inseparable

While studying 1 John for the purity project, I was delighted when God gave me a rhema nugget that echoed so much of what He's been showing me over the past two years:

If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; 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. (1 John 1:6-7)

In context with my research, I sought this passage to confirm our dependency on Christ to remain pure and clean. However, it was the other effect of living as light that leaped off the page:

...we have fellowship with one another

While my initial reaction was that John is stating our fellowship with other believers is likewise dependent on our living in the Light -- a point that I would very much like to make -- I dug further to be certain. John could have just as well meant that we have fellowship with God, and a version or two may have poorly translated the term "one another."

[This is where the teacher in me sometimes remains at conflict with the Word received through the Spirit. The teacher desires to share something sound, foolproof, and supported by the academic consensus; the Spirit wants me to receive His Word and proclaim it as truth.]

Thankfully, my study affirmed the word that God had already written on my heart. If John had meant "with Him," he wouldn't have said "with one another." John desires the reader to understand that our purity from sin reaches to the very core of His Church -- the holy unity we possess with one another is a result of legitimate repentance and confession of our sin.

If I own this truth, I also own these conclusions:

1) Only by living in Him can we also be in pure fellowship with other believers.
2) We cannot have unity with the Body while living in darkness.

1 John is a beautiful book because it never allows us to separate the act of knowing God from loving our brother. Simply stated, we cannot claim to know God if we do not love our brother, and we cannot love our brother without first knowing God. We cannot love God if we love the world, thus we cannot love our brother if we love the world.

The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now. The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes. (2:9-11)

Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. (2:15)

By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. (3:10)

Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. (3:13-14)

We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? (3:16-17)

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. (4:7-11)

We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. (4:19-20)

We must understand that we cannot live according to Him if we do not know Him. As much as the world has constructed its own definition of "love," we cannot serve our brother humbly, selflessly, and without expectation apart from Christ. The world's form of "love" may look similar in action, but the Light reveals the motivations of our hearts. The world's "love" always requires something in return.

If we are truly living according to His Spirit, our lives will bear the overflow of His love within us. We will be unable to contain our love, because we'll know the perfect love that has led us to repentance, salvation, and intimacy with Him. This is the love that "casts out fear" (4:18), because it speaks of the hope we have in Christ. When our "love" is driven by fear, insecurity, envy, or manipulation, we are not living according to this hope.

It is also appropriate to heed warning within the Body. If we seek spiritual brotherhood with unrepentant hearts that are unwilling to be exposed or purified by the Light, we are by result corrupting His Church. We have no brotherhood with those living in darkness. Yet every day, believers worship with those living according to the world as if we are trying to attain fellowship through our own faculties. We have been given no right to do this. God desires to present His Bride as pure, but if we redefine the terms of being associated with the priesthood, we offer something less than holy. As believers, we have no legitimate unity with darkness, as much as we'd love to feel "connected" or "relevant."

We should regularly ask God to evaluate our hearts and to bring any darkness to light. We must also be cognizant of the relationship our heart has with our fellowship. If we desire to love perfectly, we must first allow Him to purify us from unrighteousness. If we profess a love for Christ, it should be manifested in our love for mankind rather than a clinging to the world. And if we would seek communion in the Body, this wonderful gift can only be found among those already in communion with Him.