---
title: 1 John 1:6
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/1-john-1-6/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/1-john-1-6.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: 1 John 1:6
testament: NT
section: Letters
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# 1 John 1:6

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> If we say we have fellowship with Him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "If we make the statement, 'We are having fellowship with him,' and yet we go on walking in the darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth."

## JW Usage

Witnesses use this verse to underline that fellowship with God requires walking in the light — and walking in the light, in the Watchtower frame, requires loyalty to Jehovah's organisation, obedience to its direction, and avoidance of "darkness" defined as questioning, fellowship with disfellowshipped relatives, or independent Bible study. A baptised member who privately struggles with serious sin is described as walking in darkness while claiming fellowship — and the remedy is confession to the elders.

## Protestant Usage

Read the passage in context. 1 John 1:6 names the contradiction; 1:7 names the resolution: "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." The cleansing agent is Christ's blood, not the believer's perfection. 1:8-10 makes it explicit — anyone who claims to be without sin is self-deceived; the proper response to sin is confession to God, who is faithful and just to forgive. This is the rescue architecture: walking in the light includes ongoing confession of ongoing sin, met by ongoing cleansing. At the doorstep, walk through verses 6 to 10 as one continuous thought. The man fighting sin who confesses it is walking in the light precisely because he is naming the truth. The believer who hides his sin behind a pretence of cleanness is the one in 1:6 — and the New Testament remedy in 1:9 is direct confession to the Father, not a back-room hearing.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Sin Doesn't Block the Spirit from the Household — The Seal That Stays](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/sin-blocks-holy-spirit-household.md) — Ephesians 1:13-14 — Sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise [Holy Spirit]