Mensa Otabil - God Is Faithful and Just
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1 John 1:9: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This passage addresses the self-righteous believer and the sin-denying believer. It’s interesting how John includes himself in this verse: «if we confess our sins,» not «if you.» He, as righteous as he was, as close to Jesus as he was, as dedicated as he was, includes himself in this passage. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, and that is very instructive for us.
This passage reveals three attributes of God concerning sin. The first is that God is just, and his justice requires that he punishes sin because the just God cannot let sin go unpunished. Since God is just, when we sin, the right thing for him to do is to punish the sin; he must remove both the sin and the sinner from the scene. That happened a lot in the Old Testament. For God to maintain his standards, sin has to be punished. But there is a problem: If God is just and he punishes sin, then there will be no human being who can stand in the presence of God because we all sin. He is just, but then there is another aspect of the nature of God: he is faithful. He is not just just; he is also faithful.
The faithfulness of God allows him to keep faith with us or to have faith in us. So, although his justice says, «I must punish sin,» his faithfulness says, «I still believe in these people; I still want to work with them; I still want to do something for them.» In his faithfulness, God provided a way to address sin that allows him to be just and faithful at the same time. The way to do that is he paid for our sins himself. So, he is just, and he is faithful, and that is why he is able to forgive us our sins. He remains just, he remains faithful, and he forgives us our sins.
When God forgives us of our sins, he wipes the sin slate clean and cleanses us from everything that is not right. There is no sin that God cannot forgive if we confess and talk to him. On the other hand, God is telling us that instead of covering our sins, instead of being self-righteous, instead of just posturing and behaving as if we are the perfect people in the world, we should be humble enough to own up when we sin and come to him. We need to say, «Lord, I’m sorry; I’ve sinned against you; forgive me.» The Bible says when we do that, he will still be just. Sin has to be dealt with, but his faithfulness is what addresses the sin, and he forgives us because of his faithfulness.
So, for the Christian life, we don’t hold on to our sin; we don’t hide our sin. We present them; we openly bring our sins before God, whether it’s a sin of omission, a sin of commission, a sin of thought, a sin of act, secret sins, or public sins. We don’t hide our sins; we bring them before the Lord, and he forgives us. If you know that you are living in sin, you need to go before the Lord in humility, not just to talk about it but also to forsake it. True confession of sin requires that we forsake the sins that we confess to the Lord. So, don’t just talk to God about it and then go and do it again. You talk to God about it, and you forsake it.
So let’s pray. Say with me: «Heavenly Father, have mercy on me. Forgive me, wash me, and cleanse me from all sin and all unrighteousness. In Jesus' name, amen and amen.»