1 John 1:5-2:2, Christ is Our Advocate

There are two things to say with regards to 1 John 1:5-10.  First, the issue is fellowship, not salvation!  This is not about losing your salvation but losing joyful fellowship with the Father and His Son.  If you are a believer in Christ, and there is sin in your life, and you deny that sin, even though God calls it sin, then you, a Christian, are lying and you are calling God a liar.

Second, why do we need continual cleansing?  Wasn’t sin removed once for all by the blood of Christ?  Good question.  When you do a little self-examination do you still see sin in your life as a Christian?  Do you get angry at those you are to love?  Do your see pride?  Do you still seek satisfaction in the things of this world?  Of course we see these things.  Our lives are not instantly sinless when we believe.  John is saying that when we do sin, and acknowledge that sin before God, Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice for sin continues to work.  Even the sins of tomorrow will be covered.  What John is doing is helping us see that, though we are saved once for all, we are daily “working out” that salvation in our lives (Phil. 2:12-13). 

Before leaving 1:5-10, let us remember “what” we are in Christ.  Peter says we have been called out of darkness into the wonderful light of Christ (1 Pt. 2:9).  Paul said we have been rescued from the “dominion of darkness” and transferred into the “kingdom of light,” the kingdom of Christ (Col. 1:12-13).  The nature of the Christian life, then, is one of walking in the light because God is light.  Sin will be an issue, but we need to face it squarely, agreeing with God it is sin, and then resting in the continual cleansing of the blood of Christ.

In 2:1-2 John addresses “my little children.”  I think you will see later in this chapter that he is talking to new Christians, those who have not progressed very far in their walk with Christ.  What he says in these verses is basic truth that you will be very familiar with if you have been a Christian for very long.  Christ is our “Advocate.”  Literally, He is the one who comes along side us to help us and to stand with us when we sin.  This is what chapter one talks about when we see that “the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.”  This is the help He gives us because He is “the propitiation for our sins.”  That’s a big word.  But it is so critical for us.  It means that Jesus took the punishment for our sins.  Read Isaiah 53:1-5 and you will understand this.  We, and the entire world, were deserving of the wrath of God because of our sin against Him.  But Christ, in obedience and in love, stepped in and took God’s wrath upon Himself.  That is why, when Jesus was on the cross, everything went dark for three hours before He died.  In that darkness He uttered those words, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46).  He did this on behalf of all the world.  When we believe in Christ, that payment becomes effective for us (John 5:24) so that we come out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of the light of Christ.