1-3 John

IF I WERE TO ADDRESS YOU AS “my little children,” you would certainly wonder about me! It would not be appropriate for me to speak this way because at fifty-four years old at the time of writing this, I am older than some of you but younger than others of you. John, however, can use this term for two reasons. First, he was himself probably an octogenarian, at the very least. But John uses this word not only because of his age but as a term of endearment. It is characteristic of John to talk about the people to whom he is writing as “little children.” Jesus referred to his disciples as “little children” in John 13:33. John came to be known for his great love for Jesus and for believers. Because of that love and because of his own advanced age at the time of writing, he refers to his readers as “my little children.”

Jesus Our Advocate When We Sin (v. 1)

In verse 1 John indicates one of the purposes for his writing. What does the phrase “these things” refer to? This is probably a reference to 1:5–10. He reflects on what he has just written and perhaps worries that some will misunderstand what he is trying to say. There are two possible misapprehensions John may be concerned about. First, someone might be thinking, If sin is a reality and it is impossible for me to live a sinless life, why bother? If I sin, big deal. God will forgive me. John worries that some Christians will think sin is to be accepted as an inevitable part of the indent Christian life. I call this the “no big deal syndrome.” Second, others might think, As a Christian, I have liberty and am no longer under the Law, so I can do what I want to do. If I sin, God will forgive me. I call this the “Rasputin syndrome,” after the religious and political confidant of Empress Alexandra of the Romanov family in Russia at the beginning of the last century. Rasputin justified his own sinful lifestyle from a clever misuse of Romans 5:20, 21. There Paul says, “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” Thus Rasputin said when we sin as Christians, we provide God an opportunity to exercise and magnify his grace, so sin away! Of course, both of these approaches are completely false. When large manufacturing companies provide on-site clinics for their employees, that does not mean these companies are encouraging accidents and illness! This passage might be considered something of a spiritual clinic with the caution, “Watch out that you don’t sin! But if you do, you have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one.”¹

What John means in verse 1 is: “I am writing these things so you won’t regard sin as an inevitable part of the Christian life and so you won’t presume on Christian liberty by thinking sin is no big deal.” Christians are saved from sin, not to sin! If you think about it, Christians are caught between a rock and a hard place. We cannot reach sinless perfection in this life, yet we are commanded not to sin. The point is, our goal should be to live day by day without committing sin in thought, word, or deed. A tall order to be sure! Certainly Christians ought to be people who sin less after they are saved than they did before they were saved. The trajectory of our lives should be toward holiness and away from sin. Sin is a serious thing in your life. Don’t take it lightly.

However, John is a realist about sin. He knows that Christians do occasionally sin. That is why he uses the word “if.” “If anyone does sin” is a statement that is unqualified as to the person. Young, old, spiritually mature, spiritually immature, people or pastors—all are included. The ground is level at the foot of the cross. No one has privileged status as a Christian. But it is also a statement that is unqualified as to the sin. He does not divide up sins into categories such as big sins and little sins, mortal sins (which in Catholic theology would bring eternal damnation) and venial sins (which are forgivable). He does not speak about sins God will forgive and those he will not forgive. There is no statement about the multitude of sins or the magnitude of sins.² He just says, “If anyone does sin . . .” It is a statement unqualified as to the sin: any person, any sin. Think of it this way: our debt is paid, but we are ever incurring fresh debt, and we need fresh forgiveness.³

Why is it we can have our sins forgiven? John says it is because we have an advocate. That word “advocate” means “one who is called alongside to help in a time of need.” John uses this word several times in John 14–16 concerning the Holy Spirit in the life of a Christian. The word there is translated “Helper.” Here the word is rightly translated “advocate”⁴ because it means not only one called alongside to help, but one who lends his voice in our defense, one who speaks up on our behalf. Jesus is our advocate. Therefore, as a believer you actually have two advocates. You have an advocate in your life indwelling you in the person of the Holy Spirit. He speaks on behalf of God to you and convicts you of sin. You also have an advocate in Heaven, Jesus Christ, who speaks to God on your behalf. As the author of Hebrews says in 7:25, as our High Priest and Advocate Jesus “always lives to make intercession for [us].”

Occasionally back in the 1970s I would watch reruns of the old Perry Mason television show. There is something about lawyers and courtroom dramas that fascinate us. That’s why there are so many shows about lawyers on television. In all the years Perry Mason was on television, he never lost a case. Jesus, our advocate, is like that; he never lost a case . . . and he never will! William Barclay translates this statement, “we have one to plead our cause.”⁵ He is Jesus Christ, the righteous one. Because he is altogether righteous and paid my penalty on the cross when he died for my sins as my substitute, Jesus is my advocate. No other advocate do I possess. No pope or bishop or priest or the Virgin Mary is my advocate. No pastor or deacon or Bible study leader is my advocate. I have but one advocate, “Jesus Christ the righteous.” The reason he alone is my advocate is because he alone paid the price for my sins.

In a courtroom scene at least four people are involved: the judge, the prosecutor, the defense attorney, and the defendant. Picture in your mind God as the judge. The prosecutor is Satan, and you are the accused. The attorney for your defense, Jesus, intercedes with the judge on your behalf. What a picture! Have you ever read Revelation 12:10? An interesting statement is made about Satan. He is called “the accuser” of Christians, and he accuses them before the throne of God “day and night.” Apparently Satan has access to the very throne of God. He is called the accuser of the brethren, the prosecuting attorney. Then there is the defense attorney, Jesus Christ. When David Allen sins, I can imagine Satan rushing into the presence of God to accuse me. I can almost hear him as he quotes Scripture concerning the penalty for sin and how it is punishable by death. Then I can imagine my defense attorney, the Lord Jesus, saying, “Yes, Father, he is guilty of that sin. But, Father, I went to the cross and died for that sin. When he was a nine-year-old boy, through faith in me my atonement was applied to him and his sins were forgiven. I put my robe of righteousness on him. He is covered by my blood, and he is forgiven because he is my child.” In the modern legal world, the defense attorney defends the defendant on the merits of the defendant’s case. In John’s thought, however, the merit on the part of the accused is entirely absent! All of the merit is on the part of the advocate!⁶

In the legal world it is not permissible for an attorney who is involved in the case to be related to the judge. However, in Heaven’s court it is perfectly legal! Jesus, the Son who loves the Father, and the Father, who loves the Son, serve as advocate and judge. Jesus our advocate can stand “face to face”⁷ with God as Son in relationship and fellowship because he is divine.

In the legal world it is also impermissible for the defense attorney to be related to the defendant. But again in Heaven’s court it is perfectly legal! Jesus can represent us as our advocate because he is fully human, calls us his brothers (Hebrews 2:12, 13), and, as Hebrews 4:15 says, “in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Sometimes we may think that Jesus does not understand our predicament or what we are going through. But Jesus is fully qualified to serve as our advocate when we sin because he understands what it means to be tempted. As man he too was tempted; but he never sinned. Jesus’ intercession for us is not temporary, and it is never interrupted. Though accomplished in time, it is eternally valid and continuous.

I’m afraid some of us feel like Robert Murray McCheyne when we sin. “I feel, when I have sinned, an immediate reluctance to go to Christ. I am ashamed to go. I feel as if it would do no good to go—as if it were making Christ a minister of sin, to go straight from the swine-trough to the best robe—and a thousand other excuses; but I am persuaded they are all lies, direct from hell.”⁸ They are indeed. The moment we are cognizant of our sin, may we flee to our Advocate, Jesus Christ. Speaking about Christians who sin, Luther sagaciously noted, “If someone errs and sins, he should not add the sin of despair. After sin the devil always alarms the heart and makes us tremble. For he hurls a person into sin in order that he may finally force him into despair. On the other hand, he lets some live smugly without temptation in order that they may think and believe that they are holy. . . . This is his cunning. He wants to make saints sinners, and confident sinners saints.”⁹

Jesus Our Propitiation When We Sin (v. 2)

Now John explains in verse 2 why it is that Jesus can function as our advocate and forgive our sins. Verse 2 begins with an emphatic pronoun in the Greek text: “He himself and he alone is the propitiation, the atoning sacrifice, for our sins.” No one in the universe except Jesus Christ can be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Jesus is the one who through his death on the cross satisfies the honor and justice of God. Jesus’ mercy and love extends to the one who sinned against God and violated that honor and justice. He not only was, but he is, present tense, “the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

It is vital that we understand what John means when he uses the term “propitiation.” It is an uncommon word you don’t hear every day. It is also uncommon in the Bible, used a total of four times in its noun form. It is a difficult word to translate because of the nuance of meaning it contains. One of the better translations is “atoning sacrifice.” Jesus is able to be our advocate and to forgive sin because he himself became the sacrifice for sin.

To explain the meaning of propitiation, think with me about four words: wrath, justice, holiness, and love. Those words describe four characteristics of God. Have you ever wondered why God could not wave his magic wand and just say, “All your sins are forgiven”? God is a God of love, but he is also a God of holiness and justice. Because sin is an affront to God’s holy nature as well as his sovereign rule of the universe, he has righteous anger toward sin. Paul summed it up in Romans 1:18: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness.” Think about the sin problem for a moment. It is a universal problem. Paul says in Romans 3:23, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” You cannot atone for your sin or forgive yourself for your sins. If your sins are to be forgiven, someone who is without sin must pay the price for your sin. Our only hope of escape from the just penalty of our sin is if someone who is not himself under that penalty stands in our place as our substitute. There is only one in the entire universe who could do that and only one who did do that. No one other than Jesus Christ could provide the sacrifice. The reason God cannot wave his wand and forgive all our sins and allow everyone into Heaven is because sin is real, God is a holy God, his righteous anger stands against all sin, and justice must be served in such a way that sin is paid for. Jesus paid that price when he died on the cross to satisfy the penalty of the Law that condemned us. Why did Jesus die in our place as our substitute to deal with our sin penalty? “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

At the cross God’s wrath, love, justice, and holiness met together. God’s holiness makes sin an affront to his character and to his universal governance. God’s justice demands payment for sin. God’s love causes him to love sinners. Because of God’s love, he sent his Son Jesus into the world to die on the cross for the world’s sins. God’s wrath was poured out in judgment upon Jesus, who bore our sin on the cross as our substitute. By his death on the cross for sin, Jesus satisfied the wrath and justice of God. Thus, when John says Jesus is “the propitiation” for our sins, he means that sin has been expiated (its penalty has been removed) and God’s wrath is likewise propitiated, that is, turned away.

Jesus is the propitiation not only for our sins as believers, but also for those of the whole world (v. 2b). This verse raises the question of the extent of the atonement: for whose sins did Christ die?¹⁰ There are two views on the subject of the extent of the atonement. Some believe that Jesus died only for the sins of those who believe in Christ. This view is traditionally called “limited atonement.”¹¹ Others believe that Jesus died for the sins of all people.¹² These are the only two possible views on the question of the extent of the atonement.¹³

What does John means when he says that Jesus is the propitiation for the sins of “the whole world”? Those who believe Jesus died only for the sins of those who believe in him (the limited atonement position) suggest that when John uses the phrase “the whole world,” he does not mean all people in the world. Rather, this phrase is given one of three different interpretations. First, some say John intends the phrase “not for our [sins] only” to refer to all Jewish believers, and the phrase “for the sins of the whole world” refers to all Gentile believers. Second, some say the phrase “for the sins of the whole world” refers to all kinds of people but not to all people individually. Third, some say “world” here means “the world of the elect.” There are major problems with all three of these interpretations. It is impossible to determine that John’s letter was addressed solely to Jewish believers. In fact, most scholars suggest that the readers were mainly Gentile or at the very least a mixture of Jewish and Gentile believers. The use of the adjective “whole” modifying “world” makes it difficult to interpret the phrase as referring to all kinds of people rather than all people individually. Also, as D. A. Carson noted, the word “world” is never used by John or anywhere else in the Bible to mean “the world of the elect.”¹⁴

A face value reading of verse 2 would understand “the whole world” to be a reference to all humanity. This is based on two things. First, the use of the phrase “for the sins of the whole world” in this context indicates all the people in the world. “World” here is an example of metonymy, a figure of speech in which one term is used in place of another. John is using the word “world” to mean all the people who live in the world.¹⁵ Notice John’s use of “world” in 1 John 5:19 where it is clear that the word means “all unsaved humanity.” This is important because contextually in 1 John the word “world” never means “the elect.” Second, the use of the Greek adjective holos, “whole,” further indicates that John intends to include all people in this designation. The death of Jesus on the cross was a death for the sins of all people. Jesus substituted himself for the sins of all humanity. That, of course, does not mean that everyone is going to be saved. This verse is not teaching universalism. This verse is simply teaching that Jesus is the propitiation for “our sins,” meaning the sins of all John’s intended readers, and by extension all believers. Jesus is also the propitiation for the sins of all humanity. This means that the sins of all people were imputed to Christ on the cross. Jesus satisfied the legal debt of sin for all, such that all humanity is savable should they meet God’s condition for salvation, which is repentance of sin and faith in Jesus Christ. First John 2:2 makes an overt statement concerning the extent of the atonement: it is for the “whole world.”¹⁶

What are the implications of these two verses for us today? If Jesus did not die for all humanity, what are we to make of passages such as John 17:21, 23, 1 Timothy 2:4, and 2 Peter 3:9? These verses all affirm that God desires the salvation of all people. Is our offer of the gospel a genuine offer to those for whom Christ did not die? Even more of an issue is the question, is God’s offer of salvation through the preaching of the gospel a genuine offer from God himself? Second Corinthians 5:20 says that God is begging people through us, “be reconciled to God.” Edward Polhill’s point here is important for us to understand:

Therefore, there cannot be a truer measure of the extent of Christ’s death, than God’s will of salvation, out of which the same did issue; so far forth as that will of salvation extends to all men, so far forth the death of Christ doth extend to all men.¹⁷

Without belief in the universal saving will of God and a universal extent in Christ’s sin-bearing, there can be no well-meant offer of the salvation from God to all unbelievers who hear the gospel call.

I believe we can find at least five good reasons (motives) for evangelism and missions in the Bible: (1) our love for God, (2) our love for the unsaved, (3) obedience to Scripture, (4) Christ’s death for the sins of all people, and (5) God’s universal saving will. If 1 John 2:2 means that Christ died for the sins of all men, then when we preach and/or evangelize, we can look a congregation in the eyes or even a single unbelieving sinner in the eye and make the bold proclamation¹⁸ of the gospel: “Christ died for your sins.” Sometimes you will hear it argued that the offer of the gospel nowhere in Scripture requires telling people that Christ died for their sins. But in one of the central passages on the content of the gospel, 1 Corinthians 15:3, Paul tells the Corinthian congregation about the gospel that he received and that he preached to them prior to their conversion, and that gospel included the point that “Christ died for our sins.” In Acts 3:26 Peter preaches to his Jewish audience, “God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.”

Peter is telling his unbelieving audience that God sent Jesus to bless them and to turn away “every one of you” from their iniquities. The only way every one of them could be turned from their iniquity is if Christ had died for their sins. The free and well-meant offer of the gospel for all people necessarily presupposes that Christ died for the sins of all people, as John indicates in 1 John 2:2.¹⁹

One of my favorite writers of all time is J. C. Ryle. Listen to his convicting words:

I will give place to no one in maintaining that Jesus loves all mankind, came into the world for all, died for all, provided redemption sufficient for all, calls on all, invites all, commands all to repent and believe, and ought to be offered to all—freely, fully, unreservedly, directly, unconditionally—without money and without price. If I did not hold this, I dare not get into a pulpit, and I should not understand how to preach the Gospel.

But while I hold all this, I maintain firmly that Jesus does special work for those who believe, which He does not do for others. He quickens them by His Spirit, calls them by His grace, washes them in His blood—justifies them, sanctifies them, keeps them, leads them, and continually intercedes for them—that they may not fall. If I did not believe all this, I should be a very miserable, unhappy Christian.²⁰

With respect to evangelism and missionary zeal, J. Stuart Holden’s words concerning 1 John 2:2 are well worth hearing today:

It would almost seem as though in every age Christian believers need to be convinced of the wideness of God’s mercy and convicted of their own self-centered devotion. . . . Upon nothing less than the whole world, with all its sin and sorrow, does the eye of His pity rest and for nothing less than the redemption of every man did He give the Son of His love. . . . The entrance to the Kingdom may be “strait,” and the pathway of Life “narrow”; but both entrance and pathway are wide enough to admit every creature on the terms of individual repentance and faith.

It is failure to realize the breadth of God’s love, while holding faithfully to the requirements of His righteousness, which explains the supineness of many Christians regarding the task of making Christ known to the nations. Did we but understand that it is their right to know of His death on their behalf we should feel the burden of guilt which unfaithfulness in this respect involves. The Gospel is not only our treasure but also our sacred trust. To divert to our own exclusive use, whether as individuals, as a Church, or as a nation, the blessings which we are commissioned to declare to the entire human family, is to discredit our own professions of faith. Saving apprehension of the benefits of Christ’s death is proved by passionate self-sacrifice for its world-wide proclamation. “Not for ours only,” is enshrined in every effective creed.²¹

Denney said, “Apart from a new interest in the Gospel, a revival of evangelical faith in Christ as the Redeemer, I believe we shall look in vain for a response to missionary appeals.”²² Denney went on to explain:

But once He is seen in the character of propitiation, as a lamb bearing and bearing away sin, all limitations are removed. The only correlative of such a Christ is the whole world, and nothing vies us such a wonderful impression of what Christ was to His immediate followers as that they actually saw in Him as He died upon the cross a goodness that outweighed not only their sin but all sin, and could say God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. This is the consciousness out of which the missionary impulse springs.²³

Our motives for preaching the gospel are not limited to the Biblical commands to do so. According to Denney, it is clear for some Christians, when it comes to the Great Commission in Matthew 28:18–20, “that for multitudes it does not constitute a motive at all. They are quite well aware of it, but they quite easily ignore it.”²⁴ I have long been convicted that one of the greatest evangelistic and missionary motivations is the fact that God loves all and Christ has died for the sins of all humanity.

Luther expressed it in his own inimitable way: “Do not let your heart deceive you by saying: ‘The Lord died for Peter and Paul; He rendered satisfaction for them, not for me.’ Therefore let everyone who has sin be summoned here, for He was made the expiation for the sins of the whole world and bore the sins of the whole world. For all the godless have been put together and called, but they refuse to accept.”²⁵ Leave it to John Newton to express it in his own poetic way:

I saw One hanging on a tree

In agony and blood,

Who fixed his languid eyes on me,

As near the Cross I stood.

Sure never, till my latest breath,

Can I forget that look;

It seemed to charge me with his death,

Tho not a word he spoke.

Alas! I knew not what I did,

But now my tears are vain;

Where shall my trembling soul be hid?

For I the Lord have slain!

A second look he gave that said,

“I freely all forgive;

This blood is for thy ransom paid;

I die that thou may’st live.”

Thus while his death my sin displays

In all its blackest hue,

Such is the mystery of grace,

It seals my pardon, too.

“He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only for also for the sins of the whole world” (1 John 2:2).