1 John 1:9

John’s letter opens with the witness of those who heard, saw and handled the Word of life (1 John 1:1–4). He writes so that his readers may share that fellowship, “and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3). Then comes his message: “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). To claim fellowship with him while walking in darkness is a lie (1 John 1:6), and for those who walk in the light, “the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). These five verses take up the question that God’s holiness raises for people who still sin, and their answer is honest confession and Christ himself.

John most likely wrote near the end of the first century, possibly from Ephesus, to churches troubled by false teaching from within. Early forms of what later became Gnosticism held that spirit is pure and the body evil. Some concluded that what the body did, sin included, left the spirit untouched, and some claimed that a special knowledge (gnosis) had lifted them above sin altogether. Teachers of this kind also denied that Jesus truly came as a man. Against all of it John insists that sin is real, that admitting it belongs to genuine faith, and that the remedy is the Jesus who lived, died and rose.

The verb epō, “say”, is the ordinary word for speaking, whether by mouth or in writing, and here it means an outright claim, a settled conviction put into words. John says “we”, and so he counts himself among those he warns. That keeps the warning from sounding like an accusation and applies it to every believer, the apostle included.

To “have no sin” is a claim about our present condition, that sin is gone from us. The claim that we have never sinned at all comes two verses later. The noun hamartía means a sin, and it is properly an abstract word, so it covers sin as a reality within us as well as the deeds that come from it. It belongs with the verb hamartánō, “to sin”, which carries the picture of missing the mark, falling short of what God requires. Paul says that “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), and David traces his sin to the very start of his life: “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5).

The person who makes this claim deceives himself. The verb planáō means to lead astray or cause to wander, and the plain reflexive pronoun heautoû, “ourselves”, names who is doing the leading. We are the ones misled and also the ones misleading. A person who denies his sin has wandered from the truth by his own claim, and he shuts himself off from the honest look at his own heart that leads to repentance and to grace.

The truth, alētheia, is reality as God has revealed it. In John’s writings truth is bound up with God’s own character and his word, and it is found in a person, for Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). If “the truth is not in us”, then God’s revealed reality, including what he says about our sin and our need of grace, has found no home in our hearts. John says later in the letter that “no lie is of the truth” (1 John 2:21), and the claim to be sinless is such a lie. It also empties the cross of its purpose, because “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15), and Jesus said, “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Mark 2:17). If we could make ourselves sinless, the Lamb of God would have had no need to die (John 1:29).

The verb homologéō means to assent or to acknowledge, and the KJV renders it both “profess” and “confess”. It is formed from words for “together” (homou) and “word” (lógos), and so it is often explained as saying the same thing. To confess our sins is to acknowledge them openly to God, assenting to what he says about them and calling them by the name he gives them. It is a humble admission of guilt and responsibility before a holy God, coming from the heart. The word is plural, “our sins”, so we bring to him the particular things we have done.

God’s people have always known this way back to him. “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13). David writes, “I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin” (Psalm 32:5).

Verse 10 takes the denial one step further. The verb hamartánō, to sin, stands here in the perfect tense, hēmartēkamen, “we have sinned”, which speaks of a completed act with lasting results. The claim is that we have never sinned, or that sin is no longer a reality in our lives. Verse 8 said that the one who makes such a claim fools himself. Verse 10 says he makes God a pseústēs, a liar, one who says what is false.

God has said plainly that all have sinned. “They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one” (Psalm 14:3). Paul gathers that psalm with others when he writes, “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10–12). So the person who claims to be sinless contradicts God’s own testimony about humanity. God remains true, for he is the God “that cannot lie” (Titus 1:2), but the claim accuses him of lying, and that is a grave offence against his character.

Such a person also shows that “his word is not in us”. The noun lógos means something said, a message, and here it is God’s revealed truth: his character, his commands and what he declares about our sin and our need of salvation. For his word to be in us is for it to be received, taken to heart and allowed to shape how we think and live. Verse 8 said “the truth” was missing, and verse 10 says “his word” is missing, so the two warnings explain each other. John’s Gospel calls Christ himself the Word (John 1:1). Jesus came “that I should bear witness unto the truth” (John 18:37), and he promised the Spirit of truth, who “will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). When we receive Christ, his truth, which includes the truth about our sin and his provision for it, dwells in us by the Spirit, and admitting our sin becomes the way into all that he has done for us.

John turns to his readers with “My little children”, teknía, a tender name that carries a father’s care along with his spiritual authority. The verb gráphō means to write, from an early sense of scratching or drawing, and “these things write I unto you” points back to what he has just said about light, sin and confession. His purpose is “that ye sin not”. He has insisted that every believer has sin, and he says so to lead them into holiness, so that they live out their new life in Christ in a way that pleases God.

Then he adds, “And if any man sin”. John knows that his children will sometimes fall short despite their earnest efforts, and he speaks of it as something that will happen at times. He has a provision ready for that day, and it is a person.

The word paráklētos means one called alongside to help. In a court it meant someone who pleads another’s case, a counsel for the defence, and people in the Greek and Roman world brought such a man to speak for them. Jesus used the same word for the Holy Spirit, whom the KJV calls “another Comforter” (John 14:16), and this verse is the only place the KJV translates it “advocate”.

John writes “we have”, échō, in the present tense. The advocate belongs to us now, as a present possession and more than a hope. He is “with the Father”, standing before God on our behalf and pleading our case when we sin. Paul asks, “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us” (Romans 8:34). Hebrews says that he is able to save to the uttermost, “seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). The high priest of Israel interceded for the people, and Jesus, our great High Priest, intercedes for us.

His fitness for this work is in the name John gives him, “Jesus Christ the righteous”. Díkaios, the same word that called God “just” in verse 9, describes one who is equitable in character and act, innocent and holy. Jesus “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). His sinless life and his atoning death are the ground of his plea, and so his plea for us always holds. Our standing with God rests on his intercession and his finished work, which is why “there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

Christ can plead for us because he has already dealt with the sin that separated us from God. “He is the propitiation for our sins.” The word hilasmos appears in the New Testament only here and in 1 John 4:10, where God “sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins”. It means an atoning sacrifice that satisfies God’s justice and turns away his wrath, which sin justly deserves, and so brings reconciliation. John says that Jesus is the propitiation. By offering himself, he is the sacrifice, and he fully met the righteous demands of God’s holy law against sin.

The same verse in chapter 4 shows who provided this sacrifice: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” It is God himself who, in love, gives the means of reconciliation, the very opposite of people trying to calm an angry god by their own efforts. “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). In the cross God’s love and his holiness are reconciled.

John’s readers who knew the sacrifices of the Old Testament would understand him. God said of the blood on the altar, “I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls” (Leviticus 17:11). The Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16) and the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 looked ahead to “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Christ is the fulfilment of all those sacrifices, and he offered himself once for all: “now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Hebrews 9:26). Paul calls him “a propitiation through faith in his blood” (Romans 3:25), and Hebrews says he was made like his brethren to be “a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2:17). “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

These verses let us live honestly before God. Since he already knows the truth about our sin, we can stop pretending and tell him plainly what we have done, and he forgives and cleanses us because he is faithful and just. Our forgiveness rests on the finished work of Christ, so when we stumble we have every reason to run to the Father and confess. Our advocate is already with him, and our sacrifice has already been made.

That same sacrifice reaches the whole world. The good news we have received is good news for every nation, tribe and tongue, and John’s words give us every reason to share it with those who have yet to hear or believe.