Near the beginning of his first epistle, St. John wrote the following:

This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that 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 one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

1 John 1:5-10 KJV

Here’s how you should understand this passage.

Walking in the light doesn’t mean you’re a super-Christian who’s got her sin and selfishness in check and whose life is bedazzled in a stunning array of good works.

You’re not walking in your own light.

Rather, God is the light (v5), and Christ is the radiance of His glory (Heb. 1:3).

Christians are able to walk in the light because we are united through faith to Christ.

Now, here’s the curious thing: the closer you are to the light, the more clearly you see—and are seen. Walking in the light exposes you.

Walking in the light exposes you.

The closer you are drawn to God, who is light, the more clearly you see your sin. The nearer you are to the One in whom there is no darkness at all, the more darkness you see in yourself.

The nearer you draw to God, the more clearly you see your own sin, weakness, and helplessness. So the more you rely on Christ, and rest in His finished work.

Those who are said to be walking in darkness in these verses are the ones who pretend that they are not sinners: If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John‬ ‭1:8, 10‬ ‭KJV‬‬)

Unwilling and ashamed of being exposed in the light of Christ’s beauty and the Father’s perfect love, they hide in the shadows.

If we were to look upon them with merely human eyes, we might suppose that these were the ones walking in the light. They do not struggle. Their walk seems so steady and sure. Their good works flow behind them like a bride’s train on her wedding day.

But Christ says such a person hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed. (John 3:20 CSB) Why? Because they are more concerned with keeping up an appearance of their own righteousness and virtue, rather than being clothed in Christ’s.

Meanwhile, those walking in the light might be judged by those who judge according to human standards, to be walking in darkness. Or at least, in dimness.

They walk with a limp from stubbing their toes so often. They don’t walk with a confidence of their own, but with the awkwardness of a toddler, holding onto her father’s hand in the night—but it is her father who holds the lantern. The child is not confident in her own steps, but in her father, whose voice assures her as they walk along. The child says: Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, And a light unto my path. (Psalm‬ ‭119:105‬ ‭KJV)‬‬

Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “Revelation,” paints a vivid picture of all this for us. In the story, Mrs. Turpin is a respectable white Southern lady who looks down on “white trash,” as well as the black sharecroppers who work her husband’s farm.

(Note: If you ever read the story, Mrs. Turpin routinely refers to her black neighbors with the n-word. Yes, that word is offensive, and O’Connor wanted you to be offended. In her Gothic tales, the grotesques are not monsters, ghosts, or vampires; but human souls marred by sin. But I’m not here to do literary criticism.)

At the end of the story, Mrs. Turpin is given a vision that exposes her:

There was only a purple streak in the sky, cutting through a field of crimson and leading, like an extension of the highway, into the descending dusk … A visionary light settled in her eyes. She saw the streak as a vast swinging bridge extending upward from the earth through a field of living fire. Upon it a vast horde of souls were rumbling toward heaven. There were whole companies of white-trash, clean for the first time in their lives, and bands of black [people] in white robes, and battalions of freaks and lunatics shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs. And bringing up the end of the procession was a tribe of people whom she recognized at once as those who, like herself and Claud, had always had a little of everything and the God-given wit to use it right. She leaned forward to observe them closer. They were marching behind the others with great dignity, accountable as they had always been for good order and common sense and respectable behavior. They alone were on key. Yet she could see by their shocked and altered faces that even their virtues were being burned away.

You see—when you step into the light in whom there is no darkness, that light must torch your flimsy virtues and scatter them like ashes to the wind. You can only confess like St. Paul: I know that in me … dwelleth no good thing (Romans 7:18 KJV)

When you walk in the light, you walk exposed: sin and all. But you also walk in fellowship with God and other exposed sinners, through Christ: but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John‬ ‭1:7, 9‬ ‭KJV)‬‬

Walking in the light is not some first-class way for super-pious saints.

When you walk in the light, you will find yourself in a ragged fellowship of sinner-saints. You’ll be there with some guy who got lost in the liquor aisle and didn’t come out for 20 years. The mama who faithfully brings her sons to church while dad’s out fishing. Little old ladies who will make you butter rolls and other deadly delicacies that will send you to heaven quicker.

None of us is impressive, but we gave up trying to be impressive years ago. None of us wants to change the world, and we barely even want to do the dishes.

We walk exposed, but together; able to know and confess the truth about ourselves, unashamed and unafraid, because we walk forgiven and washed clean by the blood of Christ.