Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
1 John 1:8

Clarke's Commentary

Verse 8. If we say that we have no sin — This is tantamount to 1 John 1:10: If we say that we have not sinned. All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; and therefore every man needs a Saviour, such as Christ is. It is very likely that the heretics, against whose evil doctrines the apostle writes, denied that they had any sin, or needed any Saviour. In deed, the Gnostics even denied that Christ suffered: the AEon, or Divine Being that dwelt in the man Christ Jesus, according to them, left him when he was taken by the Jews; and he, being but a common man, his sufferings and death had neither merit nor efficacy.

We deceive ourselves — By supposing that we have no guilt, no sinfulness, and consequently have no need of the blood of Christ as an atoning sacrifice: this is the most dreadful of all deceptions, as it leaves the soul under all the guilt and pollution of sin, exposed to hell, and utterly unfit for heaven.

The truth is not in us. — We have no knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus, the whole of which is founded on this most awful truth-all have sinned, all are guilty, all are unholy; and none can redeem himself. Hence it is as necessary that Jesus Christ should become incarnated, and suffer and die to bring men to God.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

1:1-2:17 LIVING IN THE LIGHT

Fellowship with God (1:1-2:6)

In the opening few words of his letter, John states clearly certain facts about Jesus Christ that are basic to Christianity. Jesus Christ is the eternal God and he became a real man whom John and his fellow apostles have seen, heard and touched (1:1-2). John’s joy will be complete if he knows that he and his readers share together in the eternal life that comes to them through Jesus Christ. This life unites them to one another as well as to the Father and the Son (3-4).
God is light, meaning that he is holy, true, pure and glorious. As darkness cannot exist with light, so sinful things can have no partnership with God (5). This means that although the life God gives believers is eternal, the fellowship that believers have with him can be broken because of sin. In three short sections John gives different advice to various people, to remind them of what is required if they are to have cleansing from sin and fellowship with God.
First, if people think they can sin as they please and still have fellowship with God, they are mistaken. But if they are careful to live righteously, they will enjoy unbroken fellowship with God and his people. God sees that they are living as he wants them to, and he graciously forgives those sins that they commit unknowingly (6-7).
Second, if people forget that they have a sinful nature and think that everything they do is right, they deceive themselves. But if, after honestly examining themselves, they become aware of their sins, they should confess those sins. God gives his assurance that he will forgive them and cleanse them (8-9).
Third, if people claim they never sin at all, they are really saying that God is a liar, because he has declared all people to be sinful. They must allow the light of God’s truth to shine into their hearts and show them what they really are (10).
John is not saying all this so that people might think that sinning is normal behaviour for Christians, as if it does not matter if they sin. On the contrary he wants them not to sin. But it is inevitable that they will sin sometimes, and he wants them to be assured that when that happens, cleansing is available because of the atoning blood of Christ. On the basis of his death, Christ can ask the Father to forgive the sinner (2:1-2).

Those who know God will obey his Word. These are the true Christians. Their obedience results in assurance of salvation, greater love for God, and lives that become increasingly like the life of Christ (3-6).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

If we say that we have no sin … This is the second false claim John refuted, the first being that of 1 John 1:6. Here the error is that of claiming inherent sinlessness, perfection, the absence of any need of cleansing through the blood of Christ. Such a claim is capable of deceiving the claimant, but not anyone else! Despite the effrontery of such a proposition, entire religions are founded upon just such claims. "There is no sin" — this is the proposition that underlies a great deal of current thinking. See under 1 John 1:9. Scott and others have supposed that John might also have had in mind "the Gnostic subtlety that sin was a matter of the flesh and did not touch or defile the spirit."John R. W. Stott, op. cit., p. 77.

If we say … is an expression of remarkable interest, because the apostle here identified himself with the false teachers, not through any agreement with them, but out of a delicate regard for his readers. This identification of an apostle with those addressed is prevalent in the New Testament. Hebrews 2:3 is a remarkable example of the same thing; and yet that instance of it has been perverted to mean that no first generation Christian could have written that epistle!

Some have pointed out that the need for John’s teaching here resulted from the most audacious immorality advocated, indulged, and rationalized by heretics such as Valentinus. Irenaeus has a description of such views, which although later associated with the heretic whose name was given to the error, nevertheless existed early in the first century.

They hold that they shall be entirely and undoubtedly saved, not by means of conduct, but because they are spiritual by nature. It is impossible that spiritual substance (and by this they mean themselves) should ever come under the power of corruption, whatever the sort of actions they indulged. For as gold submersed in filth, loses not on that account its beauty, but retains its own native qualities, filth having no power to injure gold, so they affirm that they cannot in any measure suffer hurt, or lose their spiritual substance, whatever the material actions in which they may be involved.Iraeneus, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, On Heresies I, 6, 2 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, n.d.), p. 324.

This ancient heresy exists today in a much more sophisticated form in what is heralded as salvation "by faith alone," which has exactly the same meaning as salvation "not by means of conduct."

Man’s presumptuous blindness in denying the existence of sin, either as a principle, or as existent within himself, is self-deception at its worst. The Lord’s Prayer which enjoined the petitions for daily bread and forgiveness, both assumed and implied the need of daily prayers for forgiveness. "Woe to that soul that presumes to think that he can approach God in any other way than as a sinner asking mercy."David Smith, op. cit., p. 172.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

If we say that we have no sin - It is not improbable that the apostle here makes allusion to some error which was then beginning to prevail in the church. Some have supposed that the allusion is to the sect of the Nicolaitanes, and to the views which they maintained, particularly that nothing was forbidden to the children of God under the gospel, and that in the freedom conferred on Christians they were at liberty to do what they pleased, Revelation 2:6, Revelation 2:15. It is not certain, however, that the allusion is to them, and it is not necessary to suppose that there is reference to any particular sect that existed at that time. The object of the apostle is to show that it is implied in the very nature of the gospel that we are sinners, and that if, on any pretence, we denied that fact, we utterly deceived ourselves. In all ages there have been those who have attempted, on some pretence, to justify their conduct; who have felt that they did not need a Saviour; who have maintained that they had a right to do what they pleased; or who, on pretence of being perfectly sanctified, have held that they live without the commission of sin. To meet these, and all similar cases, the apostle affirms that it is a great elementary truth, which on no pretence is to be denied, that we are all sinners. We are at all times, and in all circumstances, to admit the painful and humiliating truth that we are transgressors of the law of God, and that we need, even in our best services, the cleansing of the blood of Jesus Christ. The fair interpretation of the declaration here will apply not only to those who maintain that they have not been guilty of sin in the past, but also to those who profess to have become perfectly sanctified, and to live without sin. In any and every way, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. Compare the notes at James 3:2.

We deceive ourselves - We have wrong views about our character. This does not mean that the self-deception is willful, but that it in fact exists. No man knows himself who supposes that in all respects he is perfectly pure.

And the truth is not in us - On this subject. A man who should maintain that he had never committed sin, could have no just views of the truth in regard to himself, and would show that he was in utter error. In like manner, according to the obvious interpretation of this passage, he who maintains that he is wholly sanctified, and lives without any sin, shows that he is deceived in regard to himself, and that the truth, in this respect, is not in him. He may hold the truth on other subjects, but he does not on this. The very nature of the Christian religion supposes that we feel ourselves to be sinners, and that we should be ever ready to acknowledge it. A man who claims that he is absolutely perfect, that he is holy as God is holy, must know little of his own heart. Who, after all his reasoning on the subject, would dare to go out under the open heaven, at midnight, and lift up his hands and his eyes toward the stars, and say that he had no sin to confess - that he was as pure as the God that made those stars?

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

8.If we say. He now commends grace from its necessity; for as no one is free from sin, he intimates that we are all lost and undone, except the Lord comes to our aid with the remedy of pardon. The reason why he so much dwells on the fact, that no one is innocent, is, that all may now fully know that they stand in need of mercy, to deliver them from punishment, and that they may thus be more roused to seek the necessary blessing.

By the word sin, is meant here not only corrupt and vicious inclination, but the fault or sinful act which really renders us guilty before God. Besides, as it is a universal declaration, it follows, that none of the saints, who exist now, have been, or shall be, are exempted from the number. Hence most fitly did Augustine refute the cavil of the Pelagians, by adducing against them this passage: and he wisely thought that the confession of guilt is not required for humility’s sake, but lest we by lying should deceive ourselves.

When he adds, and the truth is not in us, he confirms, according to his usual manner, the former sentence by repeating it in other words; though it is not a simple repetition, (as elsewhere,) but he says that they are deceived who glory in falsehood.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Shall we turn to 1 John.

Why did John write this epistle? In chapter one, verse four, he tells us, "These things write we unto that your joy may full." So that you might have the fullness of joy. Do you know that God wants your life to be filled with joy? Peter says that, "Though we haven't seen Jesus, still we love Him. And even though we haven't seen Him yet, yet we rejoice with joy unspeakable or indescribable and full of glory" ( 1 Peter 1:8 ). Jesus talked to His disciples about this fullness of joy, and He related the fullness of joy with their abiding in Him in chapter 15, "Abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you may ask what you will, and your joy may be full" ( John 15:7 , John 15:11 ).

In chapter 16 of the gospel of John, he relates the fullness of joy to our prayer life, "Henceforth you've asked nothing in My name: ask, that you may receive, that your joy may be full" ( John 16:23-24 ). Here, the fullness of joy is related to fellowship with God, a life of fellowship with God. Abiding in Christ is a life of fullness of joy.

Now, it is important that we make the distinction between joy and happiness, for joy is a quality of the spirit, whereas happiness is a quality of the emotion. So happiness is a variable, because it is related to the outward circumstances. Things are going great. I just got a new car. I'm so happy. I'm just whistling as you drive down the road. But I'm so preoccupied that I run into a tree, "Yikes." My happiness is gone. I'm miserable. I'm sad. I didn't have a chance to insure the thing yet. So, happiness is a variable; it can change very suddenly very dramatically.

You may come and say, "Oh, I'm just having a horrible time and I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm just loaded with debts and they are going to repossess all that I have. I don't know what I'm going to do." And so I sit down and write you out a check for ten thousand dollars and you say, "Oh, this is great." And it might make you so happy. Until you went and tried to cash the check, then you'd be sad again. So happiness is a variable related to the outward circumstances.

But joy is a thing of the heart, the spirit, and it isn't a variable. It doesn't change; it's a constant. Because it is a joy that is related to my relationship with God, which is a constant. That relationship doesn't change, things may go bad, they may be horrible, but my relationship with God is secure, therefore I have the fullness of joy.

John writes this epistle to bring you into that kind of a relationship with God, that you might have this fellowship with God. That your joy may be full.

The second reason why he wrote this epistle is in chapter 2, verse 1 John 1:1 . "These things write we unto you, that ye sin not." And so, the purpose of this epistle is to bring to you a life of victory over sin, to give you power over sin.

And then the third reason why he wrote the epistle is in chapter 5, verse 1Jo 1:13 . "These things have I written unto you that believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life." Written to believers for the purpose of bringing them assurance of their salvation, "That you may know that you have eternal life." So, to bring you fullness of joy, freedom from sin, and assurance of eternal life, those are the purposes for which John wrote this epistle.

Now in Isaiah 59 , Isaiah declares, not 59, 55, Isaiah declares, "As the rain comes down from heaven and the snow and returns not thither but waters the earth and makes it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so is My word that goes forth out of My mouth, saith the Lord. It shall not return unto Me void, but shall accomplish the purposes for which I have sent it" ( Isaiah 55:10-11 ). What is God saying? That when He sends His word with a purpose, the word isn't going to return void. There's power in the word of God, and it's going to accomplish the purposes for which God sent it.

Now that excites me, because I know that as we study this first epistle of John, God's word isn't going to return void. And by the time we have completed our study, you're going to be experiencing a greater joy in your walk with Jesus than you have ever known before. You're going to be receiving a new power over sin and you're going to be having assurance of your salvation because God's Word won't return void. It's going to accomplish that purposes for which God sent it. And John tells us very plainly these are the purposes for which he wrote this epistle. So, great times ahead as we study this epistle of John, as we develop our relationship with the Lord.

Now, man needs an example. You can tell me how to do something and I may get somewhat of a concept in my mind, but if I can see you do it, I can follow the example much easier than just a verbal command.

Jesus is our example and so he points to Jesus as our example. And, first of all, He is our example in our relationship with God. "For if we walk in the light as He is in the light, then we have fellowship with God and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, is cleansing us from all sin." So, He is our example in our walk, walking in the light as He is in the light. That is in chapter 1, verse 1 John 1:7 . Then in chapter 2, verse 1 John 1:6 , "He that says that he abides in Him ought himself also to walk even as He walked." So again, Christ our example in our walk, our walk with God, our relationship with God.

Then Christ is our example in our own personal spiritual life. In chapter 3, verse 1 John 1:2 , "Beloved now are we the sons of God, but it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." And so, as He is, we will be like Him, as we see Him as He is. So verse 1 John 1:3 , "Every man that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as He is pure." So my example in purity, Christ is the standard. I am pure even as He is pure. And then in verse 1 John 1:7 again, "I am righteous as He is righteous." So that inward purity, that righteousness, Christ my example, pure as He is pure, righteous as He is righteous.

Then in chapter 3, verse 1Jo 1:23 , "This is His commandment, that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another as He gave us commandment." So He is our example in our relationship with each other, as we are to love one another as He gave us the commandment.

And then the clincher of all is verse 1Jo 1:17 of chapter 4, "Herein is our love made perfect that we may have boldness in the day of judgment, because as He is, so are we in this world." He is our example, "as He is so are we." He is to be the example that I follow. So Christ the example in my relationship with God, my own inner personal life, and then my relationship with others.

Now the Bible warns us about self-deception, "Be not deceived, God is not mocked." James said, "If any man seems to be religious and bridles not his own tongue, this man's religion is vain." John tells us that it is possible for us to deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. The way we deceive ourselves many times are in the claims that we make. But the claims that I make are not valid unless they are backed up by corresponding experience. So false professions, and as we look at 1 John, he tells us of many of these false professions that people make. In verse 1 John 1:6 of chapter 1, "If we say that we have fellowship with Him," and what a glorious profession to make, "Oh, I have fellowship with God. I have communion, or I'm one with God." It's a great thing to say, but if you say you have fellowship with God and you are walking in darkness, then you are deceiving yourself; you're lying and you are not telling the truth.

You cannot have fellowship with God and walk in darkness. Now, don't be deceived about this. Many people are deceived on this score; they think that they have fellowship with God but they are walking in darkness, and that is an impossibility.

Verse 1 John 1:8 , "If we say that we have no sin, then we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Now the word sin here in singular is a reference to the root nature of sin, and unfortunately there are a lot of people trying to deny the root nature of sin. You know, "Well, I don't have a sinful nature." Well, the Bible says you do. The Bible says, "Even by one man sin entered the world and death by sin, so that death passed unto all men, for all sinned." Not, "All have sinned," as it is translated in the King James, but just "All sinned." By one man's sin, we were all made sinners. So that as Paul said in Ephesians chapter 2, "And you were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." David said, "I was born in sin."

So the denial of this sinful nature is only to be self-deceived. And that is what John is referring to here, "If we say we have no sin (no sinful nature), we are deceiving ourselves." You see, the Bible teaches that basically I sin because I'm a sinner, and sinning doesn't make me a sinner, it only proves that I am a sinner. I have a sinful nature, therefore I sin. They liken it then to a horse thief. Stealing a horse does not make you a horse thief; it only proves that you are a horse thief. If you weren't a horse thief, you could never have stolen that horse. There's no way a man can steal a horse unless he is a horse thief. It's in your heart to do. You see, if it weren't in your heart to do, you couldn't do it. And so with sin, the sinful nature. So if I say or deny that, I'm just deceiving myself, and the truth isn't in me.

Then, if we say that we have not sinned, I'm saying that this root of sin has born any fruit, then I make God a liar, because God has said, "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." "There is none righteous, no not one. There is none that seeks after God." So God has declared that we are all sinners, and if I try to deny the fact my sinful root has never born any fruit, then I am denying the truth of God and making God a liar.

Now, "He that says," verse 1 John 1:4 of chapter 2, "I know Him," and that's a great thing to say, isn't it, "Oh, yes, I know Him." But, "He that says, 'I know Him' and keeps not His commandments is a liar." We will cover that a little more thoroughly as we go through tonight.

Verse 1 John 1:6 , "He who says he abides in Him," another glorious thing to say, "Oh yes, I abide in Him." A wonderful thing to say, but it's not just saying. If I truly abide in Him, then I will be walking as He walked; we become one.

And then finally, in chapter 4, verse 1Jo 1:20 , "If a man says, I love God, (and a lot of people make that claim, "I love God") and hates his brother, he is a liar." So it's not what I say that counts; what I say can be deceptive. I can even deceive myself. And to say that I love God is a glorious thing, but if I hate my brother, then that's a lie.

It's interesting how that there seems to be, so often, this inconsistency in people's lives. We say one thing and do another, or we do one thing and say another. We have one of these little girls, and I have dozens of them that I just adore, and they're always coming up to me and saying, "Hi Chuck," or whatever, and I just love these little girls and little fellows too. It's so neat and it's so cute, really the things and concepts in their little minds. And there's this one little girl, this morning, probably somewhere between two and three years old, and she told her mother, "I want to go the church and see the God Father." And she was talking about me, and she thought I was God's father, and she said, "Well, who is God's Father?" you know.

Another little girl that always has to say hi to me whenever comes to church and come up and give me a hug and a kiss. The other day the family was going off on Sunday and so they said, "Well, no, we can't go to church today because we are going to take a trip today, and we are not going to be able to go to church." And she put her hands on her hips and said, "Damn, I wanted to go to church." Inconsistencies, they show up early. It's not always what I say, it's what I am; it's what I'm doing.

Now I can know, in fact, God wants me to know, He wants me to be assured. Part of this epistle is to bring me assurance. "I have written these things unto you that believe that you may know that you have eternal life." How can we know, how do we know what we know? As we go through this epistle, we find there are many ways by which we can know certain truths.

Verse 1 John 1:3 , chapter 2, "And hereby we do know that we know Him." Now, if I say I know God and don't keep His commandments, I am a liar. But here's how I can know that I really know Him, if I keep His commandments.

Verse 1 John 1:5 , chapter 2, "But whoso keepeth His word in Him, verily is the love of God perfected and hereby we know that we are in Him." How can I know that I am in Him, because His love is being perfected in my life.

Now over in chapter 3 verse 1Jo 1:16 , "Hereby perceive we the love of God." How can I know that God loves me? Because He laid down His life for us. You know that the Bible only seeks to prove God's love at the cross. Whenever the Bible wants to declare or to prove to you that God loves, it always points to the cross, the fact that Jesus laid down . . . "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and gave His Son to be the propitiation for our sins" ( 1 John 4:10 ). It always points to the cross, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son" ( John 3:16 ). Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us and sent His Son to die. So, hereby we perceive the love of God. Now, verse 1Jo 1:19 , "And hereby we know that we are of the truth." How is that? Verse 1Jo 1:18 , "Little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and truth." When I am loving by my deeds, loving deeds, that's loving in truth, and by that I know that I am of the truth. Verse 1Jo 1:24 , "Hereby we know that we have abide, or that He abides in us by His Spirit that He has given us." How do I know that He is abiding in me? The Holy Spirit's indwelling my life. How can I know the truth? Verse 1 John 1:2 of chapter 4, "Hereby know we the Spirit of God." So many churches, so many religions, how can I know? "Every Spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God and every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God. This is the spirit of anti-Christ." Verse 1 John 1:6 of chapter 4, "We are of God and he that knoweth God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. And hereby know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error." Whether or not the person will listen to the truth. Verse 1Jo 1:13 of chapter 4, going back to verse 1Jo 1:12 , "No man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwells in us, and His love is perfected in us. And hereby know we that we dwell in Him." How? Because His love is perfected in me. Then finally in chapter 5, verse 1 John 1:2 , "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments." So, how do we know what we know? Interesting epistle, lets go back to chapter 1 and begin our study.

It's interesting to compare the first verse of this chapter with the first verse of the Bible and the first of John's gospel. The first verse of the Bible, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." You know, you have to have a starting point, might as well start at the beginning. In the beginning God. He was before the beginning; God has always existed, in the beginning God. How long ago was that? Well, our minds can't conceive or fathom that; you can go crazy trying to figure how long ago that was. But God was there, in the beginning God. Now in the gospel, "In the beginning was the Word (the Logos) and the Word was with God and the Word was God. And the same was in the beginning with God." Now as He begins his epistle he said,

That which [one who] was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon [That in the Greek is gazed, transfixed and steadfastly at, I mean, really studied, analyzed], and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) ( 1 John 1:1-2 )

So, in the beginning God, in the beginning was the Word, that which was from the beginning was manifested, we saw, we stared, we heard, we touched.

John came, as did the other disciples, to the awareness of who Jesus actually was. They realized that when they heard Jesus talking they were listening to God talk. When they were watching Jesus, they were actually seeing God. And when they touched Him, they were actually touching God. Imagine what that must have done to them to realize that when I put my hand on His shoulder I was actually touching God. When He put His hand on my shoulder or patted me on the back, God was touching me. We handled, we touched, we heard, we saw the one that was from the beginning.

You remember Micah's prophecy of the birthplace of Jesus, "And thou Bethlehem, though thou be little among the provinces of Judah, yet out of thee shall come He who is to rule my people Israel, whose going forth have been from old from everlasting." The eternal life always existed. In the beginning the Word with God, was God. "But the Word was made flesh and He dwelt among us and we beheld His glory as of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth" ( John 1:14 ). Jesus, the eternal Word, Jesus the eternal God, became flesh and dwelt among men and John said, "We saw Him, we stared at Him, we heard Him and we touched Him. And that which we saw, and that which we heard we now bear witness to you." The eternal life that was with the Father and was manifested unto us. That eternal life, it's a, not just duration; it's a quality of life, as well as duration.

You remember one day a rich young ruler came to Jesus and fell at His feet and said, "Good master, what must I do to inherit this eternal life, or this age abiding life, this quality of life that I see that You have?" Men were attracted to that life of Jesus, that eternal life; it was manifested. John said, "We saw, we heard, and now we bear witness of it to you."

That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ ( 1 John 1:3 ).

This morning we talked to concerning this Greek word koinonia which is an abstract noun. And of the difficulty of translating it into the English language, in as much as we do not have any English or single English word that is an equivalent of this Greek word koinonia. And so, you find this word translated as partaker, communion, common, one, fellowship. They had all things in common (koinonia), that is they shared everything that they had.

The root noun from which this abstract noun comes is translated partaker or partner, or partnership. So the word can be translated friend, friendship, partnership, communion, common, one, partaker, and it's all of these things. Becoming one with God, coming into communion with God, having all things in common with God, having a partnership with God, having a friendship with God, and having fellowship with God.

Partnership means a mutual sharing of resources, mutual interest in each other. That's what God wants with you, and the purpose of the Gospel is to bring man into fellowship with God. The purpose of God creating man in the beginning was fellowship. I love that poem called God's Trombone, that one phrase where God said, "I'm lonely," so He created man that He might have fellowship with man, become one with His creation.

Now, within the church we should have a fellowship of koinonia with each other. In the early church they had this sharing of resources, anyone had a need they could come to the church; there was a sharing of the resources of the people. All things in community . . . and it didn't work out because they had some lazy bums that didn't want to work and just live off the others. Ideally, you know, if we had an ideal situation it would work beautifully. If everyone of us were industrious and all and had an ideal situation it could work, if it happen to be a real work of God's Spirit of love within our hearts and all. But everyone just really sharing and concerned and giving, it could be beautiful. But as long as we are in these bodies of flesh, we're going to have those that would spoil something that was beautiful. So, it didn't work in the early church; the church went bankrupt, actually. The Gentiles had to take up offerings for those in Jerusalem after the mishap, really, of this experiment in communism in the early church. Not communism as you know it today, a forced thing, a godless thing, but a communism that grew out of a common desire to benefit everyone within the fellowship, motivated by love and totally voluntary, with Christ at the center.

You are not going to find a perfect government, a perfect form of government as long as man is ruling. It's not going to happen until Jesus comes again and establishes God's kingdom, and then it will be right, and then it will be perfect. Then we will do away with commercialism. According to Isaiah 55 , money will be done away with; we will share together the fruit of the earth in God's glorious kingdom.

So,

And these things [John said,] write we unto you, that your joy may be full ( 1 John 1:4 ).

Relating this fullness of joy to the fellowship with God. And, of course, when you come into a partnership with God, a friendship, a communion, or fellowship with Him, what a joy it brings into our lives, fullness of joy.

This then is the message [John is saying,] which we have heard of [from] him, [that which we have heard] and declare unto you ( 1 John 1:5 ),

Now, this is basically the message that he told,

That God is light, [not God is a light, but God is light, this is the essence of His nature] and in Him is no darkness at all. [Therefore] if we say that we [are one with God] have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth [we're not telling the truth] ( 1 John 1:5-6 ):

You cannot have fellowship with God if you are walking in sin, walking in darkness.

Paul said, "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are [these]: adultery, fornication, lasciviousness, (and he goes on) drunkenness, riotings, seditions, heresies, and drug abuse and all," and he says, "and we know that they which do such things such things shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven" ( Galatians 5:19 ). You say you have fellowship with God, but if you are walking in darkness, you're only deceiving yourself, you're lying and you are not telling the truth. But in contrast,

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, [then] we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin ( 1 John 1:7 ).

And in the Greek it's present perfect tense, which should be translated, "Is continually cleansing us of all sin," and that to me is a glorious place to be walking. In the light as He is in the light, believing, trusting in Jesus, and as I do, the blood of Jesus Christ is continually cleansing me of all sin.

Now,

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth isn't in us ( 1 John 1:8 ).

But in contrast,

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness ( 1 John 1:9 ).

So, the way of cleansing doesn't come by denial, the way of forgiveness isn't by way of denial or by trying to hide it. There is a proverb that says, "Whoso seeks to cover his sin shall not prosper, but whoso confesses his sin shall be forgiven." So if you try to hide it, cover it, and deny it, you're only deceiving yourself. But if you will confess your sin unto Him, that's all, just confess it, He's faithful and He is just and He will forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Now, I love that word all in this particular place. It means that it doesn't matter what the past may be, how black or dark or miserable or mean, it cleanses me from all unrighteousness. The blood of Jesus Christ God's Son cleanses me from all sin.

Doctor Finney was holding a meeting in one of the major cities in the eastern part of the United States, and if you've read of church history and of Finney's revivals, they were really spectacular as far the changes that were brought to a community. In one city in the East, one of the major cities where he had one of his revival meetings, when he left, they closed every bar in town for lack of patrons. So powerfully was the city stirred with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And in one of these meetings, as he was walking up the church steps, a man stopped him, and he said, "I want to talk to you after church tonight, may I?" And Doctor Finney said, "Yes, I'll be glad to meet you after church and talk with you." So as he came to the top of the steps the deacons in the church said to him, "What did that man want?" And Doctor Finney said, "Well, he wanted to talk to me after church." And they said, "Do you know who that man is?" He said, "No." And they said, "Well, that man is one of the worst men in the city, he's horrible, and you just dare not go with him. He has hired killers and all and he probably has it in for you and you know, don't do it." So after service the deacons met him and said, "You're not going to go with that man are you?" And he said, "Well, yes, I am." They said, "Well, you can't." And he said, "Well, I gave the man my word, I must." And so the man met him and led him down the street up an alley into a back door of a building. As Finney went in, he turned around and locked the door and he said, "Sit down." Finney sat down and the man pulled a gun out of the desk and laid the gun on the desk and he said, "I heard you say something last night and I want to know if it's true or not." Finney said, "What did you hear me say?" He said, "You said the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son can cleanse a man from all sin." He said, "No, I didn't say that, God said that in His Word." He said, "Wait a minute, you don't know me; you don't know what I've done." He said, "You are behind a bar and we have an illegal gambling room," and he said, "The gambling devices are fixed, and I have taken the last dollar from many people, and they have gone out and committed suicide. You mean God could forgive me for that?" And Finney said, "All I can tell is that the Bible says, 'The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son can cleanse a man from all sin." He said, "Wait a minute, that's not the whole story," he said, "I own the bar out in front." And he said, "Men will come in and they'll drink, and their wives will come in rags with their little children and they have begged me not to sell their husband booze. And," he said, "I throw the wives out in the streets and I sell their husbands booze until they run out of money, and then I kick them out on the street. You mean God can forgive a man like that." Then Finney said, "The Bible says that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, can cleanse a man from all sin." The man said, "That's not the whole story," he said, "this gun, it has killed several people who have gotten in my way, and I have hired men to kill others; I've paid them to kill. And you mean God would forgive me?" He said, "All I can tell you is that the Bible says, all sin." He said, "Wait a minute. Across the street in that big brown stone house," he said, "I have a wife and a beautiful little child." He said, "I haven't said a decent word to my wife in over sixteen years. I've been miserable. I've been mean." He said, "The other day when my little child came running up, I pushed her away into the stove and she was burned seriously. I have never told that little girl that I love her. You mean God could forgive me."

And at this point Finney stood up and he grabbed him and he began to shake him and said, "Young man, you've told me about as horrible a story as I've ever heard or could ever dream." And he said, "If it were up to me, I don't know if I could forgive, but all I can tell you is that the Bible says that the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son will cleanse a man from all sin." He said, "That's all I wanted to know, thank you." So he went over and unlocked the door and said, "You can find your way from here."

The next morning, as the sun was coming up, he was walking from the bar over to his home, and when he came into the house, his wife was in the kitchen with his little daughter and he went on upstairs. And so the mother said, "Go tell your daddy that breakfast is ready." So she ran up, and half way up the stairs, she called and said, "Daddy, Mommy said breakfast is ready." And he answered, "Sweetheart, tell your Mommy that Daddy doesn't want any breakfast this morning." The little girl came running back down into the kitchen and said, "Mommy, Mommy, Daddy said that he didn't want any breakfast and he called me sweetheart." And the mother said, "Honey, you must of misunderstood, you know. Go up and tell him again that breakfast is ready." And again she ran halfway up the stairs and she said, "Daddy, Momma said that breakfast is ready." And he said, "Come here, honey," and she went over to him and he picked her up and sit her on his lap, and he began to tell her how much he loved her. With that, the mother, of course, wondering what was going on, followed the little girl upstairs, and standing in the door saw him holding his little daughter on his lap for the first time. With tears coming down her cheeks, he said, "Come over here, honey." And he said, "I found out something last night that is the greatest thing that I have ever heard." And he said, "It's true, the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, can cleanse a man from all sin." He closed the bar and he began to be a benefactor to that community, changed by the power of Jesus Christ.

Now matter what the past is, no matter how black or bleak, the gospel of Jesus Christ holds out hope for all. All you have to do is confess your sin and He is faithful and just to forgive you and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Oh, what a glorious thing is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Oh, the transformation it has brought to life and can bring to man who is hopelessly lost in the power of darkness and sin. As Jesus said to Paul, "I have called you to go to the Gentiles, to turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to the kingdom of God." So ours is the most joyous, blessed privilege of sharing with men the power of God to deliver from the power of darkness and sin.

If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us ( 1 John 1:10 ).

"

Contending for the Faith

Consciousness of Sin

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

If we say that we have no sin: John enters into another hypothetical, yet very applicable, case. He begins by saying that "If we" (meaning "anybody"), say "we have no sin," we deceive ourselves. Since there is no article before "sin," the denial here refers to the possession of sinfulness in the life. It is a claim to inherent perfection with no need for cleansing. In verse 10, John will deal with the denial of specific sins in daily life. As we have already noted, the Cerinthian Gnostics were making the claim of sinlessness. They had no sin because law and sin did not affect them nor apply to the spirit of man. Some today claim to live "above sin" or in sinless perfection. What should our attitude be toward people who make such claims? Please observe John’s reaction to such a notion in the next statement.

we deceive ourselves: This is John’s response to the false avowal of sinlessness. Vincent says this statement literally means, we lead ourselves astray (319). Self-deception is the worst kind of deception because it is so difficult to overcome. When one is deceived by others, the truth will often quickly overcome that deception; but when one is self-deceived, he is so involved in his own deception that truth is hard to accept. When one deceives himself by saying, "I have no sin in my life," he associates himself with those who "professing themselves to be wise, they became fools" (Romans 1:22). There is no greater fool than the self-deceived fool.

and the truth is not in us: The Gnostics thought they had absolute truth in themselves; their knowledge was above even that of the apostles. John says that those who deny the presence of sin in their lives have no basis for claiming such elevated knowledge but, rather, do not even have the truth of God’s word in themselves. Instead of having truth in themselves, they may, as Lenski says, be "full of fictions, fables, myths, self-made fancies, notions that are not so" (392). The know-it-alls know little.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

This second claim (cf. 1 John 1:6) is more serious, and its results are worse: we do not just lie, but we deceive ourselves.

If a Christian claims to be enjoying fellowship with God, he may think he is temporarily or permanently entirely sinless. Yet our sinfulness exceeds our consciousness of guilt. We have only a very limited appreciation of the extent to which we sin. We commit sins of thought as well as deed, sins of omission as well as commission, and sins that spring from our nature as well as from our actions.

Some have interpreted the phrase "no sin" to mean no sin nature or no sin principle. [Note: E.g., Smalley, p. 29.] However this seems out of harmony with John’s other uses of "to have sin" (cf. John 15:22; John 15:24; John 19:11). Rather, it probably means to have no guilt for sin. [Note: Robert Law, The Tests of Life: A Study of the First Epistle of St. John, p. 130; Robertson, 6:208.]

God’s truth, as Scripture reveals it, does not have a full hold on us, is not controlling our thinking, if we make this claim. "In us" suggests not that we have the facts in our mental grasp but that they have control over us. They are in us as a thread is in a piece of cloth rather than as a coin is in a pocket. The same contrast exists between intellectual assent and saving faith.

Barclay's Daily Study Bible

Chapter 1

THE PASTOR'S AIM ( 1 John 1:1-4 )

1:1-4 What we are telling you about is that which was from the beginning, that which we heard, that which we saw with our eyes, that which we gazed upon, and which our hands touched. It is about the word of life that we are telling you. (And the life appeared to us, and we saw it, and testify to it; and we are now bringing you the message of this eternal life, which was with the Father and which appeared to us). It is about what we saw and heard that we are bringing the message to you, that you too may have fellowship with us, for our fellowship is with the Father and with Jesus Christ, the Son. And we are writing these things to you that your joy may be completed.

Every man, when he sits down to write a letter or rises to preach a sermon, has some object in view. He wishes to produce some effect in the minds and hearts and lives of those to whom his message is addressed. And here at the very beginning of his letter John sets down his objects in writing to his people.

(i) It is his wish to produce fellowship with men and fellowship with God ( 1 John 1:3). The pastor's aim must always be to bring men closer to one another and closer to God. Any message which is productive of division is a false message. The Christian message can be summed up as having two great aims--love for men and love for God.

(ii) It is his wish to bring his people joy ( 1 John 1:4), Joy is the essence of Christianity. A message whose only effect is to depress and to discourage those who hear it has stopped halfway. It is quite true that often the aim of the preacher and the teacher must be to awaken a godly sorrow which will lead to a true repentance. But after the sense of sin has been produced, men must be led to the Saviour in whom sins are all forgiven. The ultimate note of the Christian message is joy.

(iii) To that end his aim is to set Jesus Christ before them. A great teacher always used to tell his students that their one aim as preachers must be "to speak a good word for Jesus Christ"; and it was said of another great saint that wherever his conversation began it cut straight across country to Jesus Christ.

The simple fact is that if men are ever to find fellowship with one another and fellowship with God, and if they are ever to find true joy, they must find them in Jesus Christ.

THE PASTOR'S RIGHT TO SPEAK ( 1 John 1:1-4 continued)

Here at the very beginning of his letter John sets down his right to speak; and it consists in one thing--in personal experience of Christ ( 1 John 1:2-3).

(i) He says that he has heard Christ. Long ago Zedekiah had said to Jeremiah: "Is there any word from the Lord?" ( Jeremiah 37:17). What men are interested in is not someone's opinions and guesses but a word from the Lord. It was said of one great preacher that first he listened to God and then he spoke to men; and it was said of John Brown of Haddington that, when he preached, he paused ever and again, as if listening for a voice. The true teacher is the man who has a message from Jesus Christ because he has heard his voice.

(ii) He says that he has seen Christ. It is told of Alexander Whyte, the great Scottish preacher, that someone once said to him, "You preached today as if you had come straight from the presence." And Whyte answered, "Perhaps I did." We cannot see Christ in the flesh as John did; but we can still see him with the eye of faith.

"And, warm, sweet, tender, even yet

A present help is he;

And faith has still its Olivet,

And love its Galilee."

(iii) He says that he has gazed on Christ. What, then, is the difference between seeing Christ and gazing upon him? In the Greek the verb for to see is horan ( G3708) and it means simply to see with physical sight. The verb for to gaze is theasthai ( G2300) and it means to gaze at someone or something until something has been grasped of the significance of that person or thing. So Jesus, speaking to the crowds of John the Baptist, asked: "What did you go out into the wilderness to see (theasthai, G2300) ?" ( Luke 7:24); and in that word he describes how the crowds flocked out to gaze at John and wonder who and what this man might be. Speaking of Jesus in the prologue to his gospel, John says, "We beheld his glory" ( John 1:14). The verb is again theasthai ( G2300) and the idea is not that of a passing glance but of a steadfast searching gaze which seeks to discover something of the mystery of Christ.

(iv) He says that his hands actually touched Christ. Luke tells of how Jesus came back to his disciples, when he had risen from the dead, and said, "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me and see, for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have" ( Luke 24:39). Here John is thinking of those people called the Docetists who were so spiritually-minded that they insisted that Jesus never at any time had a flesh and blood body but was only a phantom in human form. They refused to believe that God could ever soil himself by taking human flesh and blood upon himself. John here insists that the Jesus he had known was, in truth, a man amongst men; he felt there was nothing in all the world more dangerous--as we shall see than to doubt that Jesus was fully man.

THE PASTOR'S MESSAGE ( 1 John 1:1-4 continued)

John's message is of Jesus Christ; and of Jesus he has three great things to say. First, he says that Jesus was from the beginning. That is to say, in him eternity entered time; in him the eternal God personally entered the world of men. Second, that entry into the world of men was a real entry, it was real manhood that God took upon himself. Third, through that action there came to men the word of life, the word which can change death into life and mere existence into real living. Again and again in the New Testament the gospel is called a word; and it is of the greatest interest to see the various connections in which this term is used.

(i) Oftener than anything else the gospel message is called the word of God ( Acts 4:31; Acts 6:2; Acts 6:7; Acts 11:1; Acts 13:5; Acts 13:7; Acts 13:44; Acts 16:32; Php_1:14 ; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; Hebrews 13:7; Revelation 1:2; Revelation 1:9; Revelation 6:9; Revelation 20:4). It is not a human discovery; it comes from God. It is news of God which man could not have discovered for himself.

(ii) Frequently the gospel message is called the word of the Lord ( Acts 8:25; Acts 12:24; Acts 13:49; Acts 15:35; 1 Thessalonians 1:8; 2 Thessalonians 3:1). It is not always certain whether the Lord is God or Jesus, but more often than not it is Jesus who is meant. The gospel is, therefore, the message which God could have sent to men in no other way than through his son.

(iii) Twice the gospel message is called the word of hearing (logos ( G3056) akoes G189) ( 1 Thessalonians 2:13; Hebrews 4:2). That is to say, it depends on two things, on a voice ready to speak it and an ear ready to hear it.

(iv) The gospel message is the word of the Kingdom ( Matthew 13:19). It is the announcement of the kingship of God and the summons to render to God the obedience which will make a man a citizen of that kingdom.

(v) The gospel message is the word of the gospel ( Acts 15:7; Colossians 1:5). Gospel means good news; and the gospel is essentially good news to man about God.

(vi) The gospel is the word of grace ( Acts 14:3; Acts 20:32). It is the good news of God's generous and undeserved love for man; it is the news that man is not saddled with the impossible task of earning God's love but is freely offered it.

(vii) The gospel is the word of salvation ( Acts 13:26). It is the offer of forgiveness for past sin and of power to overcome sin in the future.

(viii) The gospel is the word of reconciliation ( 2 Corinthians 5:19). It is the message that the lost relationship between man and God is restored in Jesus Christ who has broken down the barrier between man and God which sin had erected.

(ix) The gospel is the word of the Cross ( 1 Corinthians 1:18). At the heart of the gospel is the Cross on which is shown to man the final proof of the forgiving, sacrificing, seeking love of God.

(x) The gospel is the word of truth ( 2 Corinthians 6:7; Ephesians 1:13; Colossians 1:5; 2 Timothy 2:15). With the coming of the gospel it is no longer necessary to guess and grope for Jesus Christ has brought to us the truth about God.

(xi) The gospel is the word of righteousness ( Hebrews 5:13). It is by the power of the gospel that a man is enabled to break from the power of evil and to rise to the righteousness which is pleasing in the sight of God.

(xii) The gospel is the health-giving word ( 2 Timothy 1:13; 2 Timothy 2:8). It is the antidote which cures the poison of sin and the medicine which defeats the disease of evil.

(xiii) The gospel is the word of life ( Php_2:16 ). It is through its power that a man is delivered from death and enabled to enter into life at its best.

GOD IS LIGHT ( 1 John 1:5 )

1:5 And this is the message which we have heard from him, and which we pass on to you, that God is light, and there is no darkness in him.

A man's own character will necessarily be determined by the character of the god whom he worships; and, therefore, John begins by laying down the nature of the God and Father of Jesus Christ whom Christians worship. God, he says, is light, and there is no darkness in him. What does this statement tell us about God?

(i) It tells us that he is splendour and glory. There is nothing so glorious as a blaze of light piercing the darkness. To say that God is light tells us of his sheer splendour.

(ii) It tells us that God is self-revealing. Above all things light is seen; and it illumines the darkness round about it. To say that God is light is to say that there is nothing secretive or furtive about him. He wishes to be seen and to be known by men.

(iii) It tells us of God's purity and holiness. There is none of the darkness which cloaks hidden evil in God. That he is light speaks to us of his white purity and stainless holiness.

(iv) It tells us of the guidance of God. It is one of the great functions of light to show the way. The road that is lit is the road that is plain. To say that God is light is to say that he offers his guidance for the footsteps of men.

(v) It tells us of the revealing quality in the presence of God. Light is the great revealer. Flaws and stains which are hidden in the shade are obvious in the light. Light reveals the imperfections in any piece of workmanship or material. So the imperfections of life are seen in the presence of God. Whittier wrote:

"Our thoughts lie open to thy sight;

And naked to thy glance;

Our secret sins are in the light

Of thy pure countenance."

We can never know either the depth to which life has fallen or the height to which it may rise until we see it in the revealing light of God.

THE HOSTILE DARK ( 1 John 1:5 continued)

In God, says John, there is no darkness at all. Throughout the New Testament darkness stands for the very opposite of the Christian life.

(i) Darkness stands for the Christless life. It represents the life that a man lived before he met Christ or the life that he lives if he strays away from him. John writes to his people that, now that Christ has come, the darkness is past and the true light shines ( 1 John 2:8). Paul writes to his Christian friends that once they were darkness but now they are light in the Lord ( Ephesians 5:8). God has delivered us from the power of darkness and brought us into the Kingdom of his dear Son ( Colossians 1:13). Christians are not in darkness, for they are children of the day ( 1 Thessalonians 5:4-5). Those who follow Christ shall not walk in darkness, as others must, but they will have the light of life ( John 8:12). God has called the Christians out of darkness into his marvellous light ( 1 Peter 2:9).

(ii) The dark is hostile to the light. In the prologue to his gospel John writes that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it ( John 1:5). It is a picture of the darkness seeking to obliterate the light--but unable to overpower it. The dark and the light are natural enemies.

(iii) The darkness stands for the ignorance of life apart from Christ. Jesus summons his friends to walk in the light lest the darkness come upon them, for the man who walks in the darkness does not know where he is going ( John 12:35). Jesus is the light, and he has come that those who believe in him should not walk in darkness ( John 12:46). The dark stands for the essential lostness of life without Christ.

(iv) The darkness stands for the chaos of life without God. God, says Paul, thinking of the first act of creation, commanded his light to shine out of the darkness ( 2 Corinthians 4:6). Without God's light the world is a chaos, in which life has neither order nor sense.

(v) The darkness stands for the immorality of the Christless life. It is Paul's appeal to men that they should cast off the works of darkness ( Romans 13:12). Men, because their deeds were evil, loved the darkness rather than the light ( John 3:19). The darkness stands for the way that the Christless life is filled with things which seek the shadows because they cannot stand the light.

(vi) The darkness is characteristically unfruitful. Paul speaks of the unfruitful works of darkness ( Ephesians 5:11). If growing things are despoiled of the light, their growth is arrested. The darkness is the Christless atmosphere in which no fruit of the Spirit will ever grow.

(vii) The darkness is connected with lovelessness and hate. If a man hates his brother, it is a sign that he walks in darkness ( 1 John 2:9-11). Love is sunshine and hatred is the dark.

(viii) The dark is the abode of the enemies of Christ and the final goal of those who will not accept him. The struggle of the Christian and of Christ is against the hostile rulers of the darkness of this world ( Ephesians 6:12). Consistent and rebellious sinners are those for whom the mist of darkness is reserved ( 2 Peter 2:9; Jd 13 ). The darkness is the life which is separated from God.

THE NECESSITY OF WALKING IN THE LIGHT ( 1 John 1:6-7 )

1:6-7 If we say that we have fellowship with him and at the same time walk in darkness, we lie and are not doing the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with each other and the blood of Jesus Christ is steadily cleansing us from all sin.

Here John is writing to counteract one heretical way of thought. There were those who claimed to be specially intellectually and spiritually advanced, but whose lives showed no sign of it. They claimed to have advanced so far along the road of knowledge and of spirituality that for them sin had ceased to matter and the laws had ceased to exist. Napoleon once said that laws were made for ordinary people, but were never meant for the like of him. So these heretics claimed to be so far on that, even if they did sin, it was of no importance whatsoever. In later days Clement of Alexandria tells us that there were heretics who said that it made no difference how a man lived. Irenaeus tells us that they declared that a truly spiritual man was quite incapable of ever incurring any pollution, no matter what kind of deeds he did.

In answer John insists on certain things.

(i) He insists that to have fellowship with the God who is light a man must walk in the light and that, if he is still walking in the moral and ethical darkness of the Christless life, he can not have that fellowship. This is precisely what the Old Testament had said centuries before. God said, "You shall be holy; for I the Lord your God am Holy" ( Leviticus 19:2; compare Leviticus 20:7; Leviticus 20:26). He who would find fellowship with God is committed to a life of goodness which reflects God's goodness. C. H. Dodd writes: "The Church is a society of people who, believing in a God of pure goodness, accept the obligation to be good like him." This does not mean that a man must be perfect before he can have fellowship with God; if that were the case, all of us would be shut out. But it does mean that he will spend his whole life in the awareness of his obligations, in the effort to fulfil them and in penitence when he fails. It will mean that he will never think that sin does not matter; it will mean that the nearer he comes to God, the more terrible sin will be to him.

(ii) He insists that these mistaken thinkers have the wrong idea of truth. He says that, if people who claim to be specially advanced still walk in darkness, they are not doing the truth. Exactly the same phrase is used in the Fourth Gospel, when it speaks of him, who does the truth ( John 3:21). This means that for the Christian truth is never only intellectual; it is always moral. It is not something which exercises only the mind; it is something which exercises the whole personality. Truth is not only the discovery of abstract things; it is concrete living. It is not only thinking; it is also acting. The words which the New Testament uses along with truth are significant. It speaks of obeying the truth ( Romans 2:8; Galatians 3:7); following the truth ( Galatians 2:14; 3 John 1:4); of opposing the truth ( 2 Timothy 3:8); of wandering from the truth ( James 5:19). There is such a thing as might be called "discussion circle Christianity." It is possible to look on Christianity as a series of intellectual problems to be solved and on the Bible as a book about which illuminating information is to be amassed. But Christianity is something to be followed and the Bible a book to be obeyed. It is possible for intellectual eminence and moral failure to go hand in hand. For the Christian the truth is something first to be discovered and then to be obeyed.

THE TESTS OF TRUTH ( 1 John 1:6-7 continued)

As John sees it, there are two great tests of truth.

(i) Truth is the creator of fellowship. If men are really walking in the light, they have fellowship one with another. No belief can be fully Christian if it separates a man from his fellow-men. No Church can be exclusive and still be the Church of Christ. That which destroys fellowship cannot be true.

(ii) He who really knows the truth is daily more and more cleansed from sin by the blood of Jesus. The Revised Standard Version is correct enough here but it can very easily be misunderstood. It runs: "The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin." That can be read as a statement of a general principle. But it is a statement of what ought to be happening in the individual life. The meaning is that all the time, day by day, constantly and consistently, the blood of Jesus Christ ought to be carrying out a cleansing process in the life of the individual Christian.

The Greek for to cleanse is katharizein ( G2511) which was originally a ritual word, describing the ceremonies and washings and so on which qualified a man to approach his gods. But the word, as religion developed, came to have a moral sense; and it describes the goodness which enables a man to enter into the presence of God. So what John is saying is, "If you really know what the sacrifice of Christ has done and are really experiencing its power, day by day you will be adding holiness to your life and becoming more fit to enter the presence of God."

Here indeed is a great conception. It looks on the sacrifice of Christ as something which not only atones for past sin but equips a man in holiness day by day.

True religion is that by which every day a man comes closer to his fellow-men and closer to God. It produces fellowship with God and fellowship with men--and we can never have the one without the other.

THE THREEFOLD LIE ( 1 John 1:6-7 continued)

Four times in his letter John bluntly accuses the false teachers of being liars; and the first of these occasions is in this present passage.

(i) Those who claim to have fellowship with the God who is altogether light and who yet walk in the dark are lying ( 1 John 1:6). A little later he repeats this charge in a slightly different way. The man who says that he knows God and yet does not keep God's commandments is a liar ( 1 John 2:4). John is laying down the blunt truth that the man who says one thing with his lips and another thing with his life is a liar. He is not thinking of the man who tries his hardest and yet often fails. "A man," said H. G. Wells, "may be a very bad musician, and may yet be passionately in love with music"; and a man may be very conscious of his failures and yet be passionately in love with Christ and the way of Christ. John is thinking of the man who makes the highest possible claims to knowledge, to intellectual eminence and to spirituality, and who yet allows himself things which he well knows are forbidden. The man who professes to love Christ and deliberately disobeys him, is guilty of a lie.

(ii) The man who denies that Jesus is the Christ is a liar ( 1 John 2:22). Here is something which runs through the whole New Testament. The ultimate test of any man is his reaction to Jesus. The ultimate question which Jesus asks every man is: "Who do you say that I am?" ( Matthew 16:13). A man confronted with Christ cannot but see the greatness that is there; and, if he denies it, he is a liar.

(iii) The man who says that he loves God and at the same time hates his brother is a liar ( 1 John 4:20). Love of God and hatred of man cannot exist in the same person. If there is bitterness in a man's heart towards any other, that is proof that he does not really love God. All our protestations of love to God are useless if there is hatred in our hearts towards any man.

THE SINNER'S SELF-DECEPTION ( 1 John 1:8-10 )

1:8-10 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, we can rely on him in his righteousness to forgive us our sins and to make us clean from all unrighteousness.

In this passage John describes and condemns two further mistaken ways of thought.

(i) There is the man who says that he has no sin. That may mean either of two things.

It may describe the man who says that he has no responsibility for his sin. It is easy enough to find defences behind which to seek to hide. We may blame our sins on our heredity, on our environment, on our temperament, on our physical condition. We may claim that someone misled us and that we were led astray. It is characteristic of us all that we seek to shuffle out of the responsibility for sin. Or it may describe the man who claims that he can sin and take no harm.

It is John's insistence that, when a man has sinned, excuses and self-justifications are irrelevant. The only thing which will meet the situation is humble and penitent confession to God and, if need be, to men.

Then John says a surprising thing. He says that we can depend on God in his righteousness to forgive us if we confess our sins. On the face of it, we might well have thought that God in his righteousness would have been much more likely to condemn than to forgive. But the point is that God, because he is righteous, never breaks his word; and Scripture is full of the promise of mercy to the man who comes to him with penitent heart. God has promised that he will never despise the contrite heart and he will not break his word. If we humbly and sorrowfully confess our sins, he will forgive. The very fact of making excuses and seeking for self-justification debars us from forgiveness, because it debars us from penitence; the very fact of humble confession opens the door to forgiveness, for the man with the penitent heart can claim the promises of God.

(ii) There is the man who says that he has not in fact sinned. That attitude is not nearly so uncommon as we might think. Any number of people do not really believe that they have sinned and rather resent being called sinners. Their mistake is that they think of sin as the kind of thing which gets into the newspapers. They forget that sin is hamartia ( G266) which literally means a missing of the target. To fail to be as good a father, mother, wife, husband, son, daughter, workman, person as we might be is to sin; and that includes us all.

In any event the man who says that he has not sinned is in effect doing nothing less than calling God a liar, for God has said that all have sinned.

So John condemns the man who claims that he is so far advanced in knowledge and in the spiritual life that sin for him has ceased to matter; he condemns the man who evades the responsibility for his sin or who holds that sin has no effect upon him; he condemns the man who has never even realized that he is a sinner. The essence of the Christian life is first to realize our sin; and then to go to God for that forgiveness which can wipe out the past and for that cleansing which can make the future new.

-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)

Gann's Commentary on the Bible

1 John 1:8

No sin -- The daily sins that one falls into, PC.

"No sin" of v. 8 refers to one’s state; "not sinned" of v. 10 refers to the act.

See James 5:19 note on APOSTASY

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

If we say that we have no sin,.... Notwithstanding believers are cleansed from their sins by the blood of Christ, yet they are not without sin; no man is without sin: this is not only true of all men, as they come into the world, being conceived in sin, and shapen in iniquity, and of all that are in a state of unregeneracy, and of God's elect, while in such a state, but even of all regenerated and sanctified persons in this life; as appears by the ingenuous confessions of sin made by the saints in all ages; by their complaints concerning it, and groans under it; by the continual war in them between flesh and spirit; and by their prayers for the discoveries of pardoning grace, and for the fresh application of Christ's blood for cleansing; by their remissness in the discharge of duty, and by their frequent slips and falls, and often backslidings: and though their sins are all pardoned, and they are justified from all things by the righteousness of Christ, yet they are not without sin; though they are freed from the guilt of sin, and are under no obligation to punishment on account of it, yet not from the being of it; their sins were indeed transferred from them to Christ, and he has bore them, and took them and put them away, and they are redeemed from them, and are acquitted, discharged, and pardoned, so that sin is not imputed to them, and God sees no iniquity in them in the article of justification; and also, their iniquities are caused to pass from them, as to the guilt of them, and are taken out of their sight, and they have no more conscience of them, having their hearts sprinkled and purged by the blood of Jesus, and are clear of all condemnation, the curse of the law, the wrath of God, or the second death, by reason of them; yet pardon of sin, and justification from it, though they take away the guilt of sin, and free from obligation to punishment, yet they do not take out the being of sin, or cause it to cease to act, or do not make sins cease to be sins, or change the nature of actions, of sinful ones, to make them harmless, innocent, or indifferent; the sins of believers are equally sins with other persons, are of the same kind and nature, and equally transgressions of the law, and many of them are attended with more aggravating circumstances, and are taken notice of by God, and resented by him, and for which he chastises his people in love: now though a believer may say that he has not this or that particular sin, or is not guilty of this or that sin, for he has the seeds of all sin in him, yet he cannot say he has no sin; and though he may truly say he shall have no sin, for in the other state the being and principle of sin will be removed, and the saints will be perfectly holy in themselves, yet he cannot, in this present life, say that he is without it: if any of us who profess to be cleansed from sin by the blood of Christ should affirm this,

we deceive ourselves; such persons must be ignorant of themselves, and put a cheat upon themselves, thinking themselves to be something when they are nothing; flattering themselves what pure and holy creatures they are, when there is a fountain of sin and wickedness in them; these are self-deceptions, sad delusions, and gross impositions upon themselves:

and the truth is not in us; it is a plain case the truth of grace is not in such persons, for if there was a real work of God upon their souls, they would know and discern the plague of their own hearts, the impurity of their nature, and the imperfection of their obedience; nor is the word of truth in them, for if that had an entrance into them, and worked effectually in them, they would in the light of it discover much sin and iniquity in them; and indeed there is no principle of truth, no veracity in them; there is no sincerity nor ingenuity in them; they do not speak honestly and uprightly, but contrary to the dictates of their own conscience.

Mitchell's Commentary on Selected New Testament Books

THE TEST OF OUR PROFESSION

If we claim to be in fellowship with God, cer­tainly we must be willing to be tested. If we come to believe certain truths and consider our­selves to be a certain type of person, then we will prove it by the way we live and walk. So we read:

1 John 1:6. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth;

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

1 John 1:8. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

Many people say that they can understand how we can have fellowship with a God who is love but cannot understand how we can have fellow­ship with a God who is absolute in holiness, with One who is absolutely righteous in His character and in His acts, with One who is light and in whom is no darkness at all.

Listen, friend, the most amazing truth of all time is that our Saviour left the glory and came to earth for the purpose of preparing a people with whom He could have fellowship. The barrier between God and man has been removed and God is accessible.

“Since therefore, brethren, we have confidence to en­ter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith” (Hebrews 10:19-22).

This is a wonderful fact. But we need to ask ourselves some questions from these first passages in 1 John. Do I draw near? Do I walk in fellowship with Him?

The following verses present to us the test of our profession. Notice:

“If we say” in verse six 1 John 1:6

“If we walk” in verse seven 1 John 1:7

“If we say” in verse eight 1 John 1:8

“If we confess” in verse nine 1 John 1:9

“If we say” in verse ten 1 John 1:10

“The one who says” in chapter two, verses 4, 6, 9. 1 John 2:4; 1 John 2:6; 1 John 2:9

Christianity is more than doctrine; it is more than just talking about truth. A Christian is one in whom truth lives. There can be no real life at all until we are in right relationship with the Saviour. And the truth does not live in us unless we are in fellowship with Him. If we are in fellowship with Him and if we make a profession of such fellow­ship, then we will be tested.

1 John 1:6. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.

John puts it into very simple language. If we claim to belong to the kingdom of light and claim to have fellowship with God but are walking in darkness, then we certainly are not telling the truth. It is impossible to walk in darkness when we are in right relationship with the One who is light. This would be an absolute inconsistency.

Also, we will notice, as we read the Epistle, that John talks about light and darkness; and there is no gray zone between. We are either in light or in the kingdom of darkness. We are either children of God or we are the children of the devil.

Do you remember that amazing passage written by Paul in Colossians?

“Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. For He de­livered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Colossians 1:12-13).

This translation into a new kingdom occurred the moment you and I accepted the Saviour. Every real Christian is in the kingdom of light, has been removed from the kingdom of darkness, and has been translated into the kingdom of His dear Son. We are no longer in the dark.

God no longer sees us in the kingdom of darkness. If we have received Jesus Christ as our Saviour, God declares us to be in His kingdom. But if we say that we are in fellowship with God who is light and are living in darkness, we are not telling the truth. We cannot for one moment live in the kingdom of darkness after He has translated us into the kingdom of light

I think Paul had this same thought in mind in his writing:

“But may it never be that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14).

Whether one is a Jew or Gentile does not make any difference, for in Christ Jesus “neither is cir­cumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation” (Galatians 6:15).

We are a new creation! Paul restates this in the letter to Corinth where he is speaking of the risen, glorified Christ and of any man who is in this Christ, this risen Christ.

Though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore if any

man is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come (2 Corin­thians 5:16, 17).

This is the position into which God has placed His people. This does not mean that we will not fail God. We will discuss that in a moment. Even in our failure, we are still in the kingdom of light. This is where we live.

John clearly states that a person is either in the light or in the dark. If we say that we are living in the kingdom of light, in God’s kingdom, in fellow­ship with God, and we walk in darkness and live like those who are in the dark, then we are liars.

He states the same truth in the second chap­ter. He is speaking about the unsaved person when he writes that

The one who says he is in the light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now. . . . But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes (1 John 2:9; 1 John 2:11).

Is it not wonderful to know that when you trusted the Saviour, God took you out of the king­dom of darkness and put you into the kingdom of God’s dear Son? We are no longer seen in sin but in Christ. We are no longer in darkness, but in light. We are no longer under judgment, but are righteous in Christ.

However, we must face the fact that Chris­tians do fail God. Christians do sin. In fact, verse eight tells us that

1 John 1:8. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

Let us never fool ourselves. People who boast about not sinning are actually proud of what they are or think they are. And what is pride but the root sin? We do fail God, every one of us.

This passage is not talking about how we walk but where we walk. If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, and if we fail God, then the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. He keeps on keeping us clean.

Remember, this is talking about those who are walking in the light, not those who are in the kingdom of darkness. This is talking about God’s people. Where do we walk? We walk in the light. Do we always walk in fellowship with the One who is light? I am sorry to say, “No!” But when we do fail, we are restored because the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin.

There is a difference between relationship to Christ and fellowship with Him. Here John is not talking about relationship with God. That has been settled forever. There is only one place where a Christian can walk and that is in the light, in the kingdom of God.

Here he is talking about fellowship with God who is light. The Christian who fails God breaks fellowship with God. This does not take him out of the kingdom of God. It does not change his posi­tion before God. He is still a member of God’s fam­ily.

God, who is absolute in holiness, has prepared a people who are able to come into His presence.

It is a marvelous, wonderful, glorious thing that God has taken men and women who had rebelled against Him, who had been ungodly, who had been sinners, and has forgiven them, justified them, translated them out of the kingdom of dark­ness into the kingdom of His dear Son forever.

In this kingdom of His Son, we who have been redeemed do still fail God because our bodies are not yet glorified. However, our lives are no longer characterized by sin.

1:8. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves.

Indeed, we do not deceive anybody else, certainly not those who live around us.

Some people say, “I do not sin. I only make mistakes.”

Well, my friend, let us label sin as sin. Let us not try to rationalize it away. That which is out of the will of God, which does not conform to the very character of God, is sin. 1 John 3:4 tells us that sin is lawlessness.

Let us remember that the cleansing is for those who are walking in the light. Did you ever stop to think that those who are told to confess their sin are those who are in the kingdom of light, who are in touch with the Saviour? The man who is not in Christ Jesus, who is in the world, who walks in the kingdom of darkness, is the man who does not care whether or not he is in sin.

When one points out to such a person that he is a sinner, his answer is likely to be, “I’m just as good as you are!”

Of course, that may be true. But is that what he is going to tell God?

Can he stand in the presence of God with such a poor excuse? The man out of Christ does not think about his sin with great concern. The really concerned man is the one who has come to the Saviour. The more one knows the Saviour, the more one realizes his own weakness and failure. Permit me to give some examples of this from the Scriptures.

Job is the oldest book in the Bible and is possi­bly the oldest book ever written. Job lived around 1500 to 2000 B.C. In the first two chapters of that book God is talking with Satan concerning Job.

He said to Satan, “Have you seen my servant Job? He is a good man. He loves the good and hates the evil. You cannot find a flaw in Job.”

Then God began to deal with Job. Job was good, but he was also self-righteous. When he walked down the streets, the young men would bow before him. When he sat in the gates of the city, everyone had respect for him. They listened to his counsel.

Yet God permitted Job to go through a terrible time of testing. He was smitten with a loathsome disease. His philosophical friends came and sat down with him and spent seven days just sitting and weeping because of the awful condition of Job. Through many of the chapters of Job, these

friends tried to reason with him about his condi­tion. Then Elihu, the servant of God, came; and he could not get anywhere with Job. Finally God came on the scene and met Job.

Do you know what Job said when he had seen the Lord?

“I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees Thee; therefore I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6).

You do not find an unsaved man saying that! This is a good man. What made him say it? He had had a glimpse of Christ. The trouble today is that people have never seen Christ in all His beauty and righteousness. Most people have dethroned Christ. They make Him a teacher or a good man or a moralist with wonderful, ethical instructions. They will not give Him His rightful place as the Son of God, God manifest in the flesh. The result is that they have no conviction of sin.

Consider Isaiah who was possibly one of the most astounding men of his day. This man prophesied during the reign of four kings. He went into the presence of the kings of Israel and felt per­fectly at ease. He was one of the greatest prophets in the Old Testament, the prophet of redemption. Yet, listen to him in chapter six:

“In the year of King Uzziah’s death, I saw the Lord sit­ting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him . . . and one called out to another and said, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:1-3).

What a wonderful picture. And then this man cried out,

Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of un­clean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts (Isaiah 6:5).

What opened Isaiah’s eyes to his condition? See­ing the Lord. What people know more about sin and the awfulness of sin than those who walk in the light? The very light of God shines into the darkness of men’s hearts and consciences.

There is nothing in the whole book of Daniel that is derogatory about Daniel, the prophet. In fact, he is called a comely person. Yet, after he saw the Lord, he said,

My natural color (comeliness, KJV) turned to a deathly pallor (corruption, KJV) (Daniel 10:8).

Consider Peter in Luke, chapter five. The Lord was preaching to the crowd from the boat and He said to Peter, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”

Peter answered, “Master, we have worked hard all night and caught nothing, but at Your bidding I will let down the nets.” In obedience to Christ they caught a harvest of fish. Then what did Peter do? He fell down at the knee of Jesus and said, “De­part from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” (Luke 5:1-8).

What moved Peter to say that? He had seen the revelation of the Son of God.

What I am trying to get to your heart is this: When we have seen the Lord, when we really know Him, then we recognize our own sinfulness and our own inability to do the things we should do. We realize the need to walk continually in fellow­ship with Him.

When we do walk in the light and are in fellow­ship with the One who is light, then we will have fellowship one with another. And the blood of Je­sus Christ will cleanse us from all sin. Why should we need cleansing if we are sinless and without weakness and failure?

Again I come back to it. When we accepted the Saviour, we were transformed into the children of God and took our place in the kingdom of light.

This is where we are. This is where we live. This is where we walk. But there are times when we fail God. This breaks our fellowship with God

who is light—not the relationship but the fellow­ship.

When this happens, we can know that He has made provision for us. We rejoice in the fact that the blood of Jesus Christ keeps on keeping us clean. When our fellowship with Him is broken, He will restore and cleanse us.

May you live in wonderful fellowship with Him today!

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.   9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.   10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

      Here, I. The apostle, having supposed that even those of this heavenly communion have yet their sin, proceeds here to justify that supposition, and this he does by showing the dreadful consequences of denying it, and that in two particulars:-- 1. If we say, We have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us,1 John 1:8; 1 John 1:8. We must beware of deceiving ourselves in denying or excusing our sins. The more we see them the more we shall esteem and value the remedy. If we deny them, the truth is not in us, either the truth that is contrary to such denial (we lie in denying our sin), or the truth of religion, is not in us. The Christian religion is the religion of sinners, of such as have sinned, and in whom sin in some measure still dwells. The Christian life is a life of continued repentance, humiliation for and mortification of sin, of continual faith in, thankfulness for, and love to the Redeemer, and hopeful joyful expectation of a day of glorious redemption, in which the believer shall be fully and finally acquitted, and sin abolished for ever. 2. If we say, We have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us,1 John 1:10; 1 John 1:10. The denial of our sin not only deceives ourselves, but reflects dishonour upon God. It challenges his veracity. He has abundantly testified of, and testified against, the sin of the world. And the Lord said in his heart (determined thus with himself), I will not again curse the ground (as he had then lately done) for man's sake; for (or, with the learned bishop Patrick, though) the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth,Genesis 8:21. But God has given his testimony to the continued sin and sinfulness of the world, by providing a sufficient effectual sacrifice for sin, that will be needed in all ages, and to the continued sinfulness of believers themselves by requiring them continually to confess their sins, and apply themselves by faith to the blood of that sacrifice. And therefore, if we say either that we have not sinned or do not yet sin, the word of God is not in us, neither in our minds, as to the acquaintance we should have with it, nor in our hearts, as to the practical influence it should have upon us.

      II. The apostle then instructs the believer in the way to the continued pardon of his sin. Here we have, 1. His duty in order thereto: If we confess our sins,1 John 1:9; 1 John 1:9. Penitent confession and acknowledgment of sin are the believer's business, and the means of his deliverance from his guilt. And, 2. His encouragement thereto, and assurance of the happy issue. This is the veracity, righteousness, and clemency of God, to whom he makes such confession: He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,1 John 1:9; 1 John 1:9. God is faithful to his covenant and word, wherein he has promised forgiveness to penitent believing confessors. He is just to himself and his glory who has provided such a sacrifice, by which his righteousness is declared in the justification of sinners. He is just to his Son who has not only sent him for such service, but promised to him that those who come through him shall be forgiven on his account. By his knowledge (by the believing apprehension of him) shall my righteous servant justify many,Isaiah 53:11. He is clement and gracious also, and so will forgive, to the contrite confessor, all his sins, cleanse him from the guilt of all unrighteousness, and in due time deliver him from the power and practice of it.

Spurgeon's Verse Expositions of the Bible

Honest Dealing with God

A Sermon

(No. 1241)

Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, June 20th, 1875, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

"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." 1 John 1:8-10 .

GOD IS LIGHT, and in him is no darkness at all:" and consequently he cannot have fellowship with darkness. God is light, that is purity: and as the thrice Holy One he can hold no communion with iniquity. God is light, that is knowledge, for all things are known unto the Lord, and with ignorance he has no affinity. God is light, that is truth, for he can neither err, nor break his word, and therefore he cannot smile on anything that is false. We are constantly erring, first on this side and then on that, for there is darkness in us; God is light essentially, and it is not possible for his nature to be affected by either impurity or error. Out of this attribute of his nature arises the fact that the Lord always deals with things as they are. Man invents fictions, but God creates facts. We conceive of things as they appear, but God sees them as they exist. "Man looketh at the outward appearance, but God looketh at the heart." The dress of things impresses us, but all things are naked and open before him. The Lord never misrepresents, nor has fellowship with misrepresentation. We are for ever hurrying about with our paint and varnish and tinsel, laboring to make the meaner thing appear equal to the more precious, and spending our skill in making the sham seem as brilliant as the reality, but all this is contrary to the way of the Lord. Everything is true in God, and everything is seen in its reality by his all-discerning eye. Because he is light, he deals with things in the light, treating them as they are. If God is to deal graciously with us, we must each one stand in the light, and present ourselves before him as we are. If there be upon our lip a false word, or in our heart a false thought, or in our mind a knowingly false judgment, so far we are out of the sphere in which God can have fellowship with us. "If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth." Our tendency to be false is illustrated in the chapter before us, for we find three grades of it there. There is first the man who lies: "If we say we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth." We say and do that which is untrue if while abiding under the influence of sin and falsehood we claim to have fellowship with God. If this tendency is let alone and unchecked, you will find the man growing worse and doing according to the eighth verse, wherein it is written, "We deceive ourselves." Here the utterer of the falsehood has come to believe his own lie. he has blinded his understanding and befouled his conscience till he has become his own dupe. Falsehood has saturated his nature, so that he puts darkness for light and light for darkness. This is at once his sin and his punishment; he closed his eyes so long that at length he has become stone blind. He will soon reach the complete development of his sin, which is described in the tenth verse, when the man, who first lied, and then secondly, deceived himself, becomes so audacious in his falseness as to blaspheme the Most Holy by making him a liar. It is impossible to say where sin will end; the beginning of it is as a little water in which a bird may wash, and scatter half the pool in drops, but in its progress sin, like the brook, swells into a torrent deep and broad. We must, therefore, judge ourselves very severely, lest our natural tendency to falseness should lead us to false assertion as to ourselves, and then should urge us on till we delude ourselves into the foolish belief that we are what we proudly represent ourselves to be, and then should dare in the desperation of our pride to think God himself untrue. I intend at this time, as God may help us, first, to consider the three courses which lie open before us in the text; then, in the second place, to consider how to follow in the right course; and thirdly, it shall be my endeavor to lead you to consider why you should do so. I will suppose that we are all earnestly anxious to be in fellowship with God. We cannot bear to be his enemies any longer; distance from him has become distasteful to us; we long, like the prodigal son, to arise and go to our Father, that we may hereafter dwell in our Father's house. Our deceitful heart suggests to us, first, that we should deny our present sinfulness, and so claim fellowship with God, on the ground that we are holy, and so may draw near to the Holy God. It is suggested to our hearts that we should say that "we have no sin," and are neither guilty by act nor defiled in nature. This is a bold assertion, and he who males it has no truth in him, but at different times and by very different persons it has been made and stoutly maintained. There are many ways in which this proud saying has been justified. Some have arrived at it by denying altogether the doctrine of original sin, "as the Pelagians do vainly talk." They will not allow that there is a fault and natural corruption in the nature of every man, whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil. Now we, I trust, will ever be clear from this doctrinal error, for we know, as David did, that we were shapen in iniquity, and are

"Sprung from the man whose desperate fall Corrupts the blood, and taints us all."

I do not suppose that many of you are likely to say you have no sin on the ground of a disbelief of natural depravity, for many of you know this truth, not merely as a matter of creed, but as a terrible fact, which has come home to you, and caused you keenest sorrow. If, however, any of you should venture to plead that you have no sin, on the ground that your nature is not evil, I do beseech you rid your heart of that lie, for a lie it is through and through. I mind not how honest your parentage, nor how noble your ancestry, there is in you a bias towards evil; your animal passions, nay more, your mental faculties are unhinged and out of order, and unless some power beyond your own shall keep your desires in check, you will soon prove by overt acts of transgression the depravity of your nature. Some, however, have reached this position by another route. They plead that though it may be they have sin, yet they are not bad at heart; they look upon sin as a technical term, and though they admit in words that they have sin, yet they practically deny it by saying, "I have a good heart at bottom; I always was well-intentioned from the very first. True, what I have done does not appear to be right according to the very severe judgment of the law of God; but I cannot help that; I only followed my nature, and cannot be blamed, for I never meant to do anything wrong, either to God or man. I have always been kind to the poor, and have done the right thing all round. I know I have of course we all have erred here and there, but you cannot expect a fellow to be perfect. I can't say I see anything to find fault with." Thus you in effect say you have no sin. Though you compliment God by saying with the church service, "We are miserable sinners," you do not mean it at all; you mean that if you have sinned it has been your misfortune, and you are to be pitied rather than blamed. In so saving or feeling you prove that the truth is not in you, you are either deplorably ignorant as to what holiness is, or else you are wilfully uttering a falsehood; in either case the truth is not in you. Whatever shape our denial of our sinful nature and state may take, please remember that that denial is a mere say, and nothing more, "If we say we have no sin." You know how little value we attach to evidence of the nature of "I say," and "they say." There may be no truth whatever in such evidence, and in the present case there is nothing whatever to warrant the proud saying "We have no sin." There will come a day when the righteous will have no sin, as a matter of fact; but now, whether saint or sinner, if you say "I have no sin," you say it, and that is all. The words sound very prettily, but there is no fact to correspond with them. This self-deceit has taken you a good deal of persuading and ingenious trickery. To deceive another requires a measure of cunning, but to deceive yourself needs far more. Our deceitful heart reveals an almost Satanic shrewdness in self-deception, it readily enough makes the worse appear the better reason, and it states a lie so that it wears the fashion of truth. 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! You have fed upon falsehood till it has entered into your very being, and rendered you incapable of truth. I know you claim to be very sincere in your belief of your own rightness, and it would be very hard to persuade you out of your fond notions; tent this is all the worse, for so much the more completely have you deceived yourself. Now that you call darkness light, and boast that your blindness is true sight, we mourn over you as all but hopeless; and we fear lest the Lord should leave you to perish, because you cling so fast to a lie. Let it be remembered, however, that while the man who has deceiver! himself says, "I have no sin," he has not deceived the Lord. God sees sin in us if we do not. The ostrich is reported to bury her head in the sand, and then to suppose herself safe, but she is the more speedily taken; and we may shut our eyes and say, "have no sin," but in so doing instead of securing eternal salvation we shall as practically give ourselves up to the destroyer as the bird of the desert is fabled to do. Let a man say, "I have no sin," and he has condemned himself out of his own mouth, for the text says of such a man the truth is not in him, and he who hath not truth in him is not saved. The absence of confession of present sin means the absence of the light of truth, and sincerity. All sorts of people God saves, however black their sins, but the man of a false spirit, the Pharisaic washer of the outside of the cup, while the inside is foul, is the last person who is likely to be saved. A main point in conversion consists in a man's being honest, for it is the honest and good ground which receives the seed. If you preach the gospel among the roughest and most profane of men, there is more hope of success among them than among hypocritical professors. Open enmity and opposition are better than that pretended friendship which begins and ends with the shallow compliments of empty formalism. Outward religiousness, unattended by heart piety, does a man serious injury, by rendering him superficial and unreal in all that he does in reference to God, and as God desires truth in the inward parts he will not parley with dishonest men. Pretend and profess and boast what ye will, but this know, that the living God abhors everything which is not according to the strictest truth. The second course which is open to us is the one which I trust the divine Spirit may lead us to follow, to lay bare our case before God exactly as it stands. "If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all iniquity." Please to observe that John does not say, "If we confess our sin." He had been speaking of that in the eighth verse, but here he uses the plural, to include both sin in its essence and in its actual development in our life. We are to confess both the inward sin and the outward fruit of it. We must say, "Lord, I own with shame that as my nature is corrupt such has my life been; I am a sinner both by nature and by practice." Make the confession of the two things, of the cause and the effect, of the original depravity the foul source, and then of the actual sin which is the polluted stream. And if you say, "How am I to confess it?" I would say this To confess sin does not mean merely on some one occasion to repeat a catalogue of sins before God in private, nor at certain set seasons to rehearse a list of our faults, but it means a life-long acknowledgment of our sin. We must take our places as then who have sinned, and never attempt to occupy the position of innocent beings. We are to look towards God as a man ought to look who has transgressed. Do you understand me? The Pharisee took up the posture and spirit of a man who had no sin in him and said, "God, I thank thee." He was not confessing sin, but claiming righteousness, and he was not accepted because he was out of the light, that is to say, he was not speaking and feeling according to truth. But the republican, though he said little, and made no confession of sin in detail, yet by his posture, by his smiting on his breast, by his not daring to look up, by the sigh which he heaved, was virtually confessing sin. When a man prayerfully begs that he may feel the power of the blood of Jesus, he is confessing sin, for is not the blood of Jesus needful because of our sin? The daily exercise of faith in Jesus Christ is a confession of sin, for nobody would need to believe in a Savior unless he had sin. Baptism is a confession of sin, who needs to be buried with Christ if he be alive by a righteousness of his own? To come to the communion table, and remember there the atoning sacrifice, is a confession of sin; for we should need no remembrance of our blessed Substitute if we were not sinners. Confession of sin is best carried out when we deal with God as those who have offended him, not as those who feel that they are innocent. We are to act before the Lord as those who know that sin is in them. And how ought such to behave? They will walk with God very humbly, and watchfully, jealous lest inbred corruption should get the mastery of them. Such persons will daily cry to the strong for strength, and what is prayer for strength but a confession of weakness caused by sin? What is watchfulness but a confession that our nature still needs holding in check. So ought we to watch as those who feel that the battle is not fought, and therefore we cannot lay down our Armour and our sword. We should so live as those who know that the race is not run, and therefore they press forward. We ought to be prayerfully dependent upon God, as those who know that if they were left by divine grace they would go back unto perdition. Now, this piteous outcry because all is wrong within is virtually a confession of sin, and a truthful one too, for all is wrong. If you feel you are desperately bad, remember you are worse than you think you are. Your case is in itself desperate, hopeless, damnable! If you feel that you are lost, you do not feel too strongly, you are in the true light where God will meet with you. The Lord will not consent to parley with you on the ground that you are not much of a sinner, and that after all your sin is not a great evil. No, he will meet you where the truth is and nowhere else; when you confess that you are unworthy of his pity, you are owning the truth, and when you feel guilty, you feel what is really fact; on this footing of truth, sad truth though it be, the Lord will meet with you through the atoning blood. It is in your vileness that sovereign grace o'er sin abounding will come to you and cleanse you, and therefore the sooner you come to the honest truth the better for you, for the sootier will you obtain joy and peace through believing in Christ. 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. Mark the beauty of that expression; God will deal with you in faithfulness. His nature is mercy, and you naturally expect that if you confess your sin to a merciful God, he will deal mercifully with you and be faithful to his nature; and he will be so. But he has also given a promise that if the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and turn unto the Lord, he will have mercy upon kiln; depend upon it he will be faithful to his promise. The blood of Jesus Christ has made a full atonement, and God will be faithful to that atonement. He will deal with you on the grounds of the covenant of grace, of which the sacrifice of Jesus is the seal, and therein also he will be true to you. Now, there are still some who say, "Well, yes, I think I could go to God in that way, sir, but oh, my past sins prevent me. I could tell him I am sinful, I could ask him to renew my nature, I could lay myself bare before him, but oh, my past sins; all might yet be well if I had not so sinned? Ah, my brethren, that brings out a third course which lies before you, which I hope you will not follow, namely, to deny actual sin. The very thing which I bless God you cannot do, would seal your doom, for it would lead you to make God a liar, and so his word could not abide in you. If you felt able to say, "I have not singed," in proportion as you said and felt that you would put yourself out of the light in which God alone can walk with you. Some get to that point by saying that what they did was not Really sin to any extent; or, at any rate, if it would have been sin in other people, it was no sin in them; considering their strong passions, they wonder they were not worse, and considering the circumstances of their case, they do not see how they could have done otherwise: in a word, they have not sinned at all. There is another class who say, "All these commandments have I kept from my youth up; what lack I yet?" This self-justification clearly makes God a liar. For what means the cross of Calvary, what mean those streams of blood, what mean those agonies to the death? God has acted out a gigantic lie if we have no sin, for he has provided a propitiation for a thing which does not exist. O hideous profanity! O vile blasphemy! thus to insinuate that the great sacrifice of love divine was an acted falsehood. Brethren, we have sinned, sinned far beyond anything we know, and the only wise and true way is to confess it before God. II. LET US NOW CONSIDER HOW WE CAN FOLLOW THIS COURSE, which is the only right and acceptable one, namely, to confess our sin. I suppose I am speaking to those who are in earnest about their salvation. O my friends, lay bare your consciences before the law of God. Go and open the twentieth chapter of Exodus and read the ten commands; think of their spirituality, remember how he that looketh on a woman to lust after her committeth adultery with her in his heart; and let the law with all its blaze of light flash flame into your soul. Do not shirk the facts or shrink from knowing their full force, but feel the power of the condemning law. Then recollect your individual sins; recall them one by one: those greater sins, those huge blots upon your character, do not try to forget them. If you have forgotten them, raise them from the grave and think them over, and feel them as your own sins. Do not lay them at the door of anyone else. Do not look at circumstances in order to find an alleviation for your guilt, but set them in the light of God's countenance. Remember, the sins of your holy things, your Sabbath sins, your sanctuary sins, your sins against the Bible, your sins against prayer, your sins against the love of the Father, the blood of Christ, and the strivings of the Spirit. Oh, how many are these! Think of your sins of omission, your failures in duty, your shortcomings in spirit. Repent of what you have done, and what you have not done. How both these forms of iniquity may stagger and humble you! Think of your sins of heart. How cold has that heart been towards your Savior! Your sins of thought, how wrongly your mind has often judged; your sins of imagination, what filthy creatures your imagination has portrayed in lively colors on the wall. Think of all the sins of your desires and delights, and hopes and fears. What faculty is there that has not been defined? "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint." We are bound to confess the aggravations of our sin, how we sinned against light and against knowledge, against conscience, and against divine love, against the monitions of the Holy Spirit, against tender warnings which came from his gentle voice. Oh, when some of us err, every ounce of our sin has as much evil in it as a ton of other men's sins. Let us take care that we confess all. And then let us try to see the heinousness of all sin as an offense against a kind, good, loving God, a sin against a perfect law, intended for our good. Let us remember our wanton sins, our mischievous sins, sins which hurt ourselves, foolish sins, despicable sins, into which our spirits have descended, even though we have known the nobility of holiness, and had some fellowship with God. I beseech you, dear hearer, try to fix your eye on Jesus Christ and his atoning sacrifice, and live as a believer in him, and this will make you live as a constant confessor of sin; for when the wounds of Jesus speak peace they also preach penitence, and when the atonement gives us rest it also makes us meek and lowly in heart under a sense of abiding faultiness. As you see what Jesus suffered you will see how you sinned, and as you observe the glory of his merit you will see the horror of your own demerit. Thus may you daily, as long as ever you live, confess sin and find cleansing from all unrighteousness. Moreover, upon some of us it is imperative, because we cannot do anything else. There may possibly be a person here who could say, "I have no sin"; but I could not. Why, if I were to claim innocence either of nature or practice the words would choke me. Say I have no sin! I should expect to turn black in the face and fall down dead, it would be so gross a falsehood. To say I have no sin, why there is no one part of my whole nature but what would protest against such an assertion! I am shut up to come to God as a sinner, I cannot help it; and I would to God that every one in this place felt shut up to it too, for it is the intent and design of the law to shut the sinner up in order that he may be compelled to accept salvation on free grace terms through Jesus Christ. You can never catch a fish in a net while there is one mesh through which he can escape, but when all around the meshes are so small that the fish Cannot get out, then we have taken him. When you are such a sinner that you cannot plead that you have no sin, nor yet that you have not sinned, but are quite shut up to be saved by grace, then you are in Christ's net, and he will lift you out, and the Fisher of Men shall have cause to rejoice. I exhort thee, sinner, to give up all thine attempts to feel right and to be right before coming to God in Christ Jesus. Have you not made a great failure of it already? You thought you were getting right for Christ, but just then you fell in the worst possible way. You have been trying to repair your old clothes and make yourself respectable before coming to Christ; but every time you have touched the garment the rent has grown worse. Give up all attempting to prepare for grace, and come to Jesus Christ just as you are. When you have been trying to make yourself feel that you are right and proper for Christ, you have been sinning against God, for you have been flying in the teeth of his witness, which is, that Jesus Christ came, not to save the righteous, but sinners. In proportion as you try to make yourself out to be righteous you have denied the testimony of God. May the Spirit of God help you to come to your heavenly Father on the ground of truth, confessing that you have sinned that is the truth for you; and on the ground that Christ died for sinners that is the truth on God's side which enables him to smile on sinners. "Now, what is your state this morning? Cold as an iceberg as to divine things? Come and tell the Lord you are an iceberg, and Isle him to thaw you. What is your state hard as a rock, or like a nether millstone? Is there no feeling? Come and tell the Lord that you do not feel. Oh, is there no trace of any good feeling in you? Come to my Lord without a trace of feeling, and tell him just what you are; and oh, if you can dare over the head of all your sin and sinfulness to say, "Nevertheless, I rest myself on the blood that cleanses from all sin and I beseech thee, O Lord, seeing I confess my sin, to cleanse me from all unrighteousness," you will find him faithful and just to do it. Come as the citizens of Calais did to King Edward III when the city was captured; come with ropes about your neck, owning that if sentence be executed upon you, you deserve it; come at once in all your filthiness and dishabille; come with no jewels in your ears, with no ornaments upon your necks, and with no recommendation whatever; come as sinners by nature, and as sinners by practice. Plead nothing that looks like goodness, but come in your sin. Do not try to put one touch of paint on those cheeks of yours, nor imitate the flush of health upon that consumptive countenance. Come honestly as you are, and say "Lord, look at me as I am, a worse sinner than even I think myself to be, and then show the infinity of thy free grace, and the power of Jesus' dying love in saving me, even me." Ah, my brethren, you will not be long without peace if you draw nigh to God in that fashion. Fling away any preparations, fitnesses, commendations, and hopefulnesses, and take my Lord Jesus, as empty-handed sinners take him. Meet him just as he is, and just as you are. God will deal with you truthfully. He will never cast away a sinner that comes to him according to truth. For my own part, I mean to come to him always as a sinner. I know I am saved, but I never hope to get one inch beyond that verse, "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth me from all sin," for only so can I walk in the light as he is in the light.

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON 1 John 1:1-10 ; 1 John 2:1-11 .