Ch. 1:1-4. The Incarnation and Life of Christ as a Means of Fellowship and Joy.

The language is somewhat involved, but this is very nearly its tenor. The apostle has so much to crowd into his opening sentence that he seems scarcely to know how to begin. He wants to utter the cardinal facts in regard to the person of Christ, his own sensible acquaintance with these facts, and their effective relation to the higher life of believers — all in one beat, as it were. It is the effort of a full vessel to empty itself by an insufficient outlet. No expression that Christ made was so involved, or could be. Not even inspired men could speak like him. In the verses before us, we see a deep and vivid experience attempting to put itself in sentences. The life in Christ has become life in John, and he wants to make such a declaration, such a testimony, of it as will lift up all his readers to the same plane of divine experience. He knows that in order to be successful in this object, he must at the same time guard his readers against any erroneous views of the person of Christ. Hence his emphasis and amplification of certain peculiar facts in Christ's original life and manifestation to the world.

1. That which. The thing, or substance, which he will declare. It is not merely a person, but a person as a life, fact, principle; a new power emerging in human history. Hence the writer begins with a neuter, instead of a masculine, pronoun, meaning that wonderful existence which includes so much, that source of life. Which was from the beginning. We understand this to mean, from eternity. The words, 'was with the Father,' in the following verse, compared with John 1:2, confirms this conclusion; so also, indirectly, do other passages (as Micah 5:2; John 8:58; 17:6; Col. 1:17), which declare the pre-existence, or eternity, of the Son of God. Of course, John 1:1 is the strongest warrant for our interpretation. [See Note on John 1:1. — A. H.] The word rendered ' beginning ' (ἀρχή) may mean the condition, or foundation, which lies back of all historical creation and existence (Rev. 3:14), and from which they take their start. Prior to the existence of any created being or thing Christ was — 'was,' not was becoming. With what holy reverence did John contemplate such a Being, who did not belong to the common category of men, however truly he became a man. Which we have heard. The writer speaks for himself and his fellow-apostles, the prime witnesses of the gospel. The statement brings forward the eternal Word to a point in time, when, clothed with humanity, or, rather, made flesh (John 1:14), he uttered human speech which ordinary human ears could hear. A testimony to the reality of the incarnation. Which we have seen with our eyes. The added words, ' with our eyes,' intensify the seeing, while they show that it was not merely mental, but physical, with the natural eyesight. It was necessary for an apostle, as an original witness, to have seen Christ thus. (1 Cor. 9:1) A blind man could not be an apostle. Which we have looked upon. This is something more than to perceive with the eyes. It states that while the apostles saw Christ, they likewise gazed upon him. They examined him, contemplated him. Their eyes dwelt upon him. There was that in him which awakened rapt and admiring attention. The verb here used implies something remarkable in his person, and is expressly used with such a reference in John 1:14, "And we beheld his glory." And our hands have handled. They had handled him, and thereby knew that he was not a mere vision or spirit, but had a real physical body, and therefore was a man. It is the strongest kind of testimony to the humanity of Jesus. No doubt John here refers particularly to his handling of the real body of our Lord after the resurrection from Joseph's tomb. The humanity which he possessed before, he still had when raised from the dead. Jesus, in fact, invited this kind of testing of his bodily state. For when risen, and standing in a room with his apostles, he said to them, as they wondered and seemed to doubt: "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have." (Luke 24:39.) And he requested the doubting Thomas to thrust his hand into the wound of his side, made by the soldier's spear, to satisfy him of the reality of his body [Notice that the last two verbs of the original are in the aorist tense, and the first two in the perfect tense. This may perhaps be due to the circumstance that the last two refer to a single act, and the first two to an oft-repeated experience.— A. H.] And will not the same evidences present themselves when we shall see him as he is in his heavenly glory? "Will not the hands and feet still bear the marks and scars of the crucifixion? (Rev. 5:6.) Will not the body still be one that can be handled —real man as well as very God? This intense statement of our Lord's humanity was intended, as nearly all allow, to correct a suspicion, rising in some Christian hearts, that Jesus was not truly human, but only seemed to be so— an error which subsequently took more definite shape in the sect known as the Docetae. But take away the humanity of Jesus, make of the incarnation a mere seeming, and the whole scheme of redemption for sinners is undermined; there is no atonement, no coming of Christ into conjunction with our natures, no mediatorship, no sympathizing priesthood. The incarnation is one of the foundations of the gospel. And "if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?" (Ps. 11:3.) Nay, what can anxious sinners do? How important the fact that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us! Of the Word of life. Respecting or pertaining to (περὶ) 'the word of life' — that is, the higher eternal nature of Christ, similarly conceived of and named in the opening of John's gospel. The expression is thrown in to make his readers certain of whom he is speaking. All the preceding statements, he says, pertain to him who, before he was heard, seen, gazed upon, or handled by men, existed under the name of the Word, and contained in himself absolute life. He was called the Word, because he was the expression, the utterance of God, "the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person." (Heb. 1:3.) And, as such, he was the original fountain of life— not merely of existence, but of divine, spiritual life. Before the world was, the Word had in himself that same Holy Spirit which was subsequently imparted to his humanity, not by measure (John 3:34), to be communicated thence to all his people. The adjunct, 'of life,' literally, of the (true) life, is a genitive of nature, or characteristic. The idea expressed has its counterpart in John 1:4. The whole expression is definitive of the opening words, 'that which' (ὅ), or may depend on such understood words as, I speak, or I write. Ebrard says it is appositional, and paraphrases thus: "That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, etc., we declare unto you; and thereby we declare unto you what concerns the Word of life."

2. For the life was manifested— literally. And the life, etc., the free Hebraic connective so common in the writings of John. The mention of the life of the Word in the preceding clause suggests to the author a fact about it in connection with the incarnation — a fact confirmatory and explanatory of what he had already said, and in truth belonging to the very matter of his message — and so it must go in at once, parenthetically, before it is forgotten. The life, belonging to the eternal Word, was manifested in a human body (John1:4), making possible the action and testimony of the senses before mentioned. The incarnation, bringing Christ's life within the reach of men, before implied, is now more explicitly stated, together with an important fact in the process. And we have seen [it]. The word supplied in brackets is not needed, as the object is expressed after the two following verbs— namely, that eternal life. So Lange, Lücke, Ebrard, and the Bible Union. This testimony is not to be understood as the mere repetition of a previous statement, but us a declaration that while the apostles had seen Christ's humanity, it was not a bodily nature only which they had seen, but a bodily nature embracing and expressing the true life of the Word. They discerned in him a humanity containing the fathomless spring of eternal life. As they looked on Jesus, they saw, as it were, beneath the surface, and felt a witness that the eternal life was identified with him. Seeing him, they saw that life. He was the life. (Col. 3:4) They who deeply see Jesus discern the divine life in him, as well as the human. Enlightened souls have this blessed perception. The apostles, having had this complete perception of Christ, and being thus prepared in their own knowledge, went forth to the people witnessing of him, and showing that he was the true eternal life now manifested as the source and hope of eternal life to all who received him. And this witness they bore not only to the impenitent, but over and over again to those who already believed, to feed their faith and increase still further their new life. They report what they have seen and experienced, and by this means the true life is communicated and multiplied in men. They who experience a personal knowledge of the incarnation and life of Christ, become reporters, witnesses, to others, and so the vital knowledge is spread. Thus our verse presents an outline of the divine method of evangelizing the world. Living witnesses, who know Christ themselves, declare their knowledge in the Church and to the world. "What we know experimentally of Christ, the life, let us report and declare. How otherwise are those about us to know the truth? That eternal life which was with the Father. The eternal life here is not strictly the personal word, but the life that was eternally in him (see 5:11), and identified with him; so identified that the same eternity, the same relation to the Father, may be predicated of it or him. This is that infinite life, the pleroma of the Word; never coming into existence, but always being; which as such, or being of such nature (ἤτις), was with the Father, bearing a personal relation towards (πρὸς) him in the Word. As the Word was thus with (πρὸς) God the Father in eternity (John 1:1), so was the life which was afterwards manifested in the flesh. Such a life must be ultimate and absolute, the basis of all other life, and its manifestation is the highest phenomenon; and being found complete in Jesus, it marks him as the most exalted Being. It is this Being who, while man, has a life reaching back into eternity with the Father, whom the apostles were declaring. It is perhaps impossible to decide whether the name Father, as used here, was applied in view of an eternal relation of fatherhood in the Godhead, or in view merely of a relation (not distinction) begun in time, with the appearance of the Godman. The former conclusion is certainly the most natural impression, from the use of language in the present instance; and if valid, implies a certain sonship of the Word in eternity. John is surely speaking of God as he was in eternity; but it is possible that he does this under a name which was given in view of the incarnation.

3. That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you. The apostle resumes the matter of statement begun in the first verse; and in resuming, after a lengthy parenthesis, he naturally repeats an essential portion. ' That which ' has precisely the same meaning as in the former verse. The order of the seeing and hearing is here reversed, to emphasize the seeing as the higher evidence, the higher ground of certainty. Lachmann, Tischendorf, and Tregelles correctly insert also (καὶ) before 'unto you' — declare we also unto you — that is, to you also who have not seen and heard, that you may know the manifested One as well as we may, have the facts that we have. As the object of ' declare ' is Christ in his historical manifestation witnessed by the apostles, it must refer to much more than the act of writing the present Epistle. It means, no doubt, the announcing of the story of Christ by oral communication and the written gospels, together with (note the present, or continuous tense of the verb) any testimony rendered or repeated in the present letter. The declaring is not effected in one way, or by one apostle merely. Having received the true light, these apostles enlightened others. (Acts 4:20.) Suppose they had kept the great, new knowledge to themselves, what would have been the fate of the gospel? Or suppose they had spoken without experimental and certain knowledge, what effect could they have had on men? The apostles, as such, needed something more than a spiritual knowledge of Christ; they needed that knowledge which came from seeing and handling the human body, and from being with him from the beginning. (John 15:27.) "What is necessary for the witnesses of Christ now is the true inward knowledge of him. The subject of testimony, whether from apostles or from us, is Christ incarnate, and the eternal life in him. That chief matter being repeatedly declared by many men in many ways, the elect shall be brought in, and the life of the Church more fully replenished. That ye also may have fellowship with us. 'That ye also,' who have not seen and heard, may have fellowship with us, and so enjoy all that we enjoy. Testimony shall bring to you all that sight has brought to us; and for this purpose we make it. 'Fellowship' with another is something more than union, however intimate; it is a sharing together with a common partnership or participation of certain possessions, gifts, or blessings. Those who are in fellowship are partakers in common of certain things. It has been supposed that Paul and John differ in their meaning of this word (κοινωνία). "John's sense is more inward, subjective, than than that of Paul." (Hackett.) It "seems to us that the participation, or fellowship itself, as an act, is the same with both; its objects may somewhat differ in the writings of the two — with Paul, the means of life; with John, life itself And Paul seems to emphasize the objects, whatever they are; while John appears to make prominent the common participation itself, and the intimate union it implies between those who thus partake. With the latter, the spiritual partnership is all important, the highest exaltation. And truly our fellowship [is] with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. The 'with' (μετὰ) is repeated before each person, strongly suggesting a real distinction of the persons in the writer's view. It must mean the same as in the preceding sentence — namely, in company with. The sentence is added (καὶ) to define the height of that fellowship of the apostles to which the others addressed should be admitted. It is nothing less than a participation together with Father and Son in a common life. That the object or contents of the fellowship is life in the fullest sense, is not directly said, but the tenor of ver. 2 teaches it. And fellowship with Father and Son in one great life implies perfect union and exalted companionship with them. In his deep experience of the eternal life which was with the Father, and in the Son, John was not selfish. He desired the members of the churches to share it with him to the full. They were already supposed to be converted people; but they might attain a greater fullness of blessing. It was their privilege to be on the same plane of conscious spiritual life with the apostles themselves. And how shall they attain to this grand realization? Let them receive a fresh testimony of the truth John is declaring; believe in the completeness of Christ the life; welcome the eternal life that is in him; know that it is for them. Oh, the wonder of the uplifting through the life that was manifested! The New Testament teaches that the Father has his name primarily from his relation to his only-begotten Son, and secondarily, from his relation to those who are begotten in his likeness by the Holy Spirit.

4. And these things write we onto yon. By 'these things' he means these foregoing things. Compare especially 2:1; John 20:31; 1 Tim. 3:14, and Ellicott on this last passage. The expression, 'these things' (ταῦτα), is used two hundred and forty-five times in the New Testament, and always, with half a dozen exceptions, with reference to things preceding. The reader, coming to the word in our passage, naturally thinks of the great things just mentioned by the writer. The 'and,' introducing the statement, helps the impression. That your joy may be full. Fulfilled, filled up, made complete. The things just written, such as the eternity, the real humanity, the eternal life of Christ, the privelege of fellowship with apostles and Father and Son, and the testimony of these things from personal knowledge, being read and experienced, were fitted to produce supreme joy— joy, and not mere peace or happiness. A cardinal object of the ministry (2 Cor. 1:24), and of the gospel doctrines, is to produce this joy in Christians. "The joy of the Lord is your strength." (Neh. 8:10.) It is the earnest of heaven, the essence of Christianity. " These things have I spoken unto you," said Jesus, "that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." (John 15:11.) " Ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full." (John 16:24.) Union with Jesus in the life eternal causes in us the same joy that, like a glad stream, ever runs in his bosom. Said Augustine: "There is a joy which is not given to the ungodly, but to those who love thee for thine own sake, whose joy thou thyself art. And this is the happy life, to rejoice in thee, of thee, for thee; this is it, and there is no other. For they who think there is another, pursue some other, and not the true joy." ['Our joy' instead of ''your joy' is perhaps the correct reading; for it is supported by the Sinaitic and Vatican manuscripts, the oldest known to critics, also by Codex L., the Syriac Version, one of the Egyptian versions, the Sahidic, and thirty cursive manuscripts. It is the more difficult reading — a copyist would be more likely to write "your" for "our" than to write "our" for "your" — and therefore probably correct. 'Nor is the thought unsuitable. The joy of a true apostle might well be perfected by the growing knowledge and sympathy of Christians for whom he was laboring in the gospel. (1 Thess. 3:9; Phil. 4:1.) — A. H.]

5-10. Fellowship with God Implies Purification FROM Six, by the Atoning Blood, and Personal Confession.

In the preceding section, John has set forth forcibly the incarnation of Christ and his eternal life, the preaching of which is the means of bringing God's children into divine fellowship and full joy. And now, in this second section, to guard against any false view of the way into this high experience, he shows that it is not by ignoring or denying our sins, nor is it by profanely carrying them along with us; but it is by owning them as they are, and getting clear of them through the death of the Incarnate One. The sublime, joyful, fellowship contemplated by John 1:15 thus holy on both God's part and ours. There can be no union or company with a holy God except in a way of holiness.

5. This then is the message. Literally, according to the best edited text. And (to proceed with the epistle) there is this message. The reader has here John's order and words. The message is the compact proposition, basal to a scheme of salvation, and primal in all revelation, given in the last part of the verse. Which we have heard of him. Not concerning him, but from him. The sentence recalls the idea that Christ, having become incarnate, spoke to human ears, and John and other witnesses did hear him. The thought is involved that the Incarnate One spoke for God with authority and infallibility, making it all-important that men should hear and know what he said. And declare unto you. Take up (ἀνά) from Christ and announce, or report. The apostles were in the position of simple reporters from Christ. The necessity of this work of reporting or announcing the message of Christ to men is implied. Preaching to men is as necessary as that Christ should first come and originate the message. It is the line of communication between Christ who came and the ears of the world at large. That God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. This is the message declared from Christ, — a message testifying primarily of God; a statement lying at the foundation of the plan of salvation, and introductory to the atonement — word in 2:2. Christ came not to say that God, in mercy to men, could be indifferent to their sin or careless of the interests of righteousness, but rather to declare his righteousness (Rom. S:26), and his mercy by a way of righteousness. The locus classicus of Rom. 3:21-26 is an expansion of the statement of our verse. John is deeply doctrinal, not less than Paul. Let it be emphasized that the holiness of God lay at the foundation of Christ's mission. The gospel throughout, both as a system and an operation, is a voice saying that God is holy; hence that man must be holy to be with him. But it opens the way of becoming holy. God is light, morally, spiritually. Light is the one most expressive emblem of God, and was created to be such. See Ps. 27:1; 36:9; 1 Tim. 6:16; Heb. 1:3; Rev. 22:5. It represents God's pervasiveness of being, his perfect luminousness of mind, and the bright gladness (Ps. 97:11) of his life; but, more particularly, the perfect holiness of his moral nature. This is the special point in the mind of John, as the following verses prove. See light expressing righteousness in Ps. 37:6. The apostle intensifies his statement by putting it also in the negative form. ' Darkness ' is named, not as the symbol of ignorance, error, or misery merely, but more especially as the symbol of moral evil, sin. In God is no sin at all. Sin can have no part in him, either in a thought, or feeling, or deed, or in a way of fellowship or union with him. His nature repels all sin. He cannot countenance it, either in himself or in others. Let no man, therefore, present the gospel, let no sinner presume to come to him, in a way to compromise God's holiness or ignore moral guilt. If the passage does not purposely confute an incipient gnosticism, it guards theology against it.

6. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth. 'If,' here with the subjunctive, presents a supposable condition, an "objective possibility." (Winer.) 'If we say' — that is, I, you, or any one else. How plainly the teaching of this verse follows from the doctrine of the divine character just before laid down! With what tremendous force it comes home to any whose unholy lives, coupled with professed fellowship with God, are saying, "God is not so holy, after all! " If we have fellowship with God in one life (see note on ver. 3), between us and him there is community of character, moral likeness, and sympathy; fellowship must be mutual. Hence, for us to profess fellowship with God, while yet unsaved, or uncleansed from sin, is in effect to say that God's character is on a level with ours, and that he can have part in our sin! How many there are who are practically belying the nature of God, by thinking to enjoy God's fellowship here and hereafter, without regeneration, without moral renovation through Christ! But what does the very nature of God require? Darkness cannot be in fellowship with light. To 'walk in darkness' is to live in sin; "action inward and outward, in whatever way we turn." (Bengel.) Some specific, cherished sin may be referred to, and still the general statement remain fearfully true. Literally, 'in the darkness' — namely, that previously mentioned (ver. 5), which is totally foreign to God, but in whose sphere, or world, a Christian professor may walk, and so in a character opposite to God's. The expression is often used in these times of a doubting, comfortless state of mind, the opposite of a state of Christian hope. But the argument John is so powerfully unfolding demands the interpretation already given. Saying one thing and denying it in act, we tell a lie in both word and deed. Doing not the truth is something more than the act of lying, expressed negatively; something more than acting inconsistently. It comes nearer to being the negative expression of walking in darkness. It is the failure to express the light of God's nature in our life, the failure to do the gospel truth as the tree does its fruit. (Matt. 3:8, 10, in the Greek.) Truth here does not vary essentially from its Johannean meaning, and doing the truth is well explained in John 3:21. " That the truth (τὴν ἁλήθειαν) can mean only the substantial truth, that which in its nature is conformed to the nature of the God of light, ought never to be doubted." (Ebrard.)

7. But if we walk in the light. as he is in the light. If God is light, it is likewise the element in which he lives. It encircles every part and point of his being. In the same sphere or state of moral light we may walk — that is, in moral harmony with God, which is righteousness; and if we do, it implies and proves two things. We have fellowship one with another. Saying that we have this fellowship does not prove that we are walking in the light; but walking in the light proves that we have this fellowship. Where there is the former, expect to find the latter. Who are the parties included in the phrase 'one with another'— Christians only, or Christians and God himself? We should say the latter. John is certainly arguing about a fellowship that includes God, and the walk that evinces it or denies it. Besides, the pronoun his in the next part of the verse most naturally supposes that the idea of God is not dropped from the present part. Nor does this view, as some aver (see Lange), put God and us too nearly on a level; since it belongs to the very idea of fellowship, as between God and us, that he permits himself to be on a kind of level with us. Wonderful permission and admission! Nor, in fact, is God brought down in the reality of this community, but the sinner rather in Christ is lifted up into the life of God. On the plane of this high fellowship of God and his people, each participates with each, and each with all, in the fullest mutuality — one with another (μετ̓ ἀλλήλων). And the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. The best supported text omits the term 'Christ.' John meets a mental question. Have these Christians, up in this high state, no sins? Yes, says John in effect, they have sins, but the blood of Jesus cleanses them all away, so that, consciously forgiven, saved, washed, they walk in God's light; and this walking involves and proves the cleansing, as it did the fellowship. The cleansing and fellowship, too, are most intimately connected. The consciousness of the one involves that of the other; and there is no fellowship without cleansing. The blood is the atoning or sacrificial work, through faith in which (Acts 15:9) we are cleansed from sin. Being the blood of the Son of God, it is of infinite value in canceling penalty. 'Cleanseth us from all sin' should be translated is cleansing us from every sin. Their importance, as bearing upon certain modern opinions, cannot be overestimated. Do they describe a work of sanctification, or of justification? Our answer is, a work of justification. A statement directly parallel we find in Rom. 5:9, "Being now justified by his blood." The blood justifies, while it is the Spirit which sanctifies. These separate offices should be carefully distinguished. To justify a person from a sin is to free him from it, so that it is no longer his. It is more than to pardon the person; it is to take away his guilt, so that the sin is no more chargeable to him. He stands as one innocent before the divine law. Condemnation is gone from the conscience; and with it departs the sense of moral pollution. Now, does not cleansing us well describe this total act which frees us from the sin, utterly disengages us from it, so that it is no more ours? And is not this just the work of cleansing that is described in Heb 9:14, and is there, as in our passage, referred to the blood of Christ? Compare, also, Heb. 1:3; 9:22; 2 Peter 1:9, and especially the analogy of Lev. 16:19, 20. The act of the cleansing is present and continuous (καθαρίζει), and is such at all parts of the Christian life on earth, implying that at every successive moment there is accruing sin. The continuous, erasive work of the atonement implies that there is constantly recurring sin to be erased. No sin, no cleansing. But there is cleansing, and therefore sin. At this moment, looking at the blood of Christ, I realize that I am fully cleansed, justified; but, having the remains of the old nature, sin accrues, and I need to make a constantly fresh application of his blood; and making it for one moment or many, I am conscious of complete cleansing from guilt, of full salvation. The full salvation, however continuously realized, is not a state of sinlessness. The sin constantly flows in, the irruption ceases not, but the blood of Christ meets it and cleanses us from it, giving constant victory to constant appropriating faith. The passage teaches this seeming but easily comprehended paradox, that at each moment we need salvation from sin, and at each moment we may realize full cleansing. Finally, observe that the work being done by the appropriated blood is not the taking away of the root principle of sin, but rather of each particular sin, every sin. The old root, whence the sin comes, is not removed by the blood; that can be met or in any measure subdued only by the Spirit. It is the guilt of sin, not the sinning nature, which the blood removes. The sinning nature may be likened to an old sore, whose continuous eruption the " fuller's soap" cleanses away, while itself remains. What Paul had the battle with was not unforgiven sin, but the sinning nature, which as a deep sore he felt to be active within him. But while feeling the grievous motions of sin, it was his privilege to feel the constant cleansing of the Saviour's blood, and so a happy victory, of which he testifies, and delightful fellowship with God.

8. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves. John includes himself in this statement. If after any of us are once saved and cleansed by the blood of Christ, we say we have no accruing sin needing atonement, we deceive ourselves. If the ripest Christian says he has not an active sinning nature hidden as a root within him, from which guilt and pollution will arise, needing the cleansing blood of Jesus, that man does not know himself; he is deluded. And the truth is not in as. The truth here is the truth of the gospel, bringing the light of God into the soul, and so revealing sins as the sunlight does the dust. See Ps. 90:8. " The truth is to be taken objectively as the divine truth in Christ, the absolute principle of life from God received into the heart" (Lange); " the objective essence of the divine nature, which is light" (Ebrard); "true faith" (Fausset); "the truth respecting God's holiness and our sinfulness, which is the very first spark of light in us" (Alford).

9. If we confess our sins. Our method of obtaining the full effect of the cleansing blood. It is by confessing our sins (not our mere sinfulness), voluntarily uncovering them before the eye of God, which is essentially repentance. See Ps. 32:5, 6. Such repentance is not without an element of faith; and the result follows— full salvation. He is faithful and just. He— namely, God. 'Faithful' to his promise of forgiveness upon condition of repentance, and just inasmuch as Christ has died for our sins. (Rom. 3:26.) To forgive us our (literally, the) sins, and to cleanse us from all (literally, every) unrighteousness. ' He is faithful and just ' — righteous — for this very purpose, to this very end (ἴνα), that he should not only forgive the confessed sins, but, what is more, take away the guilt, free us from the sins, justify us, so that we stand as innocent before him. See note on ver. 7.

10. If we say that we have not sinned. The persons supposed to say this are viewed at the point when they should be offering their confession — a confession of sins beginning in the past and reaching down to the present; hence, the perfect tense. But if when they should begin to confess the sins of the time covered by this tense down to the present moment, they say, 'We have not sinned,' there is a terrible added sin. We make him a liar. That is, God. "We not only lie (ver. 6), and are deluded (ver. 8), but even more than that, we make God a liar. For he has said by others, and just now by me (John), that we all have ever-recurring sins." And his word is not in us. (John 5:38.) His word of the gospel, as a living principle (1 Peter 1:23), the Seed of the new nature. It corresponds substantially with the truth in ver. 8, and confirms the interpretation there given. Implanted in us by the Spirit, it reveals to us our sins, and our constant need of the atoning blood.