The Path to Holiness

1 John 1:5-2:2

November 17, 2002

 

            Open your Bibles this morning to the book of 1 John, chapter one, verse 5.  1 John 1:5.  We’re going to be looking at this section this morning, all the way down to chapter 2, verse 2.  Follow along as I read 1 John 1:5-2:2 this morning.

            Read text.

            As people we have a tendency to compare ourselves to others.  We love competition, for the most part, and we love to see how we stack up against someone else.  This is how the sports industry makes its billions.  One player is set against another.  We keep statistics, have All-Star games, tournaments, and most valuable players because we are people who are driven by competition and comparison.  Most of what modern psychologists call problems with self-esteem come from feeling inferior to other people.  We look at them and compare ourselves and we don’t measure up, so we don’t feel good about ourselves and have little feeling of self-worth.  Teenage girls look at models, and many teenage girls feel they are too fat, too short, not pretty enough, don’t have the right clothes, and whatever else can be compared.  Boys wrestle, fight, and compete to see who is the fastest, strongest, most skilled, or best athlete.  Spelling bees, math contests, and essay contests all serve to build into us a sense of competition, to see how we measure up.

            Most people feel pretty good about themselves when they look around.  In the New Testament, the people who felt the best about themselves were the Pharisees.  They looked around and saw that there wasn’t anybody that seemed to measure up to them.  Perhaps that is why so many people were stunned when Jesus said, Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven (Mtt 5:20).  The scribes and Pharisees were the righteous people of the day.  If anyone seemed superior, it was them.

            We all have this tendency, to set up a standard and measure ourselves against it.  If we feel we meet the standard we have put down, we feel like we are ok.  If we feel like we do not meet the standard we have put down, we feel like we need to do better.  Most people put down a man-made standard.  Many people feel they are doing well in God’s eyes because they have not killed anyone, robbed anyone, or raped anyone, and so God must be, on the whole, satisfied with them.  A few lies here and there, and maybe some gossip and anxiety, but no real sins plague them, so they must be fine in God’s eyes. 

            The question is, however, what is the standard to which we must attain if we are to meet God’s requirements for righteousness?  How much sin is too much, and how much is ok?  There are many different views on this question, but the ultimate question is this, “How much sin can I commit and still have fellowship with God?” 

            Fellowship with God is the key.  And John mentions that in verses one through four, from last week.  One of John’s purposes in writing is to help his readers understand how to have fellowship with God.  What John is going to proclaim is the message that enables a person to have fellowship with God. 

            From those first four verses, we see that John was an eyewitness of what he is about to proclaim.  He did not hear this message as hearsay or a rumor.  He was there to witness it firsthand.  The message he heard is the pathway to fellowship with God.  Jesus said in John 14:6, I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.  John heard this message.  No one has fellowship with the Father except through the Son.  No one can ever know God apart from Jesus Christ, His Son.  So the question is, How do we have fellowship with God?  Why is Jesus the way?  What does that mean?  How does this kind of fellowship come about?

            The answer to that question is: holiness.  Holiness is the only way to have fellowship with God.  And that is the primary concern of these next eight verses.  The topic that John now picks up is fellowship with God through holiness.  A person can only have fellowship with God when that person is holy.

            The question that then must be asked is: What does it mean to be holy?  How holy is holy?  How much good do I have to do to be considered holy?  How much bad can I do and still be considered holy?  That’s the question John answers for us in this text of Scripture.  He is going to tell us what type of holiness is required to have fellowship with God and how to get it.

            If you had lived a life like John did, walking for three years with Jesus Christ, what do you think you would notice most about Jesus?  What would stand out?  Perhaps His power would be the most noticeable thing.  Perhaps you would talk about His great love.  Perhaps you would talk about how you saw His wisdom in debating with the religious leaders, and you would have been awed by His wisdom. 

            In Luke 5 we see an interesting sequence of events happen, and we see what stood out to the apostles about Jesus.  The apostles had just finished fishing all night and had caught nothing.  Jesus, after having taught for a while, tells them to go back out and fish.  The disciples, perhaps somewhat skeptically, obey what Jesus says, and they catch an enormous catch of fish, so large that their nets began to break. 

            Now at this point, there is something very obvious about Jesus Christ.  Power!  There were no fish in that lake, and the disciples knew it.  Yet when Jesus gave the command, there was the greatest catch of fish they had ever had.  Jesus possibly here created these fish to be caught.  Whatever the case, where there were no fish, now there were more than the disciples could handle.  This is amazing power over nature. 

            But if you have turned to Luke 5, you’ll notice Peter’s response to this power.  He says in verse 8, Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!  Peter saw Jesus’ power, and his immediate reaction was, “That man is God, and God is holy, and I am a sinner, and I cannot stand in the presence of a holy God.”  He saw Jesus’ power, but he was overwhelmed by Jesus’ holiness.

            Turn back to 1 John.  John also heard a message from Jesus, he tells us in verse 5.  John also received revelation from Jesus Christ, and the part of the message that he wants to start with is this: God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.  After three years with Jesus, the message that John came away with was, “God is light!” 

            What does it mean that God is light?  The idea of light here, when it is contrasted with darkness, is holiness and purity.  The message that the disciples got from Jesus is this: God is holy!  That was Jesus message that the disciples were to proclaim! 

            This was not a new message.  In Isaiah 6 we see the same thing.  Isaiah is caught up to heaven and has a vision of the heavenly throneroom, and he sees Jesus Christ who is seated on the throne.  In verse three of Isaiah six we read, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts.  What is Isaiah’s response?  In verse 5 we read, Then I said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined!”  Why are you ruined, Isaiah?  Aren’t you in the very presence of God?  Isn’t God so much love that this should be wonderful for you?  Why are you ruined?  Isaiah goes on, Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.  Isaiah cried out that he was ruined because he saw the awesome holiness of God, and in the light of that holiness he saw his own sinfulness and the sinfulness of his people, and he couldn’t bear to be in the presence of such a holy God since he was so sinful. 

            This is the Gospel – God is Light.  God is pure holiness.  He is absolutely separated from us in perfection and goodness.  This is what impressed John from Jesus’ life.  What changed people would we be if we measured ourselves against the life of Jesus!  What changed people we would be if we walked with Someone so holy and tried to be like Him! 

            So John says, “Here’s the message, the revelation I received from Jesus Christ as an eyewitness: God is holy!”  Not only is God holy, He is perfectly holy without any blemish or impurity.  That is the meaning of the phrase, and in Him there is no darkness at all.  Literally John wrote, and in Him there is no darkness, not even one bit.  The point of the text is to say that there is not even the smallest speck of impurity in God.  Not even the smallest, microscopic portion of sin, impurity, unholiness, or unrighteousness exists in God.

            So here is the standard.  How holy do you have to be?  As holy as God – perfectly holy.  And how this should serve to cause us to worship!  How we should fall down before a holy God and reverently come before Him!  How we should feel the need for forgiveness before such a God as our God.  That is the revelation John gives, the announcement, the proclamation.

            After telling us that God is pure light, John now wants to give us five reactions to this revealed truth of holiness.  How can we, as sinful creatures, react to the holiness of God?  I want to take them one at a time in the order they come to us in the text.

            Reaction number one – Deception.  This is the first possible reaction to the truth that God is holy.  Notice that John begins the verse by writing, If we say…  He is going to begin this verse, verse 8, and verse 10 with this same phrase, and each time the point of the phrase is this: What we say does not match up with reality.  The story our mouths tell if we say these things does not match up with reality.  Verse six, then, begins with the one who reacts to God’s holiness with deception.  He says that he has fellowship with God, and yet he walks in darkness. 

            This is the person who professes Jesus Christ as his Savior but who does not do what Jesus commands.  John says that this person is a liar, a deceiver, and he does not practice the truth.  Why?  Because fellowship implies that two people have something in common.  True fellowship in the biblical sense of the word, requires something in common between the two persons having fellowship.  Therefore, someone who lives in the darkness has nothing in common with the light, so he cannot possibly have fellowship with God, who is light. 

            So this is a person who realizes that God is light, and claims to have fellowship with God, and yet walks in darkness.  John says this person lies with his mouth, and with his life he does not make a lifestyle habit of practicing the truth.  His whole life is a lie, a deception, a fraud.  So one reaction we can have to the holiness of God is to lie about ourselves, to deceive others by telling them we have fellowship with God, when in fact we really have nothing in common with God, let alone fellowship!  Deception is the first option.

            A second response to the holiness of God is holiness.  Look at verse seven.  Here we have another conditional statement, a statement that begins with if.  But here and in verse 9 John does not begin with if we say, but he begins with things that we do, actions that are more than just words.  And here in verse 7 he begins by examining our walk.  Walking in the light could be compared to living a life that is consistently holy.  It is a lifestyle of holiness.  This is not to say that a person is perfect who walks in the light, but this person consistently practices as a life habit what God wants them to do.  This person, as a pattern, has a lifestyle that is holy.

            There are two results of this lifestyle.  One is fellowship with other believers.  John says that we have fellowship with one another if we walk in the light.  This means that walking in the light opens up true fellowship for one believer with another believer.  It is this fellowship that assures us that we have something in common with God.  When we have something in common, namely holiness, with God’s people, then we have something in common with God, and we fellowship with Him.

            A second result is forgiveness.  If we walk in the light we can be sure that the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.  Thus, when we hear about the holiness of God we can be deceptive and say that we have fellowship with God when in fact we are lying and not living according to the truth, or we can be holy and try to pattern our lives after the standard of God’s holiness, and have fellowship and forgiveness.

            A third response that John gives is delusion.  John gives this response in verse 8.  This is the person who hears about the holiness of God, that God is light, and claims to match up with that standard!  This person is deluded because he truly does not understand the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man.  This person’s claim is that he has no real sin nature.  He has no sin that is deserving of judgment.  He has reached perfection in his life, and therefore no longer has any sin that would condemn him.  He claims to be without sin.  He claims to be just as holy has God Himself.  This is nothing short of self-deception.  If we think that we are light just as much as God is light, two things are true of us.  One is that we have lied to ourselves, and we have convinced ourselves of something that is utterly false.  The second is that the truth is not in us.  Not only do we not practice the truth if we say this, but we don’t even have the truth at all!  We don’t even know it!  This seems to be unrealistic for anyone to do, but it is not that unrealistic.  Perhaps people do not claim to be as holy as God, but they do claim to be without sin that would bring about judgment.  They haven’t done anything really bad, so God will not judge them.  This of course, is utterly a lie and delusion, and that person is without the truth.  Deception and delusion are two unacceptable responses to God’s holiness, while practicing holiness is acceptable.

            The fourth response John gives is honesty.  This is the opposite of verse 8 and, as we shall see, verse 10.  In verse 9, the response is confession of sin.  It is being honest with ourselves and with God, and admitting our own sinfulness.  To confess has the basic idea of agreeing with God.  It is to come to God humbly and admit our sins and our guilt before Him.  What is to guarantee that God will forgive us, though?  How can we know that our confession and repentance will bring about God’s forgiveness?

            Notice that John says that God is faithful and righteous to forgive us of our sins when we confess them.  We can rely on the character of God.  What this text actually implies is that God would be unfaithful and unrighteous if He did not forgive us for our sins when we confess them.  But because God is faithful and righteous, we can be assured that if we confess our sins, He will forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 

            When we deal with God honestly and confess our sins, He will forgive us and we will be cleansed from the sins that keep us from having perfect fellowship with Him. 

            Finally, then, a fifth response to the holiness of God that John gives is derision.  When a person hears of the holiness of God, he can claim to have never committed one act of sin.  This is to blaspheme and deride God’s truth. 

            God’s Word tells us that every person who has ever lived with the exception of Jesus is a sinner and has committed acts of sin against God.  Romans 3:23 is perhaps the most concise summary statement of that in the Bible.  There Paul wrote, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” 

            Therefore, if we say that we have not sinned, we call God a liar.  That is what John says.  If we claim to have never sinned, we are saying that God’s Word is not true.  If we claim that God’s Word is not true we claim that God has lied.  And if we claim that God has lied, then His Word is not in us, for we will of necessity reject what we have called false. 

            Claiming to have not sinned is to claim to be as holy as God.  It is to claim a righteous standard that does not require the judgment of God.  If anyone claims to be so righteous as to not deserve the just wrath of God, he calls God a liar.  Think about this for a minute.  There is not a more frightening place to be than to be in the place of pitting yourself against the Almighty God.  There is no more frightening position in the world than to be against God and have God against you.  If you claim that you have not sinned and deserve no judgment, you call God a liar, and by necessity you put yourself against God and God against you.  God’s Word does not abide in you, and you have no place in it, and almighty wrath is against you.  This is not where a person should want to be.  This is a position of eternal torment, enduring the infinite wrath of God. 

            Let us be careful that we not set ourselves up against God by claiming that we do not deserve judgment and hell for our sin.  Let us not so trivialize our sinfulness that we make the Gospel look optional.  The Gospel is essential because of the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man.  Let us not claim that God is a liar while we have the truth.

            These then, are the five responses to the truth of God’s holiness.  The only path to true fellowship with God is to admit our own sinfulness and repent, turning from our sin and walking in a new direction, in new life with Christ.  If we deny our sinfulness or deny the seriousness of sin, we cannot be in true fellowship with God.  Paul emphasized that light and darkness, righteousness and sin, cannot fellowship with one another.  In 2 Corinthians 6:14 he wrote, What partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?  In other words, what do light and darkness have in common?  The answer: Nothing!  They are mutually exclusive; they cannot co-exist.  When light enters a room, darkness is of necessity destroyed.  Light and darkness cannot coexist in harmony.  They cannot fellowship, for where one is present, the other must of necessity be absent. 

            So it is with us.  If we walk in darkness, light must be absent.  But if we walk in the light, the blood of Christ cleanses us from all of our darkness and we are full of light, having holiness in common with God because of the blood of Christ.  This is what Paul meant when he wrote, You were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of Light…trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord, in Ephesians 5:8-10.  We used to live in darkness as unbelievers, but now that Christ has cleansed us from our sin, we need to walk in the light, as children of light.  If, however, we deny our sinful condition or if we deny that we commit acts of sin, we are not therefore in the light; we merely close our eyes to the truth, and are in double darkness.  We are not only self-deceived, but we wander about in darkness and out of fellowship with God.  The only path to holiness is admission of sin and repentance from it.

            After giving these five responses to God’s holiness, John makes an interesting statement in chapter two, verse 1.  He says, My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.  Here John tells the reason he is telling about God’s holiness.  “Here’s why I’m telling you all of this,” John says, “so that you won’t sin.”  The reason John tells us about the holiness of God is to keep us from sinning.  When we truly understand the holiness of God, it causes us to be holier.  At the beginning of the message I mentioned how we all set up standards for ourselves as to what is acceptable and good, and we all try to meet that standard.  John is saying that if you set up the standard for behavior as high as God’s holiness, it will help you to not commit acts of sin.  One of the points of John’s letter is to keep us from sinning.  He does not want us to get comfortable in our sin because we know we can confess it and get forgiveness.  He wants us to live lives that match the holiness of God.  John’s goal for us is that we not sin.

            But John also knows the reality of the Christian life is that we will sin.  We will all continue to make mistakes until the day we die.  That is why he writes verse 8 of chapter one, so that we remember that we still are sinful and not perfected yet.  Knowing that, then, he gives us two aspects of Christ’s work that give us assurance that our sin will be forgiven. 

            He begins by saying, if anyone sins, and that looks much like his conditional statements from chapter one.  Here, though, John uses a verb tense that emphasizes specific acts of sin, not sin patters.  In verse six of chapter one John said that those who walk in darkness lie and do not practice the truth.  He is not contradicting himself here.  He is not saying, “If anyone lives in a pattern of sin.”  He is saying, “If anyone makes a mistake and gives in to the flesh.”  This, in the Greek, is in a different tense from the rest of John’s discussion, and it is clear that he is talking about specific, non-habitual sin here.  So if anyone sins, Christ is two things for the believer.

            Notice in verse one, that He is an Advocate.  This word for advocate is the same word used in the Gospel of John when Jesus was talking about the Holy Spirit.  It means helper, counselor, or legal representative.  In the Greek legal system, the advocate was someone who interceded on the behalf of the defendant.  He came to vouch for him, and stand before the judge on his behalf to defend him.  This is what Jesus does for us.  He intercedes on our behalf.  He is our advocate.

            Not only is He our advocate, but He is with the Father.  Here again we have John using a strange term in Greek for with.  The term implies close, personal contact and relationship.  Jesus is not an advocate with no connection to the judge.  Jesus has a close, intimate relationship with the Father.  And He is not only with the Father, but He is the Righteous or the Righteous One.  He is absolutely holy.  Jesus can have perfect fellowship with the Father because Jesus is perfectly righteous.  He is perfectly holy.  He never lies.  His testimony is always true and always trusted by the Father.  He is the ideal advocate.  And if we sin, He is there on our behalf, face to face with the Father, pleading our case.

            Notice, though, that Jesus is not only our advocate, but He Himself is the propitiation for our sins.  He is not just the one who intercedes, but He Himself is the sacrifice that satisfies divine justice.  “Propitiation” could be defined as a “satisfactory offering.”  Sin is a grave offense against God.  And sin deserves eternal, infinite, divine wrath.  But for all those who put their faith in Jesus Christ, Jesus substitutionary death on the cross satisfies God’s justice against sin.  That is what propitiation means.  It means that God’s just wrath against sin is satisfied by the perfect offering of His Son on the cross.  Jesus Christ’s sacrifice is enough to satisfy the requirements of divine justice for all who believe.

            John adds a very interesting phrase to the end of verse 2.  He says, and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.  Now what in the world does that mean?  Is John saying that Jesus Christ’s death on the cross satisfied God’s wrath and justice against all the sins committed by every person in the whole world throughout all of history?  No, that is not what John is saying.  Now catch this, John is not saying that Jesus’ death is a satisfaction for the sins of every individual.  We know from 1 John chapter one that only those who confess their sins and who walk in the light receive forgiveness and eternal life.  The sacrifice of Christ does not satisfy divine justice for those who refuse Christ, but it could, if they put their faith in Jesus. 

            I see in this phrase, for the whole world, as it is literally in the Greek, John’s trumpet call for worldwide evangelism.  It seems to me that what John is saying here is, “Get busy with world evangelism.  Jesus’ death is not for you only, but it is for the whole world, so go and tell the world about it!”  I see here John, pleading with us to do what he, as an old man at the time of this letter, and now dead 1900 years later, to do what he could not do, and that is to go and witness and tell people about Jesus’ death and resurrection, and tell them that if they would believe in Jesus and repent of their sins God would forgive them and Jesus’ death would satisfy divine justice.  But it will only be satisfied by Jesus’ sacrifice if they believe.  This verse does not teach that Jesus’ death atoned for every single individual.  It does teach, however, that God offers salvation to the whole world, Jews and Gentiles alike, and that everyone who has faith in Jesus has Jesus as an Advocate and a propitiation for their sins.

            Jesus Christ is our confidence that God will forgive us of our sins.  It is because of Jesus Christ the Righteous One that we can have assurance that God will forgive us.  It is because of Jesus that we can have fellowship with a holy God.  It is only through Him, because He is the only holy One who makes it available to the whole world, forgiving everyone who has faith. 

            The holiness of God is an awesome and amazing truth.  We can respond to it by confessing and forsaking our sin, or by hiding and indulging our sinfulness.  If we confess and forsake sin through faith in Jesus, we should aim to be holy in practice, knowing that when we fail, Jesus is our Advocate and the propitiation for our sins before the Father.  May we always aim to please the Father in our lives, and always be thankful for the deep love of Jesus that provided forgiveness for our sins.  Let’s pray.

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