We turn for our meditation this morning to
the first epistle written by John in chapter
1, and I would like to read verse
5.
This then is the message which we have
heard of him and declare unto you, that
God is light and in him is no
darkness at all.
God is light and in him is no
darkness at all.
The thread of reasoning in this passage is
quite clear, as those of you who have
been with us over the last two Sunday
mornings will remember.
Those who accept the apostle's testimony to the
fundamental fact of the incarnation, the coming of
God in the person of the Son, to
take to himself our humanity and become incarnate,
those who accept the apostle's testimony to the
reality of that event and its historicity, enter
by their very faith in Christ and in
the gospel into the fellowship of the people
of God, to receive Jesus Christ as our
Saviour is to find his family as our
family.
It follows as one thing leads to another.
It could not be otherwise.
Then John went on from there to say
that he was writing these things to the
Christian community in order that their joy might
be full or fulfilled.
The implication of that statement is this.
Christian people can only know fullness of joy
in the fellowship of God's people.
If you are truly regenerate, then you can
never know fullness of joy outside your fellowship
with God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and
with the people of God.
If a person finds no joy in the
fellowship which is with the Father and the
Son and with the people of God, then
that raises a question mark about his experience
of the renewing work of the Spirit.
As sure as we have the life of
God in our own souls, as sure as
the Spirit of God has worked savingly upon
us and we know ourselves to be one
of his people, then we shall find that
we can only come to fullness of joy
within that sweet fellowship of the saints and
fellowship with our Father in heaven.
But now notice.
It may strike some of us with amazement
that having said that he's writing these things
that our joy may be full, John should
proceed with the very next breath to speak
of God as light, God as holy.
He moves from the concept of the joy
of the Christian, the fullness of joy, to
the inexplicable glories of the holy one of
Israel.
Now to the worldly man, these two concepts
are essentially and irrevocably antithetical.
If you want to have joy, then keep
away from any semblance of holiness.
If you are going to be holy, you
are going to abandon joy and leave it
behind.
To the man of the world, the man
who knows not the gospel of our Lord
Jesus Christ, it is impossible to think of
fullness of joy and fellowship with a God
who is light and in whom is no
darkness at all.
But not so for those who have leaned
on Jesus' bosom as the writer of this
epistle hath.
Not so for those who have looked into
the face of the Son of God incarnate
and have known him.
Here righteousness and mercy kiss each other and
embrace one another and become one.
Here holiness and happiness meet.
Holiness, in fact, is the antiseptic that kills
all the particles of germs in the air
that would slay the very nerve of true
joy.
Without holiness there can be no real, lasting,
pure joy.
Heaven is the place where joy will be
unhindered, unqualified.
And one reason for that is this.
In heaven there will be no sin, nor
shall the defileth ever enter in.
And because there is no sin there, for
one thing, heaven can be the place of
the consummation of all the joys that we
have known in this world.
It is joy because there is no sin
there.
All is holy.
All is pure.
The air has been purged.
The atmosphere is as holy as the God
who sits upon the throne.
And the joy of the Christian comes to
its own, comes to blossom, full bloom, and
to maturity there in the atmosphere of heaven.
Here then we enter upon the second theme
in this first part of John's epistle, namely
the fostering of the fellowship.
The first theme, the facts underlying the fellowship.
The second theme, the fostering of the fellowship
that is to be based upon the fact
of the incarnation and of everything that our
Lord Jesus wrought in the flesh for the
salvation of his people.
We now turn to the first of two
main truths that are interwoven here and that
relate to the fostering of Christian fellowship, the
condition of Christian fellowship.
What is it?
Well, the primary principle that regulates Christian fellowship
is found in these very words to which
I have referred.
This, says John, is the message.
This is the message.
Please remember, John is everywhere.
John is universally known as the apostle of
love.
I would not want for one single moment
to cast a cloud over that.
It is true that John is the apostle
of love, par excellence.
He stresses the universality of God's love.
He stresses our love for one another.
We shall come to that in this epistle.
But he who is universally acknowledged as the
apostle of love says, right at the beginning
of his dissertation, this is the message.
Everything else I am going to say about
love and about our love for one another
and our keeping of commandments of believing that
and the other, it has been based upon
and regulated by this cardinal, this primary fact
that our God is light and in him
is no darkness at all.
Now, what does this mean?
This morning we can only touch upon it.
What is the essence of that statement?
What is the essential nature of the message
that John is thus proclaiming?
What do we mean when we say that
God is light?
The essence of that statement, it see me,
may be stated in terms of the principle
that God is the emblement and the source
of absolute purity.
Now, it is more than that, but it
is primarily that.
God is the embodiment of absolute purity and
he is the source of all purity.
In practice, such holiness is expressed both negatively
and positively.
Negatively, God is the pledged opponent and enemy
of all evil.
Now, this is what the Bible declares right
from Genesis, from God of Eden, to the
very last book in the Bible, when not
the defiles shall enter into the New Jerusalem.
This is the God of the Old Testament,
this is the God of the New.
It is one God that we encounter in
the Bible and everywhere this one God stands
over against that which is impure and evil
and unrighteous, be it on the personal plane,
on the domestic scene, on the social horizon,
or in international affairs.
The God of the Bible will always, inevitably,
and necessarily be against all semblance of evil.
The prophet Habakkuk puts it very powerfully, though
it might not appear as crisp in our
English as it is in the language that
he wrote it.
He said, God is of purer eyes than
to behold evil, and he cannot look upon
wrong.
Now, the English there is very weak, but
what it means is this, if we may
summarize it.
You and I, even though we hate sin,
sometimes look at it.
On a television screen we will look at
things that we condemn in life.
On the pages of our newspapers and magazines
we look at things that we would condemn
from the pulpit and in every other place,
and we would have no truck with them.
We condemn even what we look at, or
we look at what we condemn.
In other words, we are compromisers.
We are never wholly consistent.
But God, who is light, can't look with
any pleasure on darkness.
He has no delight in looking upon it.
He turns his back upon it.
God has no truck with evil.
He is always antipathetic.
He is always on the opposite side.
He is the avowed enemy of evil.
And the thing, of course, that John is
stressing here by saying that God is light
is this.
He is saying that it is part of
the nature of God so to be.
Now, the significance of that is this.
It isn't a matter of God's will only,
that God has willed to be against evil.
You see, if God had only willed, if
he had only decided for a period, or
even decided originally for a prolonged period to
be against evil, it would be a matter
of will, and he could change his mind.
God could change if it was purely a
matter of his mind or of his will.
But, says John, God is, and the verb
is is very important here, God is light.
It's part of his nature.
And therefore, because it is part of his
nature, he cannot change.
God cannot change his own nature without ceasing
to be God.
Now, that's not an irreverence of the preacher.
That is a fact of revelation.
God cannot cease to be light without ceasing
to be God.
It is his very nature, let us repeat,
on that account, he cannot cease to be
holy.
Therefore, God is always against evil, always against
evil.
I think, let us take this to our
hearts today, is something that you have in
the privacy of your life is against the
law of God?
God's always against it.
You can never involve the Holy One in
any compromise with any semblance of evil.
He is light, and in him is no
darkness at all.
Positively, God delights in all that is good.
Now, I've stressed the negative, but we must
bring out the positive.
This is the explanation why God hates evil,
because he loves what is righteous.
He loves what is good.
He loves what is proper.
He loves what is fitting.
And he's pledged to be on the side
of it, and sooner or later in the
affairs of the universe, at the last great
judgment day, if not before, the webs of
human life will be so unraveled, and right
and righteousness and truth will be vindicated by
our true and righteous and holy God.
As saintly Stephen Charnock rightly says of God's
holiness, and I quote very briefly, it
would lose its heat, its strength, its generative
and quickening virtue.
As sincerity is the luster of every grace
in the Christian, so is purity the splendor
of every attribute in the Godhead.
His justice is a holy justice.
His wisdom is a holy wisdom.
His arm of power a holy arm.
His truth a promise, a holy promise.
His name which signifies all his attributes in
conjunction is holy.
He's the holy one of Israel.
His name is holy.
So much for the essence of it.
Now, how is this expressed?
My good people, we can only look at
one or two examples this morning.
But wherever we look, and whatever illustration we
bring forth, we always find the same thing.
We find a pattern.
God's holiness in its expression always means this
in relation to sinners.
When he, the holy one, confronts sinners such
as we are, sinners become aware of their
condition.
It is of the nature of light to
show up what is there.
That's what light does, isn't it?
You go out on a dark winter's night
and you find you don't know where you're
putting your feet.
And then you take a torch, and the
beam of light will show you what's there.
You know how to walk.
When God, who is light, comes near my
life, I not only know what is around
me, but I know what's within me.
Because his light illumines my conscience, illumines my
mind, illumines my understanding of myself.
For the first time I know myself when
God draws near in holy confrontation.
It is as if a shaft of brilliant
light suddenly penetrated a sphere hitherto unexposed.
Housewives know this to cause consternation from time
to time.
When you've dusted a piece of furniture with
a nice, polished face, and you think you've
got rid of every particle of dust, and
then suddenly a shaft of sunshine comes in
through a window or through a door, and
you look back and you see in the
shaft, in the ray of light, you can
see a countless multitude of dancing particles of
dust that you thought you'd got rid of.
You only see it in the ray of
light.
Close the door, shut the window, and you
won't see it, but the light shows it
up on an infinitely larger scale.
That is how God's holiness expresses itself as
he confronts man in his sin.
It brings moral dirt to the mind and
fills the consciousness with an awareness of being
unlike God and unfit for his presence.
Now, faced with the word and vision of
God, we hear all kinds of people reacting
in a somewhat similar vein.
I hear Job, who, you remember, according to
the word at the beginning of his experience,
was an upright man and an honest man,
a good man.
But I hear the upright Job later on
during the course of the book that bears
his name saying this, and he's come a
long way when he says this, but at
last he's confronted with God on a closer
front and intimate.
Behold, he says, I am of small account.
What shall I answer thee?
He's been saying so much up until now.
He's had all the answers when God says
this, Job says that.
He's had all the arguments.
He's been a most argumentative, but not now.
Behold, I am of small account.
What shall I answer thee?
I lay my hand upon my mouth.
Men and women, do you know what that
means?
That every mouth may be shut, says Paul.
Our mouths are far too open when we
walk away from God.
Heaven only knows what we say about ourselves
and the arrogance with which we strut abroad,
but when a man comes near to God,
he puts his hand upon his mouth.
Job goes on.
I have heard of thee by the hearing
of the year, but now my eye sees
thee, therefore I despise myself.
The experience of Isaiah, the young prophet, has
become universally familiar.
We read it this morning.
Seeing the glory of God filling the temple
and hearing the voice of the cherubim chanting
antiphonally, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of
hosts.
Do you remember how he felt?
Woe is me, he says, for I am
undone.
A young prophet brought up in the temple,
probably the son of a priest.
I am undone, I'm severed, I'm cut off.
Some of the translations put it, I'm lost.
Daniel's experience may not be as widely familiar,
but it is of the same spiritual order.
Having many times already been alarmed by his
confrontation with God, he even tells us there
were times when his whole color went from
his cheeks.
He turned pale as a ghost and felt
sick at soul because of the sin of
the people that he represented and the holiness
of God.
Then he comes to this, O Lord, this
is the great and terrible God who keeps
covenant and steadfast love with those who love
him and keep his commandments.
We have sinned and done wrong and acted
wickedly and rebelled.
To thee, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to
us confusion of faith.
Confusion of faith.
You see, the man that has been confronted
by the Holy One and knows what's taking
place doesn't know where to look.
Have you ever had that experience?
You're just afraid to catch the eye of
man, woman, child, or anybody else.
Confusion of faith.
Men and women that have come face to
face with God are confused because of the
holiness, of the majesty, of the glory that
shines as a light into the depths of
their souls and brings to their consciousness the
awareness and the memory of what they've done
and what they are in the quietness of
their own thoughts and in the privacy of
their own minds.
Confusion of faith.
You have the same thing elsewhere.
I can't go through all the possible instances
that might be called this morning.
Think of Simon Peter when he's seen the
glory of the Saviour.
Depart from me, he says, for I am
a sinful man, O Lord.
He was a disciple now.
He's been following Jesus, if I remember correctly,
somewhere around six to eight months.
He's changed quite a lot in the meantime.
Depart from me, he says.
He wants to follow, but he tells the
Lord to depart.
Why is it?
Oh, it's this shaft of light.
He who said to others, I am the
light of the world, has come too near
and revealed himself too much that Peter feels
I must fall back.
Beholding the same Lord in his transcendent glory
made Paul the Pharisee concede, I know that
in my flesh there dwells no good thing.
Now that's the man who's seen himself in
the light of God's holiness and light.
In my flesh there dwells no good thing.
Now, you can't argue a man to that
position.
Mere preaching doesn't bring a man to say
that about himself.
But when God moves and reveals himself by
the Spirit and the Word, this is exactly
what takes place.
Or think of John, and I must end
with this.
These quotations I must end.
John said, remember it's John the saint, John
the martyr, John on Patmos, not John the
young disciple now.
And he sees the glory of the first
and the last relationship one.
It's John the saint, it's the beloved one.
He knew his Lord's love for him.
He knew of his Lord's death and resurrection.
John the justified, John the saint.
When I saw him, says John, I fell
at his feet as dead.
Thomas Bilney, in the hymn that we have
sung, I'm sorry you didn't know the tune.
I'll see to it next time we'll have
a familiar tune.
Thomas Bilney put it in these remarkable words,
eternal light, eternal light, how pure the soul
must be when placed within thy searching sight,
it shrinks not, but with calm delight can
live and look on thee.
This then is the message, says John, God
is light and in him is no darkness
at all.
Do you remember Iago, in Shakespeare's play, saying
of Othello, he hath a daily beauty that
makes me ugly.
He hath a daily beauty that makes me
ugly, therefore I'm angry with him.
He shows up what is in me.
My dear fellow Christians, that's exactly what God
is on a far more infinite scale.
He is light in whom is no darkness
at all and to live within a mile
of him is to become aware of myself.
But, and with this I draw to a
close, it may be rightly asked, how can
men and women whose inner depravity and sinful
history have been thus recognized and revealed by
God to be so serious, ever hope to
have fellowship with God in fullness of joy?
The thing is incongruous.
How can you get from here into the
fullness of joy?
John's surely taken a wrong turning here.
Oh my good friend, no, no, no, no,
no.
Because you see, this is part of the
biblical message, when God begins to show men
their sins, he's always got something else to
show as well.
This is the difference between the accuser of
the brethren and the saviour of sinners.
When the devil comes after us, he simply
wants us to see our sins, if he
shows us our sins at all.
And he does that to some people, he
reminds them of all kinds of things, sins
that have been forgiven long ago, the devil
brings them up.
He says, do you remember, do you remember?
And he throws them before our eyes and
he reminds us, we don't know quite what
to say, we're not as wise as Martin
Luther, who threw his inkpot after him.
But when God is revealing to men their
sins, he's always got something else to show,
and he will show it sooner or later.
What is it?
There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn
from Immanuel's veins, and sinners plunge beneath that
flood, losing all their guilty state.
If we confess our sins, we shall come
to that later on in our study.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful
and just to forgive us our sins, and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
These things I write unto you, that ye
sin not, but if any man sin, we
have an advocate with God.
Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the
propitiation for our sins, and not for ours
only, but for the sins of the whole
world.
The light which is God shines into the
caverns and recesses of our souls to show
us ourselves, but the light which is God
never stops there.
It points us to the Savior.
Thomas Bilney didn't stop there because Thomas Bilney
knew the Word of God and knew the
Savior.
Oh, how shall I, he says, having spoken
of the holiness of God, oh, how shall
I, whose native sphere is dark, whose mind
is dim before the ineffable appear, and on
my naked spirit bear the uncreated beam?
How can it be done, he says, and
then he answers his own question.
There is a way.
There is a gospel.
There is a way for man, Christ, of
acts blamable, an offering, and a sacrifice.
A holy spirit's energies, an advocate with God.
Or in the words that we are going
to sing in a moment, let me remind
you of William Bright.
Coming to the Lord's table, he acknowledges his
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who not
only reveals God as light but love, and
the one who discloses our sins but comes
to us from loss.
Listen to his words.
Now, O Father, mindful of that love that
brought us, that bought us once for all
on Calvary's tree, and having with us him
that pleads above, we here present, we here
spread forth to thee that only sacrifice, perfect
in thine eyes, the one true, pure, eternal
sacrifice.
Look, Father, look on his anointed face, and
only look on us as found in him.
Look not on our misusings of thy grace,
our prayers so languid and our faith so
dim.
And these are the words I love very
much.
For lo, between our sins and their reward,
we set the passion of thy Son, our
Lord.
For lo, between our sins and their reward,
we place, we set the passion of thy
Son, our Lord.
How can the unholy sinner hope to have
fellowship with the Holy God?
Here's the answer.
It is to know the cleansing of the
blood of Christ, and the intervention of his
perfect righteousness as our robe.
Between us and God stands the mediator in
all his glory, and those who once were
afar off are now made nigh by the
blood of Christ.
My friend, are you there this morning?
Have you by faith placed Jesus Christ, his
death and resurrection and his covenant promises between
you and the reward of your sins?
If so, I bid you come into the
Holy of Holies, to him who is light
and accessible and ineffable and eternal.
And in Christ, he speaks peace and pardon
and welcome today.
Let us, therefore, come to his table, acknowledging
with gratitude the sufficiency of our Lord and
the glories of his grace.
And may the song of the redeemed be
heard in every heart to the glory and
everlasting praise of him who so loved us.