Even if you didn’t have your special glasses to watch the solar eclipse, unless you live in a cave or under a rock, you surely heard about it or saw pictures of it online. People made plans to travel to other states to get the best possible experience with such a rare phenomenon. While California only had about 35% coverage, there were other states in the path of totality that were able to witness the sun being covered up entirely at different times of the day.
It’s one thing for the sun to be blotted out momentarily to reveal an eerie darkness, but could you imagine if the world was like that all the time? I’m not just talking about the gray skies and gloom sometimes associated with the Pacific Northwest or the Midwest, but actual darkness because of a lack of light. Not only would our mental health be affected, but some of the very basic, fundamental errands and day-to-day activities would be much more difficult with less light.
It’s our own experiences with light and dark that help us relate to the distinction John is makes in the verses from 1 John, where he connects God with light and unbelieving sin with darkness.
What is it that bridges the gab between darkness and light? Repentance. Even though the word itself isn’t used in these verses from John, repentance is nonetheless described. The basic meaning of repentance is to turn around. The Bible uses the term in primarily two ways, which have been called the wide sense and the narrow sense.
At times when we hear Peter or Paul preaching, they exhort their hearers to repent and believe. That is the wide sense of repentance. It is another way of referring to a person coming to faith. When repentance happens in that sense, a person has been converted from unbelief to faith in Jesus as Savior.
The narrow sense of repentance is more specific. It refers to the recurring process that has been described as having three steps: 1) contrition (“sorrow”) that confesses sin, 2) faith that believes Jesus has forgiven that sin, and 3) a change of heart/mindset that seeks to struggle against that sin in the future and aims to overcome it.
For most of us reading this, repentance in the wide sense has probably already taken place – the Holy Spirit has converted us from the darkness of unbelief to the light of faith in Jesus. But repentance in the narrow sense will never stop taking place in our lives. It is an ongoing practice. That activity is both made possible by the resurrection of Jesus, which guarantees our forgiveness, and is fueled by it as well. We wish to remain in God’s light, and real repentance keeps us there.
Why is repentance so important to John? Because it is essential to achieving one of his goals in writing this letter. He stated as clearly as it could possibly be stated in verse one of chapter two: “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin.” John wants what God wants: to put a stop to sinning. Here’s a question for you to wrestle with: do you want what John wants? Do you want what God wants? Do you want to stop sinning?
I assume that almost everyone reading this knows the answer to that question. Absolutely we are supposed to want to stop sinning! Duh! No brainer, right?
Except that we aren’t made up of just a mind. We have hearts, too, and our hearts have this nasty tendency to reveal our true colors. Our hearts expose us. Our hearts convict us. Our hearts give away the truth that our lives are riddled with countless examples of times that our actions clearly demonstrated that we were not interested in putting a stop to sin.
I know I shouldn’t do this or that… as I proceed to carry it out. I know exactly the circumstances, the scenario, the conditions, that lend themselves to engaging in this sin or that one, and I do nothing to safeguard against them. I spend more time thinking through how I will either hide or get away with a certain sin than I do battling against it. I slip back into the damnable lie that convinces me that because God is all-forgiving, I have nothing to fear, because an all-forgiving God has bound himself to forgive me no matter what, so I’m in the clear. Consider how much premeditation goes into our sinning and ask yourself if that’s a reflection of a genuine desire to stop.
Then consider the other end of the sin. It has already been committed. It is in the past. When we perform the postmortem, what do we see?
How do you respond when either your own conscience or another person calls out your sin? Do you remorsefully spill the beans and spiral into feelings of shame and regret because you can’t believe you did it yet again, even though you want so badly to stop? Hopefully that is our response at least some of the time!
But we also handle it another way. We deflect the accusation and with calculated precision detail all of the factors beyond our control that took place and led to the sin, masterfully attempting to shift the blame where we feel it really ought to be. We resort to personal attacks against the one who would have the gall to point out our sin. Maybe we just go with one of the oldest standbys of all: deny it. When you look at how you tend to respond to your sin being pointed out to you, is your response really a reflection of a genuine desire to stop – or just a genuine desire for the other person to stop accusing you?
How we love the darkness! How steeped in it we truly are! God help us! God save us! God rescue us from eternal darkness!
Good news – he has!
Listen again to John. “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all” (1:5). In God alone is there not even the slightest speck of darkness! Only light! So if someone, if something is going to save us from the darkness, it can’t be ourselves or anyone else who is only steeped in darkness. No, it must be someone who is only light, one from whom light emanates. One who can overcome the darkness and not be overcome by it.
Because that is what light does. Light exposes and dispels the darkness. It’s never the other way around. Darkness cannot cover or hide the light. We can wear a pair of sunglasses to protect us from the bright sun, but those sunglasses don’t actually lessen the light at all – the sun shines just as brightly whether we’re wearing them or not!
Sin puts up a wall of darkness between God and us, but his light still shines regardless. That light will expose the darkness of our sin, but darkness will never put out the light. Therefore, we need to confess that darkness of sin that separates us from his light so that we can be rejuvenated by it. How comforting! His light is always shining. We need only to remove the covering from our eyes. We need only to confess our sins and then we see the light again.
That’s repentance. It calls out the darkness of sins and shows a much better way – the light of God, the forgiveness and grace that emanate only from him. That repentance is real because of the reality of the resurrection. Had the dead body of Jesus Christ remained in the tomb; had the stone remained intact to shut out the light and keep the tomb covered in the darkness of death and sin, then the light would have been snuffed out. Then darkness and the one who reigns in darkness would have been victorious.
But Easter really happened! The Resurrection is real!
So then, is your repentance. We take our darkest sins to the source of all light and see what he does with them. Look at how many different ways John describes what God does with that sin! “The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (v.7). “He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (v.9). “[Jesus Christ] is the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (2:2). See what the Light does to the darkness of sin?!? Sin doesn’t stand a chance!
So let’s keep killing sin. Let’s repent – really. If sin is a part of our day-to-day lives – and it is! – then let’s also make repentance a part of our day-to-day lives. Whether it’s when you wake up every morning, go to bed at night, or as often as it might happen somewhere in-between, let’s be intentional and very conscious of killing our sin by repenting of it and letting the Light decimate it and destroy it, leaving nothing but purity and righteousness in its place.
When that becomes a regular part of our daily routine, the benefits are ongoing, because repentance rewires your heart. It just does.
It’s a terrible thing when a corrupt church or teacher twists the Bible to make forgiveness into some conditional arrangement wherein a person is only forgiven if certain stipulations are met. The rationale behind that foolishness is that if everyone is freely forgiven without any conditions or requirements, then people will just keep sinning and live however they want.
But that reasoning sells grace and the power of the gospel too short. Instead, what happens when real repentance becomes a regular part of our daily routine is that it renews and rewires our hearts. The more the darkness is exposed, the less appeal and power it has. Instead, the light becomes far more attractive. Not sinning becomes a genuine desire. Walking in Jesus’ footsteps makes our heart sing. Blessing others through our obedience satisfies our hearts. Doing that which brings delight to God fills our hearts with joy. Living in the light and embracing the fellowship we have with not only the God who himself is light, but also others who walk in the light – that’s when we’ve arrived. That’s what matters. That’s the real deal. That’s real repentance.