As promised, my bible study review is here. Albeit belatedly. This is mostly for my benefit, to review the lesson and meditate on it more, but hey, maybe it will be useful for someone else.
So we started 1John. We ran through chapter 1, which was just loaded… I’m going to do my best to give sevice tothe conversation, but I’ve got a day of VMI fuzziness, and it was such an intense study it’ll be hard to get every detail.
Alright, so we start with a Proclamation. John tells us Christ was the one in the beggening and that He has seen and touched him. In his gospel, John begins with a simliar statement “In the beggeneing was the Word, and the Word was With God and the Word was God.” So now we have a few things already. John is Qualifying himself, he’s also giving a topic of the letter. “Get ready, we’re about to dive into this.” He has seen and heard- THIS IS REAL! When you have one of the Twelve saying That he is talking about the Eternal One whom he has known personally, you know it is Truth. He’s not just going to be talking in superficial metaphors. He was, after all, the Beloved Disciple.
The second point is to tie this in with is the similarity to his gospel, and the calling of Jesus as the Word in both of these. I’ve always interpreted the use of Word as a reference to Law, in that “I have come not to teach the law, but to fulfill it”. Well we also have to remeber that a Word is a communication. Not only is he fulfilling the prophecies of the previous communications from God, but he is a new communication of the Love of God! He is a sacrifice, he is a gesture of love! “Word of Life”- “Expression of Life!” How beautiful!
He continues into verse 3 “We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ.” Again, the proclamation, but know we see his intent in this letter. Through Christ being Life, the Life is Fellowship with God. That is the true Life in “Eternal Life”. We will fellowship with eachother. Fellowship, we recall is to be sharing in something. So we are all sharing across to eachother, as his blessed children, and up with him as well. What are we sharing? in the next verse John calls it “our joy” This Spirit of Life, the Spirit of Christ, is being put into the believer, and is shared with others, and the actual Spirit of God.
Next we have a concept of Light. A lot of people view light as a metaphor, but John assures us that this is directly a teaching from Jesus, and this is more of a Truth, than ametaphor necessarily. “God is light and ther is no darkness in him at all.” Lets think about what light does. Light does a few things. First, it creates darkness. When you have whats right and good, it shows what is wrong. The Light of God pierces everything, you can not hide from it, nor will you want too. he will reveal everythihng of yourself to you. It may be painful, but it is awesome in the long run! The Light acts as a beacon, If one knows they are drowning, they go towards this Light. He also lights our way. We see the direction to go when we focus ourselves in this Light and when we walk in it, our path is revealed. The Key is to live in spiritual light. You can not be in true fellowship when you are in this darkness. The Scripture calls you out on it straight up! Verse 6 “…we are not practicing truth”.
Now Verse 7 is where the preacher would ask for an “amen!” ”But If we are living in the light, as God is in the light,” remember, he is the light whihc reveals all things to us,” then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.” Well there it all is. You have this light, that is God, that you reside in with other believers. And it is in this that we recieve the gift of grace bought by the blood.
(Note: one thing that Mr. Dekker pointed out was that we really need to appreciate this Blood. The seperation of of us from God becasue of sin is so violent, that the sacrifice had to be violent in nature. The pure blood had to be spilled, hard.)
Skipping to verse 9. We have a well known verse that I don’t think we always realize what all is goign on… “But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us form all wickedness” First we have to confess. It is important to do this, it shows true repetence. “Not just saying Lord, forgive me anything I screwed up today.” instead ask him to help you remember what youve done that day and then ask forgiveness for those items. Not only are more sincere, but it is an excellent oppurtunity for self reflection.
Now look at “faithful and just to forgive us.” He is faithful, meaning he will forgive us, when we have excepted Christ, and bring about a true repetence. He is also just. he will forgive us and he OUGHT to forgive us. The penalty of sin is death, and it has been payed. He requirements for our fellowship with him have been met in that instance. He is a just God, he plays by his rules, nd they are ever correct.
He will not only forgive, he will also cleanse. When He forgives us, its him saying, “its alright. you screwed up, but I still love you, stay in my fellowship with me. but first we still need to purify you.” He will clean you up, so that you are still holy enough for this experience. Prasie Him!
The final verse is pretty straight forward. You’ve sinned, deal with it, to claim you haven’t is to call God a liar. I’m pretty sure thats a BIG no-no! But hey, I’m no Bible Scholar :/ (Read the sarcasm please)
Anyways… Its so amazing how cyclic we can see all of this. I love seeing cycles. We confess our sins, and he immediately brings us into this light that is his love and fellowship, and when we enter that we need to become pure, and so we continually our confessing our sins, to be forgiven and cleansed, and also, I think, to learn from them. His light envelops us.
Halelujiah ya’ll!
graceandpeace
~Ross~
