9. (a) Regarding 1 John 1:5, how did John apply this to his day? (b) With what significance did John make references to lies and liars?

⁹ Following the principle laid down at 1 John 1:5, John proceeds to apply it as a direct challenge, saying: “If we make the statement: ‘We are having a sharing with him,’ and yet we go on walking in the darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth.”

These repeated expressions: “If we make the statement,” and “he that says,” as at 1 John 1:6, 8, 10; 2:4, 6, show that John was keenly aware of the worsening conditions within the Christian congregation. The enemy had lost no time in sowing “weeds in among the wheat,” men who “speak twisted things to draw away the disciples after themselves.” (Matt. 13:25; Acts 20:30; see also James 4:1-4.) These ones claimed to be in the truth, but their actual deeds and course of action belied their claims, and proved them to be counterfeit, pseudo Christians, antichrists. John uses the words “lie” and “liar” a number of times, commencing at John 8:44, and on to Revelation 22:15. A liar is not one who, by mistake, utters a falsehood unintentionally. A liar is one who knowingly utters an untruth, designed to deceive and mislead. Lies and truth do not mix. John was intensely loyal to the truth. He knew that “no lie originates with the truth.”​—1 John 2:21.