"If we say we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. 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 John. 1.6-7.
God is light is one of the declarations of the fifth verse. Man is darkness is the declaration of Scripture as interpreted by the believer's experience. Light stands for truth and holiness, darkness for error and sin. Truth and holiness are alone in God, and in man are error and sin alone. To walk in darkness as to walk in ourselves. To walk in the light is to walk in God, and since there is no communion between light and darkness, fellowships consist of communion. Therefore, when we are walking in ourselves, our experiencing our own emotions, our thinking, our own thoughts, our speaking our own words, our doing our own deeds, we are having no fellowship with God. Whereas when emotion, thought, word, and actions proceed from him, we have fellowship with him and since he is the life of his people, we also have fellowship with one another.
The line of division between light and darkness can not possibly be passed over by either. Darkness cannot ever be light. Light can never be darkness. Man can by no possibility become God. God cannot become man. In the new birth. Man is not transformed, but Christ is developed within man. This is a great mystery. Many natural questions arise concerning it, which seemed to demand of us to cast it aside as a stumbling block or as foolishness. How, we ask, does Paul say "I and yet not I"? How does it seem to me that I, the man, see the truth? With what consciousness it is that I am conscious, that I am saved, that God's presence is within me. If I am not now intelligently conscious, how shall I be hereafter? How is it that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness comprehends it not? It is this very baffling of our agonizing inquiries that render the manifestation of God in the flesh a great mystery. Vain have been the philosophies that have attempted to explain it, and they have been for a time spoiled by them, have laid down in sorrow. It is a great mystery, and yet the believer finds himself rejoicing in it, as in the truth of God. Left self one moment, and he would be whirled away, as the leaves are whirled "by the grace of God, I am what I am."
Darkness and light, then, are with the believer. And it is one of his trials to be at times in darkness, and to think he is dead in the light. Being self-deceived, he asserts of himself that he is therein in fellowship with God. The word “lie” means, in general, a false statement with the intent to deceive. I do not think that the word is used thus here. But that I it here means of loss statement with intent to convey a truth. The results, however, are the same as the one were a conscious deceiver. He "does not the truth." Perhaps every believer is more or less an unconscious deceiver. It is best, no doubt, to search the scriptures as did the Bereans, to see whether the things spoken by this or that one be him Paul himself are so.
Now there are mentioned two kinds of walks, in one of which there is no fellowship with God, while in the other there is fellowship with God, namely. First, the walk in darkness. Second, the walk in the light. Let us try to look at some of the features of each walk.
First, under the walk in Darkness may be reckoned,
1. absence of spiritual assurance
2. presence of self-assurance
3. Substitution of self for God.
4 wrongdoing.
Second, under the walk in the light may be reckoned
1. presence of spiritual assurance
2 absence of self-assurance
3 fear lest self be substituted for God
4. forsaking of wrongdoing.
First, to walk in darkness under which is reckoned one absence of spiritual assurance. Spiritual assurance is a result of God's assurance to the believer that he is his. The absence of it manifests itself in the child of God in various ways. And first in an unconsciousness of his relationship with God. It is the period of unconscious infancy that succeeds the new birth in which the state mostly exists. The child lives. It has a sense of the presence of its parent. It prefers its parent to others. At those seasons in which it desires nourishment. (I Peter. 2.2) And yet it does not know itself as a child, nor its parent as its parent.
The infant Child of God has a sense of the presence of God. There steals into his mind the thought of how good he is and desire "I would not offend him," and the feeling "I am worthless," "I am sinful." With strange yearnings he sometimes utters these things to others. He creeps at times to where communion is going on among the brethren and nestles to the breast of the nourishing mother - of "Jerusalem, the mother of us all." The words uttered sound sweet and beautiful to his ear. He feeds the vague wondrous pleasure upon the "sincere milk of the word." He knows not why he enjoys. He stays, and he goes away, not knowing that he has been with his parent. Straightaway he forgets it all and falls into infantile tantrums, crossness, obstinacy, unwillingness to take any more milk, or stupidity and sleepiness when you would feed him with the word of truth - until they who had been watching in him the signs of spiritual thirst and hunger, see the signs no more, and resort for comfort to what they remember of them.
If the believer while thus should say he had fellowship with God, he would be speaking naturally and not spiritually. For of spiritual fellowship, he would be unconscious. Herein could he walk in darkness, and would unintentionally say and do. What was not true? There are no doubt many such in Babylon mistaking the harlot mother for the true mother.
The absence of assurance is often accompanied by a consciousness of such absence. And then there exists a desire for the assurance that one is a child of God. There is the love of the truth, the seeking after the society of the brethren, but ever the longing inquiry, "Am I a child of God?" What seems to be evidence in a judgment of the brethren is ever questioned by this troubled saint. Far it is from him to say, "I have fellowship with God." The utterance would come from the darkness of his own nature. And therein he walks in darkness, and so would not speak, nor do the truth. The language of such is "We wait for light but behold obscurity for brightness, but we walk in darkness. We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes. We stumble at noonday as in the night. We are in desolate places as dead men" Isaiah 59. 9-10. That they see the darkness and call it not light, that they wait for the light, that they know they are groping and stumbling in a desolate dark place where the wall which their hand in its gropings touches not would be. Their uncertain and only guide to some undiscovered, if existent way of going out from the dismal enclosure. These are the evidences that they are the children of God, the loved and saved of Jehovah. No natural man ever saw his nature thus or himself in such a situation. No natural man ever longed for the light.
This absence of assurance may come after the presence of assurance has dwelt with the child of God. The bright sun, in whose clear light he walked rejoicing, may withdraw himself, and thick clouds obscured the night sky. Ah, if God takes away the light of his countenance, where are we? In gross darkness, groping and stumbling search, in struggling anxiety. Fellowship is lost here. Again under the walk in darkness is reckoned,
II. Presence of self-assurance. Self-assurance comes to be mistaken for spiritual assurance and manifests itself in the feeling that one's self is set above others in knowledge of the truth. The calm, deep, full, strong utterances of truth from the lips of nature and experienced believers seemed to this state of mind cold, shallow, meager, and weak as compared with its own thoughts on the subject. While it regards itself as walking in the fullness of the light, in regards others as walking in much darkness, it is ready to instruct the thousands in Israel but thinks not of receiving aught that is new from any. It says the Lord has taught me, but does not say the Lord has taught you. It deems itself in an upper atmosphere of knowledge and glory, not of this Earth whence it looks down upon you as groveling in that dust of ignorance and mourning. It deems itself fit for the highest places and capable of affecting the greatest results. It says it has fellowship with God while thus walking in the gross darkness of self.
Self-assurance manifests itself in openly treating other believers as insignificant. It passes by saying this is I I am great, you are little. Shall not yourself speak not, for I am present to be seen, and to speak. This is not a fellowship with God, nor with one another. The broken-hearted believer flees it as a specter, walking in darkness. It manifests itself In condemning brethren uncharitably, that is unlovingly. It thus assumes that there are worse than itself. It is a woefully bitter spirit of darkness when it thus walks through the camp of Israel professedly walking and fellowship with God.
3. Let us pass on from viewing spiritual assurance simply as a state of mind. To look at it in its connection with works. It is safe to say that where the life of God is, there are works. It must be so, for God works. John 5.17. And it is the works of God, not the works of man, that we have in view. Now the life of God is in the believer, and so the works of God are found with the believer. God works in the believer to will and to do his pleasure, and the believer has with works the assurance that they are of God. But since he is in the flesh, the flesh is ever questioning whether the works are of God and besides, as ever, seeking to do its own works and to make its own work seem to be the works of God. The believer, however, becomes acquainted with the devices of Satan and learns to put aside the fleshly question, "What shall I do for God?" And instead to ask "What is God working in me?" This question at last becomes a conspicuous mark of the believer separating and distinguishing him from the unbeliever. It does become so in those believers whom God sets free. Concerning all others, whatever they may be there are always arise painful doubts. This state of mind is the same as that which says it is all of God. And is,
2. precisely the same as that which says not I, but the grace of God with me? This explains in one way why we do not engage in religious enterprises of the day, the Sunday school as a nursery of the church, the revival as a converter of men, the missionary tract and Bible societies, the theological seminaries, and the rest. These enterprises are professionally founded on the feeling "I must work for God." Not on the feeling "God is working in me." The assurance is human, not spiritual.
For all this, we are called "do-nothings." But who after all are the "do-nothings?" The works of God are obviously the works which God works. And other works are obviously the works of man and so are not the works that God requires. When therefore man says "I must work for God" and help to produce a missionary society or some other work, then obviously that work is not a work that God requires. And if to seek to abstain from works that God does not require is to be a "do-nothing," then we are "do-nothings." While if to do the works that man and not God require is to be in the sense in question a "do-nothing," then those who call us do-nothings are by their own profession themselves to "do-nothings." A theological seminary is an imposing institution. The moral and intellectual nobility of the earth are want to be found composing its faculty. Ignorance alone would deny this. There is a vast deal in its course of study, which does not necessarily have in view the preparation of a man for the ministry and which educates and liberalizes the human mind. But why not stop here in an attempt to study? Why not stop here and call the institution a university? An ordinary human affair and not a religious operation. Then only the ignorant could oppose it. Now the Scriptures oppose it. Spiritual assurance as interpreted by the Scriptures never led to the erection of a theological seminary. Human religious assurance does lead thereto.
Indeed, a sort of compromise to this scriptural position that the works of salvation are the works of God is resorted to in the following statement, "Salvation is God's work, not man's but man has something to do." But this resort seems to be worse than the original expression, "I must work for God." It is worse because it is contradictory. To say that salvation is God's work, not man's, is to say that it is all God's work, while to say that man has something to do is to say that it is not all God's work. The latter proposition contradicts the former. Now of a proposition and its contradictory, say, philosophers, one must fall. Common sense says so too. It is "mental suicide," say they, to try to believe a proposition and its contradictory at the same time. Neither man nor spiritual assurance assures anyone of the truthfulness of this contradictory compound. And no man was ever yet found who professed that either did. Men, on the other hand, admit that they do not see how it is not contradictory, and they excused themselves for asserting a belief in it by saying it is beyond the finite mind's grasp. Is this mental suicide? To lay aside the mind and to take a regulator, something that the mind cannot receive. Is it not autonomism? And autonomism is "mental suicide." It is just as the philosophers say.
And are we "do-nothings" because we don't commit mental suicide and don't try to get others to commit "mental suicide." This indigestible compound is no doubt in the stomach of many a believer. No wonder they have "dyspepsia," to use Elder Barton's word. It twists and rises and rolls and turns and burns and grinds in the stomach or lies there like lead sometimes like flaming sulfur. And all the while they're trying to be convivial at the table or to go away thinking they have feasted on good things.
We think further that the charge of being "do-nothings" is also brought against us because we do not call morality religion. Now, morality we deem to be a natural principle, and it is "spirituality" that is our "religion." The natural and the spiritual are distinct and cannot commingle. We practice morality. We seek to have the moral law. Exodus 20.12-17 developed within our children as an inward law to direct and control them in all their intercourse with their fellow men. We seek to have them love to be worthy members of society. But we do not teach them that this has anything to do with salvation. We moralize them. We do not religionize them. Religionized morality, we think, is phariseeism. It is selfish and polite. It is philanthropic and sagacious. We do not say do this and be saved, but we say "do this because it is right and lovely and of good report."
Indeed, the point, in matters pertaining to salvation is this - to be used by the life of God within. The believer is brought to see that his own works are as distinct from God's works as he is from God. He works because God works in him. His works are the servants of God's works. For example, my hand works are distinct from my mind works. My hand pens these words. My mind thinks these thoughts. Penning is in my hands work. Thinking is in my mind's work. God thinks. Man pens. God works, man works. "I labor, yet not I." I Corinthians 14.10. Paul first spoke of his own labors in serving God and said "I labored." And then he quickly turned away from his own labors and spoke of God's working. And he had with him, as every believer has, the assurance that it was God's works that were brought out, his own works merely serving God's works. His consciousness told him which were his works and which were God's, and that God's works were the master for whom all was done, "I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me." The whole consciousness, man, soul and body, mind and brain, thinking, writing, speaking, going, wearying, suffering. The man is the body, and God is the life of the body. God is the user, man is the used.
Let us still look at this little. The church is the body of Christ, Colossians 1.18, 24; I Corinthians 12.14-26. Christ is its life. Christ's life is to his body as any man's life is to the man's body. The life uses the body to work out its purposes. For example, a man wills to be at neighbors and then he uses his feet to get there. So Christ wills to to do something and he too then uses his feet and other members. The work is done by Christ within you and you are the foot or other member that he is using in doing the work. That is all. When a man does not wield to use his hand, it cannot move. Try it and see. So when Christ does not will to use his hand it cannot move. Without him, it can do nothing. Thus it is, if at all that the church is a do-nothing. But the life keeps the body in activity. Only this activity is not what the religious world call activity, and yet it is Christ's selectivity and it is not Christ's activity enough? Is it not all? Is it not alone good? Is not the end of the Blessed gospel of rest to cease from one's own labours, and to enter into the rest, which consists in leaving all the work of salvation to God? This is the gospel lesson. Move as God moves you.
That is, move as God within you moves you. This language is obviously for God's people alone, for in them alone is God, and with them alone is the spiritual assurance that God is working in them. But they also have in common with all mankind the human religious assurance which is in human nature. If they did not have this latter, they would more readily discern the former. Human religious assurance is strong and persistent and is a close imitator of spiritual assurance. The former belongs to the Law of Sin and Death in the members, and the latter belongs to the Law of the Spirit and life in Christ Jesus. The process of establishing of a believer consists largely in the growth of the spiritual law from a state in which the religious self, in general, overcomes it to a state in which in it, in general, overcomes religions self. And with the growth of the spiritual Law, spiritual assurance grows so that the believer sees more and more clearly the difference between the "dead works" of the religious self and the living works of God. And with this growth there grow also the spiritual strength and wisdom which lead to the performance of what God would have done. From that Peter, who is now saying, "to whom shall we go" (John 6.68) and is presently "following afar off," growth carries the believer on to that Peter, who before the scoffing word confesses his Lord, and who goes to prison confessing Jesus. Spiritual assurance is a growth is has its infancy, its youth, its maturity, its childlike old age. No man comes unto the world and mature man. So does no "new man." Hence all the varied manifestations of degrees, and spiritual strength and wisdom, which, if we will but look for them, we shall see among believers. The believer grows to manhood from unconscious infancy through parent-guided childhood and through passionate self, complacent self, trustful wavering, foolish youth up to manly experienced guidance. It was to mature, not the infant mind and hand of Fulton that wrought out the steamboat. It was much the matured, not the infant Peter that followed his Lord even unto prison. At last Peter "quitted him like a man" I Corinthians 16.13.
But shall the believer be ever rid of the questions? "Why am I moving?" "Who is moving me?" "Who is using my feet, my hand, my mouth, my mind and brain, my soul and body?" Ah, shall I go no further? Write no more. Speak no more. Think no more on these things. He has tried to cast it all off, but it would not let him go. Some power was in him, like a fire that he could not suppress. A fire void dim and almost forgotten, but sure to revive and ever-burning on and spreading, ready to break forth though shut up. A something wanting to be seen and prophesying that it should be seen, though not telling how or when, or where. A consuming fire that no man knew of shut up within, absorbing the attention and bringing on a sad abstraction, and the standing alone among men wondered, act and wondering, standing and then going forward. Through it might be the valley of the shadow of death through the flood. And fire and fiendish whispers wrung, reckless, convulsed, but through. Through to here. Here! Reader, do you know what the word here means?
Perhaps we may dwell somewhat on this in another chapter. It will bring us to speak of some of the different kinds of works which God works in the church.
William W Tufts
November 9 and September 13,1864
Signs of the Times
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