If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
What is frightening about this verse is that so many Christians today walk like this. Claiming an intimate relationship with God but full of compromise, with no conviction of sin. But we cannot argue with the Word of God and I don't know how they can continue on without conviction.
I like what Barnes' New Testament commentary says, that to walk in darkness means to walk in sin and error. I like this because their are many professing Christians who are not walking in what we would call blatant sin, but they are definitely walking in error, and their profession of being a Christian is false.
David Guzik writes: If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.
John Gill writes: If we say that we have fellowship with him…
The Alexandrian copy reads, "for if we say": that is, if any profess to be partakers of the divine nature, to be like unto God, and to have communion with him, to have the light of his countenance, and the discoveries of his love:
and walk in darkness;
in the darkness of sin, ignorance, and unbelief, or are in a state of unregeneracy and blindness; whose understandings are darkened, and they know not God in Christ, nor have any true sight and sense of themselves, their sin and danger; and are ignorant of Christ and his righteousness, and the way of salvation by him; and are strangers to the Spirit of God, and the work of his grace; and are unacquainted with the truths of the Gospel; and not only so, but go on in darkness more and more; prefer it to the light, love it, and the works of it; have fellowship with them, and choose them; take pleasure in the ways of sin and wickedness, and continue, and walk on in them; if such persons pretend to fellowship with God, they are liars:
we lie;
it cannot be, it is a contradiction, the thing is impossible and impracticable; what communion hath light with darkness? or what fellowship can the throne of iniquity, or those in whom sin reigns, have with God? for God is light, and were they partakers of him, or like unto him, or had communion with him, they would consequently be in the light, and not in darkness, and much less walk in it; wherefore they are liars,
and do not the truth:
they do not say the truth, nor act according to it; they do not act uprightly or sincerely, but are hypocrites, and pretend to that which they have not; and if they did the truth, they would come to the light, and not walk in darkness; see (John 3:21) .
And finally from Adam Clarke: Having fellowship, κοινωνια, communion, with God, necessarily implies a partaking of the Divine nature. Now if a man profess to have such communion, and walk in darkness-live an irreligious and sinful life, he lies, in the profession which he makes, and does not the truth-does not walk according to the directions of the Gospel, on the grace of which he holds his relation to God, and his communion with him.
The Gnostics, against whose errors it is supposed this epistle was written, were great pretenders to knowledge, to the highest degrees of the Divine illumination, and the nearest communion with the fountain of holiness, while their manners were excessively corrupt.
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