Forgiven and Purified

1 John 1:8 - 2:2

 

⁸ "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves

and the truth is not in us.

⁹ If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just

and will forgive us our sins

and purify us from all unrighteousness.

¹⁰ If we claim we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar

and His word has no place in our lives."

Chapter 2

¹ "My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin.
But if anybody does sin, we have One who speaks to the Father
in our defense - Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.
²  He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours
but also for the sins of the whole world." 
 

It is hard to look at myself, and to truly see what I am without Christ. I am a sinner! I have a strong tendency to sin. This sin problem is not unique to my life - it is a common problem, for each person is born into sin. We all have a 'sin nature', and this separates us from our holy, sinless God. A few passages that point out this sinful nature that we all possess are Genesis 6:5, Jeremiah 17:9, and Romans 3:23:

 

"The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the Earth had become,

and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart

was only evil all the time."

 

"The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure,

who can understand it?"

 

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

 

In the Ten Commandments, we see a list of things we cannot do, and still claim to be righteous before God. In Exodus 20:2-17 or Deuteronomy 5:6-21 we can read the full list, but below are the Ten Commandments in short form:

 

1.   You shall have no other gods before Me.

2.   You shall not make idols.

3.   You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.

4.   Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

5.   Honor your father and your mother.

6.   You shall not murder.

7.   You shall not commit adultery.

8.   You shall not steal.

9.   You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

10. You shall not covet.

 

When Jesus came to Earth, He made it clear that the following of these commandments begins in the mind and in the heart. Even though we may not always follow a sinful thought with a sinful action, He shows us that if even our hearts are not right, we are guilty of sin, and therefore, of judgement. In reading through the 'Sermon on the Mount' (found in Matthew chapters 5 - 7), this becomes quite clear. Here are a few verses, found in Matthew 5:21 and 22, and Matthew 5:27 and 28 (Jesus speaking): 

 

"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago,

'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgement.'

But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother

will be subject to judgement."

 

"You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.'

But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully

has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

 

After reading these verses I find it quite easy to confess that I am a sinner!

At first when I read the verses in 1 John, about people who "claim to be without sin", I didn't give them very much thought, since I know that I could never make that claim! But I started realizing that this verse (v. 8) was contrasting the thought expressed in verse 9, and I became interested in thinking this through... As I thought and prayed about it, I came to realize that I have actually been guilty of this very thing. You see, the first part, when we come to accept Christ, asking His forgiveness for our sins of the past, present and future, in some ways, is the easy part. We start walking in the light, with God and other believers, and we are joyful, because the blood of Jesus has purified us from all sin (see 1 John 1:6 and 7)!

But what happens when we sin again? We all will sin again. As Christians, we don't want to sin, but we still battle against a nature that is bent towards sin. Like the pull of a magnet, that old nature is drawn towards sin, even though, in Christ, we do not want to do this. Since the devil so desperately wants to keep us in his grip, he will work in any tricky way he can to accomplish this. One way he does this is by deceiving us, trying to twist the truth...

We might tell a small 'half-truth' to cover up an area in our lives that we don't want to expose. We might think, "it's not really a sin", because there is a part of truth within what we're saying, but the thing that can become easy to forget, is that a 'half-truth' has another 'half', and could also be called a 'half-lie'! 

We might be hurt by someone's words or actions, and choose to hold a grudge, nursing our wounds day by day. If someone were to remind us that this was a sin, we might give them really good reasons for why we were justified in feeling this way, pointing out the sin in the life of the person who hurt us to show them how right we are in withholding our forgiveness and love. On the flip-side, we might hurt someone. Again, we might justify it in some way, trying to make others, or ourselves, believe that our response was acceptable, given the circumstances in which it all happened.

We might become so attracted to something that this world offers us (money, possessions, a certain lifestyle, our family, even - the list could go on...) that we forget to seek God first. When we do this with anything, even with something that can look okay outwardly, we put it in a place of higher importance than the Lord. In our culture, where idols are not made of stone or worshipped in temples, we sometimes forget that we are still prone to break commandments 1 and 2 quite easily!

There are so many different sins, big and small, that we struggle with. Many, like the ones above, are common ones that come up in most peoples lives from time to time. Our sin patterns are unique to who we are, since we are all tempted towards different sins at certain times, and in certain ways. One thing is sure though, we all sin - outwardly, and also in the thoughts and attitudes of our hearts.

 

So I'm back to the question I asked before - What am I to do with/about my sin? We have two choices set before us in this portion of 1 John...

 

The first choice, shown in verses 8 and 10, is that we can refuse to acknowledge our sin. We can refuse to deal with it, pushing it all 'under the rug', till we have a huge mess of stockpiled sin that has not been dealt with. We can continually make excuses, we can blame others, or point our fingers at everyone else until we have managed to deceive ourselves into thinking that we are actually okay, that it's not our fault that things went the way they did. We might start believing that we really aren't that bad! If we do this, sadly, we are pushing Jesus right out of our heart and life. We are saying that we do not need the gift of redemption that He offers to those who have sinned. Not only that, but we are building walls between ourselves and the other believers that we are connected with. I think that this is why there is often division and disunity between believers - because we are too prideful to admit to our sin, and will rather push people away than humbling ourselves to the point of confessing our wrongdoing to them. We don't want to let it show that we are not always in control (or under God's control). We don't want to admit that we fail, so we try to hide it. So then, since darkness hides things, and light exposes them, we shrink back towards the darkness, instead of remaining in that circle of light where the fellowship is good! This reminds me of the verses from my last entry, where in John 3:20, Jesus says,

 

"Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light

for fear that his deeds will be exposed."

 

Feeling the Lord's presence when we are choosing to live this way is difficult. I am confident of this, because I know by experience. Too often, I have been at this place myself. We cannot "claim to have fellowship with Him, yet walk in the darkness" (1 John 1:6). If we choose this way, we are allowing the devil to deceive us, we are living under the pretense of a lie, and God's Word has no place in our lives, for we have, by our choices, declared that what His Word teaches is not really the way it is, or has to be.

 

These verses can be difficult to read, because they are so 'black and white', with no room for many shades of grey, but they are God's Words, and so we have to accept them. Praise the Lord that there is, however, a more wonderful way, and that is the other option we are given:

 

Verse 9 shows us that we can see our sin for what it is, and we can accept that we are sinners who need to be saved. We can admit our sin, confessing it to God, who knows all about it already anyway. We are given the promise that He is Faithful, and just as His Word tells us over and over again, He will forgive us our sin! Since we are surrounded by people, and many times our sins are against these people, confessing our sin means that we approach the person we have offended, or sinned against, and ask them for forgiveness. This can be extremely difficult, because it goes directly against what our old, sinful nature would want to do! I think that another reason it is so difficult to do is that Satan desperately wants to keep us bound, separated from God and other believers. He sees how powerful and freeing it is when people are walking in God's light and unified with each other, and he tries everything he knows to keep us from experiencing that freedom! I am so glad that, as believers we have access to a power greater than that of the devil, and because of that we can have victory over the devil's schemes. 1 John 4:4 says:

 

"...the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world." 

 

 

1 John 1:9 is a familiar verse, and as I have wondered about it's full meaning, I have come to see the freedom that this verse can bring to a believer's life.

 

Seeing our sin for what it is, and confessing it, allows room for our "Faithful and Just" God to extend the forgiveness that He bought for us through Jesus Christ. I believe there is a calling in this verse to lay down our pride, and in humility confess our sins (and also, simply, confessing our sinful nature, with its tendency to fall into sin). We do this not just before God, but also extend that into an appropriate confession of our sin when it has affected the people around us. Our sin is now exposed, but because of Jesus' work on the cross, we are not condemned! Instead, Jesus is speaking to the Father, our Righteous God, in our defense. He is saying, "That sin, too, I have paid for", and when God looks at Him, He is satisfied, because Jesus was the perfect sacrifice that paid our sin debt.

 

The second part of verse 9 is my favorite! It says that God will "purify us from all unrighteousness"! So we see that the blood of Jesus "purifies us from all sin" (v. 7), and now the confession of our sin allows God to "purify us from all unrighteousness" (v. 9). We are cleansed/purified in one way when we first come to faith in Jesus, because we no longer have to bear the burden of our sin; Jesus has taken it upon Himself, giving us the gift of His righteousness instead. We are cleansed/purified in another way as we live in obedience to the Lord, following the instructions He has given us in His Word, the Bible. This is called the process of sanctification, which, when we give Jesus room to work in our lives, will conform us more and more to be like Him. 

 

When we do these things, or more specifically, allow Jesus to do this within us, we are living by the truth! We are walking in the light and we will testify that what is happening in our lives is being done through God (see John 3:21). Our lives will be a witness to the power of God, and also to the love and grace He has for His people. As long as we keep walking closely with the Lord, we can experience the victory that Jesus gives us! As I read the final verse in this portion of 1 John, I think of the words of this hymn:

 

"Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe,

Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it

white as snow!"