Fellowship and cleansing

1 John 1:7 says “if we walk in the light as He is Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”

We expect the sequence: If we walk in light, the blood of Jesus cleanses us, and we have fellowship with one another. Only if our sins are cleansed and our consciences clean can we walk in light as a fellowship of light. Without clean consciences, we are constantly looking for self-justification, seeking out scapegoats who will bear the weight of our sin, pursuing some form of self-atonement.

But that is not what John writes: Between walking in the light and the cleansing blood of Jesus, John inserts the fellowship of believers. While this is not necessarily a causative sequence, or an ordo salutis, it does testify to John’s sense of the inseparability of church and forgiveness. As it says in Luther’s version of the Nicene Creed, “Here [in the church] forgiveness and salvation daily come through Jesus’ merit.”