1 John 1

Doctrine: Jesus was from the beginning. Jesus is God in His Nature. John stated he had seen Him, looked upon Him, and handled Him. Jesus is the Word of Life. John began his Gospel account with the same Doctrine: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1) John was the only New Testament writer to use "Word" (with capitalization) to refer to Jesus.

Life was manifested. They had seen and bore witness to life. John was going to show us eternal life which was with the Father and shown to them.

What they had seen and heard (Jesus, life), they declared to us - so that we may have fellowship with each other. The cause was fellowship with God and Jesus:

• The First Command, "Thou shalt love the Lord", was the cause,
• The Second Command, "Thou shalt love your neighbor", was the effect.

John gave the reason (WHY) he wrote these things: that our joy may be full.

Doctrine: God does not have any evil causes within His Nature.

This was the main point: God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. God is Holy: always completely Right and always completely Just. It is impossible for God to do anything wrong and unjust because He does not possess the necessary evil causes within His Nature to be wrong and unjust and God has no other nature besides Right and Just to act in.

If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness (contradiction), we lie and do not the truth:

• "If we say that we have fellowship with him" was a declaration. Our actions will prove whether what we say is a lie or factual.
• Walking in darkness did not mean making a mistake. It meant intentionally making progress away from God.
• If we have said we are in fellowship with God but are intentionally moving away from God, we are liars and "do not the truth".
• Truth was the measurement of whether or not we were in fellowship with God. The measurement for truth was not lack of contradiction because we may not have all the facts. The measurement for lying (lack of truth) was contradiction.

Walking in the light was intentionally making progress towards God. If we have fellowship with God, as Jesus did, we would have fellowship with each other. The effect of having fellowship with God was that Jesus' Blood would cleanse us from all sin.

This verse was presented the way things ought to be. We need to keep "the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin" in context with the rest of this verse and not add to the context an outside source.

Saying we have no sin was deception. This was the right WHAT but with the wrong HOW/WHY. The wrong HOW/WHY behind having no sin was doing it in our own strength. This was the Law: "I won't do this, that, etc." The right HOW/WHY behind having no sin was being in fellowship with God (by grace through faith). These were principles, things we ought to focus on, not things we do not do. A person truly in fellowship with God would not say "I have no sin." Truth was the measurement. Notice, Salvation is not based on never sinning. We have all sinned, yet people do receive Salvation. Salvation must depend on something more...

God will forgive us of our sin if we confess because:

1. He is faithful - God believes something He cannot see and something that has not happened yet (God cannot go ahead in time). God's faith in us is increased with every interaction. He understands us and experiences us more with every interaction, whether we do good or bad.

2. He is Just - Jesus' Blood gave God infinite value. When we confess (which is a value to God) He is Just to give us access to this value.

Salvation depends on us confessing our sins. This verse didn't mean we confess one time and God cleanses us from all unrighteousness, even unrighteousness we haven't done yet. This meant God will cleanse us from the unrighteousness we confess. Confessing our sins removes unrighteousness. This point will be expanded upon after the next verse...

Saying we have not sinned was like saying "I have never been wrong." Saying this was pride. The effect of saying this was stating God was a liar (which we know is impossible). Saying this meant God's Word (truth) was not in us.

Taking verses 8-10 together revealed a powerful Doctrine concerning Salvation. Our Salvation does not depend on not sinning. If it did, no one would be saved, because we have all sinned (verse 8). In fact, if you even SAY you have not sinned (verse 10), God's Word is not in you, and you are not saved.

Our Salvation depends on our response to our sin.

If we justify ourselves (verses 8 and 10), then we are not saved. If we respond to our sin by confessing, then God cleanses us from all unrighteousness (verse 9).

We are saved because of Jesus' sacrificial death on the cross and our responsibility is to respond to our sins with confession and repentance.

Theme of Chapter 1: God is light. In Him there is no darkness at all. God lacks contradiction. If we have a contradiction in what we SAY and DO, then we are the source of the contradiction, not God.