Tests of Salvation—Part 1: Belief in God and the Certainty of Sin  (1 John 1:5-6, 8, 10)

This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; … If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us…. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. (1:5-6, 8, 10)

In addition to leading and feeding their sheep, godly pastors, as spiritual shepherds, must warn their flocks about false teachers and the doctrinal errors they spread. As the apostle Paul charged the Ephesian elders,

Similarly, John wrote this letter to protect his flock of faithful believers in Asia Minor by reiterating God’s truth to them. John’s zealous concern for the certainties of divine teaching also motivated him to write his second and third letters. Thus, the apostle addressed his second epistle “to the chosen lady and her children, whom I love in truth; and not only I, but also all who know the truth, for the sake of the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever” (vv. 1-2). Three times in that opening salutation John refers to “the truth,” underscoring its significance for him. Then in verse 4 he adds, “I was very glad to find some of your children walking in truth, just as we have received commandment to do from the Father” (cf. 3 John 3-4).

To the degree that John was passionate in his love for the truth, he was equally passionate in his opposition to error. In 2 John 7, he warned his readers that “many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist.” Then he admonished them to separate themselves from all such heretics:

To guard one’s flock from those who would destroy it, a faithful pastor must know and teach sound doctrine (cf. Titus 1:9). He must also give his people tests by which they can distinguish true believers from counterfeit professors. Making that fundamental distinction is essential to the church’s protection and spiritual growth. The wheat must be differentiated from the tares (cf. Matt. 13:24-30), the sheep distinguished from the goats, or the godly shepherd will never be able to clarify to his people their true condition or protect them from the deadly deceptions of false teachers.

In these verses, John presents two crucial doctrinal tests to determine who is genuine: an accurate belief in the nature of God, and a genuine belief in the certainty of sin.

THE NATURE OF GOD

This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. (1:5)

The message, preached by John and the other apostles, was one they heard from Him [Jesus] and announce[d] to their audience. As God in human flesh (John 1:1-4, 18; Titus 2:13; Heb. 1:8; 1 John 5:20; cf. John 4:26; 8:24, 28, 58; 18:5), Jesus Christ is the perfect source of revelation regarding the nature and character of God. The apostle earlier recorded Jesus’ statement, “God is spirit” (John 4:24); here in his first letter he declared, God is Light and later would affirm, “God is love” (4:8).

The description of God as Light captures the essence of His nature and is foundational to the rest of the epistle. However, unlike the straightforward expressions “God is spirit” (meaning that God is immaterial in form; compare John 4:24 with Luke 24:39) and “God is love” (meaning that the persons of the Trinity love one another and mankind; cf. 3:17; 4:7, 16; Mic. 7:18; Zeph. 3:17; John 5:42; 15:10; Rom. 5:5, 8; 8:39; Eph. 2:4; Titus 3:4), the idea that God is Light (cf. Ps. 78:14; Isa. 60:19-20; John 1:9; 3:19; 8:12; 9:5; 12:46; Acts 9:3; Rev. 21:23) is more complex.

Throughout the Scriptures, God and His glory are often described in terms of light. For example, during the exodus God appeared to the Israelites in the form of light:

When Moses came down from Mount Sinai after meeting with the Lord, his face glowed with a reflection of God’s light (Ex. 34:29-35; cf. 2 Cor. 3:7-8). In Psalm 104:1-2, the psalmist says, “Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, You are very great; You are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering Yourself with light as with a cloak, stretching out heaven like a tent curtain” (cf. 1 Tim. 6:14-16). Not only is God light in His essence, but He also is the source of the believer’s light (Ps. 27:1; John 1:9; 12:36).

At the transfiguration, when Jesus gave the three apostles a glimpse of His full glory, He manifested Himself as light: “He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light” (Matt. 17:2). Second Corinthians 4:4-6 summarizes well the importance of God as light and its role in a Christian’s life:

Although the foregoing passages describe the significance of divine light, they do not define it. However, Psalm 36:9 does: “For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light” (cf. 1 Peter 2:9). Here the psalmist employed a Hebrew parallelism, using two statements to say the same thing. He equates light and life—God is light in the sense that He is life, and He is the source and sustainer of both physical and spiritual life.

John expressed that truth in the prologue to his gospel:

“I am the Light of the world,” Jesus declared; “he who follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the Light of life” (John 8:12; cf. 12:45-46). God, the source of true light, bestows it on believers in the form of eternal life through His Son, who was the light incarnate.

Scripture reveals two fundamental principles that flow from the foundational truth that God is light. First, light represents the truth of God, as embodied in His Word. The psalmist wrote these familiar words: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path The unfolding of Your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple” (Ps. 119:105, 130; cf. Prov. 6:23; 2 Peter 1:19). The light and life of God are inherently connected to and characterized by truth.

Second, Scripture also links light with virtue and moral conduct. The apostle Paul instructed the Ephesians, “You were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth)” (Eph. 5:8-9; cf. Isa. 5:20; Rom. 13:12; 1 Thess. 5:5-6).

Those two essential properties of divine light and life are crucial in distinguishing genuine faith from a counterfeit claim. If one professes to possess the Light and to dwell in it—to have received eternal life—he will show evidence of spiritual life by his devotion both to truth and to righteousness, as John writes later in this letter:

If truth and righteousness are absent from one’s life, that person, no matter what he or she says, does not possess eternal life (Matt. 7:17-18, 21-23; 25:41-46). They cannot belong to God, because in Him there is no darkness at all. God is absolutely perfect in truth and holiness (Ex. 15:11; 1 Sam. 2:2; Pss. 22:3; 48:10; 71:19; 98:2; Isa. 6:3; Rev. 4:8; 15:4). Obviously, believers fall far short of that perfection, but they manifest a godlike desire for and continual striving toward heavenly truth and righteousness (cf. Phil. 3:7-16).

THE CERTAINTY OF SIN

If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; … If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us…. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. (1:6, 8, 10)

Ever since the fall, mankind has tried to deny the reality of sin, even though every human being is innately aware of its presence.

People today minimize and redefine sin, often alleging that the “failures” of their lives and certain “disorders” exist because of how others have treated them. The victim mentality reigns supreme as popular culture comforts itself in affirming that people are basically good and whatever may be wrong is not really wrong, but merely a preference of personal freedom. Instead of accepting responsibility for their behavior, people demand to be accepted as they are. They reclassify serious and heart issues “illnesses” and “addictions” and try to “cure” them with prescription drugs and psychotherapy. But because that fails to deal with sin, the actual root cause of the problem, society goes from bad to worse. In contrast to all that delusion, Jesus taught that every person is sinful at the very core of his or her being:

Yet, many in the church today seem to be reluctant to make the diagnosis Jesus did, for fear they might offend someone or be deemed “unloving.” Thus, sin is explained away in culturally acceptable terms.

The people of Judah in Malachi’s day were equally adept at denying their sin. God had given them very clear and detailed instructions concerning what offerings were acceptable to Him (Lev. 1:1-7:38). Yet they continued to present defiled food and defective animals to the Lord. Then they acted surprised (as though they had done nothing wrong) when the Lord, through the prophet Malachi, confronted them about their clear disobedience:

God then moved from an expression of displeasure to a warning of severe judgment on the religious leaders, the priests:

The Lord’s rebuke was necessarily harsh because the people had disobeyed Him so grievously (2:11-16) and yet were acting as though they had done nothing wrong. They had arbitrarily (and wrongly) excused their wicked behavior, to the point that they audaciously accused God of being unjust and unfair to them (v. 17). In a similar sense, there are many today who think God would be brutally unjust for sending any human being to hell. It is not until people accept both the absolute holiness of God and full responsibility for their sin that they admit God has the right to judge and punish them (cf. Ezra 9:13; Neh. 9:33; Luke 15:21; 23:41).

The apostle John faced a similar situation in the churches to whom he wrote his letter. Flooding into Ephesus and the other cities and churches of Asia Minor were deceitful, sin-denying false teachers (cf. 2:18; 4:1-3; 2 Peter 2:1-2; Jude 4). In addition to the heresies of Docetism (that said Christ’s body only appeared to be physical) and Cerinthianism (that claimed that Christ’s “divine spirit” descended upon the human Jesus at His baptism but departed just prior to His crucifixion), John had to contend with Greek philosophical dualism (the basis of Gnosticism)—a view that denied the reality of sin and evil. Those who held to this mystical, elitist philosophy argued the spiritual was always good and the physical was always bad; they therefore created an artificial dichotomy between the spiritual realm and the physical world—contending that spiritual realities were all that mattered, and that what was done in the flesh (including sin) was a nonissue. As John encountered this heresy, he had to unmask those who denied sin’s existence and thereby sidestepped their own responsibility for it and its consequences.

John divided those who claimed to be in the fellowship but rejected the truth into three similar but distinct categories: those in darkness, those in deception, and those who defame God. All three groups of people either willfully rejected or completely ignored the reality that true believers and sin are incompatible. “How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” Paul exclaimed in Romans 6:2. Later in that chapter he added, “But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness” (vv. 17-18; cf. Eph. 2:1-5). By refusing to repent, these sin-denying false professors revealed that they were outside of God’s plan of salvation, which begins with election (Rom. 8:29; Eph. 1:4, 11); includes redemption (1 Cor. 1:30; Gal. 3:13; Heb. 9:12), sanctification (1 Cor. 6:11; Eph. 5:26-27; Phil. 2:12-13), and spiritual growth (John 16:13; 17:17; cf. 2 Thess. 2:13; 1 Tim. 3:15); and culminates with glorification (2 Cor. 3:18; 2 Thess. 2:14; 2 Tim. 2:10).

THOSE IN DARKNESS

If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; (1:6)

The first category of false professors consists of those who ignored their sin as if it were not a reality to them. They claimed to have fellowship with God, to share common aspects of life with Him, that is, eternal life (cf. John 17:3). However, that claim is meaningless if one continues to walk in the darkness. Walk refers to manner of life or conduct (Rom. 8:4; cf. 13:13; Eph. 4:1; Col. 1:10; see also Deut. 10:12-13; Ps. 119:1; Mic. 6:8), and it is there that genuine salvation is manifest, not in a mere profession that one possesses eternal life. To profess one thing and live in contradiction to it is to lie and not practice the truth. Jesus indicted the Jews’ superficial earthly religion by declaring to them, “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matt. 6:22-23). In this analogy, the Lord argued from the lesser to the greater. If it is a negative thing to be in the dark physically (blind), it is much worse to be in the dark spiritually. John in his gospel taught that Jesus was the true light for a sin-darkened world (John 1:4-5; cf. 8:12). But since sinful humanity prefers darkness over light (John 3:19-20), no one who claims to be a Christian and yet lives in darkness (meaning that they continually practice evil deeds) is actually saved (1 John 3:4, 9; cf. Matt. 7:17-18; 13:38; John 8:42-44).

Those who really embrace the truth heed James’s admonition:

Believers possess God’s life, are new creations in Christ made for good works (1 John 5:20; Rom. 6:11-17; 8:1-2; 12:5; 1 Cor. 1:2; 2 Cor. 1:21; 5:17; Gal. 3:28; Eph. 2:10; Phil. 1:1; Col. 1:27-28), and have the indwelling Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:11; 1 Cor. 3:16; 2 Tim. 1:14). Thus they cannot ignore the existence of personal iniquity and walk in darkness (cf. Col. 1:12-14). No matter what anyone claims for himself, the genuineness of faith can always be seen in one’s life by the love of righteousness (Matt. 7:15-20).

THOSE IN DECEPTION

If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. (1:8)

A second group of false professors claimed to have no sin. This position was prouder than the stance of those in the first category who ignored their sin (cf. Jer. 17:9). Any so-called Christians who claim to have reached a higher spiritual plane, where sin no longer exists in their lives, completely misunderstand their condition and the Spirit’s work of progressive sanctification.

Again, any who ignore the existence of sin give clear evidence that the truth is not in them. The Bible plainly teaches the principle of human depravity. In Romans 3:10-23 Paul wrote:

Jesus Christ was the only human being who could ever claim to be without sin (Heb. 4:15). All who make such an outlandish claim are only fooling themselves. It is not until believers are glorified in heaven that their sanctification process will be complete (Rom. 8:19, 23), and then they will be without sin.

THOSE WHO DEFAME GOD

If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. (1:10)

The list of those who deny the certainty of sin culminates with a third group, those who not only claim not to sin now, but who say that they have never sinned. By making that ridiculous assertion they blasphemously make God a liar (cf. Titus 1:2; 1 John 5:10-11) in two ways. First, they explicitly deny His teaching that all have sinned (see above), and second, they implicitly deny the need for a Savior (cf. Isa. 53:10-11; Zech. 9:9; Matt. 1:21; Luke 2:11; 19:10; Acts 5:31; 13:38-39; Rom. 6:23; 1 Tim. 1:15; Heb. 5:9). After all, why would they need a Substitute to take their punishment for something they claim to have never committed?

All three categories of false claimants to fellowship with God fail John’s second doctrinal test by denying sin’s certainty. Thus they prove that His word [truth] is not in them. Anyone, even a professed believer seeking to cover up his or her sin, is in the depths of spiritual darkness and deception, and blasphemes God. Conversely, when those truly in the fellowship fall into sin, they do not deny sin’s presence or their propensity toward it (Rom. 7:14-25; 1 Tim. 1:12-15; cf. Pss. 32:5; 51:1, 3; Prov. 28:13). Instead, they openly and honestly confess their sins before the Lord and repent of them.

Scripture corroborates the validity and necessity of John’s first two doctrinal tests of salvation—belief in God and belief in the certainty of sin. Concerning essential faith, the author of Hebrews declares,

Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the publican (tax collector) makes clear that one cannot be justified apart from an honest confession of his or her sinfulness: