Walk in the light
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 cleanses us from all sin. If we say 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. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (ESV)
We live in the shadowlands. While our physical world is illuminated by the sun, objects come between the sun and the land, creating a shadow that may have the same form as the object but has no substance. The Son illuminates the Kingdom of God but idols that come between the Son and our hearts cast shadows that seem to have the form of something to worship but lack true substance. These idols that dominate our lives keep us from truly walking in the light.
The prophet Isaiah saw the consequences of walking in darkness, ignoring the light lamenting,
What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices?
says the LORD;
I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams
and the fat of well-fed beasts;
I do not delight in the blood of bulls,
or of lambs, or of goats.
“When you come to appear before me,
who has required of you
this trampling of my courts?
Bring no more vain offerings;
incense is an abomination to me.
New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations—
I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.
Your new moons and your appointed feasts
my soul hates;
they have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.
(Isaiah 1:11-14 ESV)
The first commandment instructs us to have no other gods before the Lord. Idols aren’t necessarily physical items that cast a shadow over us. Ba’al can look like a quest for power, love, admiration, influence, or success. John further defined these idols in chapter two of this same letter. The things that cast shadows, the false gods, are the same as those in the Garden of Eden, and they all amount to the same thing: we think we know better how to run our lives than the one who created us. Isaiah urged the Israelites, “Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord” (Isaiah 2:5). Jesus identified himself as the light, saying, “I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). The sun’s light illuminates; the Light of the Son enlightens. As long as we stay in the light, we grow like plants receiving adequate sunshine. The Light of Jesus allows us to see each other as brothers and sisters in Christ, loving one another with an authenticity that overcomes division, making us whole, complete, and solid. Without Jesus, we have nothing of enduring substance in us or around us.
No one is immune to idolatry. While Jesus calls us to be perfect (Matthew 5:48), he knows that human nature drives us to self-centeredness. It’s why he promised the Helper, the Holy Spirit, to teach and remind us to focus on the light rather than wandering in the shadows (John 14:26). Claiming freedom from sin in any form is deceit; John declared that denying our sin makes God a liar. In Genesis, Adam and Eve were deceived by the serpent, but the law given to Moses clearly laid out the expectation of holiness for those who followed the Lord. Paul argued that the law is holy and utterly impossible to fulfill completely, saying,
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
(Romans 7:22-24).
When John wrote this letter, he removed the serpent from the equation, saying that if we think we don’t sin, if we do not struggle against idolatry, we deceive ourselves. We deliberately choose to put ourselves above the Holy One. John pounded the point home, saying, “If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:10). We choose our idols. We choose the shadows because the light is too intense to look at directly. Moses couldn’t look at God, but stayed in a crack in a rock as God’s glory passed by him (Exodus 33:22). When Moses returned to the people from the mountain where he spoke with God he had to cover his face because it still reflected the light of the Lord (Exodus 34:35).
Living in the shadowlands does not allow us to reflect the light of Jesus to a world lost in darkness. There is no escape from the darkness without recognizing that we are in it, but there is hope for us in Jesus. Jesus removes the idols that cast the shadows we choose out of a desire to be our own gods when we confess our sins. He alone can forgive. He alone can cleanse our hearts and minds so that we can walk in the light. Though we cannot look at the face of God and live, we can look at Jesus, God in human flesh. Jesus is the icon of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15); he is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of God’s nature who upholds the universe (Hebrews 1:3). At the incarnation, God became one of us, but because he was still God, he never set foot in the shadows. Instead, he showed a side of God that we can understand, without rejecting his deity. He proclaimed, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30) and “Whoever sees me sees him who sent me” (John 12:45). When John asserted that the blood of Jesus the Son cleanses us from all sin, he created a binary: those who confess their sins can walk in the light, but those who say they do not sin remain in the shadow of their idols, unable to see where they are going because they do not look at the illumined path laid out for them.
John, who loved the people in the Ephesian churches, urged them to choose light instead of shadow so that he could live in complete joy. How much more does Jesus, who loves us perfectly, desire our full devotion, not for himself, but so we experience abundant life, perfect joy, and unified fellowship with our brothers and sisters in him?
Resources
The ESV Bible. Crossway, 2001, www.esv.org/.
Davison, Roy Allen. “Let us walk in the light of the LORD.” Old Paths Archive, https://www.oldpaths.com/Archive/Davison/Roy/Allen/1940/lampuk.html. Accessed 17 June 2024.
Spurgeon, Charles Haddon. “Walking in the Light and Washed in the Blood.” The Spurgeon Center, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Volume 11, 3 Dec. 1865, https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/walking-in-the-light-and-washed-in-the-blood/#flipbook/. Accessed 17 June 2024.
Cook, Jason, “The Minor Prophets: Joel and Obadiah” Sermon Fellowship Bible Church, Roswell GA 2 June 2024.
https://fellowshiproswell.org/sermon7/the-minor-prophets-part-one/
Cook Jason, “The Minor Prophets: Hosea” Sermon Fellowship Bible Church, Roswell GA, 9 June 2024.
https://fellowshiproswell.org/sermon7/the-minor-prophets-part-two/
The Georgia Mass Choir – Walk In the Light
Defaulting to Grace 