1st John 1:7

“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, purifies us from all sin.” – 1st John 1:7

 

What does it mean to walk in the light? The 1 st important thing to recognize is that it IS

POSSIBLE to walk in the light, or John would not be telling us to do so! To define “walking in the

light,” I would say that this means to walk in a largely obedient (to God) lifestyle, without

harboring known sin or resisting the conviction of the Holy Spirit on any actual point. We know

that on this side of eternity, sinless perfection is not possible, yet we can still walk in the light,

which John means in perfect obedience. Walking implies an ACTION. We must always be

working, and always seeing progress in our walk.

 

If we walk in the light, “as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.” If we walk

where God is, then we are also with Him in fellowship. Oh, what a marvelous place that is to

be! The sentence is not over there though, it says we have fellowship with one another. Doesn’t

that imply that if we DO NOT have fellowship with one another, then we are NOT walking in the

light? Uh oh, this is where forgiveness comes in. We need to be in right fellowship with those

around us.

 

Which leads us to the next promise, “the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.” In

order to be forgiven ourselves, we must forgive others. We need a continuous cleansing of our

sins because we constantly sin and fall short of God’s glory. The word “purifies” is in the present

tense, not the past tense. This means it needs to keep happening, we have not yet reached

perfection. Also, it means that we do not have to HOPE for cleansing, we can BE CLEANSED

today.

 

We are cleansed by the blood of Jesus. Not the literal drops of His blood, but His literal death in

our place, and the wrath of the Father that He endured in our place. The blood reminds us of

His great sacrifice for us: past, present, and future. We need to be continuously cleansed to

maintain our right relationship with God.

 

We can be cleansed, by the blood of Jesus, from every sin. The sin we inherited from Adam &

Eve, the sin we committed as kids, the sins of our growing up; sins against our father and

mother, against our brother and sister, sins against our employers or our employees, sins

against our friends and our enemies; lying, stealing, cheating, adultery, swearing, drugs, booze,

sex, murder; sins that haunt us every day, sins we didn’t even know we did – all sin can be

cleansed by the blood of Jesus.

 

We might say that the only sin that cannot be cleansed by the blood of Jesus is the sin of

continuing to reject that blood as payment for sin.