 This video is part of a study series titled Biblical Salvation Settled Wonsome for All. Please see the playlist link in the video description. Hello and welcome to this study we're going to be looking at one John today. So, so far in this study series I've been working consecutively through the Gospel of John and in the early days I envisioned that I would work through the New Testament gradually and consecutively. However, because it takes such a long time to produce all these slides and recordings and I've had other commitments I've been working my way through it quite slowly. So, I decided to pause John's Gospel for a bit and look into the letter of one John because I've had questions from multiple people lately about this epistle, particularly from chapter three actually which is the he who commits sin is of the devil. So I've decided, you know, just to pause John's Gospel in the series for a bit so that we can focus on this epistle and then I can carry on where I left off in John's Gospel. Now, arguably you might disagree but I think John's first epistle is probably one of the most difficult books in the New Testament to understand for several reasons. Now, first and foremost that the language is not particularly difficult in of itself but across different verses and on the surface of things it looks as if he makes some seemingly contradictory statements or he undermines or convolutes his own points. So, for example, in one verse being born of God is simply based on believing in Christ and yet in another verse it's equated with loving one another and yet in another verse it's he who does not commit sin. Some of its points seem as if they are under explained as if the verse needs a lot more context or information to understand what it means rather than what John actually provides. So, for example, what is the sin that does or does not lead to death? This could be interpreted in all sorts of ways and so it seems as if John leaves us in the dark about what that actually means. And it swings back and forth between subjects. Now, the way that Paul writes is a bit more linear. You know, he moves from one topic to another to another and it's quite easy to see the flow of the letter whereas John's epistle is really bouncing back and forth between subjects. He's talking about various commandments, then he's talking about Antichrist, then he's talking about righteousness, then loving one another, then he's talking about Antichrist again, then he's talking about loving one another again and then he's talking about commandments again and righteousness again and so on and so on. So, there's a lot more bouncing around in his epistle. Now, this epistle is an important go-to passage for legalists to promote a works salvation. Despite the book having five chapters, there's two or three verses in the third chapter that a quaint mind and cherry-pick like clockwork to say that salvation must include being sinless or at least not having a lifestyle practice of sin. Differences in different Bible translations can also cause issue there as well. And one John 3 is the sinless perfectionist's favourite part of the Bible, really. They will inevitably go there fairly quickly. And many brethren who are saved by grace struggle to understand or, you know, answer chapter 3 and may easily be disturbed by how legalists interpret it, not knowing how to combat their arguments or not considering other possible interpretations and what the alternatives are. Now, if you have followed my study on John 14 and 15, then you will know that John's epistle borrows a lot of the same language and themes from his gospel. So, John uses a lot of the same lingo that Jesus uses in John 14 and 15 in his epistles. Some of his statements are almost exactly like what Jesus said to him even. And just as John 14 and 15 are difficult chapters to understand and it took me several hours to really go through that just because it's so difficult. So, therefore, you know, John's first epistle, it is somewhat challenging as well. It's very doctrinally heavy and deep rather than practical, rather like the book of Hebrews, perhaps in that respect. Whereas Paul's epistles are perhaps semi-doctrinal and semi-practical and James' book is perhaps doctrine-like but very, very practical. John makes a lot of doctrinal statements but doesn't give a lot of practical advice. So, for example, John tells us to love one another in deeds and that loving one another is a sign that we are born from God in a manner of speaking. But he doesn't give us a list of practical loving deeds that we can actually do to demonstrate love for one another. Is he going to great detail about what happens if we don't do these things or the implication of being born of God and yet not doing these works to show love towards the brethren? Okay. You may have heard a lot of Christians. Whatever their satirology is, claim that the first epistle of John was written to warn Christians about Gnostics. Believers in grace would say that the Gnostics denied that they were sinners in need of a Saviour and so John was warning against their false beliefs and that's the lens through which they will see verses such as 1 John 19 if we confess our sins. And then Christians trusting in works would say that the Gnostics did not live in obedience and would not turn from sins and so John was warning against their licentiousness and so that's the lens through which they will see verses such as 1 John 3a and commit sin is of the devil. Now I disagree with that entire premise. I believe that it is entirely conjectural for these reasons. First of all, we don't know when John actually wrote this letter, whether it's written before or after Gnosticism became a wide issue or a named heresy with an ism to describe it. Quite noteworthy is that sometimes the Bible gives a particular voice to people or groups that were the cause of heresies such as the Nicolaitans. This epistle does not give such a voice though. It describes a very generic type of person really called antichrists without pinning on that label on anybody other than those who deny that Jesus the Christ or that he has come in the flesh, which is quite specific really. And important as well if we allow the Bible to be self-sufficient and self-contained the most troubling group of people for denying that Jesus is the Christ was really the Jews who sought to kill Jesus for his claims about himself. This was quite a repetitive theme throughout the Gospels. In John 8 we see Jesus warning the Pharisees that they would die in their sins for not believing that I am he, that's the 824. And being the seed of Abraham would not give them any exemption to this. And in the same chapter we also see a very similar statement then in 1 John 3, 8, he who commits sin is of the devil which is very similar to he who commits sin is the servant of sin from John's Gospel. So there's obviously striking links there between the two. In John 9 we see Pharisees rebuking the healed blind man for being born in sin yet trying to lecture them giving an indication that the Jews and Pharisees didn't recognise themselves as sinners in need of saving perhaps on account of being the seed of Abraham as per the previous chapter. And so if we piece together those above points I would assert that John's first epistle is intended to deal with perhaps he might say the Christian mentality versus the Jewish mentality issue rather than weird teachings about Gnosticism. I'll talk a little bit more about that later. And really denying that Jesus the Christ or that he came the flesh is barely the beginning of all the weird things that the Gnostics apparently or supposedly believed. So in this study then, although chapter 3 is where a lot of Christians struggle we can't delve into chapter 3 until we have some understanding and context from chapters 1 and 2 first. So in this first study we're going to focus on chapter 1 and also the first two verses of chapter 2 and then the following chapters just have to wait for their own separate study. I'm afraid. Okay. So let's introduce our reading then. So from verse 1 that which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked upon in our hands have handled of the word of life for the life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness and show unto you the eternal life which was it with the Father and was manifest unto us that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you that you also may have fellowship with us and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ and these things write on to you that your joy may be full. And so unlike Paul's epistle or even John's other epistles really this one doesn't have a very personal introduction it doesn't give a clear indication of who the letter is from or all the target audience to whom it's been addressed. So he starts his letter by introducing who Christ is and his role in giving in the giving of eternal life. So eternal life does clearly have an important application in his letter which is perhaps why it's so difficult. We can't just completely dismiss it as say being about fellowship and discipleship only we do have to consider whether there are any implications our salvation in this epistle because it does talk about it quite extensively. Okay. So John declares what we have seen. Okay. I put that in quotes there with the intent that the readers may have fellowship with him and the people that he represents in this we there and that his fellowship is also with the Father and Jesus the Christ. Okay. So it's not made very obvious who John means by we it's collective language that not only represents himself but other people that he's representing. So this could be the apostles or it could be the brethren generally speaking. It's possible that John was writing to some people on behalf of the apostles. It's possible that John was writing on behalf of some brethren who perhaps had seen the Christ in person. You know we have seen and do declare. But then he's writing to other brethren whom he has converted who know the truth but may have not actually seen Christ in person. Okay. And as the epistle progresses that the we and our becomes more inclusive of the people that John is writing to. So in verse four and also in several verses throughout second chapter John gives us explicit reasons as to why he is writing either the purpose of the letter. Okay. That your joy may be full. Okay. That your sins are forgiven for his namesake but you know him that is from the beginning. You have overcome the wicked one. You have known the father. You are strong. The word of God buys in you concerning them that seduce you. So this epistle is intended to exhort and encourage brethren who are already saved. Okay. It's addressed to people who already know the truth at least to a sufficient extent. Another observation is that verse four is very similar to what John said sorry what Jesus said to John in John 1511. So Jesus said to John these things have I spoken on to you that my joy might remain in you and that your joy might be full. And John is likewise saying that your joy might be full. And so we see that having joy is meant to be an important purpose of John's epistle. And I explained if you've already watched my John 15 and John 14 study that how legalists take letters and passages that are intended to be an encouragement and somehow turn them into a dire warning. Okay. John's epistle picks up some very similar themes such as loving one another keeping my commands abiding. So there are some encouraging aspects to what he's writing about but you know people always want to make it about the hammer coming down. Okay. So that's the introduction. The next thing then is to look at what it means to walk in the light. There is potential to misunderstand or misappropriate what that actually means as you can imagine a lot of people would say that this has to do with turning from our sins especially because the the later verses in the chapter are about sin. A lot of people may confuse this with walking in the spirit as well as if they are the same thing. So let's read the rest of the chapter then. So from verse five this then is the message which we have heard of him and declare on to you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walking darkness we lie and do not the truth but if we walk in the light as he is in we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all the righteousness. If we say that we have not sinned we make him a lie and his word is not in us. Okay. So John is declaring a message to his recipients here in verse five and this is a common theme perhaps in the epistle as John will later talk about receiving the witness or this is the message you have received. He that believes in the Son has witness. Okay. So there's a lot of themes around declaration witness that that which is true and acknowledging it. The declaration being made that God is light as opposed to darkness and so we have to walk in this light with which he's got right. And so this is important then in the last verse of the chapter there is a lot of importance placed on what we say or what we confess in relation to which category we actually fit in. So we're going to explore that as well in this study. Okay. Now this is important because many legalists will misappropriate verses from John's epistle and make it all about your works and they will presume that because it uses terminology such as keeping his commandments that it's all about sin and it's all about turning from your sin. But the most explicit verses about eternal life in the epistle actually relate really to what one believes and the testimony of what one believes. And following the commandments follows this but it doesn't proceed it though. Now if you followed my study on John 14 and 15 you ought to remember how we related in that study what Jesus said to John and then what John said in his epistles to see how John interpreted what commandments Jesus was actually talking about and it really had more to do with keeping the doctrine of Christ and continuing in his teachings his words and you know as well loving others that are born of God rather than every micro moral issue that Jesus ever gave to anybody anywhere. Okay. Likewise in John's epistle we will see the importance of faith being emphasised is believing in the, you could call it the right Jesus I suppose. Well he doesn't use that terminology obviously. But he does lay out some important points about who Jesus is and what he has done and so the Antichrist that he describes are the people who deny such truth about Jesus. They're not people that are believing all the right stuff but doing all the wrong things. Okay. They deny fundamental truths about who Jesus is. This may not be very obvious now but you'll recognise it more and more as we progress through this epistle in this study and the upcoming study videos as well when I get those released. Okay. But the reason I'm giving you these spoilers is because it's somewhat important to understanding what walking in the light actually means. First let's spend a moment digressing away from one John for a bit and let's look cross-biblically about what walking in the light may mean in other passages just as if we can get a bit more context about it. Okay. Now one little caveat to this is that walking and light are common biblical words and concepts each word appearing in the Bible dozens of times and used in many different ways because there's some common words right. So just because they won't always mean the same thing or applying the same way every time those words are used to make a point. Okay. So like what you could say is for example walking in the light is not necessarily the same thing as walking in the spirit. There's a reason why John and Paul use different terms and they're talking about different subjects. Okay. See this is how you divide the word of God right. Shining the light on the darkness again is not necessarily exactly the same thing as walking in the light per se because the saying is used in a different way. So just the Bible uses the word light or uses the word what it doesn't mean that that passage always defines what it means here necessarily. Okay. That's my point. The most obvious place to start would be John's Gospel. Seeing as John's epistle echoes many themes and terminology that Jesus used in his Gospel account right. We've already seen examples of that. So in John chapter 8 verse 12 Jesus specifies the criteria for having the light and not walking in darkness. Okay. Very similar to one John where John declares that God is light after already describing that Jesus is the word of life. Okay. However, just like walking in the light, we need some context as to what following me in this verse actually means. Is it about following in works or is it about following in faith? Well the next verses tell you. You just read the next couple of verses. Pharisees did not try to defend their own works or their own obedience. Neither did they challenge Jesus's works or obedience to the law although they did not the passages. Rather when Jesus said follow me and you shall have the light, they challenged Jesus's declaration about who he is. Okay. So the challenging the record. The challenging the declaration. Okay. This is what you confess. This is what you believe. Right. And then later he specifies as well if you shall die in your sins because you don't believe that I am he. Alright. It's not well you shall die in your sins because you believe that I am he but you won't clean your life up. No. You won't believe that I am he. That's why you will die in your sins. And so that defines what he means by following him for the light of life in that context. Right. Believe him. Believe the record who he is. Okay. Believe the record that he is testifying about himself. So John 8, where Jesus was talking about the record of who he is as the Son of God while the Pharisees challenged and denied this record and even tried to kill him for declaring that record. This is very similar to what John says in his first epistle. He will warn us about the antichrists that deny important tenets about Jesus. He will exhort his readers to abide in the word quote-unquote that was given onto them at the beginning. Okay. We'll look at that you know later in the series. In chapter 5 particularly he will talk about bearing record, bearing witness and believing in this witness and denouncing the faith of one who denies that witness. Okay. So you see how this is sort of swinging the balance more in favour about what you actually believe rather than what you do. At least so far anyway. So then let's have a look at John 11 as what that's just fast forward a couple of chapters and so we see the statement if any man walking the day he doesn't stumble because he sees the light of this world but if a man walks in the night he stumbles because there's no light. Right. And so that's obviously somewhat slightly obvious but Jesus using the analogy in more practical sense I suppose. So although the analogy is very obvious in and of itself how Jesus uses this analogy may help us to understand the point and so immediately before Jesus said that the disciples he tells his disciples it's going up to Judea and they don't quite understand why because the Jews are seeking to kill him there right but then immediately after he explains walking in the light he talks about Lazarus sleeping and you would think that that's kind of unrelated to that right you wouldn't necessarily see the connection. So Jesus drawing attention to the immediate thing at hand rather than something that perhaps is less important. Okay. So it's quite difficult to say with certainty what John meant sorry what Jesus meant in John 11 because it's quite cryptic answer given the surrounding context so you could just look at it a practical application. When Jesus goes to Judea specifically Jerusalem the Jews will not seek to kill him during the day right and because Jesus was able to foresee when his time would come he would know that he can wander Judea safely and when to go into hiding right and further more Jesus was captured during the night when he sent Jerusalem so you know he premeditated his betrayal so he knows that when they go about the day they will be okay right that's the practical answer if you like. A more spiritual application is to link it to Lazarus that he must go and heal Lazarus to the end being that he would build up the faith of Mary, Martha and his disciples now Jesus is actually withholding Lazarus from being healed if you're familiar with the story rather he will die but then he will be resurrected and in doing so he will declare being the resurrection and it was to the intent that they would believe okay so this is it's a very cryptic from this point of view but we once again see though that the goal was that the audience would believe him and you know who he is the life and the resurrection okay and I've dealt with that passage earlier in the series and then fast forward to John 12 so we see that there is a limited amount of time for this audience that he's talking to here and these are Greeks that seem to observe all the Jewish ordinances though now I haven't really done more notes on this really in the power point but obviously if you remember the passage this crowd had seen Jesus miracles but they still wouldn't receive him and he referred back to his siren and so on and so the problem with this crowd is that despite seeing miracles they wouldn't believe that he is he okay they wouldn't really grasp what he was saying and so again it's really more to do with their belief rather than their works specifically so thus far we've seen a repetitive theme in John's Gospel that walking in the light is synonymous with believing in it that is to believe on Christ now there are a few other references to walking the light or something similar but I think they are red herrings for the purpose of this study so in Revelation 21-24 the nations of the saved walk in the light of the new heavenly city but this doesn't really seem appropriate for the application of one John Isaiah 2.5 talks about walking the light of the Lord but arguably it has end times applications so again perhaps not appropriate you've got Psalm 89-15 but it's quite poetic and maybe has a different meaning and so I don't think it really clearly defines it for us here the last reference which may or may not be helpful is perhaps that I've got is in Ephesians so in Ephesians 589 it says you were sometimes darkness but now you are light walk as children of light now unlike the Gospel of John Ephesians 5 is not an instruction of how to be saved Paul's audience were in the past darkness but are now in the present light so this this passage does presuppose that this is a saved audience so in a way they're already in the light ok so arguably this passage is perhaps more works orientated it is perhaps more about what you do rather than what you believe because the key theme is separating yourself from joining in the behavior of the children of disobedience but Ephesians 5 is a bit different from John's Gospel because it's not about believing in the light that's already happened for the Ephesian audience because they are children of the light right they've already been adopted into that light and so they're not told to walk in the light rather they're told to walk as children of the light so the way that it's used is a little bit different but the key difference between Ephesians 5 and 1 John is that Paul actually gives practical advice as to what it means to walk as children in the light in the surrounding verses whereas 1 John isn't very heavy on the practicals the upcoming verses really will define what walking in the light very differently as to the kinds of things that Paul is talking about here in Ephesians but returning to John's epistle then we start to see the crux of the matter what's going on here John gives us two types of people there are two categories of person very important that you understand that because I've talked about this in the series before how the Bible frequently gives us two types of people right they who are and they who aren't or they who do and they who don't but then with conditional security and work salvation we kind of invent this third person that's simultaneously doing both but there's two types of people here so if we walk in darkness we do not I'm putting this in quotes do the truth because obviously it doesn't say believe the truth we can say that we have fellowship with him but this is lying it's not the truth on the other hand if we walk in the light we have fellowship that we say we have not only with Christ but with one another and the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin okay so there are the two options here now this is quite important is that in the latter verses here what we say or what we confess is an important determining factor as to which group we actually fit in whether we be the ones cleansed from sin or deceived and not doing the truth right very important that you understand that and that that will make more sense so what let's just get a few things going on here that John uses collective language most of the time anyway he's not saying if any man walk in the light or if you walk in the light or if thou walk in the light he's using inclusive language that includes the recipients of the people that John represents so a big part of what John is saying here I believe has to do with how we as a collective body of Christ if you like perceive ourselves and perceive each other what we collectively say and confess so it's not just what I personally say and confess but you and me as brothers in Christ what we both together confess or say okay in verse 6 not having fellowship with him is contrasted with having fellowship with one another so having fellowship with Christ automatically really comes in the exact same territories having fellowship with those who are born of Christ right if I have fellowship with Christ I have fellowship with you if you are also fellowshiping with Christ yeah so there has to be some degree of unity around how the brethren walk in the light and do the truth okay now as you probably know some people will pick up on this fact that it says do the truth okay and of course legalists will love that because they insist then that there's all these works of obedience that you actually have to do it's not just what you believe because it's a do word but really the surrounding context of the passage doesn't fit this interpretation because you know as I mentioned earlier John isn't giving a practical list of works here he starts with verse 5 with a declaration of the message and he will go on to say after verse 7 if we say that if we confess that if we say that okay so the surrounding context would suggest that walking in the light is about what we collectively as brethren believe about Jesus and believe about ourselves so do you could say that doing the truth is not just believing general facts about Jesus that is the Christ etc but also the doctrine about what we believe about ourselves and our sins in relation to the Christ and that will hopefully make more sense as the study progresses because if we let's just say and I won't explain this verbally but let's just say we've got two people they both believe that Jesus is the Christ or they both profess that but one person says I have no sin and the other person says I have sin right that you see how they both believe one thing about the Christ but then there's something else where they're believing opposite things well one of them is doing the truth and one of them isn't right and so that's really what's being dealt with here if that helps so verses 8 to 10 are very helpful because what we say or what we confess is the division between which group of people we fit in right on the one hand if we say that we have no sin and we have not sinned well we deceive ourselves the truth is not in us we make him a liar his word is not in us so applying this to the early verses then we would assume that this exact same category of person walks in darkness lies and does not do the truth right say that we have fellowship with him but it's not true on the other hand the opposite of that if we confess our sins he's fatal and just to forgive us our sins he cleanses us from all unrighteousness so applying this to the early verses we would assume that this same category of people walking the light as he is in the light have fellowship with one another the blood of Christ cleanses us from all sin and notice how verses 7 and 9 have synonymous endings yeah so following this then we can continue to make a division between the truth and the lie elsewhere in John's epistle if we or if any man keeps not his commandments or on the other hand keeps his words or hates his brother or loves his brother or denies that Jesus is the Christ and denies the Son or acknowledges the Son believes not and has made God a liar or believes on the Son and has witness so there are other divisions in the epistle as well for example does righteousness or commits sin in chapter 3 but these verses are perhaps not directly true tied with truth versus lie per say but you know again that will be addressed in future studies so let's just try to illustrate this visually how one must walk in light and again we've got this we collective language so these guys over here they say well we have no sin we have not sinned right whereas these guys over here we confess our sins and so really when we illustrate it it's quite simple the blood of Christ cleanses them from all sins he is faithful and just to forgive them they deceive themselves that the truth is not in them they make Jesus a liar ok so in conclusion we clearly see that walking in the light is about what we believe and what we confess or say not just about what any one person believes but rather what we as brethren collectively believe because what we say or what we confess or walking determines whether we have fellowship with God and with one another or not ok now although it's not strictly about works in its context there is more that we need to look at in verses 8 to 10 because these verses are definitely about sin and so how different people interpret them particularly when you've got easy believers and sinless perfectionism at complete opposite ends of the spectrum here they have to have very different conclusions about these verses ok so we're going to have to spend quite a lot of time on this but there's a few things that need to be addressed here when it says if we say that we have no sin right we deceive ourselves so obviously we have to ask the question how would sinless perfectionists or perhaps lordshipers interpret verse 8 because obviously it's in the present tense ok so they've got to conjure up an answer for that we also need to look at verse 9 when it says confess our sins because what needs to be answered because this is perhaps where there's been a lot of mixtures of answers what exactly it means by confession in verse 9 now you might have realised that I've perhaps already thrown hints about what it actually means in the previous slides but does it mean confession before each other or you know is brethren or does it mean confession before God does it mean confession in like the catholic sense or does it mean confession just of the heart or of the mouth is it a one-off confession like when they confess their sins at John's baptism or is it an ongoing confession of some kind verse 10 is less controversial because whatever spectrum of Christians you know we don't typically differ on how we interpret verse 10 verse 10 isn't a stumbling block for us it's obviously believing that we have sinned is Christianity 101 and both easy believists and sinless perfectionists can all agree that people who don't believe that they have sinned are apostate if they're Christian okay you know even even some of the worst heretics in Christianity acknowledge that we have sinned okay but in John's time this may have been a stumbling block for many Jews for reasons that I proposed earlier and and today also you know with the modern church many I've heard it described as neo-evangelic holes the modernist church the liberal church if you like they also have very diluted views about sin okay and also and although I've really already spoken about this who is we because so far in our study evidence points us towards thinking that it's about John and the recipients of his letter and the people who on behalf of who he's writing so we would say that it's about us it's about the brethren it's about saints it's about Christians but then many people would interpret it particularly in verse 9 to be about the one person or about unbelievers that if when it says if we confess in that's about an unsaved individual person getting saved or needing to be saved so we'll talk a little bit about that as well okay now to me personally I think the first chapter break in this epistle is somewhat unnatural obviously John didn't write the chapter numbers so it would help just to read a little bit into chapter 2 just for a bit more context so in verses 1 and 2 my little children these things I write onto you that you sin not and if any man sin we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the writers and he is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but also the sins of the whole world so John gives us a purpose of this letter he's writing with the intention or to the intention that you or we don't sin that's why he's writing okay if you or if any one individual if any man fails the intentions of the letter he explains what happens we have an advocate okay you know we have the propitiation if you like now interestingly although these verses do give us more context they do also add more complexity into our investigation because of the change in collective individual language because up until now John has used either we or our or you and you which is plural okay it's not the and thou but then if an offence is committed against his intentions that someone you know that someone sins when he wrote to them that they would not sin it's now if any man rather than if we sin but then the remedy to this one man's offence is again collectively it's not to this any man so you know he could have said if we sin we have an advocate or he could have said if any man sin that man have an advocate he didn't say that okay so you know people might play tricks with that you might you might ask why it matters well it only matters because of how a sinless perfectionist might interpret it because they perceive that somebody who sins forfeits their salvation and is a false believer they could try and trap you with the pronouns saying that if any man he that one person is cut off and loses salvation but but we the true saints who don't sin we still have the advocate we still have the propitiation so let's let's review how they're interpreting these verses okay so to help illustrate this I've given you kind of a scale if you like to see how we can interpret well perceive how these verses have been interpreted so save through faith with works this is that the sinless perfection end of the spectrum based on the latter passages in chapter 3 you have to be absolutely sinless to be saved right and so they will say then that 1 John 1 8 to 2 is about sinners repenting of their with sins and turning from it until they have fully surrendered or however they will phrase it on the other hand on the other extreme of the spectrum you've got saved through faith without works and that's what the Bible calls grace okay God has and people will say people often say this that God has forgiven all sins past present and future and for as long as you still live in this body of the flesh you're always going to sin and therefore according to 1 John 8 and 2 to 2 we acknowledge this so we believe in Jesus that's how they will often interpret it on the faith alone side in the middle with the Lordship salvation is kind of like saved through a true faith alone that will produce works you know it's like one foot in there one foot in there based on the later passages in chapter 3 there needs to be some evidence of changed life to be saved but it doesn't mean perfection so 1 John is kind of like acknowledging when we sing God is faithful to forgive as long as there isn't a lifestyle of sin and so that's how they will interpret it okay so where did they get their interpretations from well verse 8 is really problematic to a sinless perfectionist so they have to assume that it essentially means the same thing as it does in verse 10 that you are denying that you have past sins that you need saving from so it doesn't mean that you have present sins because that would contradict other verses in John supposedly so they really just say that verse 8 is just the same thing as verse 10 just said in a different way and that they will use verse 6 preceding it to set the context for it because if we are not in the truth we walk in darkness quote unquote so verse 8 cannot mean that a saved Christian continues in sin in the present tense because that would contradict walking in darkness in verse 6 right now using a non-KTV translation they will insist that verses such as 1 John 3 8 are outright proof that a saved believer should not be continuing in sin so the idea that a Christian is always going to sin based on 1 8 is quoting it out of context and in ignorance too sorry I forgot to complete that sentence for some reason but in this one there is a bit of a thing about how this says practice obviously the King James doesn't say that but that will have to wait until chapter 3 so I looked around at how sinless perfectionists answered this and so these are a few of the things that I found so this guy is you know hardcore term for me sins to be saved so he says essentially verse 6 if we continue in darkness this proves that verse 8 does not mean continued present sin because we can't be walking in darkness okay in 2nd John 2 18-19 we have these antichrists that went out from us well this shows that the epistle was written about the Gnostics and they had all kinds of heretical teachings and further qualified in 1 John 4 1 3 where it says test the spirits you can clearly see that he is addressing the Gnostics right and supposedly the Gnostics claimed that they didn't have any sin he also says this is obviously true that if you it's a letter so if you take out the chapters and numbers read it in the flow of a letter obviously the chapters and numbers weren't there when John wrote it so that's some of the points that he's made about it now this guy Dan Moeller you wouldn't normally think that they belong in the same camp because you might not actually realise that he's a sinless perfectionist because he's really more about identity kind of a gospel which is something that he would refute but I think he does really kind of believe it it's just he says it in a very nice way and a much more gentle way than most people and he kind of says it without saying it really so it's maybe not obvious that he's a sinless perfectionist but you know he believes that essentially you're walking in a new identity and your new identity is that you don't sin so verse 7 if we walk in the light and he'll embellish that to say if we come clean come free from ourselves getting true fellowship with him and it cleanses us from all sin righteousness it's done so we're not dual natured we're not driven by sin not desperately in need of the blood every single day not oh thank you God I'm always going to sin but he forgives me so he's refuting that kind of a mentality yeah and so being cleansed from all sin that that means all our sin which he would although he doesn't say this it seems like he's saying that it includes your propensity to even sin that's completely removed so even your desire to sin essentially is removed it's kind of saying it without saying it really so in the context of verse 7 verse 8 if we say we have no sin he interprets that as meaning if you say you have no need for the blood so it doesn't mean if you sin today it just means do you recognize that you need Jesus so the person who says I have no sin he's basically saying I don't need to be born again I don't need Jesus I'm a pretty good person that that's how he's defining that so in verse 9 when it says if we confess our sins it doesn't interpret this to me that we're always going to have sin but if we stumble then the light of my life reveals them recognises that it wasn't God and my mindset was selfish and I get convicted etc so I say father so this is what I mean about the identity thing where it's just like proclaiming truth over yourself essentially and that's how you get around this issue apparently this guy one reality again hard core work salvation comes right out and says it Christians read this Christians read this with a mentality that they're always going to sin till the day they die sorry I've spelled that wrong and this is why pastors apparently molest children or cheating on their wives and Christians think that they have to deliberately sin to be in the truth I've never heard anybody say that that's what he's saying John is writing to Nostics there is again who who think that they have not sin sin since birth and wouldn't need Jesus who are converting over to Christianity not sure why but that's what he says John does not address beliefs until chapter 2 supposedly so in verse 9 we confess that we have sinned and we are cleansed from all righteousness so we cannot have sin present tense according to verse 8 so in essence then this passage is about an unsafe person getting saved that they will confess their sin and in his words repent of their sin and get saved so that's how he's interpreting it okay Jesse Morrell so I've put the videos in the video titles and if you want to check that he's out but he'll say that a lot of Christians use this to attack holiness preaching I don't know who but that's what he says John was writing against the Nostics who believe that the flesh was a sinful substance and that you could never be free of sin until you died and you're released from the body walking in darkness verse 6 is walking in sin and walking in righteousness not walking in the truth so it's also important to note that he interprets cleansing from all sin as referring to in this life and it means that you no longer have the propensity to go out and sin that the saviour cleanses from all sin is not death as the Nostics taught now this is noteworthy what he said if somebody commits a sin such as fornication but then they claim they're not being sinful this is the kind of person that the passage is talking about he also says as well that a lot of people interpret the bible based on today's debates like Calvinism versus Arminianism rather than the issues of the time and the audience of its day okay so we're maybe misunderstanding the argument because we're looking at it from you know modern argument point so he says that the whole point of telling you to confess your sin is that you'll get forgiven and cleansed and don't continue in sin by which you know Jesse Morrell means repent of it stop doing it all together noteworthy as well as that according to one John 2 it says if any man sin that means it's possible to sin but it's also possible to stop sinning because he wrote the epistle that you would not sin he does also point out another false extreme that some sinless perfectionist say this is impossible for a saved person to sin and this is exactly what Mike Rikowski believes the next guy that he does believe that he's at a point where he cannot he can't even choose to sin it's impossible for him to sin essentially so basically what he says everyone on this earth except Jesus was born in sin that does not mean we will always continue in sin there are no scriptures that say well he always says relate he has some weird obsession with using that word that we will always continue in sin or that we can never stop sinning the bible never says this supposedly people who do not possess the Holy Spirit want to justify why they continue in sin so when it says if we say we have no sin it does not apply to his own claim that he does not sin anymore because he confesses that he was born in sin and for 50 years of his life he lived in sin he then confessed his sins and so he stopped living in sin so again it's about unbelievers getting saved in long story short he then quotes later verses from John that whosoever has been born of God does not sin and he cannot sin because his seed remains in him and the wicked one cannot touch you so if you are allowing the Holy Spirit of God to guide you you will not sin now additionally if you've not heard of this guy before Rykowsky's doctrine of overcoming sin also involves overcoming sickness so if you get sick it's because you sin and sin sickness come from the devil and it's later clarified in 1 John 3 that whosoever sins has not seen him and does not know him so if you say you still sin it's because you don't know God don't have the Holy Spirit have no idea who God is you're the one that's living a lie you are deceived you are blaspheming the Word of God and so essentially saying that if you still sin you are denying the power of God essentially is what he's saying there so that was sinless perfectionism what about the opposite end of the spectrum free grace where do they get their interpretations from so verse 8 obviously is fine as a self-contained verse if we say that we have no sin in the present tense so free grace advocates would say that believers sin even to the day they die so because this verse is in the present tense that there's no problem for easy believers about what verse 8 means now verse 9 is surprisingly controversial among free grace advocates because different people have interpreted it in very different ways and some people have even reconsidered their interpretation you might argue perhaps that how the word confess is interpreted could be an issue there verse 10 again not not controversial there's no issue with verse 10 so I'll give you an example of things I've heard from other easy believers to say about this passage so initially Greg Jackson once did a video where he stated it was a Gnostic and the Gnostics claimed they didn't have any sin and so they needed to acknowledge that they were sinners who needed to trust in Christ some people have refuted him about this view stating that it refers to believers but he's declined this view because it would involve ongoing confession such as in Catholicism and so obviously that would be maintaining forgiveness as opposed to one time forgiveness now I think he did change his view that his view has changed to that to be more in agreement with the second guy although they disagree on many other things which I'm not going to get into but destroying the works of the devil he said that he disagrees that this verse is about believers as well for much the same reasons as Greg although rather than saying it's about the Gnostics he's saying that it refers to unbelievers generally who need to confess their sins in the John the Baptist sense like you know the one time conversion because they've not yet believed the Gospel and when people have confronted him about the use of the pronoun we because it says if we confess our sin and obviously the context is believers he likens it to I think it was a waitress in a restaurant saying oh what are we having today but the waitress herself is not not eating right and then Toronto Bible study he's said that this passage I think I apologize to him if I'm wrong about his interpretation but it refers to ongoing confession of sins to God not for salvation so it's not something that you have to do to be saved but something that maintains your earthly fellowship or relationship with God unless you can get chastised or perhaps disfellowship from the brethren or something like that and so then there's lordship salvation among lordship I didn't really find anything surprisingly different from what we've already seen it's mainly a repetition of some of the same points and so it's kind of a mishmash of the aforementioned points that you know the epistle was written to the Gnostics or because they reject sinless perfectionism they will acknowledge the ongoing sins of believers but at the same time they'll still insist that walking in the light must warrant a change in lifestyle not making a practice of sin so I didn't really find anything new in that category to hand pick for you so there's a lot of different arguments going on here and quite a lot to unpack so I'm going to have to break down and refute some of the arguments I can't go into every micro thing that they've said for the sake of time but just as a spoiler alert I don't really agree with any of the aforementioned interpretations including those by other easy believers and I'm not having to go with them or anything I just professionally disagree with them but I have previously considered Toronto Bible studies interpretation and for a time I thought it was correct but then when I've studied it again I've kind of repented of that view and I'm using that word correctly by the way because I've realised something very obvious that I miss the whole time and when I saw it I couldn't believe how obvious it was. All of these conflicting interpretations explain why John's Epistle is such a complicated book because the things that John are saying in these verses is not really complicated in itself he's using quite simple language and so it's amazing how so few words can cause so much conflict about what he means the answer to this passage is actually quite simple and when I noticed it I felt rather silly that I missed it the whole time because it was always there and all we have to do is just think carefully about the way that John phrases it and the reason why he says certain things that's all you have to do and just think carefully about why he's saying it the way that he's saying it right so I'll try and pick some of the main arguments you can't go through every micro argument but easy believers and sinless perfectionists alike have interpreted this epistle to be all about Gnosticism but they've taken their own spin on what Gnostic doctoring John was actually refuting so if we ask the sinless perfectionist who say that John was writing about the Gnostic well they say that the Gnostic lived in sin and wouldn't turn from sin and so that was the issue that John needed to address on the contrary easy believers who also say that this book was directed towards the Gnostic denied that they had sin or that Jesus was the Christ and so that was what John addressed so either one or both of these sides are picking and choosing the aspects of Gnostics to associate with this epistle so as to defend their own positions and in some of their researches about Gnostics and not really necessarily accurate or evident evident from the writings that we have about Gnostics they're either cherry picked or they're conjectural or just simply not true or relevant really further building on this you see my biggest problem with this assertion is the lack of evidence within the Bible itself John makes no mention of Gnostics or Gnosticism and we have we have to rely on extra Biblical sources and conjectural assumptions to come to this conclusion essentially now there's a lot of hearsay about this epistle that John wrote it quite late in his life even after the temple of Jerusalem was destroyed but doesn't bother to mention it but scholars can only deduce that based on his writing style they don't really have any absolute proof many scholars would deny that John even wrote the book so John didn't really find it necessary to document anything particularly relevant to his time frame so in summary I reject the idea that it's targeted at Gnostics specifically because I don't think that sets the premise for the whole book because you cannot establish that from the Bible itself somebody has to plant the idea into your head essentially now most of what we know about Gnostics as far as I'm aware comes from against heresies by Irenaeus so I actually produced a video going through the book to debunk a claim that Osas was a Gnostic doctrine the Gnostics really believed in all kinds of kooky weird things assuming that what Irenae said is actually true and not biased by the way but they believed in all kinds of weird things and so really what he writes in his epistle barely scratches the surface of what Gnostics actually believed and the Antichrist characteristics that John exposed were quite specific so really I would argue that his epistle is very inadequate if it was intended to address Gnostic teachings to top this off really the Antichrist characteristics could easily be applied to the Jews of John's time who also denied that Jesus is the Christ and who also denied that they had sin and Paul warned us about Judaism in his epistles now strictly speaking John doesn't mention Jews in his epistle but at least internally the Bible would make a much better case for that claim and a more self-sufficient case than the Gnostics just from the self-sufficient internal evidence and furthermore as well as I mentioned earlier in the study sometimes the Bible does name certain people that were the cause of certain false doctrines like the Nicolaitans but John doesn't give us that any epistle so we don't know that he was targeting a very specific group of heretics so John just said another argument then, this is quite a big one a lot of the sinless perfectionists were saying this that John just said prior to verse 8, 9 and 10 walk in the light before saying if we say we have no sin so he is not talking about present tense ongoing sins now I see that there are two problems with this argument the first biggest problem is that it's really begging the question that is to say asserting the conclusion because the sinless perfectionists have read that word that phrase walk in the light and they've pre-decided that that's what walking in the light means well it says walk in the light so it means you don't say well you've decided that that's what those four words mean okay you've made that assumption so really what they're doing is they're using a cryptic figure of speech like walk in the light to define a clear statement if we say we have no sin rather than taking the more obvious statement and applying it to the more cryptic one right which you know would make more sense well earlier in this study we already looked at what walking in the light means that if we use other passages in the bible particularly in John mainly in John's gospel that use this same phrase walk in the light it's really used more to do with believing who Christ is and believing in him and living a new kind of a life okay that's how John's gospel defines it far more clearly so if John's borrowing terminology from his gospel in his epistle which we can see that he does it's really far more to do with what you believe not your works and so the closest works like passages that we have that are similar are like walking in the spirit not walking in the light though or walking as children of the light so you know John's gospel presents a better case for our interpretation that walking in the light is the truth that you believe it's walking in the truth acknowledging what is true believing in what is true the second problem with this argument if we're to assert that the sinless perfectionist view is true that walking the light means not sinning then really the way that the Holy Spirit moved John to speak makes absolutely no sense whatsoever because John wrote a sentence that contradicts his own salvation doctrine right saying if a sinless perfectionist's view were true that Jesus has to remove sins not just the sins that they've done or the penalty for sins but also the propensity to sin or you know the fact that they sin and this is how we're going to define free from sin that you're a person who doesn't sin anymore well then John cannot say in the present tense if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves because it's not true in fact the opposite is true it's if we say we have sin we deceive ourselves so we really accused John of writing a nonsensical statement that doesn't even match what he's proclaiming about salvation if you just follow the logic right we've been set free from our sins that's how they interpret Jesus cleansed from our sins we don't sin anymore we're not living in sin you know we've been cleansed from all of our sins we don't have sin anymore oh by the way if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves like that what that doesn't make sense with the satiriology that you're supposedly claiming then it's like you're making John contradict himself now verse 10 still makes perfect sense if we say we have not sinned that's fine we don't have a problem with verse 10 but they're making verse 8 say the same thing when John worded it in the present tense not as something that happened in the past okay the third argument then that verse 9 and you know Dan Moeller said it this way but also easy believists have said this as well that confess means to acknowledge our need for the blood so like Dan Moeller said it's about unbelievers getting saved you know if we say we have no need for the blood that's what John really means by saying that but my answer to that really is very similar to argument 2 like my question would be if this is what John really meant why couldn't the Holy Spirit move John to say it in the way that he meant because really the verse ought to say if we say we have no passing then we deceive ourselves but that's not what he said if we have no sin present tense we deceive ourselves and then verse 9 ought to say if any man acknowledges need for the blood of Jesus he is faithful for it but again that's not how the Holy Spirit move John to speak the Holy Spirit move John to say if we confess that's an action present tense our sins he's faithful and just to forgive okay I am satisfied in my own mind you can disagree that's up to you but I think John is being deliberate in the language being used and that the Holy Spirit did not write him anything that is deliberately confusing okay so you know I hope just looking at that right there that table there of what John could have said versus what he did say would help you understand why I'm disagreeing with everybody here okay argument number 4 is that John is talking about unbelievers verse 8 to 10 are not referring to saved people they're about people who need to get saved now as we saw with Gnosticism both easy believers and sinless perfectionists are like making this claim but they've got their own spin on how it actually applies you know the sinless perfectionist will say that it means unbelievers need to repent of their sins the easy believers say that unbelievers need to recognize that they are sinners once again with argument 2 and 3 we're accusing John and the Holy Spirit of using nonsensical language that doesn't make doctrinal sense okay verse 3 and 4 quite clearly clarify who we are now in poetry books like Psalms or Job or songs obviously this is not as straightforward because the pronouns flip around all the time and it's poetry right but this ought to really be this is an instruction letter it ought to be more straightforward than that okay no verse so far has redefined who we are okay we are the brethren the people of God now some will say it's a figure of speech so I mentioned earlier that the waitress example like a waitress he said oh what are we having today but the waitress is not eating now I can't accept that for the main reason I find that view very conjectural I find it unverifiable like I can't verify that what you're saying is true I've got no way of knowing that I can only base it on your assumption right and really I don't think you can compare informal speech in a restaurant with with men speaking as they are moved by the Holy Ghost and wrote and carbon-copied this letter okay so you know I'm not having a go at the people have proclaimed that you know I'm not ripping on them all but you know that I'm just professionally disagreeing with the other easy believers about this argument five is that it means to stop living in sin and this is essentially how Jesse Morel and Mike Rakowski interpret well I suppose all the sinless perfectionists did really but as with all the previous arguments we're doing the same thing again accusing John of writing a consensical language that contradicts his own theology he should not be saying if we say we have no sin present tense if we have been cleansed from our sins and we don't sin anymore and we don't sing good word children of God and you all sin but we don't you know you deceive at yourselves we don't John should not be saying that it makes no sense with what he's actually talking about and again it's inserting the conclusion because what they're doing is they're reading the bit saying cleanses us from all sin and then say well that means you don't sin anymore well the thing is that that's not what cleansing means right cleansing like another word for cleaning or you know scrubbing now anybody who knows the first thing about cleaning knows that when you clean something it eventually gets dirty okay those of you that are clean freaks and like to clean your house or maybe you're a housewife and you're looking after the family you know that as soon as the kids and the husband come home that house ain't as clean as you made it doesn't matter how much effort you put into it it gets dirty very quickly okay the fact that it says cleanses us from all sin is not proof text that you don't sin anymore okay and they will they will borrow from later passages about he who commits in he cannot sin so you know they'll say well well he who is born of God cannot sin right but then they believe in conditional security so their own definition violates those later verses just just think about it if a saved believer who has been cleansed of sin including their propensity to sin can then choose to sin and lose their salvation then by definition your definition of it they weren't cleansed they weren't set free someone who was born of God can sin and become unborn a person born of God can sin so they contradict their own interpretation because they just talk out on both sides of the mouth I can't unpack that now I know that's the bit that people get stuck on and I know that's the verses that people find super hard to understand and I will get to it I intend on getting to it but chapters three and five are just going to have to wait to their own study okay we've got to get through this we've got to do this in order okay so argument number six then this is saying that verse nine refers to fellowship or might say relationship I guess so a saved believer should confess their sins in in prayer presumably not for salvation so you know it's got nothing to do with says what must I do to be saved you know you still saved if you don't do it but it's to stay in fellowship with God or with their brethren to stay in fellowship with them such as to retain or recover church membership and often they'll say that fellowship is perhaps using it in the same way as discipleship I guess and I have previously considered this view but really I have repented of holding this view because that what I've realized is that the problem here is really trying to define the word fellowship okay because the word fellowship it's used to be a handful of times in the Bible and perhaps similar words like relationship or brotherhood and other passages use fellowship in like a gospel like context like Philemon 1.5 and so sometimes fellowship does seem like he's salvation relevant where Paul uses the word fellowship he sometimes uses it as not associating with or participating in the needs of non-brethren and participating in things pertaining to faith. Now I've not done like hours and hours and hours and hours of in-depth study about what fellowship means but at a glance if you look at all the different verses where it means it more commonly seems to mean association with or participation so if we are in fellowship with brethren it's because we associate with another you know usually over the doctrines we believe right and we associate with God and so we are commanded not to be in fellowship or not to participate in or associate in the works of darkness right so if we say that somebody is cut off from fellowship with God like my problem with that view is well what does that actually mean do you mean that God won't answer your prayer or do you mean that God will punish you and chastise you in a non-hellfire kind of way and then if that's how you're interpreting it then the next question I have to ask is what verses in the Bible defined fellowship in this way okay and so it's really too much open as to what fellowship actually means if you're going to say that so to me this interpretation just leaves too many holes about what fellowship means and perhaps again we're asserting conclusions oh that's what fellowship means without really providing satisfactory proof to clearly define it and then apply it to what John is even talking about and furthermore if we just look at what we've been looking at that you know in this chapter that chastisement of a disobedient believer in the consequences of disfellowshipping is not something that this epistle is talking about okay so we're just arbitrarily adding this definition when John himself didn't necessarily define it this way now if we were doing a study on perhaps one Corinthians that might be a stronger argument but I think it's too weak in John's epistle because really what you believe about what it means is outside of the subject of John's epistle it's you're talking about something that John's not talking about essentially so with all of that I see problems with all of the aforementioned interpretations there's more I could have said on that but I think you get the idea so obviously that I need to provide justification as to what I believe it means now as I've said repeatedly John is using simple language he's not using fancy word salad it ought to be fairly simple to understand what John really means and I believe it is and when I recognized it I was surprised actually how simple it is and how obvious it should have just been the whole time and I just completely missed it really I'm summarizing here but John is tackling a mindset okay and it's about the mindset that we as believers have towards our sins and how that relates to our belief in Jesus the Christ and our fellowship or you might say association with one another so over the next few lap slides let's have a look at the simple language that John uses and see if he defines his own sentences so see if we can grasp this okay so we already saw earlier in this study that there's two sides here this ought to give us an indication of what John intended in saying in verse 9 either we say we have no sin and we say that we have not sinned or we confess our sins they're the two extremes they're the opposites they're the choices so verses 4 and 5 establish that we or you in the plural pronouns are referring to believers including John himself and the people that he represents and the group of people he is writing to whom he predominantly calls little children throughout his epistles so they were likely probably converts or people that John administered to and John felt you know a burdening responsibility to watch over them right we have seen and heard we declare on to you we write on to you that's who we are we're up to one right believers simple as that in verses 8 to 10 we start each verse with if we say that or if we confess right okay so what we do is not strictly being tackled again sins flexes you've got to turn from what you think it's not saying what we do it's saying what we say okay what we confess what we say so it's what we collectively as believers say or confess regarding our sins right now if John was writing about any one individual or somebody who needs to be saved he could have just said if any man or he that or who so ever but he didn't say this okay he said we that's what he said we're all together in these verses okay so John in the in the second chapter then gives us a reason why he's writing right just so as to make sure that you don't misunderstand what he just said he writes on to you that reading his writing you do not say okay that I write on to you that you say not that's why he's writing okay now we dealt with that if we say that okay we have all the verses that say if we say that what happens if we do that okay what happens if we do sing well we have a condition here now this is where it gets interesting because it doesn't actually say we now now actually says if any man sin right that's quite interesting we're gonna have to look into that so it doesn't say we there but if we if any man sin okay then that condition is met well we have a solution we have an advocate okay there's a solution there if any man happen to sin right now then let's start in verse 8 it's in the present tense so sinless perfectionist can go oh it just means pass no it's in the present tense okay that's what John said he wrote it in the present tense it's ourselves okay because we is collective so is ourselves now in the sinless perfectionist framework they ultimately can't say this to be theologically consistent with their own framework because their salvation doctrine does not allow this verse to be true in the present tense their position is you have to have no sin including the propensity to even sin in some cases Jesus only cleanses you of passions you can't have continued present sin okay so so they will now obviously you'll point out you know they deceive themselves but they deny deceiving themselves but the mentality behind them is that they ultimately do deceive themselves from this verse as I will you know attempt to demonstrate later in this study now you could interpret the ourselves as referring to our own individual selves or each other in the context of fellowship it really it works either way because if you and I both say that we have no sin we deceive our individual selves but because we fellowship with each other in saying that we have no sin then we are also deceiving ourselves collectively because we're saying that collectively you and I we do not sin right and I will give you an example of this later on the other hand let us suppose that I say I have no sin whereas you reject what I say and so then I don't deceive you but I'm also not fellowship with you I wouldn't associate with you I think you're a false prophet you think I'm a false prophet so I would be deceiving myself but I wouldn't deceiving you and you know from from my perspective it would be the other way around you wouldn't be deceiving me either right now that moving on to verse 9 again it's all in the present tense okay if we present tense confess our sins he is present tense faithful and just to present tense our sins and to present tense cleanse us from all unrighteousness okay if this passage only referred to the one time conversion John could have said if we have confessed or if any man confess but again that's not how the Holy Spirit moved him to speak right now there is a controversy to be addressed here what exactly does John mean by confess is it you know what's the format of confession does he mean like a prayerful confession on to God or does he mean verbally confessing before men what is the repetition of the confession is it just like a one time confession like you know when John the baptised and people confess their sins but then what if it's one time what happens if we sin after this confession is it an ongoing confession what about the sins of ignorance thoughts of foolishness is sin unpresultuous sins honest mistakes the flesh okay if it's ongoing you know how does that all fit in there now confession as a word in the Bible interestingly isn't actually as common as you might think it appears just over three dozen times in all its different forms like past tense present tense you know it's different forms and the underlying Hebrew word and you know if you look it up in a concord it can also mean like if thanks or praise in English because the root word is to throw or cast okay and also confession doesn't always refer to sin either it's just like oh did you do something you know yes I did it or you know bring it to attention that you did something so let's start with a one time confession could it mean a one time confession this is where we'd normally refer to baptism because in Matthew 3 6 6 explain that the people who were baptized by John confessed their sins right baptism is a one time event that ought to occur at or shortly after the time of conversion and in Acts 2 38 baptism is explained to be the representation of the the the remission of sins the forgiveness of sins okay so with this context in mind people would say that confessing sin is an initial confession to admit that one is a sinner or you know if you're a sinless perfectionist then you know repent of your sins for the purpose of believing on the Christ and getting saved right because this is a one time event advocates would say that if you do some kind of an ongoing confession of sins you're essentially denying forgiveness because you're not believing that Jesus Christ has already forgiven all of your sins you know past present and future that's the the terminology that they'll use right but then you know we're just asking the questions that's all we're doing right now what about ongoing confession or the confession of somebody who is a believer so for example James 5 16 instructs us brethren to confess your faults now the underlying Greek word is the same for sins to one another so that's a man to man confession for the purpose that you may be healed of that given sin in Acts chapter 8 22 Peter tells Simon this also to repent of a specific wickedness that the thought of his heart could be forgiven and that that's a very specific issue but this was not in a salvation context because Simon already believed and was baptised before this in verse 13 now in Psalm 32 5 David declared I will confess my transgression onto the Lord so that's man to God now a lot of brethren have a problem with this concept because it sounds like Jesus hasn't really forgiven us our sins if we have to carry on confessing them but really if you read the Psalm though and just be honest about the language that David uses he already starts this Psalm saying what sin is he whose transgression is present sense already forgiven and on to whom the Lord does not impute sin and then in verse 5 he says I have acknowledged my sin onto the so that's like it's already happened and that's quite an important interpretation I think that will probably give you a picture of what we're talking about he also says you forgave my iniquity past tense so that's a past tense verse right there but he's still confessing his sins or he's still saying but confess my sins in the future you know future tense so according to Psalm 32 it's not unheard of or unbiblical to confess sins to God even though he already forgave you because that's what David did and your transgressions are forgiven but then we do raise another problem with this if it does mean ongoing confession and perhaps you know you might think that this is verbal confession many people object to this because of the following problems it presents with first of all you cannot conceivably remember every single sin you have ever done there's the first problem right secondly the Bible says we have secret sins like Psalm 98 sorry Psalm 90 verse 8 we may have sinned in ignorance not realising that something is a sin Leviticus 4 talks about that and under this point you can see that there is a distinction between sins of ignorance and willful presumptuous sins like in numbers and because of this some sinless perfectionists might say that they'll just say that you have to turn from unknown sins so they'll make like some kind of an exception to unknown sins think how Chafia said something like that some sins are open to interpretation about whether they really are sins so you know drinking wine if you sober and you don't actually get drunk that's obviously something where Christians will disagree with that or something like smoking where the Bible obviously doesn't mention the practice even the thought of foolishness is sin and you know Proverbs 24-9 and we all go through hundreds if not thousands of foolish thoughts we all go through thousands of thoughts every day so you think at least a handful of them are foolish so then it does present us with this problem because what happens if we don't confess these sins right well now let's consider the language of verse 9 so it doesn't strictly say whether we confess our sins before men or before God it doesn't give us that context right confession is in the present tense which you might say if we were just to be unbiased about it you would say that it perhaps makes a stronger case for an ongoing confession rather than a one off instance just because of how we use that tense there but also as well remember that the word confess can actually itself have multiple meanings or applications so obviously it can mean to verbally disclose guilt even if somebody didn't actually ask you to confess but then on the other hand you could just admit it if you were questioned about it you know even if it's not a moral issue did you do this well yes either you confess you did or you deny right and so this is important is that it can mean just to acknowledge or admit a particular belief and actually very similar to the word profess but with more honesty and sincerity so obviously you could confess that Jesus Lord or you could confess that Jesus Lord the Bible uses both of those terminologies and obviously profess is more of a negative term confess is more of a positive term right but what many people overlook is just the blatantly obvious about these verses as I myself did okay we can easily define the word confess by its antonym deny right they're opposing words confess deny they're the opposite so either we confess or we deny they're the two options right it's not there's a third option we just don't confess and don't deny either we deny or we confess right likewise we can easily define then by the same logic we can define what John meant by confession because of how he contrasts it with its opposite right the opposite of if we confess is if we say that either we confess our sins or we say that we have no sin we say that we have not sinned so then because of this perfectly simple dichotomy here we can assume that confession in this context it's not whether you've personally got down on your knees and it's about what we admit it's about what we acknowledge in our collective belief about our sins and how this relates to the Christ so confessing our sins is very simple it's the opposite of saying if we say we have no sin and we have not sin that's what it means okay now we don't need to explore this because there's no disagreement with that most Christians agree that we've said that's Christianity 101 so I'm not even going to address that one of the controversies then between sinless perfectionists and easy believers is that an easy believer will say God forgives us all sin past present and future now a sinless perfectionist will reply well that's found nowhere in the Bible right now it is true that the Bible never phrases it in this way it's really a gross oversimplification and it's really just a catchy phrase that people use but there may be and you know perhaps this is stemming on my opinion a bit but there may be some deliberate intention behind the reason why the Bible never says this verbatim and I'll talk about this more towards the end of the study and why John phrases his epistle in the way that he does okay so perhaps leave that towards the end so let's just try to illustrate these verses that are in the present tense without adding any presuppositions or doctrinal assumptions in their day-to-day application okay so it's if we so I'm going to illustrate this with a group of people if we okay and then on any given day because it's in the present tense we don't need to look at past present and future we just look at right now at any given time whether you're watching this today whether you happen to be watching it the next day or you watched it yesterday that's not the point on any given day day one day two day three we just apply this first in its present tense states okay if we confess our sins right or if we say that we have no sin now in this we crowd on any given day what happens if any man sin right if we if any man sin whether it's him or whether it's him or whether it's her or whether it's him or whatever well if we confess our sins he's faithful and just to forgive us right if we say that we have no sin that's what we say well we deceive ourselves they're the two options so you see how simple that is if you just take away any sort of you know predispositions that you already had about this passage so in the sinless perfectionist and easy believers model so obviously in sinless perfectionism you've got the extreme end of work salvation and then easy believers and is the extreme end of faith alone and lordship just kind of bounces around in the middle somewhere so in sinless perfectionism forgiveness or the cleansing of sin is a one time event okay that's when you repent of your sins and salvation requires ongoing maintenance you have to put the work in to be saved or just to prove that you're really saved right you know they argue over semantics but really their salvation requires maintenance forgiveness and sins is a one time event because you have to turn from your sins to be saved right on the opposite end of the spectrum easy believers and salvation is a one time instantaneous event okay and we base that on bible verses like you know I am the door if any man shall enter in or you know he that drinks of the water that I shall give it's like a cup of water or a door that you enter in or you know even the narrow way few there be that find it not few there be that make it to the end few there be that find it once you found it you found it so salvation instantaneous one time event passed from death on to life immediately and so any sins committed after salvation well then there's the ongoing I mean you could call it ongoing could say Jesus did it all in the past but that's really a difference without distinction sins that you commit after you have believed the gospel Jesus forgives them he cleanses them he covers sins committed after salvation okay so what is the justification for saying that God forgives all sin including present and future sins well there's a lot of different ways you could explain this like God's for knowledge for example the fact that he knows somebody's going to sin tomorrow I've talked about that before but the studies on one job so let's just simply say that the language that John himself is using so John is using collective inclusive language as I've pointed out many times now if this verse referred to unbeliefs getting safely could have just said if any man and he didn't say it he's writing in the present tense he could have just said forgive us our past sins or he could have just said because we have confessed our sins he was faithful he could have just said that if that's what he really meant okay and yet despite what he said okay in in 1 9 he will go on to say in the next chapter so despite saying present tense forgive our sins essentially he now says you are forgiven present tense finished okay so we had present tense ongoing action now we have present tense finished okay they're both true right now why are you forgiven because you turned from all your sins and you don't sin anymore not what it says you're forgiven for his namesake okay so all to do with what Jesus did it's not because of what you did right so you know you turning from sins has nothing to do with the reason here so we see we see two things happening in the present tense God is just present tense the action is pending and ongoing assuming we meet the condition we confess our sins right your sins are forgiven the action is complete assuming that the recipients of John's letter have already met the condition that we confess our sins right so you he forgives you and you are forgiven they're both true right and just in case you still insist that this passage only covers past sins that chapter 2 already sets it up for you John goes on to explain what happens if any man sin present tense well what happens we have an advocate he is the perpetuation that's the outcome if that condition is met now at the same time yes we recognize that John is writing this epistle with the assumption that we sin not now there is an fundamentally important reason why he says this because think about it if the sinless perfection is to view with verse 8 to 10 was correct that you know it's all about turning from your sin and not sinning anymore well John wouldn't need to clarify this then would he because nobody would read verses 8 to 10 and say well you know we could just go out and sin if it meant sinless perfectionism you wouldn't get that impression from reading verse 10 right the reason he has to explain this I write these things so that you sin not is because reading 8 to 10 you could come to the conclusion that you're either supposed to sin or that it's okay to sin right because you would not read it and think sinless perfectionism it's as simple as that otherwise John wouldn't need to clarify this because it would already be obvious from what he just said right so you know he's clearly said we confess our sins he is faithful to forgive so why does he need to clarify that he writes we don't sin well the reason is because somebody could if they wanted to try and use this end of chapter 1 as a license to sin deliberately willfully and unrepentantly we'll come back to that later for a bit more clarity on that now someone might object to this saying later in the epistle you know what about all the verses about the commandments what about he who commits sin is of the devil what about he that is born does not sin born of God I should have said we you know I will deal with those in the chapters when we get to separate study videos all in good time but what we excuse me have seen up to now is that John is tackling the type of mindset that we have either we have the mindset that says we've not sinned we have no sin and if this is our mindset we deceive ourselves we walk in darkness right on the other hand if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us and we walk in the light right there are two options here there are mindsets like which one of these categories do you fit in right now I'm going to digress just for a few slides because obviously I'm saying that John is tackling a mindset not behavior and so picking up on that point and what I just want to talk about briefly is that there's a lot of passages in the Bible where people misappropriate those passages to be all about your works and what you actually do but they completely overlook or just willfully ignore the mindset of the people that are even being dealt with so let's just give an example for example in Matthew 7 you've heard sinless perfectionists and Lordship has say this not everyone that says unto me Lord Lord shall enter right, depart from me that works iniquity and so the sinless perfectionists will pay close attention to verses 21 which says do the will of the Father and verses 23 which says depart from me you that work iniquity they'll pay close attention to that bit but what they completely overlook or just willfully ignore or just dance around is the mentality of the people to whom Jesus is speaking right the simple fact of the matter is they bragged about their works so you can say well it says they worked iniquity but they bragged about their works Lord did we not do this did we not do that ok and if you want to say well they had works but they also had sins well there's really only two options either they had the either their works were right or wrong right and they're bragging about their works that's their mentality so you know they were bragging in what they did they didn't say Lord did we not believe in you Lord didn't you not say that you would not lose anything that you have given eternal life do they never brought any attention to the things that Jesus did they're bringing attention to what they did themselves now here's another example you've got Matthew 25 when Jesus separates the sheep from the goats right so again they will pay close attention to where Jesus commends the sheep for doing good works and rebukes the goats for not doing the works right so they'll pay close attention to that we'll see you must be doing the work but the thing again look at the mentality of the people that Jesus is talking to don't overlook the fact that the righteous the sheep what's their answer Lord when did we see you hunger and fed you when did we see your first thing gave you a drink when did we see a stranger and take you in or you know when did we see you naked you know when did we do any of these things right whereas the the goats they're denying failing the works Lord when did we see you hunger and not minister on to you when did we not do these things Lord so you see how the sheep that sorry the goats they're denying failing the works Lord when did we not do this of course we did this Lord right whereas the sheep when did we do that Lord when did I do these good works don't remember it because they have the mentality that they're not justified by their works right if you're justified by your works that's how you've got to defend yourself like the goats okay so this is just what they completely overlook is the mentality the mindset that the sheep had versus the goats and obviously you know when we talk about what does repentance mean change your mind it's your mindset it's the way that you think that's the problem okay and so this is why I say it's about the mindset that we have as believers that John is tackling and that's why in verses 8 to 10 of chapter 1 he's saying if we say or if we confess he isn't saying if we do or if we do not now yes he does say do not the truth and walk in the light but again what is the truth the truth is not a list of moral instructions it's an acknowledgement of what is fundamentally true right and according to John the same type of person that does not do the truth or walks in darkness is exactly the kind of person the same kind of person that says we have no sin right so what we believe about our sins is still the point being addressed now somebody who has a workspace salvation what they've got to do is they've got to move the goalposts of holiness so that they can still get it right so that they've got to come up with exceptions for their sins now then sinless perfectionists and lordshipers for that matter might take what I've been saying in this study and say that you're trying to justify your sin or you're trying to make people comfortable in their sin right but the problem with statements like this is that it's really just sensationalism and if you follow what John has been saying to its logical conclusion it's really I would argue that it's they themselves that are trying to justify their sin and feel comfortable in their sin and I say this because as somebody who's under grace I can actually confess which you know admit my sins and although I should not have done those sins but I have I can acknowledge it right I can say that I was wrong and do not you know to do those things and God is faithful to forgive me and to cleanse me right whereas those who are stuck under the law especially sinless perfectionists they ultimately cannot admit their sins after they've you know after they've claimed to repent of their sins because if they did confess those sins they would have to admit that they might have lost their salvation and that they were not free from sin right you know their interpretation of what that means so their entire satirological framework comes crashing down because the gospel that they profess cannot even say themselves and this is why you know John says they deceive themselves I'm going to give you some examples to help you know qualify this now just as a disclaimer please don't understand my upcoming posts to be an attempt to sort of brag about myself or look good that's not the case okay I'm referencing myself and conversations or things exchanges that I've had with other people because obviously that's the easiest thing for me to reference so you know it's not about me looking good but I'm trying to show you why I hold to easy believe them and why that's even consistent with one John 8 to 10 okay and why you know I'm arguing that it's the seamless perfectionist who's making excuses to feel comfortable in his sin not me that's what I'm arguing okay so example number one so if you're very familiar with my channel content you will know that I have done quite a bit of work to refute again who's now called a bide in the word but he used to be called a puse on apologetics and I made I meant several surgeons about him but these were a few so on multiple occasions I've said that he has knowingly and willfully misappropriated a Bible passage to be about salvation when that's not even necessarily the subject matter like when Paul says run the race for example right and I have said that he has deliberately made false claims about what a passage actually says with willful intent so like when Revelation 20 says the dead are judged right and he says oh it means Christians are judged things like that he also claimed he did a whole video with another guy where they you they referenced Irenaeus's book against heresies and they exposed one saved always saved as being a Gnostic or Marcianite heresy based on that book but the thing is they didn't really provide any meaningful quotes from the book to prove what he was saying and they just quote some random passage where like Irenaeus was denouncing Marcian and they said oh see that was because he preached but it's like just a certain conclusions really now I I did a video refuting it but unlike them I actually provided quotes from the book on the screen okay showing you all the quotes and all the things that Irenaeus was actually saying against the Gnostics and basically demonstrating that his claims were fundamentally untrue that's that's what I was asserting now here's the problem with people like him he will never admit to any of this okay he can't admit it even if you just wanted to say yeah I was wrong about that passage but it was an accident he can't even do it by accident right because if he admitted that he had done it deliberately right then all of his regular viewers that turn from sins crowd that boast in their works they would all realize then that he's liar in a fraud because he comes out and says repent if he's in and he hasn't turned from his own sins right so you know his own gospel damns himself and he prides himself on destroying a lot of the faith alone and osas arguments and so even admitting that he did it accidentally is really going to look rather embarrassing for him to say the least okay so now at least at the time of me doing this study video right now I'm not aware that he has ever publicly responded to any of these accusations okay so I don't know as much as whether even knows what I've even said about him but they do get an email you know when you tag somebody on a video but anyway I'm not aware that he's ever responded to it up to this time right so he's never admitted any of this or even just tried to defend himself against my claims and so because he's never publicly responded nor is he ever messaged me privately about this either I can't exactly say how he would reply to these allegations so would he do one of the following would he try and turn it back on me that I'm being a false accuser because other people have tried to confront him about stuff but then what a lot of false prophets do is they try and spin it on the person who's attacking them and make it about them and could he actually defend the things that I attacked him for could he open his the bible where you know I said it he was lying and prove that he was actually telling the truth from those passages you know without digressing to a load of all the random quote mind passages which is what a lot of them do you confront him about a passage they just run off to some other passage could he open the book of Irenaeus and examine my counter claims and defend himself or would he just come up with a bunch of excuses as to why he did not sin and so with people like this they usually find that by ignoring such accusations and any prodding questions really is the safest way to deal with them it's safer for him to just completely ignore everything I've ever said and not respond that's the safe option right so now I too have made false claims on my channel believe it or not and I was wrong to do so okay but the difference between me and a sinless perfectionist him is that I can confess it right and guess what God is faithful and just to forgive me so for example I'll give you an example I did a long study video about repentance and I attacked an article on Ray Comfort's website because I was basically complaining that the Bible verses are not in the body of the article they're like in a little pop-up that you have to hover your mouse and show the pop-up but then there was a particular time where I was even moaning about it verbally complaining that it doesn't include the verse in the article and it was right there on the screen as I was moaning about it right it was just because I'm just hearing you know I'm talking faster than I can think and I just I just missed it because I'm concentrating on what I have to say so by mistake I falsely accused the writer of the article of hiding that verse when he didn't now I was right I made a mistake okay now I can confess my sins as per 1 John 1 9 so I can admit this and I can say it was a mistake so in the comments I publicly pinned a comment saying look I did this by mistake okay and I can do this right because the free gift of grace allows me to I'm not trying to obey my way to heaven as a sinless perfectionist so I don't have to deny or pretend that I didn't do this wrongly okay it was a mistake and I was wrong to do it but I still did it okay not not even willfully but I did it that's just the simple fact of the matter now let's example number two then so somebody this guy's called this guy's called Proger Frogger and he's a regular he regularly listens to abiding the words material and comments on it and a few other sinless perfectionists in that circuit and he's also seen my content against abiding the word right and he's commented on stuff and interestingly I actually featured this commentator on one of my videos where he you know says we have to be justified by works he just called himself he does nothing for the kingdom of god so he saw my video accusing abide of the word in the word of making false claims about Irenaeus' book and liking Osas to Gnosticism now he didn't respond to any of the accusations being put forth he didn't try to defend him he didn't even prove that I was wrong he didn't even say anything about the fact that a supposed turn from your sins preach just willfully lied out of his mouth right he dismissed the entire argument by invoking it as a fallacy even though the video never even set out to prove that Osas is true it was just disproving well that section at least it was disproving that it's Gnostic doctrine that's what it was disproving it's proving that a sinless perfectionist has lied through his front teeth ok he just dismisses it as a fallacy he has nothing to say about the accusations he's not interested in what's true ok he's not interested in the facts he's got to find ways to dismiss it because that's all he can do right now in another video I made I was browsing through the channels of people who follow abiding the word including Krogerfroger and I highlighted a comment where he called faith alone a false doctrine for deceived Christians right now when I looked on his YouTube channel even at the time of this study video that I'm recording right now he has done naff all for the kingdom of God he could not be bothered to do one video to preach the gospel on his channel he can't be bothered he's lazy right if you've got time to sit there commenting all day and you want to say that we have to turn from our sins and that and do these works you've got time to do some content for YouTube it's as simple as that no excuses right and then I also found a playlist a playlist of just worldly music now some of it's Christian world this is the worldly music like you know rap music and like rock me all kinds of stuff and like one of the including the Beatles right you just edited it like two days before I recorded the footage for that video so I think he's since either he's deleted it or he's hidden it from public view because I couldn't find it anymore but you know basically the Beatles John Lennon said that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus okay and they featured like a segment of Alistair Crowley's head and you know Alistair Crowley was a satanist if you don't already know on one of the album covers and it's actually suggested that Alistair Crowley heavily influenced the work of the Beatles and they admired his writings okay a satanist right and this turned from your sins live a new life deny yourself pick up your cross guy is listening to their music right you know being in the world they're all talk right so he does not by his own standards he does nothing he doesn't turn from his own sins so I featured him in that video let's see how he responded what was his response well he just made a joke the whole thing and suggested that I learn the lyrics featured in something like I've got I'm the one who needs correcting or something you know he just I'm so honored by the attack you just made a complete joke out of it he had nothing to say about the accusations being put forth and he thinks that his good works are getting people to respond to comments about like you posting comments in YouTube is not work okay if you sit there in front of all look at that is not work that's not what the word word means it doesn't end there though okay you know I managed to find a comment in another post that he's put on somebody else's channel and saw something very interesting that he said to somebody else Adam of Epics is abiding the word now does not sin Keith of Why City Preachers does not sin I do not sin we might sin in the future but we have no intention of ever doing it again and we will only be saved by repenting from whatever sin could befall us the unrighteous and sinners will not inherit the kingdom of with the scriptures so you know basically he says he doesn't sin and he says that abiding the word doesn't sin when I've publicly exposed you for doing nothing and even lying about the Bible it's unbelievable right so in summary just to summarize why is that this person calls faithful only deceptive heresy yet does no work on his YouTube channel whatsoever okay look comments in comments maybe it's a bit of word it's not real work though if you've got time to do that all day you've got time to make your own content he major works in the real world for I like maybe he does scream at people in the streets but you think if he's got time to post comments on YouTube you have time to make his own content just saying he hearkens to preachers who claim they are without sin and preach living a holy life away from the things of this world and crucifying the flesh yet he listens to worldly music that was possibly even influenced by a satanist okay he sees evidence presented to him right in front of his face that the people he follows are liars and frauds who lie about what Irenaeus said okay and all I said oh it's just a fallacy he just dismisses it with a fallacy fallacy okay and yet on top of all of that he still claims that he's without sin okay his gospel requires him to be quote free from sin end quote yet even he says we might sin in future that's what he said so you know if that happens then we must repent or so like what if the tables were turned right what if Proger Frogger found some dirt on me or had something against me to criticize about well funnily enough that actually did happen I'll show you on the next slide right in one of my videos ripping on a bide in the word he declined to comment on anything that I actually said in the video again but joined in a conversation I was having with somebody else that had nothing to do with him about Old Testament saints and it was the whole thing about whether they go you know went to heaven or went to Abraham's bosom in like the nice half of Hades I'm not going to get into that now now he accused me of misquoting the Bible literally by one word okay because I said that Lazarus would was carried up to Abraham's bosom when actually the Bible says he was carried into right so I misquoted the Bible by one word I misquoted the Bible right Luke 16 you know it says that he was carried into so I just I acknowledge that and I apologize I have to apologize for using the word up and explain why you know accidentally conflated carrying into the went up okay I made a mistake I confessed I did yes I was right I accidentally misquoted the Bible there but you know what because I confess it God is faithful and just to forget it was an accident okay I can confess my faults he can't right and and the thing is he wants to like criticize me for literally misquoting the Bible by one little word right abiding the word constantly misquotes and misappropriates the Bible all the time I've exposed him for doing it but you see proga froga won't challenge him on that he won't tell hey you're misquoting the Bible he'll do it to me he won't do it to the sinless perfectionist right he'll challenge me on one minor word but he's all he's got he's just got excuses and excuses and excuses for his own sins and the sins of the people that he fellowships with you know if we say that if we confess that now there are other examples I can give obviously they're all anecdotes so you know I think you get the point it's very easy easy to see how sinless perfectionists deceive themselves and and this really is the very very deception that John is talking about it tries trying to highlight this in the first chapter of his people like proga froga and a bride in the word they will say about themselves we have no sin he has no sin I have no sin and they will fellowship with one another because of this affirmation right their online fellowship is based around this thing that they think they don't sin right well I will not fellowship with them because I say they have sin and they will not fellowship with me because I confess that I have sin right they have no fundamental proof that either one of them doesn't sin they don't they don't even see each other every hour of every day they can't read each other's minds they have no fundamental proof that their day to day life is any more obedient than mine is really you know proga froga assumes that abiding the word does not sin because he has a YouTube channel where he constantly tells everybody to turn from their sins for salvation right and abiding the word assumes that proga froga does not sin because he's a supporting subscriber that's it they would both assume that I sin purely on account of preaching faithful but none of these affirmations prove anything okay anybody can get up and do a video on YouTube saying hey you have to turn from your sins you have to obey it doesn't mean they're doing it okay and just because somebody follows them and gives them a yes and amen it doesn't mean that person is doing it okay it's as simple as that these affirmations prove nothing at all about anybody right now I can confront them seven ways until Sunday about their sins they will deny it they will not hear it they will refuse to address it they say they have no sin they deceive themselves right and it's really it's the same with any other sinless perfectionists that I mentioned earlier like Mike Rikowsky I don't know if you've ever heard of that guy but like even after a million years burning in hell he wouldn't confess his sins because he fancies himself he claims that he's a sanctified and truth disciple of Christ who's overcome sickness and sin and has learned to test the spirits and you can't confront him about his sins because you're not a sanctified and truth disciple and you can still sin and get sick and he can't apparently so yeah I mean if you want to know what and if you if you've never heard of him before and you want to know when I am looks like that guy is an I am okay way more than abiding the word by the way so the thing is you know I cannot admit my sins I have an advocate right God is faithful and just to forgive me because I just admit it yeah I was wrong sorry yeah true true thank God Jesus died for my sins right and I'm not going to address the lordship spectrum because it's really just a dilution between these two examples but I think you get the point here John only gives us two types of people not three so you know they can't really be a third person that sort of one foot in both so you know I'm not really going to address any lordship points but you're hopefully starting to get the picture of what I'm talking about now so really you see how quickly and just how simple John's statements really are there's so much controversy about how we interpret verses 8 to 10 you know these little verses it's really quite simple and just to clarify if this is not already obvious I am not suggesting that to obtain forgiveness you need to be aware of and confess in heart and in word every single tiny microzin that you ever do and fall in your knees absolute tears in it for reasons that were already given earlier in the study such as the sins of ignorance okay that's not the point that's not the point that I'm getting at the point is the mentality the belief that you have about your sins just acknowledge that you still struggle with your sins in your mortal body and just a simple acknowledgement that you are not a sinlessly perfect self-righteous I am okay because Mike Krakowski is an I am and abiding the word is an I am okay and Proger Frogger is an I am that's all I'm saying the mentality that John is tackling here don't be an I am okay about your sins then the point then it's about the mentality that we have towards our sins which fundamentally revolves around what we believe about salvation okay do you acknowledge that you still sin in ignorance or just unintentionally do you just acknowledge it if confronted do you acknowledge that even the thought of foolishness is sin if somebody confronts you about an obvious sin or a blatantly false claim that you made about the Bible would you come up with a million and one excuses for it or just ignore the accusation and pretend you didn't hear it or would you turn it on the person confronting you make it about them being a bad person or rather would you just rather confess it and say that you were wrong I mean it's a lot easier that way really sometimes now there will be certain circumstances and there's kind of a disclaimer that where a brother or a sister in Christ denies certain sins and does justify oneself and yet the opinion of another brother or sister is that he did indeed sin right now this this doesn't undermine his salvation because actually you know the Bible does prepare us for that to happen because you know in the Testament there's frequent places where Jesus or the apostles give instructions on how to resolve conflicts with one another and the church is required to settle these issues and we're required to forgive each other right because there will be conflict there will be denial about certain sins even among safe brethren right because that's why the church is there to resolve these disputes because the reason why we have a dispute is because one person's claiming that a sin happened and they were wronged and another person is denying it so you know but we don't need to get too wrapped up in the legalistic thing of all our sins that we can face but it's about the mindset that we have of acknowledging our sin generally okay now you might have noticed that there's a lot of similarity here then between what John is saying and the story of the public and the Pharisee in the temple in Luke 18 the Pharisee obviously being prideful despite thanking God and believe it or not and not being like the public and because of you know his righteous deeds while the publican simply calls on God's mercy on account of being a sinner right now a sinless perfectionist will essentially do the same thing with that parable as they do with one John that it's just about recognizing that we have sinned in the past but the thing is the parable says no such thing because it doesn't tell us what sins the Pharisee was guilty of or if he had previously been repentant earlier in his life it doesn't tell us that the publican had done any sin recently or would stop sinning after this parable you don't know that from the parable you don't have the salient facts and so once again it's not the works it's the mentalities what you believe it's your mind that needs to be transformed here the issue fundamentally what do you believe because it's the mentality of the publican that justified him not the Pharisee right a sinless perfectionist sins perfectionism will steer you to the mentality of the Pharisee grace will steer you towards the mentality of the publican okay so wrapping up chapter one then we see how simple and comprehensible John's statements are really there are simply two types of people and either we end up fellowshiping with one type or we fellowship with the other type so either we say we have no sin and we have not sinned or we confess our sins they're the two opposites so either we say we have not sinned and this could apply to both sinless perfectionists and those who deny being sinners or we just say yes we have sinned or we can say we have turned from all of our sins and we don't sin or we just confess that we struggle with sin or we can say well we're not trying we really have turned from our sins we're still good people or on the other hand we can say we are trying most of us at least but we still fall short of the glory of God and if somebody confronts us about our sins well either we end up in this camp where we just end up saying la la la I can't hear you you're a false accuser or that's not really sin God is okay with it or we just on the other hand we can say yes I was wrong sorry about that and consequently either we lie and do not the truth we walk in darkness we deceive ourselves or we have fellowship with him and we walk in the light and he is faithful and just too forgiving and to cleanse us and we have an advocate and so just picking up on this point here this is kind of like a quick point is that when we pick up on these two mindsets sinless perfectionists will often try and lump believers in grace faith alone Christians with all the apostate Christians who don't really believe that they're sinners because they'll just lump them all together and say well you're all just a bunch of sinners but this is really inaccurate though and it's really it's more of a reflection on than the sinless perfectionists because as with Christians who don't believe that they are really sinners or they take a diluted stance on sin well that's not really sin they are both in a position where they can't really confess they're sin okay because a modernist Christian who doesn't really believe that they are sinners or doesn't believe in certain sins they're stuck in an awkward position of not being able to confess their sins to the effect that God would be faithful and just to forgive because if they did it would expose them as not really being good people as they believe that they are whereas a sinless perfectionist likewise who believes that they have turned from all of their sins they're then stuck in this awkward position of also not being able to confess anymore sins to the effect that God would be just and faithful to forgive because if they did then they would be exposed as still being unrepentant sinners and they forfeit their salvation according to the doctrine that they believe in so you see really the sinless perfectionist is just in the same boat as the person who doesn't really believe that they are sinners when you confront them about their sins they're in an awkward position where they can't really confess it so we're coming towards the end of our study now but seeing as we have continued into the first two verses of the next chapter there is one last crucial point to address and this is why has John used collective language such as we but then now in chapter two verse one the sin applies to if any man why has John made this about an individual person rather than our collective fellowship and this is a tough question and one which rather cautiously is subject to my opinion rather than easily proven dogmatic doctrine so because of this you know please do approach this question cautiously and carefully investigate what I'm going to say in the coming slides just in case we end up with the wrong impression from the end of chapter one John is clarifying for us he writes these things so that reading it you don't sin that's the goal okay so it's assumed that as brethren we are exerting one another not to sin okay as a group of believers and not having the mentality that it's okay to carry on sinning okay and yet despite writing his epistle with the intention that we don't sin John recognises that there will be a situation where a man may sin okay so if John says if and it notices he doesn't say when any man sin that this then raises the question does this mean that this should be a minority situation and that generally speaking most people won't sin okay and this because the sinless perfectionist will try and use this against you saying well it only says if because you should have turned from all of your sins right well so we'll explore this question a little more so perhaps a good complimentary passage to this I think would be Solomon's prayer because we also start with this if condition but we do also have more clarity as well so just as we saw in one John we have an if okay though in this case it's if they rather than if any man but if you read the passage in its context the context is God's own people okay this is not referring to the Gentiles or the pagans or the heathen this is if your people if God's people if they sin against you being God there thee okay so yet despite what he just said we just said if right it may happen it may not happen but then he goes on to say in brackets immediately after that for there is no man which sins not so he doesn't say for there are some men that sin and most of us don't it's there is no man that sins not and that's appended to this if statement right here okay so the condition is if because it's expected then that it will happen right because there isn't anybody that doesn't sin right so you know that don't let people use that if against you now this is this is but one verse there are many verses in the Old Testament where we have these ifs such as Levitical sacrifices but but these conditions exist because it is inevitable that these conditions will be met now why is it inevitable because there is no man that does not sin right and in fact a repetitive pattern in the Old Testament is that God's people would sin be driven out of their land but if they turn back to God then they would be brought back to the promised land and yet we saw repeatedly throughout the Old Testament that they would just stumble over and over and over again so God's people simply could not turn from wickedness with their whole heart and so that that's why they needed their much awaited saviour the Lord Jesus Christ another good complimentary passage I think and this is perhaps a little bit off course but it's just an interesting passage is this if in Psalm 89 so if his children forsake my law and walk not in my judgments and if they break my statutes now in its immediate context it refers to David and his children okay but we also we see messianic undertones to this psalm as well that would really elevate this to being about Jesus and his seed his people okay the people of Christ as well so we can still apply this psalm to ourselves what what if we forsake God's law what if we don't walk in his judgments what if we break his commandments what will happen okay well notice then in the verses from this psalm how God will respond to this disobedience okay I will visit the rod with iniquity nevertheless my loving kindness will I not take etc etc so he doesn't say they will forfeit their salvation and I will cast them into hell that's not what this psalm says he doesn't even say I will forsake them as they have forsaken me again not what it says it doesn't even say they will prove that I never knew these workers of iniquity rather what he does say is I will visit their transgression iniquity with stripes in the rod so there is a specific way in which God deals with the sons of the sins of the sons of David sorry that's a bit of a tongue twister there and it doesn't involve salvation but I will not utterly take his a take from him my loving kindness now I'm not aware that any direct verse ties in loving kindness with salvation but obviously we would generally assume that the free gift of salvation is a part of his loving kindness okay he says my faithfulness will not fail and as John said he is faithful and just to forgive so this is all about God's faithfulness not about our faithfulness as it applies to forgiveness okay I will not break my covenant his seed will endure forever and in the New Testament we have clear commitments from Christ that he will lose he will not lose any that he's given eternal life to right and eternal life is by definition ever enduring okay so you know we still see that it's still a natural pattern in the Bible that God's people will inevitably sin and so Psalms like this really help us to understand how God will deal with the sons at the sons of David as opposed to say the outsiders so yes this passage is conditional there isn't if but it's because John knows that it will inevitably happen because we have that pattern in the Bible so what he's doing is then he's offering the solution when the condition is met so why does he say if any man sin why not just say if we sin if he's been saying if we say that if we confess that why then make this about any man rather than we okay now this is on the side of caution here because this is where I'm now going to have to employ my opinion and I believe that John is being very deliberate about the language that he's using here intentionally so that we don't get the wrong impression or the wrong conclusion about what he's saying now obviously when some things subject to my opinion we understand that it may be wrong because I'm kind of arguing from a lack of scriptural clarity so if the sinless perfectionist viewpoint were true that the Holy Spirit who foreknows that we would be arguing about this in 2023 could have moved John to write this epistle just a little bit differently so that we wouldn't get the wrong impression right with this is what for example this is what John could have said he could have said my little children these things I write on to you because you sin not right because remember this crowd that is writing to already know the truth John already clarifies that and if any man sin so if this any one man sin we who sin not have an advocate right so John could have emphasised that the recipients don't sin because later verses clarify that they already know the truth they've overcome the wicked one already and that we who sin not they're like we're a separate group from the man who sins so you know if he would have worded it like that then we would say okay well that man who sins he doesn't have an advocate but the rest of us still have our advocate right he could have written it like that if he wanted to give us that impression on the other hand as well he could have said alternatively and if any man sin he is not God and believes in vain but we have an advocate so again alternatively he could just could have just clarified for us that the man who does sin has not got okay he has a vain belief he's a false believer but we on the other hand we have the advocate the true believers who don't sin right and I'm just saying John could have said that if that's what he really meant and this is the problem with sinless perfectionism they assert these conclusions but then they make John sound like a crazy person whose writings don't even make sense with the subject matter right that's but the thing is these two things that's not how the Holy Spirit move John to speak okay once again the wording that John is using does not match that of a sinless perfectionist okay so on the other hand we must also recognize we must be careful to acknowledge this in an easy believer's end of the spectrum that John's epistle doesn't say these sorts of things either now you'll hear a lot of Christians say well we're always going to sin brother well we all have a sinful nature and that's just the way it is well it's okay because God has forgiven us but John did not say if we sin for we always sin every minute of every day and you know and we always will until we die we have an advocate John didn't say that either so it's important that we recognize that as well that we're not trying to put words in their mouth that they didn't personally say and so the reason why I'm saying this I believe in it is my opinion but the way that John is writing here is very balanced okay he's not writing sinless perfectionist drivel all right he's offering a meaningful solution when a man sins and it's all about what Christ did it's not about that man turning from his sins we have an advocate Jesus Christ it's all what Jesus does right yet also despite this or you could say as well as this John also uses language that drives us towards having the attitude of seeking not to sin right and as a group of believers who together are seeking not to sin that's why he wrote his letter and so when we say things like well you're always going to sin I get what you're saying but I don't know if the mentality of what you're saying is necessarily very helpful because you're also applying a defeatist attitude towards it as well and I don't think that's helpful either and so I think what John is offering here is a balanced way of styling his letter so once again because as I said earlier in chapter one that John was tackling the mindset that we have it's also important here then that we have the right mindset so these group of guys these fellowships of believers so called if they all say well we don't sin we have turned from all of our sins well that the people who proclaim this cannot be held accountable for their sins because their doctrines forces them to deny it okay and this leads to pride it leads to hypocrisy and really John would be setting a very unrealistic expectation okay you try confronting a sinless perfectionist about their sins you're not going to get anywhere it's as simple as that on the other hand if we also have this attitude that says well we're always going to sin all the time well this attitude is not helpful either because you can't deny the fact that John did right this epistle that we don't sin okay this is this kind of mindset if we just go around saying this oh well you know we're always going to sin so you know never mind that does also prompt people to not that teaches people not to care about it and not try and do anything about it okay and I don't think that that attitude is helpful either so you know this is a more helpful attitude then we have a group of believers but if any man sin so whether it's him or whether it's her whether it's we're not saying if we all sin but rather just if any man sin we have an advocate okay and this is a more helpful attitude then because we have the goal that we sin not but we just we acknowledge the reality and just admit the fact that from time to time a man among us will sin it will happen it's just it's that simple okay but we do have a solution Jesus Christ is our advocate and as per chapter one we ought to have the mindset that we confess but without using this as an excuse to just carry on doing it all the time unrelentingly right rather we cancel each other not to sin so you see there's a really balanced way that Johnny's writing his epistle here just so that we don't get the wrong impression or that he can abuse this epistle okay and this is very similar to how Paul writes as well again Paul doesn't use phraseology or terminology that encourages people to just carry on sinning because you've always been forgiven but he also doesn't set on realistic unachievable expectations as the sentence perfectionists do so you know on the one hand what shall we say then shall we continue in sin that grace may abound God forbid okay we don't carry on in sin that grace may abound however Wesson abounds or Wesson abounded grace did much more abound well someone could use that well no we go back round here then don't we if shall we continue in sin no oh but what if somebody since well then we go back over here then don't we you know grace abounded and so you know we have a balanced view here we're not setting unrealistic expectations but we're also you know not denying the problem either okay furthermore we also see how the second chapter continues this same thought from chapter one and really compliments John what John just said now as you may know sinless perfectionists more often than not most of them anyway believe that you can lose your salvation because of sin hence it's called conditional security right when you invoke a passage on eternal security like for example I should lose nothing or you know no man shall ever pluck them out of my hand they always respond with this but what's the condition you have to be following him you have to be doing this you want you just say it yet you have to be doing something for that condition well I submit to you that this is a passage where they conveniently ignore the condition because if they followed it to its logical conclusion it fundamentally proves that a sinless perfectionist has no coverage for sin whether past or present in sin because what is the condition the condition is if any man sin right we have an advocate so if the sinless perfectionist say of themselves well we don't sin well that according to the conditions here then they don't have an advocate it's as simple as that they love to point out passages like this they don't have an advocate according to this passage so not only do they not have forgiveness for any sins they do while claiming to be a sinless perfectionist they don't have any forgiveness for any sins they have ever committed because they don't meet the condition right so that brings us to the end of our study on the first part of one John there's more to unpack in the second chapter in our next study about the commandments etc but we fundamentally see how simple John's language really is either we say that we have not sinned or we have no sin and we deceive ourselves and we do not meet the condition to have an advocate and a propitiation and we walk in darkness or we confess and that admit that we do or admit that we have sin not not that we're trying to do it or not that we're trying to justify it but we know that we have an advocate okay we know that we are forgiven not because of our own obedience or repentance from that sin but God is faithful and his son Jesus is the righteous propitiation and therefore that's why we walk in the light okay so I hope that helped you and you know I'll be working on the study material for chapter 2 and we'll delve into the sort of meaning of you know keep his commandments and what that really means and how John interpreted that if you haven't seen my study on John 14 and 15 I think if you go and watch that it would be a good complimentary study but they are quite long studies though so keep your eye out for the second chapter study coming soon in a few weeks time