1 John 1:7 - Exposition

The contrary hypothesis is now stated, and the thought is carried a stage further (cf. 1 John 1:9 ). He again speaks conditionally ἐάν , and does so until 1 John 2:3 ; after which the participial substantive ὁ λέγων ὀ ἀαπῶν ὁ μισῶν represents the conditional clause. The change of verbs is significant: we walk, God is, in the light. We move through time; he is in eternity. Our activity involves change; his does not. Like the sun, he both is Light and dwells in the light; and if we walk in the light, which is his atmosphere, we have fellowship one with another. Darkness is an unsocial condition, and this the light expels. From 1 John 2:6 we might have expected, "we have fellowship with him;" and some inferior authorities read μετ ̓ αὐτοῦ . But St. John's repetitions are not mere repetitions: the thought is always recur or reset to carry us a step further (cf. verses 3, 4). Having fellowship with one another is a sure result of that fellowship with God which is involved in walking in the light. "Here is a reply to those who would restrain Catholic communion to their own sect" (Wordsworth). Another result of walking in the light is that the blood of Jesus (his sacrificial death) cleanses us day by day continually (present tense) from our frequent sins of frailty. This cleansing is not the same as forgiveness of sins (verse 9). The latter is the case of ὁ λελουμένος , the man that is bathed ( John 13:10 ); the former is the frequent washing of the feet (cf. Revelation 7:14 ; Revelation 22:14 ). The expression, the blood of Jesus, in Christian theology, "is dogma with pathos.… It implies, as no other word could do, the reality

By his blood new life-blood is infused into human nature.