“THAT YE SIN NOT” (1 John 2:1)

The first thing to be clear about is that sins of the flesh, the failures of fallen human nature in daily life, are not in view. It would be contrary even to human logic to exhort saints to attempt the impossible, as well as being contrary to the truth revealed by Paul that the old nature has been declared (spiritually) dead by God (Rom.6:6, Col.3:3). God has finished with the old order of humanity in the death of Christ. It is now a new (spiritual) man, eternal life in flesh, a new race of mankind, that He is dealing with. That which God has declared dead is dead so far as divine purpose is concerned, and we are called upon to reckon (by faith) that it is so. We are alive to God in an entirely new nature, not the old sinful one; to think otherwise is an act of disbelief and a denial of the work of Christ at the Cross.

Thus the people of God in this present age of grace are a spiritual people, living stones constituting a spiritual house (1 Peter 2:5) and it is as such that John addresses them. He wrote this section of his epistle that the fellowship might not sin (aorist tense); it has to do with what is negative, with guarding against spiritual evil. Whilst there can never be a group of believers that is sinless in the natural sense, it is possible for there to be a sinless company spiritually. Having John’s writings should prevent God’s people from failing (sinning). Collective failure is the greatest failure of all. We are thus set into the most significant and responsible place in the outworking of divine purpose. By giving His Word to His people in a sphere (the assembly) in which it can rightly be interpreted, God is fitting them spiritually to fill the place they will occupy in the day of Christ’s manifestation and universal reign. It is, therefore, sin for the people of God to fail to attain to spiritual maturity in view of what God has done to make this possible.

John’s epistle is written to prevent this failure – “That ye sin not”.

Christianity is a heavenly (and thus spiritual) system which functions because of the continued work of a Mediator in heaven. This produces results on earth from the death and subsequent glorification of the Christ. John then traces out the perfections and potentialities of this divine system. He shows the provision God has made in it for failure on the part of those who are its exponents – “if any man sin …..”; this demonstrates the stability of what God has constituted in heaven in respect of the system He has established on earth, a stability unaltered by sin. The ideal remains, Man in the presence of God in unsullied holiness. Attainment of the ideal on earth remains possible so long as we do not lose sight of the heavenly nature of the system God has established.

Sin can be directed against and represent a failure in any of the three aspects of collective Christian life, i.e. our place and relationship towards the Father, our position towards one another and our place in the world. ‘Sin’ here is also in the aorist tense, signifying an act complete in itself rather than continuous sin.

As Advocate with the Father, Christ is answerable to failure towards the Father; He is Paraclete with the Father, One in His presence to help His people to maturity despite their natural weakness. The spiritual ideal to which we can attain is “the measure of the fulness of the stature of Christ” (Eph.4:13), the full grown man. This is attained as we regard the ideal in glory with increasingly enlightened eyes. However, in our original spiritual immaturity as a family of God on earth we may sin against the truth displayed in the completed Word. The throne of God established in heaven responds to us according to the advocacy of the Man who occupies it for our progress out of spiritual shortcomings.

As Jesus Christ the righteous, He is answerable to internal spiritual failure. This is the man Jesus, who walked in spiritual perfection in this world in order to become the Christ we have in Christianity. In our response to this Personification of truth and perfection, we may sin but He still remains for us Jesus Christ the righteous. Righteousness is not human merit but God acting in character to realise His intentions. To enable us, collectively, to attain to the perfections embodied in Christ in glory, God has given us the same life as Christ lives in and His completed revelation, a (spiritually) perfect man in a perfect system.