CLEAN – podcast 5 (Walking in the Light)

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas’ website.

Introduction

OT: Purity and cleansing are more about forgiveness than about transformation.Yet, for fairness and balance, holiness was the goal, and then as now involved a quest, a process...E.g, Exodus: facilitation of forgiveness and holiness: laws, priesthood, tabernacle; Leviticus: atonement and holiness; Numbers: the journey of faith continues, with penalties for sin; Deuteronomy: obedient love / loving obedience.Two-stage salvationBaptism: past sinsConfession and repentance: future sinsFar too many believers are confused about what it means to walk in the light.

Scriptural study: 1 John 1:6-2:7

Contrast: light / darknessWalking in light assumes some degree of failureWe do not move to the darkness every time we sin (though we do if we give up on Christ.)What is walking in darkness?Darkness is pretense.It's also lack of openness.Those in the dark ignore, twist, or reject God's word.How we live -- how we obey Christ -- does matter.Yet if we slip, we have an advocate.Walking in the light is the way of obedience.Walking in light is walking as Jesus walked: openness, honesty, obedience to the Father, a life centered round others (love).There's one more key dimension of walking in the light (1 John 3:1-3).Walking in light isn't only ongoing forgiveness and ongoing obedience.It's also ongoing transformation!Protestants tend to see the crucifixion of Jesus as their means of forgiveness, while Orthodox theology highlights the resurrection (the other side of Jesus' atonement) as a source of new life -- becoming like God.We too should appreciate that God's plan is for us to become like Christ (see also Rom 8:29 -- for this we will need to embrace suffering).

Prayer for purity at the level of:

Conscience / heart / motivesThoughtsWordsActions