Cleansed from All Sin

Picture a hallway light left on at night, and somebody standing in the dark room beside it, deciding whether to step out into the light.

Keep that light in mind, because John does. Just before this verse he has said that "God is light, and in him is no darkness at all." So walking in the light is a picture of where you are, more than a picture of how well you are doing. Either you are in the lit part of the house, or you are not. And the light is not a searchlight aimed at you. It is where God Himself lives.

Notice what John says the light brings first, because the order surprises us. Cleansing comes second. Company comes first: "we have fellowship one with another." Then he says, "and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." That order matters. Think of the thing you have never told another person. You have kept it in the dark because you think saying it would cost you their company. John says the opposite is true. The hiding is what costs you the company, and the light is where you find it.

Two verses later John explains what walking in the light means, in words so plain that nobody can turn it into something heroic: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." To confess is to agree with God about what is true, out where it can be seen.

Take that truth with you. It has an edge, but it steadies you more than it cuts. The word "cleanseth" means He keeps on cleansing, and He cleanses "from all sin." John was writing to people who knew exactly what they had done, all of it and not just the presentable part. So the one sin you have decided must be the exception was never the exception. It has only been kept in the dark, and cleansing is found in the light, where God is waiting for you.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 220 is Thou Shalt Not Die (2 Samuel 12:13).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna