1 John 1:8–2:2

Original Meaning

Sin and Jesus’ Sacrifice (2:2)

THE SECOND SOLUTION for sinfulness (1:9) is provided in 2:2. The basis of Christ’s case on our behalf, the power behind his advocacy, comes from his sacrifice on the cross. Here again John uses a technical term, hilasmos: Jesus became a hilasmos for our sins. In the New Testament this word occurs only here and in 1 John 4:10, although related forms of it appear elsewhere. And controversy surrounds its precise meaning. Its use in extrabiblical literature and the Greek Old Testament (ten times) makes its meaning fairly clear: A hilasmos was a sacrifice given to placate someone who was angry. In a religious setting, it was an angry God. By this interpretation God is the object of Jesus’ sacrifice, making the sinner acceptable because God’s disposition has changed.11 On the other hand, some have urged that the object is not God, but the sins themselves. The sinner is pleasing to God because the sins are wiped away.12 Still others think that the two concepts merge and that at the very least, we cannot lose the notion that somehow God’s anger has been placated. No doubt the meaning of Christ’s sacrifice was forged in Christian thought and was not entirely dependent on sacrificial antecedents outside the Old Testament. There the two thoughts merge clearly: Sins are covered over and God’s righteous anger is changed.13 The NIV attempts to catch both emphases with its translation, “atoning sacrifice.”

The key, however, is that Jesus does not simply supply a hilasmos, he is one himself. Jesus is both parakletos and hilasmos on our behalf. He has supplied what was needed to effect our pardon. His righteousness made his sacrifice powerful (cf. Heb. 7:26–28) so that it brings benefits not simply to a closed circle of Christian worshipers, but to the whole world.14 God’s interest is not elitist, building a religious clique that excludes some (and this was no doubt one of the problems among John’s followers). God’s sacrificial work is comprehensive.

Bridging Contexts

SINCE JOHN CONTINUES to cite the arguments of his opponents, the present verses continue to be controlled by their agenda. In 2:1a he lapses into a pastoral exhortation for his true followers, but the bulk of the verses is devoted to a debate about the pervasive character of sin and God’s provision for all those who do sin.

Thus far we have listened to three claims and counterclaims that address this problem (1:6, 8, 10). In 1:6 there was a vague hint about what this “darkness” was all about. But in 1:8, 10 the subject becomes explicit. There was a debate about the reality of sin. It was either being denied as if it were unimportant (this is the Gnostic or Docetic thinking we have outlined), or sin was being dismissed as absent from the truly spiritual life (this might be a perfectionist tendency). Either way this had led to a cavalier or arrogant attitude, which had all but torn the Christian community.

John responds by affirming the fact of sin; and given this fact, he directs his readers back to the Incarnation. His Christologically centered response is intended not simply to address the Christian’s need for forgiveness (Christ as advocate and sacrifice), but to undercut the presupposition that has shaped their outlook in the first place. A world-denying philosophy has led to a sin-denying theology. These outlooks naturally jettison all Christology. John urges a different chain of events: affirming the importance of the world, embracing the truth about sin, confessing those sins, and seeking restoration through the work of the incarnate Lord. Thus John anchors the importance of Christ in his function. Affirming the person and work of Jesus is no abstract thing. Jesus is significant because of what he has done before the Father on our behalf.

How do I bridge this historical context to my own? This problem is similar to the one found in 1:5–7. I cannot simply confine the meaning of these verses to a Gnostic debate that died centuries ago. There are themes that transcend this time period altogether, touching on Gnostic attitudes but also speaking directly to our circumstances today. (1) The most important theme is our notion of “sin.” Are we convinced that fallenness is characteristic of the human experience? Secular life and religious communities alike struggle with this. Our response will shape our view of society, politics, and even psychology. As I try to bridge John’s unequivocating view of sin into my world, I have to wonder if my world is ready for it. John understands that we are captive to sin; we sin compulsively and deliberately. Even though elsewhere he will say that Christians are not prisoners to ongoing sins, here he is saying that just beneath our veneer is a crippling disease, a compulsion waiting to appear. I think, for instance, about Langdon Gilkey’s true story of what happened during World War II when the Japanese rounded up the Westerners near Peking/Bejing, China, and placed them in a camp called The Shantung Compound.15 Suddenly the veneer of Christian civility disappeared. Gilkey cites lines from an opera to encapsulate the story:

For even saintly folk will act like sinners

Unless they have their customary dinners.

But do we still believe it? Do we see sin as just poor choices, or poor education, or poor childhoods? John is using a theological anthropology that may be foreign to modern audiences. Thus a new bridge must be built before his message can be heard.

(2) There is the opposite error of complacency about sin. In a theological setting where grace is generous and sin is unavoidable, laissez-faire attitudes toward morality grow. I am convinced that this outlook is far more familiar to us today. Particularly in churches where the grace of God is part of a pastoral plan to promote personal health and well-being, the devastating threat of sin—indeed, the warning about sin—is sadly rare. Some in John’s audience were complacent. Many in our audiences are complacent too. Therefore John’s words bring a needed, provocative word.

(3) John gives us important information about how Jesus Christ accomplishes the salvation we enjoy. His words in 1:5 gave only a fraction of the fuller descriptions here. Yet I cannot help but wonder if sacrifice and atonement as John describes them make any sense today. Churches rarely explain the conceptual framework that informs the biblical world of sacrifice. I recall realizing this once in an adult education class. I digressed for over thirty minutes, explaining how altars, fire sacrifices, and priests all worked together in ancient Israel. And I remember how approximately fifty adults were stunned. Little in our world today directly compares with sacrifice like this (despite stories of heroic sacrifice we might tell).

In order to bridge John’s concept of Christ’s work on the cross, I must work to rebuild the biblical setting. If I do not, I must be careful lest my modern explanation empties the cross of its true power and meaning. I cannot simply say, “Christ took my place on the cross.” He did—but he did more. “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ” (2 Cor. 5:19). There are deeper mysteries here that a culture lacking a biblical worldview will fail to understand.

While John opens up this important subject of sin, it is unfortunate that he does not explore the subject more fully. Classic theological debates about the pervasive character of sin or the possibility of perfection find only limited attention in these verses. And yet their support is essential. These verses are some of the most important in the New Testament, anchoring the Christian view of the character of humanity and its relation to God.

Contemporary Significance

SINCE FILMS AND videos are the lifeblood of students today, one of the benefits of working at a college is that the students keep me well informed about current developments at the theater. We often discuss what presuppositions about life, sex, morality, or religion shape the screenplays they all know so well. I once asked them to list films that presuppose that a person is intrinsically fallen and films that presuppose that a person is intrinsically good. I wish I could report that students can figure this out right away, but they do not. However, once they see the pattern and elevate the discussion beyond movies like Natural Born Killers, the discussion ignites spontaneously. Lord of the Flies is always a favorite since high schools still require the book! In this story good British school boys (complete with starched uniforms) find themselves abandoned on a deserted island and at once turn into savages. The point is that deep within their little hearts resided a monster of untold ferocity. Mosquito Coast is another favorite. Harrison Ford leaves the evils of modern America and moves into a Central American jungle, only to learn that those evils were lurking in him all along. He brings the corruption with him.

But these films with their message of inherent fallenness are not the most popular. There is another message that has a growing appeal: Corruption is an option, it is “out there” in society, and still pristine societies and lives may be discovered. Older adults may point to the old Tarzan films (where the boy in the jungle is morally superior). A modern version is The Emerald Forest, where an American child gets lost in an Amazon forest and is adopted and raised by natives, who enjoy a morally perfect society (even their lack of clothes symbolizes a life in Eden before the Fall). A cartoon version of this is available in Fern Gully, where again the center of the Amazon is a place without sin, but where the workers burning and cutting the forest bring their own evil with them. Disney’s Pocahontas and Kevin Costner’s Dances with Wolves touch on the theme as well.

The essential question at the center of these discussions is our view of humanity. Is there something wrong at our center? Are we broken beyond repair and in need of redemption? Or do we enjoy an optimistic appraisal of the human condition? In Lord of the Flies, for instance, redemption comes only when an immaculately dressed British officer arrives on the island to uncover the seriousness of the children’s depravity. In other words, salvation comes from without—the fallen cannot heal themselves.

I have recently read Stephen Lawhead’s trilogy, The Song of Albion.16 Here this popular Christian author depicts a noble Celtic world that has a place for personal, comprehensive evil and yet recognizes that redemption must come from powerful “songs” outside this world’s existence. And above all, he acknowledges that no society, no matter how noble, is exempt from such fallenness.

(1) John would have us take seriously the comprehensive nature of sin. The biblical and theological teachings here are clear. Paul’s memorable phrase in Romans 3:23 sums it up nicely: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” There are no exceptions. There are no perfect humans and therefore no possibility of a humanly engineered utopia. It does not take long for the average person to admit that something is wrong in our world. We can conceptualize a world that seems better, that eliminates the crime, incurable diseases, starvation, war, and suffering that haunt human society. But few of my students believe “things are going well” on Planet Earth.

However, we live in a therapeutic culture that looks to cures for illness and remedial moral education as a solution to some of our problems. We say that we have the ability to fix what is broken. I am not denying that in some cases such approaches are worthwhile, but they are simply not the principal solution. The Bible insists that we are creatures who are given moral choices for which we are responsible. And we consistently choose to rebel against God and his way in our lives. As a result we have ruined the goodness God once gave us. In a word, our entire world is fallen.

I doubt that John reflected on a culture such as ours that rationalizes sin or denies the basis of guilt through a denial of an absolute moral code. The Gnostics saw sin as unimportant (which is a much different idea) because the moral arena of this world was unimportant. However, as I listen to many new religious movements (Eastern mysticism, New Age, etc.), I note a similar phenomenon. Spirituality is being cultivated apart from the course of events in this world and is removed entirely from a rational, moral framework. A religious mantra, meditation, or secret mystic rituals transport the believer temporarily into other realms, quite apart from the day-to-day world we know. And exhaustive value is given to that other world.

Each year I attend the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion along with about five thousand other professors. It is interesting to see who shows up. When we met in Boston a number of years ago, I visited the book exhibit of an eccentric publisher in the convention hall. The publisher was selling copies of a lengthy tome presumably written by supernatural beings living on another planet, a planet that had once colonized earth. Secret rituals could link us with the spirits of these creatures and help us disassociate with our own earth, which was simply a shadow of a more real world hidden in outer space. I chuckled until I learned how many of these volumes had already been sold.

This teaching that true religion or spiritual development is unconnected to the day-to-day events of life is growing. It promotes a religious schizophrenia: We have two lives, one spiritual and one physical, and the two have little connection. What I do today is less important than whether I have done my religious exercises.

Nothing could be further from the truth. John affirms that this world is important (hence his incarnational theology) and that the personal God who made it has material expectations for it. Sin is accountability to someone who has set a standard. If either God is denied or if the standard is said not to apply to our world, accountability disappears.

(2) Comprehensive sinfulness includes Christians. But does sinfulness, comprehensive fallenness, include those who reside in the church? Here we enter into considerable controversy. While some say that Christians can reach a level of sinlessness or even perfection, others disagree, saying that sin is an ongoing problem even for the redeemed. Thus in 2:1 John must make an allowance for those in the faith who fall. This truth gives some explanation for the downfall of our own moral and spiritual leaders in our own generation; otherwise the sin of someone in prominent Christian leadership is inexplicable.

It is surprising to me how often people in a religious setting can be convinced of their spiritual perfection. When I lived in an orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Chicago, I often found myself talking theology over the back fence. A strict religious woman from the local synagogue told me that Jesus’ sacrifice was unnecessary because fulfilling the law—all 613 Old Testament laws by her count—was possible. She and her family had done it. God was happy with her performance.

I cannot help but wonder if some Christians have the same outlook. Their lives have been so transformed by God that they have reached a level of spiritual maturity that excludes the need for ongoing forgiveness. This is particularly the case among those who have experienced profound, genuine renewal—for instance, in the charismatic setting. It is also true for those in more conventional communities whose lives have been saturated by the church and its values for years. In both cases there is limited humility and little recognition that error is a possibility.

This raises a host of practical questions. For church leadership it makes us cautious to invest too much power in any individual—priests, pastors, and elders included. Each one may fall. I have witnessed prominent Christian leaders “in the name of Christ” wield astonishing authority in the pursuit of self-interest or private agendas. And all of it is sin. It also raises questions about church government. If sinfulness is a possibility even among Christians, decision-making must be deliberated in the widest context possible. Leadership must rotate so that the corruption that attends to power will not consume any.

(3) Comprehensive sinfulness likewise forces us to inquire about confession. I have always been alarmed by the absence of formal confession in the Protestant tradition. In rejecting the priestly function of mediating forgiveness and promoting the generous gift of God’s grace in Christ, we have lost sight of any need to confess. We may have liturgical confessions on Sunday, but are we personally confessing our sins on a regular basis?

This year I read Susan Howatch’s novel Glittering Images.17 Howatch powerfully describes the demise and restoration of an Anglican priest who knew how to wear a “glittering image” that would conceal his true self. It was only through the intervention of an aggressive spiritual director who understood the absolute necessity of spoken confession that the priest could be saved from himself and the suffocation of his role as a Christian leader.

John affirms that everyone sins—Christians included—and that if we confess our sins, God will forgive (1:9). The pastoral need of this experience is summed up well in Psalm 32:1–5:

Blessed is he

whose transgressions are forgiven,

whose sins are covered.

Blessed is the man

whose sin the LORD does not count against him

and in whose spirit is no deceit.

When I kept silent,

my bones wasted away

through my groaning all day long.

For day and night

your hand was heavy upon me;

my strength was sapped

as in the heat of summer.

Then I acknowledged my sin to you

and did not cover up my iniquity.

I said, “I will confess

my transgressions to the LORD”—

and you forgave

the guilt of my sin.

Unfortunately, John fails to tell us what it means if we do not confess. Is Christ’s sacrifice somehow limited to us by our hesitation to confess? Is our maturity in Christ stunted as a result? Furthermore, what sort of confession does he have in mind? Private confession is at least necessary, but I imagine that if we listened to church history and experience carefully, we would recognize that more is needed.

(4) Christ’s work is ongoing. John’s emphasis on the ongoing work of confession is linked directly to the ongoing work of Christ. In 2:2 he speaks of the past work of Christ on the cross not simply for Christians but for the whole world. But we often overlook John’s thoughts in 2:1 about the present function of Christ.

Viewing Jesus as working on our behalf even now gives an utterly new dimension to spirituality and a new impetus to confess and grow. To be sure, Christ’s work on the cross two thousand years ago completed what was necessary for salvation. But more is going on. As we have denied the importance of confession in the liturgical traditions, have we also denied the continuing ministry of Jesus on our behalf?18 I wonder if the dismissal of priestly ministerial functions that swept away the confessional has likewise lost any recognition that Christ is still at work.

We must recapture some sense of what is happening on our behalf since Golgotha. In the Incarnation God passionately embraced our humanity. On the cross Christ in our humanity paid the punishment due us. And in his resurrection/ascension Christ ushered our transformed humanity into heaven, where he stands today representing us before the Father. Therefore the saving work of God in Christ moves from incarnation to ascension; it includes the cross, but it means far more. It means advocacy. But we should not misunderstand this, as if Christ (who bears our humanity) stands at odds with the Father, pleading our case. That “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ” means that Jesus is nothing other than God’s own embrace. Jesus is God’s mighty overture that draws our humanity to himself. Therefore the success of Christ includes not just what he did on our behalf at Calvary, but what he did in valuing and redeeming our humanity for the Father. The present work of Christ is our inspiration to see spiritual development—complete with confession—as a regular feature of our lives. God did not merely save us two thousand years ago; God continues to embrace us through Christ, who forever resides by his side.

Original Meaning

Sin and Confession (1:8–9)

THE CLAIM TO be “without sin” (v. 8) is the second formula expression we encounter. John’s firm rebuttal must mean that the same people described in verses 5–7 would hear John’s thoughts about purity in verse 7 and then make the claim that no such purifying was needed. The Greek literally says, “We do not have sin” (hamartian ouk exomen) and no doubt should be carefully distinguished from verse 10, where another citation reads, “We have not sinned.” In the first case, sin is described as a quality, “an active principle in us.”2 In the second case, the verb employs a perfect tense verb, suggesting a reference to specific sins that spring from a preexisting condition of sinfulness.

While some interpreters are uncertain whether verses 8 and 10 can be distinguished so neatly, Brooke, Brown, and more recently Smalley have made a convincing case that a difference can be discerned if we follow John’s vocabulary carefully. In the Johannine literature, the verb “to have” is frequently followed by an abstract noun to represent a general quality: to have fellowship (1 John 1:3, 6–7), joy (John 17:13; 3 John 4), confidence (John 2:20; 3:21; 4:17), hope (3:3), and life (3:15; 5:12–13). In the entire New Testament, “to have sin” appears only in the present verse and in John 9:41; 15:22, 24; 19:11. For instance, in John 15 the Jewish leadership is told that “they have sin,” not because of some deed they have done but because Jesus has spoken to them. Their inherent status has changed. Yet deeds are not always separated from a state of being. In John 19 Judas Iscariot “has the greater sin” because he handed Jesus over to Pilate. Thus in 1 John 1:8, “to have sin” likely refers to a quality of personhood, an active principle at work in someone’s life. It is a disposition of heart that lives in rebellion and constantly exhibits evil deeds (see further on 1:10).

John’s opponents were therefore saying, “We have no sin” (1:8). Who could possibly deny such a truth? Who would urge that a sinful quality was absent in their lives, or that counting sinfulness makes no difference? Once again we meet the error introduced in 1:5–7. John is in debate, not necessarily with those who trivialized sin, but with those who philosophically questioned the relevance of sin as something that can impede our relationship with God. If spirituality is isolated from the commonplace events of everyday living, if the material things of the world are irrelevant to God, spiritual enlightenment might ignore mundane issues such as morality.

John’s words are unremitting. Such an attitude is deliberately deceptive, for it denies the reality of sin.3 It is not ignorance, it is a cover-up (cf. John 7:12, 47; Rev. 2:20). Worse still, it proves something of the character of the claimant: Not only do they fail to live by the truth (1 John 1:6), but now we learn that “the truth is not in them.” “To be in,” just like “to remain in,” is a favorite Johannine expression for the interior life (cf. 2:5; 5:20). Truth is not something abstract, like a moral code, that has been neglected. Truth describes God himself. Truth is personal—Jesus Christ himself is truth (John 14:6)—and those who “do the truth” enjoy living in God’s light (3:21). In his Gospel John even describes the Spirit as “the Spirit of truth” (14:17; 15:26; 16:13). Therefore people who do not have the truth “in them” are lacking an essential characteristic of God’s presence within their inmost being. When Pilate asks, “What is truth?” in John 18:38, he is uncovering his utter alienation from the things of God.

John gives a stern warning that these people may be dubious Christians. They may not even be Christians at all! They are in greater jeopardy than they think. And their only recourse is confession. The appeal to confession in verse 9 balances the citation of verse 8 with another “if” clause. Yet it is not intended to be a mere condition; it is an exhortation, a warning, perhaps even a command.4 Sinfulness is inherent in our lives, and confession must be the Christian’s heartfelt reflex.5

Confession is successful (and this is critical to John’s argument) because of the character of God. His forgiveness is not an act of mercy, as if he were setting aside some usual disposition in response to a religious act of penitence. God’s character is to be faithful and just (cf. Deut. 32:4; Ps. 89:1–4; Rom. 3:25; Heb. 10:23). It is essential not to oppose these two ideas, as if God’s loving-kindness or faithfulness (Gk. pistos) and his justice or righteousness (Gk. dikaios) were at odds. His faithfulness to us has prompted him to make a way for our purification and thereby satisfy his demand for righteousness.

Confession enjoys the good character of God and is empowered by it. Two consequences necessarily follow: forgiveness and purification. To forgive (Gk. aphiemi) really means “to let go” (as a debt, cf. Luke 7:43), and so John indicates that our sins are removed from God’s accounting. To purify (cf. 1:7) carries a different nuance and suggests the removal of the residual effects of sin, consequences that linger (such as a stain). Therefore there is hope. The past and its errors as well as the future and its propensity toward sinfulness are both addressed.