If we walk in the light

[AI translation] Few people know that the Third General Assembly of the World Council of Churches concluded last week in New Delhi, India. A huge gathering of delegates from 178 Christian churches in 150 countries, some 1,500 people, deliberated for three weeks on the cause of Christ on earth. The Russian Orthodox Church has now joined the World Council of Churches, and the Roman Catholic Church is represented by observers. This was the main theme of the deliberations: Christ is the light of the world... We will certainly hear much more about what was discussed under this headline when news of this momentous meeting reaches us. I am only saying all this because the passage we have just read speaks to us of light. That God is the light, that we who belong to Him are also walking in the light! What this means and what practical consequences it has for us, that is what I want to talk about.One of man's greatest gifts is light! Imagine what we would be without light! Imagine, after a night full of pain, after a night full of darkness, how much joy and encouragement the dawn brings. One almost feels as if one's burden is lightened, one's anxiety eased, one's fears disappear, just by the coming of the light. The light comes! How plastic at once becomes this saying of the Apostle John: "The light of God" (1 John 1:5). Like the light, God communicates himself fully, yet never fades away. Light is an unheard of waste, a prodigality, it is everywhere, it pervades everything, it is life, it is joy, it is victory, it is service. Such is God! Light!
Yes, God is a holy, good and self-communicating power. He is the life-giving power, the life-giving condition. He who is in communion with Him is himself living in light. And we human beings are created for this very purpose, called to live in communion with Him, and thus to share in His goodness, His purity, His joy, His love. So that, like the planets that receive light from the sun, we may reflect something of His glory. This is the essence of the Christian life: to receive, to radiate God's light to others. To be filled again and again, so that I can serve others with God's goodness, his love, his peace. I have seen it happen.
For example, there is an electrician in our congregation. The other day I heard from a non-Reformed man that they often call an electrician in their office, and everyone is happy when this one from our church happens to come, because he is so different from the others. He always smiles, he's always helpful, he always does his work with precision, he radiates a kind of purity and goodness. So said the non-Reformed man. Or for example, yesterday I visited a patient at St. John's Hospital. When the nurse found out who I was looking for, she exclaimed: oh, it's an angel! You see: among the fussy, nagging, complaining patients, the one who is really in touch with God is the one who makes the nurse who is suffering from the patients sit up beside him and involuntarily say to him: oh, that's an angel! Even on the sickbed, in the midst of her pain, she radiated a certain Light!
So said Jesus, when he admonished, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." (Mt 5,16) Oh, we already know this very well, but nothing is happening. So little of us has that certain radiance. Shouldn't we, who listen to the Word so much, shine much more?
The Word that is read also speaks of those who do not walk in the light, that is, those who do not radiate God's holiness, goodness, love, light, and says of them: they have no communion with God! It is broken, if perhaps it was at one time. So unmistakable is the word of the Word, "If we say we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth." (1 Jn 1,6) In other words, to have fellowship with God and to be in darkness: it is impossible, there is no such thing. He who is truly in communion with God through his faith and prayers, is seen to be so. And if he does not show it, then he has obviously broken his relationship with God. And if he does claim to have it, then something else is wrong. That is precisely what the Scripture is pointing to here.
It is often the case that a person is in "communion" with God, that is, he listens, reads the Word, is engaged in the things of God, loves the church, is used to praying, almost bathes in the light, and yet almost none of the light and warmth of God shines through him. In order for some of the light of God's light to shine through us, in our words and in our actions, something must first happen. Let me try to explain with an example. I spent almost two weeks this summer in a place where people still use it. At first it lit me up quite well, but then less and less. I could not turn the flame up, but the light became almost dimmer. Until one day I realised that of course, this lamp needs to have its glass cleaned every now and then! The flame is useless if the glass is sooty and doesn't let the light through. Well, isn't that where the problem lies? We should first cleanse ourselves of that which clouds the glass of our soul.
It's sin again!" one might say. Well, yes, it is about sin, but now in the light of this word, see what it is that we need to cleanse ourselves of. So says the Word: darkness, the darkness within us. In other words, all the actions, thoughts, feelings, instincts, desires that you do not want to see, that you do not want to be seen, that you do not want to be seen, that you do not want to be seen in the light of day, in public, in the eyes of your spouse or your child or your mother. Yes, it is your deed, your thought, your feeling, your desire, that is not fit to be before God. I know there are dark spots like that in you too! "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." (1 John 1:8) Is there anyone who always deceives himself? You know what it is you need to be cleansed from! Look, as long as you pray in vain, listen to the Word in vain, want to be a good Christian in vain, show the best image in vain - you will not radiate the light of God! I too have turned up the lamp in vain, but the glass has become more sooty.
See, that's what our verse is talking about, how to be cleansed. Here is written the very verse that we so often quote out of context. Indeed, it is one of the main messages of the whole Scripture, it contains the whole Gospel. "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin." (1 John 1:7b) But the whole verse reads, "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 Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin." In other words, if we dare to step out into the light with the darkness within us, with our sins, to stand before God, if we dare to allow the light of God to expose our wickedness within us: then it is that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. This means that the sin that is in you has only one remedy: the blood of Jesus. You know the property of the tape recorder, that not only can you record the words on a tape, but if you press another key, you can erase everything that was on it. There is something that also erases everything from the soul, all the stains left on it by old and new sins: the blood of Jesus! "He cleanses us from all sin," says our Word. It wipes away everything by the holy blood that poured out of the body of Jesus there on the cross; in some miraculous way it wipes away your sins from God's memory. I'm not saying that, it's written in the Bible: 'I will forgive their sins, and their iniquities I will remember no more', says the Lord of hosts. It is the only remission of sin. For in vain do I try to atone for it, to make amends, to make amends, to wash it away, or simply not to take it seriously, to forget it: sooner or later its memory returns, it lives on, it burns, it accuses, it oppresses, it hurts, it paralyses, it destroys, it makes me a dead man. Because sin, even the smallest one, is the poison of death, it destroys the soul. There is only one way to escape it: through the blood of Jesus. The only antidote, the only antidote, the only antidote: the blood of Jesus!
Often one is not even aware of one's sin, one cannot even tell what it is that is eating one up inside, one just feels that something is not right inside, a feeling of dissatisfaction is tormenting one. Every human being has a past, and in it there are memories of joy, pain, and even a pile of forgotten memories. And among these there is sometimes something unseen, something old, perhaps, but it creeps into the present, darkens the future, paralyses the spirit, torments the soul. One may seek help from a psychiatrist, take drugs, get injections, and yet it does no good! Yes, because the trouble lies somewhere deeper, where the soul comes into contact with God, but cannot come into contact because it has come into conflict at some time, somehow, with God's law, has hit the kerb, God's moral world order, and has been crushed by it. His soul was wounded. I know someone who was so burdened by the memory of an old sin that his soul was almost broken. His relatives could not account for the gloom of a man who had always been cheerful. He spent several years in mental hospitals, but he never recovered. Years went by. Then, 20 years later, in a quiet, intimate conversation, when he heard the words, "The blood of Jesus Christ... cleanses... from all sin", he was finally set free. Then the bonds of his soul were loosed. That is truly the only way to be freed from sin: the blood of Jesus! Believe me, if there were any other way, Jesus would not have come into this world, would not have died on the cross, would not have shed His blood. When our Word says: it is the blood of Jesus that cleanses from all sin, it also says that it is the only one, there is no other! The clouded, clouded lamp-glass of your soul can only be cleansed by this!
But how can the blood of Jesus be so effective on us? There is an answer to this in the Word: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9) What is confession? To look at myself in the light of God, as it were, with God's eyes, and to tell what I see in this way. See, here confession and forgiveness of sins are definitely linked together. For confession is precisely the spiritual movement by which I lay my sins one by one upon Jesus, the Lamb of God, so that the cleansing power of His blood may be applied to Him. Confession is the spiritual movement by which I put my sins into the forgiving grace of God. It is through confession that forgiveness becomes very concrete. When I confess to God, I know that what has been confusing me, what has haunted me, what has burdened me, what has perhaps made me gloomy, the memory of which I have perhaps not been able to get rid of, for which I thought there was no forgiveness, for which I could not assuage my conscience, for which I could perhaps not even forgive myself: that is now forgiven! God has forgiven that! "If we confess our sins," says our Word, "he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9) If we confess our sins, then what we read in the book of Isaiah is true: "I have blotted out your iniquities as a cloud, and as a cloud your sins; return to me, for I have redeemed you." (Isa 44:22)
Have you ever seen the morning mist dispersed in the sunlight, almost vanishing into nothingness, disappearing? So that it is no more. Well, that's forgiveness: what you have confessed, what you have put under the blood of Jesus, is no more! It's as if it never was. And do you know what a big difference it is when someone forgives himself of his sins, and when someone is forgiven by God? One is a deeper dive into sin, the other is a cleansing from sin! "If we confess our sins" - but it's hard to get that far! To confess the very things that we have been trying so hard to cover up. Well, yes, if we confess! And who is still squeamish about even confessing to God, but as James says: to each other? Not so! Then his sin is still not painful enough, he still protects it, he still makes a cover for it, he still wants to get away with it cheaply. And forgiveness is free, but not cheap! "If we confess"! Confession is the first mortal stab in the back of our own wickedness. Whoever truly wants to be cleansed, should choose the most radical way of cleansing, the way James says: "Confess your sins to one another" (James 5:16) Yes, confessing your sins to another person helps us to take seriously the reality of our sin and the presence of God! And it helps me find a place of repentance.
Yes, brethren, this is cleansing, this is the very first step. It's always this again! In preparation for Christmas, it is this! Then God will tell you what he wants for you next. Once, a little child, in the dirt of coming in from the garden, from his play, wanted to help his mother, to set the table. Her mother said, "Wash your hands first, don't touch anything else, don't do anything else, or you'll get everything dirty. You too, don't touch anything, neither service, nor prayer, nor church affairs, nor the things of God, nor anything else, until you are clean! Yes, by the blood of Jesus, which cleanses you from all sin!
In New Delhi, Christians from all parts of the world discussed that Jesus is the light of the world. But Jesus is the light of the world through you! He wants to shine light into your world through your ministry, your work, your social standing, your behaviour! That is why it is important that the lamp glass is clean!
Amen
Date: 10 December 1961.