I John, 1:8-10
Bradley W. Maston · Oct 30, 2005
1 John, No. 05
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262335462076

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Chapter 1. And since it's only 10 verses, I'd love to have someone just read all 10 verses for us. It really doesn't matter what translation. Would anybody mind? Just reading verses 1 through 10? Is it okay? Would you please? That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, 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. 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. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.

This sin is the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.

Thanks very much. What I'd love to do now is, since you've also got it in this translation on your sheet, this is kind of a hybrid between the Wyss translation and also, I think, the New American Standard Bible. So, just read this all together in one voice. Okay, ready? One, two, three, go.

If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we sin, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.

Good. So these verses today have a very poignant message for us, not just for the original thing. the original audience. The world is shouting its message loud and clear in schools and textbooks. All you need to do is pick up a periodical from Psychology Today or anything along those lines, and you'll find that the world is shouting its message loud and clear.

It's saying, there's no such thing as sin, and I have no sin nature, or we have no sin nature. Or many are just saying, I've never sinned. I've never done anything wrong. I'm perfect, like the rich young ruler almost. All these I've kept since I'm a child. I have no sin in me. I've never sinned.

And in John's day, we'll find that things were exactly the same. So people were saying the same things then as they are now, which is why it's so important for us to focus in on these verses. There were Gnostics, which is a group that Josiah and Roger had talked a great deal about already, but the Gnostics were teaching people around there such heresies or bad teachings as that their secret knowledge, if you got into their club, and had their secret knowledge, you could be sinless, you would never sin again, or you could reach such a spiritual level that they would never sin again, or the leaders would claim that they had reached this level, and they would never sin again, they promised. And others taught that they had never sinned before, and that they were perfect from birth, or that we were all perfect from birth. So all these same heresies that we see today, We're around then.

It's kind of the way of Satan. We usually think of him inventing new lies and new heresies, new bad ideas, which happens, for sure. There are new evils going around that weren't here before, but there's a reality of the fact that the old lies that he came up with are still in play. The old counterfeits, the old deceptions are still around because they still work. So it's not like iPod. When they come up with a new one, they take the old one out of the market. No. The things that were plaguing the church in John's day are the things that plague the church and us as Christians in our day. So today in Christendom, that's the word for the big body of Christendom and can even be expanded to include anyone who professes the name of Christ, there are some who believe they will reach a point where they will never ever sin again.

Ever. Hey, Brian. Vani, did you say you grew up in such a... Church of Nazarene. Church of Nazarene. So, this is something that happens. I mean, this is really, and we'll discuss this as we get into the passage, but this is a real heresy. This is a real problem that is going around. Others believe that people can sin themselves right out of heaven or right out of their salvation. This is big, because we are naturally going to cling or move towards law.

Who was it? Randy Peterman was in here earlier and he was talking about teaching the book of 1 John. And he said the reason it was so difficult, he said he was teaching it to high school students, the reason it was so difficult is because people want a law.

I did these 10 things and now I go to heaven. People desire a law, even after they're Christians. Okay, I'm Christian, now I have to do these 10 things and then I can say, before God, I am righteous and just, I am good. The Bible teaches otherwise, as we'll see. So, these verses speak to these specific bad teachings. And that's why it's so important for us to read and study and even memorize these verses. It's very, very important that we know this. No. Make sure it's not a law, but it's important. You won't lose your salvation if you don't memorize these verses. I would strongly encourage you to know these verses.

It's why we're studying them today. So, let's define some terms. I noticed a lot of our confusion comes from lack of definition of terms. So the main thing, the key distinctions that I want to go over today, the very back page, I don't need one, but it should be, say, sin versus sins. Hallam and Laurie wrote this up. Do you know, does it say on there when? In 95.

So, since they're such big verses, I'm not going to spend a lot of time defining this and I'm not going to spend a lot of time exploring the scripture for why we need to differentiate between sin and sins. So that is a great guide if you have additional questions afterwards about the distinction between sin and sins. We're just going to go through the little short, you know, Merriam-Webster's pocket-sized dictionary definition of it. And then we have more resources even after this. Roger has the major Bible themes. And that will spell out in no uncertain terms the difference between sin and sins. But we're going to just go over a brief one here.

Sin, capital S, Sin. I'll read it off here. Sin is a condition of our heart. Sin is a great descriptive word for our old man or our old nature. The condition of sin in our lives is what causes us to do the acts that are called sins. Roger brought it to my attention this morning that condition can be confusing because then we're going to later talk about position and condition and they're different things. So, possibly a better way to look at it would be to say that sin is our nature. It's our fallen nature passed down from Adam. It's what Adam gave us.

Actually, I believe it was Genesis 5.3. Is it 5.3? It says, essentially, this won't be a direct quote, but it says, essentially, Adam bore Seth, and he bore Seth in his own likeness.

So ever since Adam fell, every child that he had after that was in his likeness, and we share that likeness, that essentially sinful, that is something that permeates our existence, and it is this that causes us to sin. Sins are the individual things and actions that people do that are apart from the will of God or in defiance of the way that we should act.

These lists of sins are found throughout the Bible and include anger, lust, jealousy, etc. Roger and Bonnie actually were telling me also about that Hal had put together a list of all the new... was it Hal or was it... All the sins in the New Testament, basically. All the sins in the New Testament. It was pages and pages. Pages and pages of sins that Christians can commit, that we can commit. I mean, just pages and pages of these sins. So, for us to say that we cannot sin or that we do not sin would... render invalid a lot of the teaching of the Bible that's encouraging us not to sin.

Even still, another great illustration is the idea of a cold. If you have a cold, or if you have, yeah, let's just say if you have a cold, you're sick, you have this cold, and you might sneeze, or you might cough, you might have a runny nose, you might have all those things, or you might only have one. But the runny nose, the cough, and all those things, or the headache, they're expressions of the fact that you have a cold. If the cold goes away, your runny nose goes away.

If our sin nature goes away, then our sins will slowly go away. So, that's the distinction. The distinction between sickness and symptoms, or the distinction between our nature, what we are, and the bad things or the wrong things that we do. Is that essentially clear, the difference between sin and sins? Okay, I know this is a little bit basic, but it's so important for understanding. Now we've got position and condition.

Now, there are many who will set Ephesians 1.7 off against 1 John 1.9. 1 John 1.9 says we should confess our sins, and Ephesians 1.7 says, in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of your grace. Why should we have to confess our sins if we already have redemption through His blood? This is a confusion between position and condition. Our position is forgiven, eternally forgiven. We're not under the penalty of sin. Our position is secure in Christ.

Here we go. Your position is something that is a current reality. When you believe on Jesus Christ, you are identified with Him in His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seating. And Ephesians 2, Romans 6 and Ephesians 2 talk about how you are buried with Christ, how you are raised with Christ, how you are ascended with Christ, and how you are seated at the right hand of God in Jesus Christ. And that's your eternal position.

There's nothing that can take that away. This is further described in Ephesians 1, 3 through 14. And if you haven't read that, I think you could read that every day and it would just change your walk. Because it says the riches, the endless riches and the glorious riches that you have in Christ Jesus. And when Paul later is talking about things that we should not do, things that we should give up, things that we should not be a part of in Ephesians, He's saying, because your riches are so great, to lose all this, all this worldly filth is not a sacrifice, it's not a loss to us, because of our great position. So, if our position is secure, our position is where we are, seated with Christ, in the heavenlies, Now, our condition is our daily life.

It's often portrayed as the word walk. So, in verse 7, we heard the word walk. This is the word for condition. This is talking about our condition. In this condition, we are still plagued by our two natures. We have our God-given new nature and our sinful old nature. This concept of two natures is something that was discussed in Romans 7.

So, here in Romans 6, Paul said, I've been buried and raised with Christ. I am in Christ. I am His. And then in verse 7, he says, oh, what a wretched man am I. That what I want to do, I do not do. And that what I do, I don't want to do. That's talking about his condition.

We still live with this sinful nature in us, even though we have our new nature as well, our position in Christ. So we're still going to be struggling. And we have a choice, as Scripture says, we can walk in the Spirit or we can walk in the flesh. We can walk in the light or we can walk in the dark, as John has told us. So this issue of position versus condition is going to be a big issue.

The important thing to remember in all this is that When you're talking about condition, walking in the dark versus walking in the light, it's the choices we make, it's the things we do, but it does not put into question our salvation. So, in other words, you make mistakes, you screw up, for a season you walk in darkness, God's not going to pull the rug out on you and say, oh, not safe, and then when you start being good, You're saved again.

No. God's not that way. So that's not what the Bible is teaching. That's why it's so important to recognize this difference between our position and our condition as we come to these verses. Okay. So verse 8, if we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. I'm not going to address what condition of statement this is, partially because I'm not totally secure in my understanding of that. But I also think it's not terribly important in this verse because he's not saying if with probability, or if, he's saying someone out there is teaching that we have no sin. Or someone out there is teaching that they have no sin.

And if someone says that, you can know that this is true. So, if we say that we have, have is in the present active indicative. So, it would be best to be translated that we are now having no sin. We're having no sin. So, the question comes up, in this verse, sin or sins? We've got to find out what's being talked about here. Wiest, who's one of the main commentaries I used in my study, because it's really good, and Rogers suggested it to me as well. So, it says, I'll read it in case it's far off.

Sin, here is in singular and number, and is used without the definite article, all pointing to the fact that the nature is referred to, not acts of sin. Here we have a denial of the indwelling, totally depraved nature passed down to the race from Adam. John says, therefore, if we say that sin we are not having, ourselves we are deceiving. Kind of a poetic translation at the end. So this is saying, I don't have a sin nature. Someone is saying, these Gnostics are teaching, I don't have a sin nature. Have you heard this in the world? I mean, is this being taught or is this something that has died off? Is this a first century heresy or is this an all-time heresy?

I'm a good person, exactly. We're all good people. Oh. We taught for a year and a half in Korea and it was a wonderful experience. But teaching with children, just reinforced in my mind, all are sinful. Every one of us is sinful. From the day we are born, we are sinful.

There's no question in my mind. These kids, when they have the opportunity to say something in their own language that's maybe demeaning or hurtful to the teacher, and thinking that they won't understand, of course they'll say it. And was I any different? No, not at all.

It's just there's no question in my mind that a sin nature is something that's with us from birth. So, that's why we don't teach or buy into any tabula rasa or blank slate theory. We don't teach that, we don't think or believe in terms of people who are, you know, born clean and then the world messes them up. No, no, no. We're born in... He doesn't think that, right? Do you disagree, Mom? Anyway, this is talking about our sin nature. This is a denial of the sin nature. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving.

This word, planalo, my computer does not read Greek, so neither do we. I can't, I don't know how to put the Greek letters so we just have to use the transliteration. I hope you can forgive me. So this word, plonao, it's a word translated deceive and it means a wandering or to cause to wander or lead astray.

That's from the complete word study dictionary. I know a lot of us have that at home. It is used of both sheep and people. It's odd how often those two are put together in scripture. To get a fuller sense of the word, we can compare it with other scripture. So, would someone like to read Matthew 18-12 for me?

You can read it off the screen, off your handout, or in your own translation, whatever you like. Thank you. Thank you. Great. So, this is the same word. This is provided for sheep and it's talking about leading astray, something leading us astray. So, let's see. I've got another verse here, please. 1 Peter 2, 21-25. This is kind of a long one. Does anyone feel bold enough to read it? 21? To you this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow in step.

Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth? Coon, when he was reviled, did not revile in return. When he suffered, he did not threaten, but committed himself to him who judges righteously. Coon himself bore sins in his own body on a tree that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness.

By whose stripes you were healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer Great. And here it says, and rightly, you are continually straying like sheep. So, we as humans have been compared to sheep with good reason. We have a very innate propensity to stray. We're just out there to do it. It's going to happen. So, in this case, talk about deceiving or we're straying ourselves.

So, in this respect, it's reflexive. It doesn't have the sense of someone who's lying as in verse 6, which we'll talk about in a moment, but it could be that someone has been lied to and has believed it. I know it kind of comes up pretty slow, doesn't it? It's not my favorite transition this time. It comes up, let's see, not as if someone who is lying, who has made up a lie, but it's someone who has either been lied to and believed it, as is often the case.

We hear a lie from the world and we believe it. And like with the case of the kids, it was such a rude awakening to me because I would have said intellectually, I believe that man is sinful and fallen from birth. But I still thought, kids, they're so innocent and good and nice. No, I mean, yes, sometimes they're sweet and we love children and I love children and one day I'd like to have children. That's not really the issue here. The issue is that I didn't really believe it. I didn't really understand it in my soul.

That sin nature, that goes right down to infancy. This could be someone who's been lied to and has believed it just because it's been repeated and repeated and repeated. Or someone who has come up with the lie themselves somehow in their own thinking and repeated it to themselves until they've come to believe it deep in their heart. The verb deceiving here is also in the present active indicative, so it would be best to translate, we're continually deceiving ourselves. And that's really appropriate if you think about it. Because someone who believes that they have no sin is going to be constantly reminded by their actions, constantly reminded by their thoughts, constantly reminded by the things that they say and do.

So they've either got to continue to deceive themselves and say, oh no, I was speeding the other day, that wasn't sin. When I yelled at my wife, that wasn't sin. When I did this, that wasn't really sin. That wasn't the best, but it wasn't sin. So you have to continue to deceive yourself, continue to lie and justify yourself.

If you believe, if you've made this lie of the world a part of your lower thinking or your base thinking, Boyce comments, and I'll just read this off because, once again, it's kind of small. It's in your handout, though. Interestingly enough, in this case, John does not say that the person is professing such perfection as lying as he did of the lesser claim in verse 6. He merely says that he has deceived himself.

The reason is obvious. In the first case, the person is making a claim which he himself as well as others knows to be untrue. But in the second case there is the possibility at least that the person making the claim is deceived. It is far more serious for it is always better at least to see the facts clearly. Nevertheless, it is an error in a different area. The seriousness of this matter emerges in the fact that if a person believes himself not to sin, he therefore excuses his sinful deeds and does not bring them to God for confession and cleansing.

Okay. Wonderful, wonderful. So, now we move into, the truth is not in us. Man, this is a harsh statement. The truth is not in us. It's so big. I mean, it's difficult, especially because Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. So if you say, and by the way, it says here, the definite article, the, is found before the word truth, which means it's not just the character of truth or truthfulness is not in us, the truth is not in us. To say that the truth is not in us is something that would essentially disqualify someone from salvation. To say that Jesus is not inside of us, to say that we're not in our position. This is very difficult. So a wrong interpretation of this would lead us to say that someone believing that we have no sin would be excluded from salvation.

However, Woush rightly notes, John says that the truth is not in that person. In the case of the Gnostics, in the case of these false teachers, this statement can be taken in an absolute sense. For the Gnostics, it's absolutely true. They were not saved. They did not believe in Jesus. However, in the case of misinformed and mistaken present-day Christians, the statement will have to be qualified to mean that the truth of indwelling sinful nature is not in him. The context would require this interpretation. So if you meet a brother or sister who says, I don't believe that I have sinned or I don't believe that I'll sin anymore, you don't need to regard them as an outsider or as a non-Christian, just because they have some bad doctrine.

The reality is that The older generations of humans have been taught that you can't have conflicting thoughts in your mind. But my generation, the postmodernists and the one just before me, we have been taught that you can have as many different streams going through your mind. I can believe postmodernism because it's interesting and I can believe in renaissance humanism when it's convenient. I can believe anything.

So, in my mind, I have to examine myself very carefully to know whether or not I'm believing anything that is inconsistent with anything else. And that's something that wasn't taught in schools before. Logic was a little bit more, or logic was paramount. So, this is something that we've got to realize. People can believe two things even though they don't realize that they are opposites.

And it happens all the time. And just to reinforce, those people are still our brothers and sisters, if they believe in Jesus. I mean, we should teach them and help them, but ultimately, it's not excluding people from the body of Christ. Verse 9, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Faithful and righteous, we will talk about that in a moment.

Most translations seem to translate it just, and there's good reasons for both. But we'll start with confess. Confess is homologeo. It's an unfortunate translation because of the Catholic connotation. This idea of going to confession. Confess your sins to your pastor, or your priest, I'm sorry. And confessing, as if by confessing and saying I'm sorry and doing some sort of penance, That's how we get forgiveness. That's how we're forgiven.

This word though, confess, has taken on different connotations. Homologeo comes from two words, meaning same and word, as we'll see down here. So we have the idea that we are same-wording. I think Vern has gone over this as well. So, what do you think that means, the same word? Anyone? Same word? If I say the same word, basically I'm repeating or agreeing with you. That's exactly right.

So, essentially, He is not saying that we confess our sins. Oh, Lord. Not only that we confess our sins. Oh, Lord, I did sin today. But it's more than that. Because you can say you're sorry, and anyone who's married can attest to this. You can say you're sorry and really mean, I'm sorry I got caught. You can say you're sorry and really, of course, it never happens between us. You can say you're sorry and not mean it. You're sorry doesn't necessarily mean this.

This is agreeing. In this case, we're agreeing with God. We're agreeing with God that our actions were sinful. And in verse 9, the person had to deny it. should say in verse 8, I apologize. In verse 8, the person had to deny his or her actions were sinful in order to maintain the self-deception. In same wording with God, we are agreeing with Him that our sinful actions are indeed sinful.

Anyone who's been an immature Christian, and I know I am, anyone who's been an immature Christian knows that your sins, especially as you start your walk, oh, that's not so bad. Okay, Lord, I confess it, but it's not so bad. And then when you meet a believer who's been walking, as there are many here for years, and just know the Lord so intimately, When they talk about their sin, it could be speeding or running a red light, and they talk about it as if it's the greatest stain. And that's because it is.

We don't understand our sinfulness, and we don't understand what our sin costs the Lord on the cross. So when we say the word with God, we say, Lord, I know to me on earth, it was just speeding. It was just yelling at my wife. It was just this. But to God, it is a great price that He had to pay for all those just. Okay, we're here again. If we confess our sins, which one is it? Smallest sins. Hands? Great! Yes! The fact that this is in the plural tells us that it is almost assuredly, no, it is assuredly talking about our individual sins.

At this point, it would be good to review the three parts of our salvation, the three phases of our salvation. We talked about this a little bit last week. I think we came to a pretty good understanding of it, so I'm not going to spend an inordinate amount of time, or we're not going to look up a bunch of scripture to back it up. I just want you to remind us that this needs to be in our thinking. The past phase, we were saved from sin's penalty. This is a judicial act of God, justifying us and saying that we are in Jesus Christ. And therein we are declared free from sin's penalty.

That's Romans 8.1. Does anyone have that from memory, essentially? Basics?

In Jesus Christ there is no condemnation. There is no condemnation for us who are in Christ Jesus our Lord. So, there is no judicial condemnation. At that point, Satan said he is guilty, and Jesus said, by my blood, he's clean. She's clean. This is the past phase. We are forgiven. We are cleansed. We are free from sin's penalty. What is sin's penalty? Death. Very good. Sin's penalty is death.

We are free from that. And we have our present phase. Presently, we are freed from sin's power. This can be understood to mean we are not under any obligation to sin. We are never again required to sin. Our sins now happen out of individual acts of will or unintentional sins that come out of our sin nature, which God is changing in us by drawing us to maturity.

So, this is our present phase. This is where we are now. This is where we have the choice to walk in light or walk in darkness. This is where we have the choice to walk in the flesh or walk in the spirit. This is where we're at right now, in this present phase, where we have our dual natures. Alright? And then we can move ahead to our future phase.

In the future phase of God's plan for our salvation, we will be freed from the very presence of sin. Our sin nature will be so completely obliterated that we will no longer so much as hear that voice that demands, commands, and entices us to acts of disobedience.

We will not hear that voice anymore, and I look forward to that day, and I hope you do too. We won't hear anymore, do this bad thing, do that bad thing. Just cut a corner, just cheat. just steal, just lie, whatever it is, it's not that important. That voice is gone. Completely gone.

And that's the future phase that we're looking forward to in heaven. All of a sudden we'll be able to look at God and say, my every will, my every desire is conformed to Your will. And we can look at Him honestly and say that. And that's a great promise. So, we confess our sins.

He is, in the present tense, or in the present tense verb, it is in the indicative mood, which is the mood of truth. So it's saying this is really the way God is. Not only just that he is right now, but he continues to be into the future. Josiah pointed out very well a couple of weeks ago, the Greek present tense, especially this idea, has this idea of present continuous tense. It is right now and is ongoing.

So we're not going to have to question God's faithfulness or righteousness or justice in this life. He is these things. So now we've got faithful. Faithful! Pistos! This word can mean trusty or faithful, just as it does in English. It was also used in the original times, kind of an odd phrase, in the biblical times, for people who were showing themselves faithful in the transaction of business, the execution of commands, or the discharge of official duties. And I believe that's from the Complete Word Study Dictionary as well, if you care to look it up. In this case, God is showing Himself faithful to both Himself and His character, as well as His promise.

Now, Beuys cites these two passages. Would someone please read these off the screen? They're pretty big. Brian, would you mind? Isaiah 18. Come now and let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

Jeremiah 31.34. I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more. Right. That's exactly right. And I should have done a little more homework, and I knew this would come up.

This is from the commentator Boyce, who is a covenant theologian. So he would believe that all the promises made to Israel are applicable to us in the Church Age. However, as a qualifier in this, as I think, and I believe as I read through it, I didn't spend hours in study over it, but in the brief study I did spend, I think these are referring to the New Covenant. They are foreshadowing the New Covenant. We are not the fulfillment of the New Covenant, but we are the beneficiaries of the New Covenant. So when we read about that, the New Covenant in this way, about this cleansing of sin, we do experience it. However, as Roger just rightly pointed out, these are probably Israel's promises first and foremost. Although we may be like beneficiaries of that as Christ was prophesied to be a blessing for all the nations. Okay, here's the New Testament references that also back this up, or talk about this principle, I'm sorry, of his faithfulness, or the promise which God is faithful to, I should say. Mom, would you please read it?

Acts 2, 38-39, Then Peter said to them, Repent, and let every one of your youth be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all who are far off, as many as the Lord will call. Romans 8, verse 1. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

Okay. So, I tell you about God being faithful to this promise. And now we get into righteous. Righteous is... Oh, excuse me. How late do we go? Ten till? Okay, I just don't want to pace myself well. Okay, I don't want to keep you here too long, miss the service. Okay, so we have this word righteous.

The word has been translated as just, but also as righteous. Most translations that I've seen, he's faithful and just, but we prefer righteous, and I think there's good use for that, or good call for that, for both. Complete Word Study Dictionary defines this as righteous, just, that which is right, or that which is just. Thus as it applied to God, Christ is the God-man.

These are great references to look up. I didn't want to spend too much time looking up too many more extra scripture just so we could stay on our point. Wyss tells us that the fact that God is faithful and righteous perfectly imply each other. So the fact that he is it means that he has to be faithful to himself and faithful to his promise. And the fact that he is just or righteous implies that he will be faithful to himself, faithful to his promise. So, those two things are like mirror images. There are two sides of the same coin in God's personality. If God is fully righteous, then he must be fully faithful to both his own nature and his promise. And we know that he is.

Now, just how faithful and just. If someone wants to look up Deuteronomy 31-4, because I'm not sure how well that's going to go, or how well you're going to be able to see it. God's promises have not all been to the church for this age of grace. Many of God's promises have been given to the nation of Israel and not to the church. They were given to Israel. Is anybody there? Just yet? You're there? You're quick. You want to read it off the board? Okay, I'm down.

Now shall it be passed, when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations, where the Lord your God drives you, and you return to the Lord your God and obey his voice, according to all that I command you today, you and your children, with all your heart and all your soul, that the Lord your God will bring you back from captivity and have compassion on you, and gather you again from all the nations where the Lord your God has scattered you. If any of you are driven out to the farthest parts under heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you. You can see my typing skills need a little bit of aid. It's difficult because Ann is a word too. So anyway, this is a promise that God made in Deuteronomy 30.

So after Moses, remember he's reading the lot of the people one more time. So Moses had read the lot of the people and he said, and if you sin, oh no, no, and when you sin, when you stray from the Lord your God, he will scatter you amongst the nations. He will decimate and destroy, He will kill you and all the horrible curses that come from not obeying the law. And then He says after this, God's grace, He will bring them back to the nation of Israel.

So now, the question is, just how faithful and just? Is God faithful to His promise? If He promised this to the Jews, will He then revoke that promise from the Jews and say, ah, Jews, you're out. You sinned one too many times. And then say, I'm going to give this promise spiritually to the church. I will always draw you back.

Now, is this an important verse for us as Christians? Absolutely. This talks about the nature, the faithful nature of God and his faithfulness to his beloved, to his chosen, to his elect. That's you and me. So it's absolutely important because it tells us about the character of God.

But if we go to this promise and see who he's actually promising to, it's promising to the Jews. So God is faithful to His promise. In Romans 9-11, I would encourage you to read this with a view to understanding this. In the book of Revelation, the Bible is very clear that God will be faithful to all of His promises made to the Jews in the Old Testament.

He will re-gather the Jews and they will be faithful to Him. Jesus Christ will ride in on a white Charger and they will worship Him. It's a coming time. So when you meet a Jewish person or someone who says that God has left the Jews behind or forgotten the Jews, ask, is your God faithful? Is your God just and righteous?

If I owe Brian $10 and I pay my dad $10 and say, Brian, it's okay, I paid him $10, so my debt is cleared. Brian got ripped off. He didn't get his $10. But my dad, for some reason, just got a gift of $10 that he didn't deserve, that he never loaned me.

In other words, God made this promise to Israel, and if He just fulfills it to us, the Church, then is He not breaking that promise? Because He made a promise to the nation of Israel. Okay, I don't want to harp too much on this, but it is an important part of God's character. Do you have any questions or anything to add?

Okay. Now and if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us. I chose this background because it's such a nice forgiveness background. Okay, forgive. This phase rendered forgive here has more of the meaning to put away or to disregard. It can be used in terms of having a debt being remitted. It's about a restoration of a broken fellowship. So we talked about breaking fellowship with Jesus Christ and breaking fellowship with each other in the past verses, in verses 5, 6 and 7 and earlier. This has been very much about fellowship. And this is saying that this forgiveness is something that restores our fellowship with God after it's been broken.

I just love the imagery of it being put away or disregarded. forgive and forget, and we talk about, you know, I forgive you, but I'm still going to hold on to it. No, this is put away completely. He's going to put it away. He's going to disregard it. When God looks at you, If you confess your sins, he's faithful and righteous, he looks at you and he no longer sees that sin. He sees Jesus Christ and he sees you in Christ. He doesn't see that sin any longer.

We says, and I think this is a great comment, all the sins the believer commits past, those in his unsaved condition, and future, those in his saved state, were put away on a legal basis at the cross. and are in that sense forgiven the believer the moment he places his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus. But, the forgiveness spoken of here has to do not primarily with breaking God's law, that was taken care of at the cross, and recognized as such at the time the sinner placed his faith in the Savior. Therefore, sin in a Christian's life is a matter not between a lawbreaker and a judge, but between child and his father. It is a matter of grieving the Father's heart when a child of God sins. Let it sink in, because that's important. God is not viewing us anymore as we are in Christ, as a judge up on the bench. We are not in the docks waiting for our judgment. God views us now as a father and son, as a father views his son.

And for how many times I've made mistakes in my life and sinned and hurt people in my life, my father has always been faithful to forgive. How much more so our Father in Heaven? He looks at us with love and tenderness and is faithful to forgive as a father who is deeply and personally wounded by our sins.

C.S. Lewis once said, Jesus ran around forgiving other people their sins. Imagine if you hurt me, and then Jesus says, it's okay, you're forgiven. You hurt me. I should be the one to forgive you. But that's what Jesus did. He walked around forgiving other people their sins. for things that had been committed against someone else. Why is that? Because every sin is something that's committed against God.

So, anyway, that's a little bit more on that. Okay, so cleanse. Catharizo, this is, I believe, the same word as cleanse in the previous verse, verse 7. This is an Aorist subjunctive. And I didn't know what that meant until I looked it up. It talks about, oops, It talks about a single act of cleansing instead of a continual cleansing dealt with in verse 7. So in verse 7 it was telling us about how we continually cleanse. And now in verse 9, this is a point cleansing. He's going to cleanse us from the unrighteousness that we committed.

So this is the same word, coincidentally, that is pronounced clean in the Levitical sense. So, in the Levitical priesthood, when they would clean something or wash something, as you read about in the Old Testament, they would say it's clean, in the Septuagint or in the Greek. They would say, this is clean in the Levitical sense, ready to go, ready to be sacrificed, ready to be brought into the temple. If it wasn't clean like this, it couldn't have fellowship with God.

But He cleanses us yet again and again as we confess our sins. Okay, on to verse 10. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His Word is not in us. Sinned. Sins or sin. Individual sins, particular actions of disobedience. Indeed, that is correct.

In this case, the fact is that the present tense verb seems like this is a denial of having ever sinned before. imply that this verse is about someone who is denying ever having committed a sinful act. This would also imply that the speaker is not able to commit any sins in the present time either. So this is a denial, he's talking to a denial of having ever sinned before. So if we say that we have not sinned, we make God a liar. Now how do we make God a liar in that?

We know from Romans 1 through 3, specifically Romans 3.23, that all have sinned. We have all sinned. We all have sinned. The Word says this.

Isaiah 53.6 says, we all like sheep have gone astray. There's not one good among us, is what it's saying.

So to say that we have not sinned, or that we have never sinned, or that we will not sin, is to call God a liar. It's to say, God, you are lying to us about who and what we are. Yep, so Paul tells us that we have all sinned and that we are infected with this condition called sin. For evidence of this, turn to Romans 1 through 3. And it will leave you without any doubts at all as to our natural condition. So to say this is to say that God's Word is a lie. It says His Word is not in us. Here we find that the person who denies the truth of God's Word has an absence of God's Word within him. There are a few interesting things to say here. I'll pick it up, I promise.

That's a warning bell? Amazing. What a great system. What a great church. Okay. Praise the Lord. So, His Word is madness. Here we find that a person who denies the truth of God's Word has an absence of God's Word. And I already read that. Here's what Jesus had to say that has an interesting overlap with this.

He says, Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. And then skipping to verse 7. The words abide in you, you ask what you desire and it shall be done for you. So this idea of word abiding in us, God's word abiding in us, is huge. So John describes Jesus Christ as the word in John 1.

So it is quite a serious thing to say that we have never sinned. It's far more serious than a denial of the fact that Christians continue to sin or not, whether or not they continue to sin after their conversion, or that we have no sin nature. This would imply that there was no reason for Jesus to come. This denies the importance of Jesus' coming at all, Jesus' whole mission to come as a propitiator or a sacrifice for us. So that His sacrifice was a complete wasted effort. A person who denies this word calls God a liar and also, in some sense, is denying Christ and denying Christ's mission on earth. That's my understanding. That was another Gnostic teaching and I don't know if we have that knowledge by way of specific writings or teachings of the Gnostics or if we just take it as an assumed by the fact that he is specifically rebuking it here.

Okay. We'll move forward. Application. We are a teaching church. We're proud of the fact that we're a teaching church and I think we should be. It's great. And the only thing that I would fear is that we would go application-lite. I can't remember who it was. Was it Chafer that said every Bible should be bound in shoe leather? It's meant to be walked around. It's meant to be walked out in our lives.

And if we read and we do all of this study and we don't apply it tomorrow in our lives, you have wasted this hour of your life. If we're not applying this, this is wasted time. We need to be applying this to our lives. We need to be applying this to our situations.

So, I'd like to go through, just very quickly, the first step in Bible study, as I'm sure you've heard from Vern, this is just a brief overview. The first step of Bible study is observing the text. In this phase, we observe the language, history, culture, the author, the original audience, and anything else we can see. We try to take in all the information we can. Then the second step is to get the interpretation. First we're asking, what does it mean? What did it mean to the original hearers? And then this also asks, how much of it can be applied to us?

We did that with the Deuteronomy passage. We said originally to Israel it meant when you sin and God physically scatters you, he will physically draw you back. But to us, we can say, we can't apply that He's going to physically draw us back to Israel, but we can say that it's about His faithfulness, that God is faithful.

That's how that applies to our lives. So that's the step of interpretation, responsible interpretation. Finally, the third step is application. In application, we decide how to actually live this Word and truth in our day-to-day lives. This is concerning our walk and our condition. How is this passage going to affect our week?

It has been said once, there is only one correct interpretation, but application is manifold. So there is one correct meaning to the sentences of Scripture, but every one of us could have a different application and be completely right. So here are my three simple applications, and I don't want to force these on you, but I just want to get you going in that direction before we send off today. This passage speaks to many heresies that are out and about today.

The world of secular psychology have dismissed sin and guilt altogether. Sin nature has been dismissed completely and we need to be on guard against that. Psychology will tell you it's your father's fault, it's your mother's fault, it's your grandfather's, it's anything but your fault.

And we need to be on guard against that. This is a vicious battle for our minds that we're fighting right now. And it's not just our minds, it's our children's minds, it's our friends' minds, it's our brother's minds, it's our father's minds. The world, this battle is being fought right now. And if we're not aware of this, we will lose that battle. We will lose our minds to the world, to Satan, to the flesh. And that cannot be done. As Christians, we cannot allow that to happen. So we need to be aware, I would say, is something that this passage teaches us. Two, same word.

Are there any sins in your life that need to be brought to God? Any instances in your life that you need to take to God and say, these things that I have done are sinful and wrong and I agree with you, please forgive me. This is a vital part of the healthy Christian life. If there's not daily confession in your life, either you're perfect or you're not doing the right thing. If you're perfect, raise your hand. So, confessing our mistakes in your position. That's true. In your position, we are true. Positionally, raise your hands. OK. Conditionally, I sinned today already. OK.

So, confessing our mistakes to God is a vital part of our relationship with Him. And He blesses us through giving us forgiveness, but also uses our humility to guard us against spiritual pride. This is something I've noticed in my life. When I do battle with a sin, I go and I rely on God and He takes that sin away from me and I'm living it out and all of a sudden I feel like, wait a minute, I'm not sinning anymore, I'm so strong and spiritual. And God says, no, it's me who makes you not sin, not you.

So this is something that is very vital to my walk and something that has been taught to me by So, assurance of salvation. Many commentators rightly tell that one of the primary purposes of John in writing this letter was to let people know that they have assurance of salvation. That they do not need to be constantly wringing their hands and wondering if they have sinned themselves out of salvation. This verse is clear.

God is light and can have no fellowship with darkness. However, in our position in the person of Jesus Christ, we are forgiven all of our sins. and are separated from our sin nature. Furthermore, God forgives us as a loving Father when we transgress against Him. Our salvation is secure. By sane warning about our sins, our fellowship with God and with the Church is restored.

That's it. I would love to give us some time to pray about it. We don't have it. So we'll let you go. Just so you know, next week... I hope you wrote down your questions from this week. I'm sure there are more than a few. And I hope you have your questions written down from last week. Because next week, Roger and Josiah... Do you know, is it Roger and or just... Both. Okay, both together. We'll be working our best to answer your questions. So bring your questions. Would you please pray for us to close?