A Certain Class of People

More from the world of 1 John

1.7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
In thinking on these words it came to me that people of the light are a certain class of people. I love the idea that people of the light are a certain class of people, a certain kind of people. They are of the class that live according to God’s creational norms and work to master the world in God’s ways. This class, from a scriptural point of view, outweighs all other differences and class distinctions. Paul in 2 Corinthians 5 says, 16So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! The world looks at all kinds of different class distinctions from race to color to ethnicity. But those who belong to God’s new class of people, those who are in the light, look at only one thing: is this person seeking to live according to God’s creational norms? A life that flows from being a new person in Christ. This is a radically different way of looking at the world.

John makes it clear that while people of the light are of this new class of people, that they are not a perfect people. (Or saying it another way, John recognizes that people of the light are of a certain class of people, not perfect people.) Like a biker might be of the class of people known as bikers and yet make mistakes while riding, so people of the light are people of a class of people, viz. those who are living by God’s creational norms (OT wisdom NT being like Christ who is wisdom), but make mistakes while seeking to live out and understand this way of life. But even here we find that this certain class of people (people of the light) have something different from all others—forgiveness that comes from the blood of Christ.

This forgiveness makes it possible as Luther said, to sin boldly. We can take risks as we seek to live out being people of the light, take some giant leaps not knowing if they will finally reflect being people of the light or they will show how much sin is still in us (think of the way that Christians have tried to evangelize certain populations by destroying their culture and making them western). But even when we try and fail, we find that as people of the light we have one who cleanses us by his blood.