light as He is in the light) then you have fellowship with God.
John describes someone “walking in darkness” as someone who has not the truth in them, has not the Word in them, is deceived, is calling God a liar, has hate in his heart and does not have eternal life abiding in them. That is not a description of a believer who walks after the flesh sometimes. That is a description of a person who has not been regenerated and who has not the Holy Spirit abiding within.
The new creation is now light. Our behavior does not change that and that is why John simply says if a true believer sins we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus the righteous One, and He has become the complete propitiation for all our sin.
True believers still sin as they walk in the light, in the new realm, but the blood of Jesus continually cleanses the believer from all sin as John states. Actually when you read the original Greek language, John is not saying that as a believer sins the blood of Jesus cleanses the believer of those sins. The Greek language is saying a past act (i.e., the death of Jesus) has a continuing effect in the present and the future for all time. The believer’s sins are not ever imputed to the believer because the believer is not under law and where there is no law sin is not imputed. There is no imputed sin to the believer that requires more cleansing. The cleansing took place when Jesus died as us and we died in judgment with Jesus.
Furthermore, the new man cannot sin, the apostle John says, because the seed of God remains in the believer, the new creation. When a believer sins, Paul says it is the power of sin in our mortal body that causes a believer to stumble and not the new man within the body for the new man within the body has a new heart by the creative power of God which came into being from the resurrection of Jesus, the last Adam. The body is dead because of sin but the spirit is alive because of righteousness. The outward man (i.e., the body) is decaying day by day but the inward man is being renewed every day. Believers do not have two natures, as is commonly taught, but rather only one nature. We have been made a partaker of the divine nature, the Apostle Peter said. To have two natures means you have two fathers. We have one nature and one Father and our identity is a beloved son or beloved daughter of the living God.
Nothing can separate us from God’s great love in Jesus. Our fellowship with the Father and the Son is continuous with no interruption because we are one with the Father and the Son through the Spirit within. The believer is always in the light and “in God’s light we see light” and understand these deep things of God.
James Barron