Day 3 - Week 36 - 1 John 1:7 "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 His Son cleanses us from all sin."

What do you think John, when writing this verse of inspired Scripture, means when he says, "But if we walk in the light, as He Himself is in the light..."?  Jesus is our ultimate role model in every way, but how do we follow Him in the pathway of light?

Sometimes I can read the words of Matthew Henry, who wrote his in-depth Bible commentary in 1708, and find his explanation of Scripture so eloquent and almost poetic.  Read what he has to say about this week's verse and it's surrounding passage:

The great God should be represented to this dark world, as pure and perfect light. As this is the nature of God, his doctrines and precepts must be such. And as his perfect happiness cannot be separated from his perfect holiness, so our happiness will be in proportion to our being made holy. To walk in darkness, is to live and act against religion. God holds no heavenly fellowship or intercourse with unholy souls. There is no truth in their profession; their practice shows its folly and falsehood. The eternal Life, the eternal Son, put on flesh and blood, and died to wash us from our sins in his own blood, and procures for us the sacred influences by which sin is to be subdued more and more, till it is quite done away. While the necessity of a holy walk is insisted upon, as the effect and evidence of the knowledge of God in Christ Jesus, the opposite error of self-righteous pride is guarded against with equal care. All who walk near to God, in holiness and righteousness, are sensible that their best days and duties are mixed with sin. God has given testimony to the sinfulness of the world, by providing a sufficient, effectual Sacrifice for sin, needed in all ages; and the sinfulness of believers themselves is shown, by requiring them continually to confess their sins, and to apply by faith to the blood of that Sacrifice. Let us plead guilty before God, be humble, and willing to know the worst of our case. Let us honestly confess all our sins in their full extent, relying wholly on his mercy and truth through the righteousness of Christ, for a free and full forgiveness, and our deliverance from the power and practice of sin.

After reading Henry's commentary, I conclude that Christ is continually in the light of the holiness and perfection of God, then we too, are to strive to walk in the light of God's holiness, away from the darkness of this world and the sinfulness that abounds in that darkness.  But then we have Henry's passage, "All who walk near to God....are sensible that their best days and duties are mixed with sin", that reminds us that we will never attain God's perfection, but that we do have the promise of a "free and full forgiveness."

Keep walking in the light...oppose the darkness...look to Jesus!