part0009

John starts off this letter with the overwhelming awareness of fellowship with God - a fellowship that is tangible. In 1 John 1:6 he starts addressing a situation in which some have reduced this message and it’s implications to less than what it really is. “If we say we are intimate with Him, but continue to live in darkness, we deceive ourselves. This truth is made to be lived!” (Breath of Life Translation) [1]

Some heard the message to the extent that they could ’talk’ the message, but it did not affect their ’walk’, which is just a figure of speech to say that the way they lived remained in darkness. Here and throughout this letter John strongly argues that the implications of this message are not just theoretical, it doesn’t just give you a new way of thinking and speaking - the implications of accurately understanding this message is evident in every detail of your life, especially in how you relate to people.

Verse 7: But if we allow this light to become the reality we live in, the same reality He lives in, it results in uninterrupted enjoyment of one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ constantly cleanses us from every attempt to draw us back into a lesser reality (missing the mark).

What is the value of all you believe if it does not bring you to a place of tangible interaction with God, and enjoyment of people? True enlightenment is not based on how convincingly you can argue that you are right, but it is made evident in ’uninterrupted enjoyment of one another’.

Some have taken verse 8 out of context to say that we can never be free from sin. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8 NKJV) However, John is addressing the same people, or the same situation as in verse 6.

Verse 6 said “If we say we are intimate with Him, but continue to live in darkness ...”

Can we say that we are intimate with Him?

John just said it himself in verse 3!

Can we say that we are without sin?

“... The blood of Jesus cleanses us ...”

But don’t just say that you are without sin, while you continue to live in darkness. John addresses people who simply ’confessed’ these words, but continued in a lifestyle that he later described as hateful. To continue in a lifestyle of sin, and simply confess that you have no sin, is idiotic. God has made available His reality, His world! Why continue in a lesser reality, in a life that is less than His original plan. Authentic life is available, why continue in a fake existence.

If you find yourself still enslaved to sin, verse 9 gives such clear guidance in breaking with it once and for all.

The word we translated confession is homologeo (ὁμολογέω), and is made up of two base words, namely:

1 ὁμοῦ, homou Genitive case of ὁμός homos (the same) as adverb; at the same place or time: - together.

2 λόγος, logos. Something said (including the thought); by implication a topic (subject of discourse), also reasoning (the mental faculty) or motive; by extension a computation; specifically (with the article in John) the Divine Expression (that is, Christ).

To confess sin is more than acknowledging its existence. To confess sin is to say the same (homou) thing about sin as God says about it; to come into agreement with the Logos of God, the logic of God, which is most accurately displayed in the Word made flesh - Jesus Christ.

What does God say about sin?

Jesus demonstrated that sin is not something that our Father tolerates - He eradicated it at the greatest cost. Jesus did not come to lower the standard.

Why is He so intolerant of sin?

Because He does not want to settle for a lesser quality of friendship, a lesser intimacy than what is possible. The deeds of sin are manifestations of the mindset of sin. The mindset of sin accepts a lesser reality about ourselves and God. God designed man for perfect harmony, perfect union in a place of absolute innocence. Sin is to accommodate less than His persuasion, to accommodate distance.

What else does God say about sin?

God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not holding their trespasses against them.

We could not deal with sin ourselves. The law system gave us all the opportunity we needed to prove that through our own effort we could live up to God’s standard. But over and over again we proved that we could not consistently do so.

So God came and did for us, what we could not do for ourselves. He conquered sin in the flesh and gave us His own victorious life. [2]

God did not make a mistake when He gave the Law, neither was He unaware that the Law would in itself not solve the problem of separation. He knew and purposely designed the Law in such a way that it would intensify the conflict - that it would reveal the problem for what it really was and reveal man’s impotence to solve the problem by himself. He designed this environment of conflict - a conflict that was working its way towards a climax.

Under the Law, man and God never meet face to face. Instead of direct contact with God, the Law became the intermediary by which man related to God based on a knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong. The Law maintained the distance between God and man and in so doing prolonged and intensified the conflict.

Although the law was not designed to solve the problem of separation, it was designed to reveal the problem. The Law revealed another law or government. Paul says that under the Law, he discovered another law or government at work within him. “For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” [3] The experience of man under the law, is that there is a stronger influence in man that forces him to live contrary to what he knows is right. The flesh became the domain of sin and man by himself was helpless to change the situation. And so Paul continues in verse 23: “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

The fullness of time was drawing near in which the final judgement upon sin and self-righteousness would be completed. “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.” [4] God was preparing to enter the domain of sin - flesh. He was preparing to enter the strong man’s house, bind him and spoil his goods. “For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh,” [5] He came to take back every part of humanity that he created, including flesh!

So what does God say about sin? He conquered it! It no longer has any right to rule in your body! Now say to sin what God says to it: “It is over. You (sin) are no longer worth my attention. From now on my life is a glorious adventure occupied with God and His reality”

1 John 1:9-2:2: But rather, through aligning ourselves with the logic of God, agreeing with Him, we deal with sin with this clear declaration:

He forgives us, cleansing us from anything that tries to contaminate our blameless innocence.

(Confession of sin is not the act in which we tell God about our sin, but the act in which we tell sin about our God.)

10 If we deny that there was ever a problem, we deny the very One who came to fix things. That’s obviously not true.

2:1 My precious little ones, let me make this clear: you don’t have to sin! And if anyone does fall short, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous. (Our advocate has indisputable evidence that your debt has been paid, and in His own righteous person, He represents your innocence) 2 He is Himself the atonement for our sin, and not for ours only, but for the whole world!