First John Chapter One Commentary by
Pastor Ron Beckham
Audio
Confess And Receive
To understand the first Chapter of the Book, this Letter called First John, it’s important to meet the author. He was an older man at the time this letter was written, but it is the same John who originally was the youngest apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. Like the rest he was an ordinary man, an uneducated fisherman in business with his now deceased brother, James. They were in occasional partnership with two other Galileans named Peter and Andrew. These men gave up everything and followed Jesus when He called them (Matthew 4:18-22). Writings in the Early Church tell us that John would depart Jerusalem shortly before its destruction in 70 AD, and he became a minister in the area of Ephesus, within the Roman Province of Asia.
He who was the youngest had become the last surviving original apostle of the Lord, and as he said in 1 John 1:1-2, He was with Jesus “from the beginning.” Like the others, he personally “heard” Jesus, saw the miracles with his own “eyes… looked at and touched Him” with his hands. And this was no ordinary man they heard, saw and touched, for Jesus Christ was and is “the Word of Life.” He is the life which lived and ruled before the world was or the universe existed. John excitedly wrote: “we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us.” God took human form. John and the others saw Him face-to-Face, heard Him and were touched by Him.
We have the opportunity to judge what is said in his letter as to what we think about it, and we should note that his words are the eyewitness testimony of someone who saw - everything. We weren’t there. He was, and we should listen to such a man. Verses 3-4 list the purposes of WHY he wrote: 1) “So that you too may have fellowship with (John and others like him); and (he continues) our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.” To receive the Son is to also meet God the Father. John walked with the Christ who now lived in John’s heart, and He can also live in ours. 2) John gives another reason for us to believe in Jesus – He will give us “joy.” When you trust in Him, it’s joy not only for you, but for the rest of us as well, “so that OUR joy may be made complete.” Receiving God’s joy, you also give it. The Lord intends to fill our lives with joy, which will bless not only you, but those around you.
We hear a lot about “light” in Scripture. Jesus said “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). He also said, “YOU are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). What is that light? In 1 John 1:5 we learn, “This is the message we… announce to you, that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” And he continues in Verses 6-7, telling us what that “light” is all about - “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” “Darkness” is refusing to see. The spiritually blind don’t see, but all are offered “light,” leading to wonderful “fellowship” with one another.
What do you have that is hidden in your life? People everywhere seem to be hiding something. You might say to someone, “How are you?” but not really care about the answer because you don’t really care how they are. We’re going to see in the Book of First John that there are several risks in giving our hearts and lives to the Lord. One risk is that we will find the “joy” John spoke about. We won’t be able to wallow in unhappiness anymore. Our old friend depression will begin to go away. And people we secretly (or overtly) didn’t care about before will start to matter. We will find that the love of God in Christ Jesus will grow within us.
We are to walk in the “light,” confessing our sins to God one by one, telling Him what He knows already. He will help us do it. And then, as He enables us and leads us, we will begin to be honest with people, first with ourselves and then with others. We might seem good on the outside and might pretend even to ourselves that we are wonderful, but when we let God in, He will take us down the strange path of honesty, discovering as it says in Verse 8 that “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.”
The naked truth about our own sinful nature is capable of destroying us, and that is why God will likely reveal our true nature to us gradually. His way might not seem gentle to us, but that is because we have fooled ourselves for a long time and the truth is buried deeply. We like to believe that we are nice, good, honest, faithful and true, and compared to others we may be, but the less honest we are, the more we will pretend.
God’s Remedy for such deception is Jesus Christ. Our problem is worse than we know. It’s more than simply being nice folks who do something wrong once in awhile; it’s our very nature. When Jesus Christ came to humanity, He essentially entered the world of the dead. Collectively and individually humans are not alive in the sight of God, and becoming part of humanity is like going into a graveyard. He, on the other hand, is and always was, fully alive and His life is contagious. Have you noticed the places in Scripture when someone was physically dead and God brought them back to life?
One such event is seen in the Gospel of John Chapter 11. A man named Lazarus had been dead for four days. Jesus simply spoke the man’s name and Lazarus was alive! He said, “’Lazarus come forth’ and he who had died came out bound hand and foot with grave clothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth…” (John 11:43-44). Jesus had said to the mourners while Lazarus was still dead, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live… Do you believe this?” What about you? Do you believe?
Humanity has a deeper problem than physical death, great though that problem may be. It is often called “spiritual death” which is our condition before we yield to the call of the Lord. In the case of Lazarus, the dead now lived, but this is even more. We walk around, speak, smile or frown when it seems appropriate, but without Christ we are dead to God. He speaks but we do not hear. The Bible told us about God but we didn’t understand. Just like a lamp will not light unless it is plugged into the power, we become “light” by being plugged into God.
Once we trust in the Lord, a course of action begins in our lives, leading us out of darkness and into the light. Part of it is that the Holy Spirit of God actually enters into the center of our being and begins a process of healing, enabling us see and be healed. It’s often called “sanctification” and it is explained in 1 John 1:9 – “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Take a careful look at John’s words, especially as to our part in all of this. The young John who was now old lived an adult life experiencing the saving power of Jesus Christ and the cleansing work of the Holy Spirit. He saw that what we have to do when the Holy Spirit reveals what God already knows, is to “confess,” and He does the rest. As people, we’re not very faithful and a glance at the daily news reveals that we are certainly not “righteous.” But God is, and He will continually perform two functions as we confess: He will “forgive us our sins.” You cannot change the past, but God will forgive you. The other part is “to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” He will make us clean, pure and innocent like we never thought possible.
John’s 10th verse is a flourish, a reminder of who and what we are: “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.” Let yourself trust in the Lord, fall back into His arms, be honest and surrender to His work in your life. You’ll be glad you did.
Dear Lord, I confess my sins to You. Jesus, I trust in You now. Thank You for forgiving me and making me clean. I surrender to You. In Jesus Name. Amen.
