Thoughts on 1 John 1-2

Today’s reading: Numbers 31; 1 John 1-2

I have a hard time with John’s letters. I’m not sure why, because I’m fine with John’s gospel, and I’m good with Revelation (as much as any of us can be anyway), but for some reason I just struggle when it comes to his three letters. I feel like I have to read so much more slowly, and re-read everything a few times before I can follow what he’s saying.

There’s no real point in telling you that other than to say, if you have a hard time with them too, you’re not alone. Or if you have a hard time understanding any part of the Bible that other people seem to navigate just fine, you’re not alone there either, so don’t be discouraged. Each of us thinks and processes differently, and different writing and argument styles are going to click more with some of us than with others. Ultimately though, just because I have a hard time wrapping my head around John’s letters, that doesn’t mean they aren’t valuable, so let’s dive into my thoughts for this morning.

I really like John’s light v. darkness contrast that he rides through chapter 1 and the first half of chapter 2. In one sense, he really seems to be saying what we read from James in chapter 2 of his letter about claiming to have faith but having no works to evidence your faith. Here it is the same thought but the opposite approach, in that while James is talking about doing good works, John is talking about not doing bad works. Otherwise, their points are really the same. If you claim to have faith, shouldn’t your actions evidence that faith in some way?

It’s here that I am really struck by John’s metaphor. Light and darkness can never be friends because they cannot exist in the same space. You could try to weasel your way around John’s metaphor by claiming dim light or something, but John isn’t just saying God is so brilliant that he emits light, he says that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If you have that kind of light outside a closed door, when you crack that door at all, the entire room is illuminated. God’s light is too great and too profound to leave darkness behind. So if we claim to know the Lord, if we claim to be in Christ and have fellowship with the Father, and yet we continue to live in darkness, pursuing a life lived after our sinful, worldly passions, how can we say we know Him? On what grounds can darkness claim fellowship with light?

My first reaction, and I’m guessing I’m not alone in this, is to downplay the severity of John’s words. He is speaking poetically, obviously, using a metaphor to draw a contrast, but we certainly can’t take poetic language so far as to take John’s words at face value! Obviously!

Rather than go down that road though, I want to stop and ask why we jump to explanations that soften John’s words here? Why, when we come across passages like this, or like James 2, do we feel the need to work around them or make them not say what they seem to say?

When we step back and think about it, God is morally perfect, and to Him sin is so beyond detestable that, in order to deal with it, He had to offer up His beloved Son to die on our behalf. Sin is so egregious to the members of the Trinity that Jesus accepted the full outpouring of God’s wrath against sin upon Himself, because that was the only way our sin could be forgiven and we could be restored into relationship with God. This is our creator. This is the perfect one who shaped us and formed us each individually, who has good works prepared for each of us in Christ, and gifts each one of us personally and individually, by the power of His Holy Spirit, to accomplish those good works. The lengths He has gone to, and the price He has borne in His own person in order to rescue us is beyond our ability to comprehend, so I don’t think it’s all that much of a stretch to say that a follower of God should seek to have God’s view of sin and want nothing to do with it.

I tend to want to soften these passages because I want to have my cake and eat it too. I want the assurance of my salvation, but at the same time I want the freedom to live my life as I see fit. I want to claim to love God while still allowing those pet sins in my life. But Jesus hung on the cross for those pets sins, and He has every right to tell me to put them down, step out of the darkness, and start walking in the light. And isn’t that the exactly what Jesus Himself called for when He told His listeners that if their right hand causes them to sin they should cut it off?

We want to downplay and soften these passages because we want a fluffy Christianity. We want to feel good about where we are going without it having to effect how we live our lives along the way. We want to follow Christ while we continue living for the world, even though John tells us, “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him,” mirroring Jesus words to His disciples that you cannot love God and mammon. 

Rather than trying to explain how to understand John’s words in a way that allows for a person to have saving faith while living a life devoid of works and full of sin, maybe we should ask why we even want to.

Instead of trying to soften John’s words this morning, we should soak in them for a few minutes and let the Lord’s light shine into those dark places in our hearts where we have tried to keep the door shut to block out the light. Let the Lord open our eyes to where we have not given everything over to Him that He is asking for, and let His conviction lead to action so that we can know deeper fellowship with our loving Father than we have ever known before.