An excerpt from the commentary of Enduring Word Bible:
1 John Chapter 1
4. (8-10) The presence of sin, the confession of sin, and the cleansing from sin.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us
our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.
a. If we say we have no sin: John has introduced the ideas of walking in the light and being cleansed from sin. But he did not for a moment believe that a Christian can become sinlessly perfect.
i. To
think this of ourselves is to deceive ourselves, and to
say this of ourselves is to lie – the truth is not in us.
ii. “Our deceitful heart reveals an almost Satanic shrewdness in self-deception… If you say you have no sin you have achieved a fearful success, you have put out your own eyes, and perverted your own reason!” (Spurgeon)
iii. There are few people today who think they are sinlessly perfect, yet not many really think of themselves as
sinners. Many will say “I make mistakes” or “I’m not perfect” or “I’m only human,” but usually they say such things to
excuse or
defend. This is different from knowing and admitting “I am a sinner.”
iv. To say that we have no sin puts us in a dangerous place because God’s grace and mercy is extended to
sinners, not to “those who make mistakes” or “I’m only human” or “no one is perfect” people, but
sinners. We need to realize the victory and forgiveness that comes from saying, “I am a sinner – even a great sinner – but I have a Savior who cleanses me from all sin.”
b. If we confess our sins: Though sin is present, it need not remain a hindrance to our relationship with God – we may find complete cleansing (from
all unrighteousness) as we confess our sins.
i. To confess means, “to say the same as.” When we confess our sin, we are willing to say (and believe) the same thing about our sin that God says about it. Jesus’ story about the religious man and the sinner who prayed before God illustrated this; the Pharisee bragged about how righteous he was, while the sinner just said
God be merciful to me a sinner (
Luke 18:10-14). The one who confessed his sin was the one who agreed with God about how bad he was.
ii. Confess translates a verb in the present tense. The meaning is that we should
keep on confessing our sin – instead of referring to a “once-for-all” confession of sin at our conversion.
iii. You don’t have to go to a confessional to confess your sin. When you are baptized, you are confessing your sin by saying you needed to be cleansed and reborn. When you receive communion, you confess your sin by saying you need the work of Jesus on the cross to take your sin away. But of course, we need to confess our sin in the most straightforward way: by admitting to God that what we have done is
sin, and by asking for His divine forgiveness, based on what Jesus has done on the cross for us.
iv. Our sins are not forgiven
because we confess. If this were the case – if forgiveness for a sin could only come where there was confession – then we would all be damned because it would be impossible for us to confess every sin we ever commit. We are forgiven because our punishment was put upon Jesus, we are cleansed by His blood.
v. However, confession is still vital to maintain
relationship with God, and this is the context John speaks from. As God convicts us of sin that is hindering our fellowship with Him, we must confess it and receive forgiveness and cleansing for our relationship with God to continue without hindrance.
vi. Confession must be
personal. To say, “God, if we have made any mistakes, forgive us” isn’t confession, because it isn’t
convinced (saying “
if we made”), it isn’t
personal (saying “if
we made”), it isn’t
specific (saying “if we made
any”), and it isn’t
honest (saying “mistakes”).
c. He is faithful and just to forgive us: Because of Jesus’ work, the righteousness of God is our
friend – insuring that we will be forgiven because Jesus paid the penalty of our sin. God is being faithful and just to forgive us in light of Jesus.
i. “The text means just this – Treat God truthfully, and he will treat you truthfully. Make no pretensions before God, but lay bare your soul, let him see it as it is, and then he will be faithful and just to forgive you your sins and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.” (Spurgeon)
ii. The promise of
1 John 1:9 shouldn’t lead us
into sin, saying “Hey, I’ll go ahead and sin because God will forgive me.” It should lead us
out of sin, knowing that God could only be faithful and just to forgive us our sins because the wrath we deserved was poured out on the sin. Since each sin carries with it its own measure of wrath, so there is a sense in which each sin we commit added to the agony of Jesus on the cross.
iii. There is no
more sure evidence that a person is out of fellowship with God than for someone to contemplate or commit sin with the idea, “I can just ask for forgiveness later.” Since God is light and in Him is no darkness at all, we can be assured that the person who commits sin with this idea is not in fellowship with God.
d. If we say that we have not sinned: If we deny the presence of sin, we are self-deceived and are denying God’s Word. Yet, though sin is always present, so is its remedy – so sin need never be a hindrance to our relationship with God.
i. The idea that His word is not in us is related to the idea that Jesus is
the Word of life (
1 John 1:1); if we refuse to see sin in us, we show that Jesus is not in us.
ii. “No man was ever kept out of God’s kingdom for his confessed badness; many are for their supposed goodness.” (Trapp)