“This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.” I John 1:5.

This message that the disciples heard was from “Him”, Jesus, and in His revelation of the Father He showed them that God is light. Not God is in the light, but that God, is light.

When it is said He is light, it is not in some metaphysical sense but rather there is the idea that light is so undefiled and impossible to defile that it gives a visual image of God’s purity.

Light gives us a picture of the nature of God as being incorporeal, holy, spotless; impossible for the mind to fully comprehend really.

In part, because of this incomprehensibility, God does not want us making images of Him. To paraphrase one author: What if an artist friend of yours were to create a painting of you which he felt really expressed the real you, but upon showing it to you, it was a picture of a cockroach. No matter how sincere, would you be offended?

Perhaps it would be the best picture you have ever seen of a cockroach. Perhaps he would tell you that the cockroach is very resilient, determined, industrious, and self-sufficient, would you hang it in your den?

Even an image of a man does not do God justice; much less insulting ones like, men with the head of a bird, bulls, beetles, or some hideous beast, that man has come up with.

God is so incredible that light and spirit are the best that even Scripture can do; having to settle instead with His attributes, which indeed are enough for now, since Christ, God the Son has revealed all we need to know of God.

“God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:24.

“…He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen.” I Timothy 6:15-16.

“Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, You are very great: You are clothed with honor and majesty, Who cover Yourself with light as with a garment, Who stretch out the heavens like a curtain.” Psalm 104:1-2.

“Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, measured heaven with a span and calculated the dust of the earth in a measure? Weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?” Isaiah 40:12.

“Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket, and are counted as the small dust on the balance; look, He lifts up the isles as a very little thing.”Isaiah 40:15.

“To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare to Him?” Isaiah 40:18.

“To whom then will you liken Me, or to whom shall I be equal?” says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and see who has created these things, Who brings out their host by number; He calls them all by name, by the greatness of His might and the strength of His power; not one is missing.” Isaiah 40:25-26.

“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. There is no searching of His understanding.” Isaiah 40:28.

“For with You [God] is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light.” Psalm 36:9.

Speaking of Jesus as light, Matthew chapter four quoted the prophecy from Isaiah 9:1-2, as follows.

“The people who sat in darkness saw a great light, and upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death Light has dawned.” Matthew 4:16.

“In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” John 1:4.

“And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.” John 3:19-21.

“As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” John 9:5.

“While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.” John 12:36a.

“And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.” Romans 13:11-12.

“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light…” Ephesians 5:8.

The word light is a metaphor for God in all of His holiness; at the same time you can see that this light is revealed in the form of Jesus His Son, and further spreads out to all who will have it.

This light is the truth the reality of who God is and not the lie of Satan which brings darkness upon all mankind.

As you can also see from John 3:19-21, quoted above, men react differently to God’s light; either they cling to their evil and remain in the darkness, or they come to the light.

Things like:

“… the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” Galatians 5:22-23a.

These are the deeds of light. Whereas things like:

“Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practiced such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Galatians 5:19-23.

These are practiced by those in the dark.

“If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” I John 1:6-7.

Here is the test of a true Christian; are we walking in darkness or in the light? Many have spent years in church, even become deacons, elders, or Sunday school teachers and have never accepted Christ as their savior.

They have gone through all the motions but have never had, “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son” cleanse them from all sin.

This is a life without power, because those without Christ are dead in their trespasses and sins. There is no power of prayer because there is no relationship with God at all. There is no power to change because change comes through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and the unsaved are not indwelt by Him.

While their sins may not be as terrible as others because they are trying to be good, nevertheless their hearts are as dark as any other sinner, and though it may appear that they are walking in the light, their hearts will betray them.

This is important in that Scripture says that if we say that we have fellowship with God and walk in darkness, “we lie and do not practice the truth”. It is the word “practice” that qualifies this statement.

A large portion of the book of James concerns a double-minded man, that is the Christian who has one foot in the world and one foot in Christianity.

These worldly Christians can be of no real use to God as long as they are unwilling to turn their back on the world and follow Jesus with a true heart.

Yet you will not find them practicing evil; they along with all Christians fall in their walk in Christ. Christians too often do the works of the flesh written of in Galatians 5:19-21, adultery, fornication, licentiousness, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, and the like.

But the true Christian does not practice such things. When they come to the end of themselves (which could take awhile) and realize their sin, they confess and forsake it.

The unsaved however, march brazenly on in their sin.

“…who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.” Romans 1:32.

But if we walk in the light, even as God the Father, “we have fellowship with one another”. Fellowship here does not mean that you and I or that you and the apostles have fellowship, though this is true; it means that you and God the Father have fellowship together.

Now fellowship with the Creator of all things as your loving Father is definitely worth shooting for, yes.

The last phrase is the key piece of the puzzle, “…and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” Without Christ all of this would be impossible.

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23.

It must be remembered that the first step to stepping into the light is to accept Christ as your savior, there is no other way.

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” I John 1:8-9.

These two verses are specifically for the Christian and they contain two very important principles. The first is the misapprehension that once saved, we do not sin.

The confusion comes from verses like our text verse above, “…the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” There is nothing up my sleeve, this statement is one hundred per cent true, and there are no tricks, no caveats, and no conditions.

However, if we lie, it is a sin, if we cheat, it is a sin, if we commit adultery, it is a sin; nothing has changed has it?

Sin is not walking in the light; in fact it separates you from your Father. Separation only leads to more sin and more separation; and sin has natural consequences, angry husbands kill adulterers all the time.

Lies lead to bigger lies until no one trusts you when you tell them about Jesus, and cheats either get cheated back, worse, or they get beaten up, natural consequences. This leads us to the second principle.

“If we confess our sins”, when the Christian sins, the Holy Spirit points the sin out to them; there are two options, we can ignore Him and find ourselves descending into more sin, or we can go before our Father and confess our sin.

His response will be to “forgive us our sins”, this is because Christ has already paid for them, that is why it is said that, “He is faithful and just”.

There is no penance, no crawling over crushed glass, or bead counting, do not allow Satan to drive you crazy with guilt over confessed sin that God has already forgiven.

God not only forgives our sins but He also cleanses us from all unrighteousness. One of the manners in which this is done is through the act of confessing itself.

As an example let us assume a person who is a habitual liar becomes a Christian; now this person is saved, but they continue to lie out of habit, one day they lie, and the Holy Spirit taps them on the shoulder and says, “That was a lie.” “Huh?” says the perpetrator, “Oh that was a lie wasn’t it!”

They then confess this lie to their Father and He forgives them. A few hours later, tap, tap, “That was another lie.” “Darn! I did it again!”

Once again confession is made to God and He forgives; now this cycle can go on until my typing fingers get tired, but the upshot is that with repetition of confession, our habitual liar becomes someone who not only does not lie, but it becomes very difficult for him to do so.

Confession then is useful to highlight gross sins or habitual ones and this, with the Holy Spirit’s help begins to weed these things out of our lives.

Confession too helps us to realize just how sinful we are, I do not mean that you have to continually flog yourself with how awful you are, but rather this is to keep us humble with a right opinion of ourselves.

We must not look down on anyone. This was not the mind of Christ and it should not be ours.

“For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.” Romans 12:3.

“For I know that in me (that is in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God – through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.” Romans 7:18-25.

“If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.” I John 1:10.

Even the non-believers who have joined the church as though it were some kind of club will probably say that they have sinned, but their solution to the sin question is to work their way to heaven, in hopes that their good deeds will outweigh their bad deeds and God will let them in.

As skewed as this view is, they still admit to sin, though to reject Christ as the only payment for sin is to deny sin’s severity, and makes them a part of the group that says that they have not sinned.

You may have met folks who will say, “I have my own religion” or “There are many ways to God”.

I even met a young man who said the Bible was written about a hundred years ago by a bunch of men.

Many are confused by apostate Christian churches, false religions, New Age mysticism, evolution, and philosophy hijacked by atheism, not to mention atheism itself.

All of these things have been brought about through the agency of Satan himself. They all have one thing in common; they all deny sin and call God a liar!

“For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.” II Corinthians 11:13-15.

“Long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature’s night. Thine eye diffused a quick’ning ray: I woke – the dungeon flamed with light! My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed thee. Amazing love! How can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me!” “And Can It Be?” Charles Wesley.

God is Light, 1 John 1:5-10 taken from godisrevealed.com posted on 10-31-11, updated on 5-8-18.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version, copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission, all rights reserved.