“It’s a stick-out”, that’s what my wife and I say to one another whenever one of us (usually me….okay, always me) is trying to sound smarter than we really are. I’m thinking of that card when I read 1 John 1:6-7.
6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
When John talks about walking in darkness he means more than morality. We would be missing the full thrust of this verse if we tried to paraphrase this as, “if we say we have fellowship with God but we are living in sin, then we are lying and are not walking in truth.” Darkness points to more than just a sinful lifestyle, it’s really about sincerity. To say that “God is light” not only means that he is morally pure it also means that He isn’t hiding any of His character. A paraphrase such as this would get closer to John’s original meaning:
“If we say we have fellowship with the self-revealing God while we are hiding our sin behind fig leaves, we are lying and not walking in truth.”
I say this because the false teachers of John’s day had developed a rather deceptive theology that separated their physical bodies from their spiritual bodies. If you caught them with a prostitute at the temple they’d respond by saying, “this isn’t who I really am. This is just my flesh. My spirit remains pure.” That’s a fig leaf.
I don’t think it’s an accident that it’s a fig-tree which receives the curse from Jesus in the gospels. A fig tree—filled with fruit—was a sign of prosperity. But fig leaves on a barren tree is a lie, just as fig leaves on a naked Adam is an act of deception. The temple system of Jesus’ day was claiming fellowship with God but inwardly was a rotting corpse. It was a barren fig-tree with beautiful leaves to cover its nakedness.
But notice the beauty of verse 7. “If we walk in the light…” This is why I say it’s important for understanding John that we don’t simply conflate the meaning of darkness in verse 6 to mean “sinfulness”. Because if we do this then we’ll treat verse 7 as if it’s saying, “if we live a life apart from sin…” But that’s most certainly not John’s argument. It wouldn’t make sense to say, “live a life apart from sin…if you do…Jesus’ blood will cleanse you from all sin”. But what if it’s saying something like this:
But if we put down the fig leaves and come naked as we really are, just as God Himself reveals Himself authentically, we will have real fellowship with others, and the blood of Jesus his Son will cleanse us from all sin.
This is incredibly good news. It means that God knows that you are full of it. Just as with Adam in the Garden he knows all the shame that is hiding under that fig leaf. He knows the guilt. He knows the stain. He knows all those places where you and I are inconsistent and where we don’t square up. And he’s calling us here in 1 John to just be honest.
Don’t hide behind a theology that denies your real being. Don’t cover your twisted desires to visit a cult prostitute with some complicated theology of the body. And don’t pretend like it was the hand of God that moved Charismatic Pastor Dude from one location to another when in reality it was because he was about to be charged with fraud. God sees through all this.
This is meant to be freeing. God loves YOU. You as you really are and not some dolled up version that has perfected the art of making fig leaves look like the work of the Creator. You and I probably feel as if we have to hide because of all the other humans around us who are trying to perfect the art of hiding. But God sees. He sees you. And he’s calling you out of the darkness and into the light.
It’s here in the light where we can experience real authentic Christian fellowship. And it’s only here that we can have real fellowship. Because if you come wearing your fig leaves then you aren’t really coming at all. And if we try to relate to Jesus out of our fake selves then we’re really not much different than those heretics in the first century who split their flesh and their spirit. Walk in the light.
I’d be remiss here if I failed to note that God does cover our nakedness. He strips the fig leaves but he doesn’t leave us naked. He gives us new clothes. He cleanses us of all sin. The light is transformative. He may love us naked but He doesn’t leave us there. His love clothes us and cleanses us. His provision means that even though we might define ourselves by our brokenness or the shipwreck we’ve made of things—He doesn’t. His calling us into light isn’t all there is to the story. The gospel calls us out of darkness and transforms us by His light.
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I don’t know if you call that land mass a peninsula, or what. But it certainly isn’t a “stick-out”.
