This morning I ran across something very enlightening to me from 1 John 1:7.

Reading from 1 John, beginning in verse five, This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

Now verse seven is the verse that became enlightening to me: 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 Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

I know I have read that verse over 100 times before, but it did not hit me as it did this morning. And I immediately had to go back and read it again to see if I read and understood it correctly. And yes, I did! The verse says to us that if we walk in the light as He is in the light (that is, if we are Christians), then we have His promise of two things: 1) We have fellowship one with another, and 2) the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

It is this second promise that really hit me—because it has no condition attached to it other than becoming a Christian. What I am saying is that, when I sin I don’t have to do anything to get His forgiveness and His cleansing. It is automatic and certain! Yes, because I am His child and walk in the light I automatically receive His blood cleansing. I don’t even have to worry about whether I remembered to confess my sins or not or whether I repented of my sin or not. No. Just because I am one of His and walk in His light I am cleansed by His blood.

Repeatedly I have been told that if I sin I need to confess it, then to ask God to forgive me in order to be cleansed of my sin. And isn’t that what verse 9 tells us? Well, yes and no. Verse nine, the confession of sins, is something a Christian automatically does. It is in his new nature to repent and feel bad about sin and confess it. In fact, the words “if we confess” should read “if we keep confessing.” MacArthur comments that this “continual confession of sin is an indication of genuine salvation.” It is part of the miracle of the new life God gives us at salvation. It is what every Christian naturally does when he sins.

I really like what John MacArthur says about verse seven.

A genuine Christian walks habitually in the light (truth and holiness), not in the darkness (falsehood and sin). Their walk also results in cleansing from sin as the Lord continually forgives His own. Since those walking in the light share in the character of God, they will be habitually characterized by His holiness, indicating their true fellowship with Him. A genuine Christian does not walk in darkness but only in the light, and cleansing from sin continually occurs.

And this continual cleansing, we could add from verse nine, occurs automatically when we naturally and continually confess out sins whenever we sin. He does the cleansing by His blood.

Hence, we are always walking in the light with Him. We walk together with Him in the light, being cleansed continually by His blood.