SUPPLEMENTARY STUDIES IN THE FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN - Part 3.
What is it to have sin?
We
have examined the historical setting of this Epistle, and have shown it
is aimed to refute an error destructive of both the spiritual life and
the moral principles of Christians. We have shown from the opening words
of the Epistle that John designed the extinction of this Gnostic error.
We are now prepared to examine the text most frequently urged against
the doctrine of perfect holiness in this life. "If we say we have no
sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us " (i. 8). What
class of people does John have in mind? When he says "we," does he mean
all Christians, including himself, as some expositors say, Christians
just described as walking in the light, and by the blood of Christ
cleansed from all sin? Dean Alford answers this question thus,
"St. John
is writing to persons whose sins have been forgiven them (ii. 12), and,
therefore, necessarily the present tense, 'we have,' refers not to any
previous state of sinful life before conversion, but to their now
existing state, and the sins to which they are liable in that state."
But the answer is not satisfactory. It implies that "we have sins "
which we have not committed, sins to which we are only "liable." It
accuses every angel in Heaven, while keeping his first or probationary
state, and Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, before their first sinful
volition, of having sin, because they were liable to sin. It asserts a
palpable contradiction, that persons cleansed from sin still "have sin."
It makes the beloved apostle stultify himself by such a
self-contradiction and absurdity. Again he perpetrates the same paradox:
"This state of needing cleansing from all present sin is veritably that
of all of us, and our recognition and confession of it is the very
first essential of walking in light." I can get no other meaning out of
these words than that sin "is the very first essential" of holy living,
for walking in the light is walking in holiness.
