Because of some comments on 1 Jn acknowledging a need to check with the gospel of John for assistance, I thought I'd give some examples here.
Reading 1 Jn 1:7, "if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light," and equating that with doing the best work we can during that period, is like saying "if you walk in Paris" means "if you're solving your problems while you're walking in Paris."
The religious world is full of these kinds of "take-over" attempts, from something that is provided by God, to something that is accomplished by man. Not all these attempts are brazenly sinful, but some are. That is almost THE definition of idolatry. Aaron was not innocent in saying (Ex 32:4), about the golden calf, "This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt." There are things "fashioned with a graving tool" (32:4) that are not gold.
That's just an example; another example is that walking in the light is giving off light yourself. In the sense of something done by you (like the problems solved while walking in Paris) doesn't that seem like the reverse of it to you? Especially when 1 John tags the time of the walking to include that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin!
It's not that walking is not doing something. But what is the emphasis there in 1 John 1? Did John start his letter with our walk, or with Christ existing from the beginning? If where we walk doesn't matter, but only what, why would John derive his letter from what he says "the message we have heard from Him and announce to you" is, that "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all?" Walking in the light must be derived from God being light, not God being Light, derived from types of walking. (And the "no darkness at all" is going to be very important for 1 John, too!)
The cure for this (and motivation to blog about it here) is ... John 1!
One of the ways to see how idolatry shows up in our basic assumptions, is to notice how we use the term "the universe," and compare it with what John says in John 1. We use the phrase "the universe" without thinking, for something that is out there , but also thinking of it as that it has always existed irrespective of our local and temporary concerns. Indeed "the universe" as we see it, (more and more!) presents the vast array of time to us, as much as the vast array of space, considering the speed of light! So the universe is easy to think of as a shorthand for long-term existence, at any rate, compared to our concerns.
But what does John 1 say? An easy way to remember John 1 is that it is not the universe that has always existed, but the Word. In the beginning was the Word. "Was," Greek imperfect tense, shows it being the Word, not as later John says, "all things," that always was. The Word, always was. All things, did not always exist.
As far as the universe goes, it "came into being." It had a start, as everything in it did. We can't idolize the universe as eternal.
Another, almost opposite skew, than thinking of the universe as our eternal context rather than God Himself, is to think of ourselves as in-and-out travelers, between God and "down here." The idea presented at first, that walking in the Light is not the same as what we do while in the Light -- as important as that is -- has often been taught as that there are perhaps times in which we choose to "walk in the Light" and perhaps times in which we choose not, and that we go in and out of the two. It is often an artifact of a youthful sense of control, to think that we can choose when the light is to shine on us, or not, by dictum. To laugh at this idea a little bit, while pointing out the huge importance of John 12:35,36 for its refutation ... we are the children of the grandchildren of the electric-light-nights. Walking in the light, in 1 Jn, is more more as Jn 12:35,36 describes it. Later in 1 Jn (1 Jn 2:11), John goes on to show that conceptually there is a distinction between 1) being in a place, and 2) walking in a place.
People will recognize the incipient dualism and even proto-Gnosticism ideas, here. Is it true that Christians "partly" walk in the light, in time? Especially in the context of 1 John, where John says we deceive our selves in saying we have no sin. ("have," present tense.) Is there a part of the time that is sinless? We have to watch for overlays, just as Aaron's calf was an overlay for the work of God. Recognizing the necessity of doing good, and not sinning, are we sometimes, or "part," in the light, and part walkers in darkness, depending on choices and deeds, or on the "part"?
Remember, John will tell us in 1 Jn 2, that he is writing things so that we will not sin! A good check of understandings of 1 Jn 1, is does it address how God being light, and no darkness at all being in Him, promote that we will not sin? Can God's purity, and the fact of walking in the Light, as He is in the Light, promote that we NOT sin? Yes!
