From 1 John 1, we learn that the barrier between God and His people has been removed by the death of Jesus on the Cross. All we have to do now is to believe on the Lord Jesus and we shall be saved, that is salvation. How does a believer stay in fellowship with God?
Sin in a believer’s life does not make them lose their salvation but it does cause them to get them out of fellowship with God.
From Amos 3:3
we notice this verse does not say, “Can two walk together unless they are related” If it did, then that would be salvation. We are not "A child of God" until we believe, and when we believe, that is the start of the relationship.
Galatians 3:26
is also relevant. The question is not, “Are you related?” but “Can you agree?” One thing we know about God is He never changes and He hates sin. So can we walk with God in agreement and have sin in our life? The answer is no. There is no agreement between God and sin; sin does not make us loose our salvation but it does make us lose our fellowship with God.
So since Jesus died for the sins of the whole world how can sin in a believer’s life get us out of fellowship with God? The answer is when Jesus died on the cross He fulfilled the legal requirements He died and paid the penalty for sin but there is still family business to settle.
Example: There was a judge in America whose son had been arrested and brought before his father’s court. The newspaper reporters were keen to see what the father would do. The verdict on the judge’s son was guilty. The judge said, “You are guilty and I fine you two hundred dollars.” Then an odd thing happened the judge took out his own chequebook and wrote a cheque for the two hundred dollars and gave it to the court. Now the judge paid the legal requirement for his son’s sin and the newspapermen wrote a tremendous account about this judge. Everybody thought that was the end of the case and so it was… until the son got home.
When Jesus died on the cross he paid for all our sins and that is fine until we get home and our Father in Heaven treats us like a son, and what son is there among you who has not been disciplined by his father. If we have sin in our life, because we are saved God will discipline us unless we deal with that sin. God has provided for us to deal with our own sin.
1 John 1: 9
is instructional for us. That completely deals with our sin.
Hebrews 12: 5-11
is also instructional. The answer to God’s discipline is
1 John 1: 9.
If God is dealing with us in this way, it proves He loves us. Notice if God is disciplining us it is because we are opposing His will and as we are His, He disciples us because He will not allow any one else discipline us.
Now there is no way out of this by thinking that we will not sin because of course as the Scripture says in
Romans 3: 23,
all sin. Also note from
1 John 1: 8
, that verse 8 comes before verse 9. We are going to sin yet
(Romans 8:28),
God uses that sin to bring us into line with His holiness. We will look at this verse in Romans in detail in the next study.
When we are disciplined it is not something joyful. Discipline is hard but it is worth it to come to that place where we see things in the light of Romans 8: 28. If we do not see the things that come into our life in that context we will always be struggling.
Now we have two terms for Christians in the Bible
Carnal
A carnal Christian is one who is out of fellowship with the Lord.
Spiritual
A spiritual Christian is one who is in fellowship with the Lord.
Sometimes carnal Christians become worse than unbelievers. In fact the carnal Christian is in a worse place than the unbeliever because God disciplines a Christian who is out of fellowship with Him but He never disciplines an unbeliever. Why is the unbeliever not punished? Because they are not children of God.
1 Corinthians 3: 1-3
is relevant. All of us are going to sin but the truth of 1 John 1: 9 is the way to deal with our sin through confession. In confessing our sin there are two words that we need to understand.
- Repent in Greek is Metanoeo made from two Greek words. The first one Meta means, “to change” and from it we get the word metamorphous which means to change shape. The second one noeo meaning mind so repent means to change your mind. Many Christians are confused about this word because it has no emotional connotations with it at all. It just means to change your mind or stop doing the wrong and start doing the right. You will notice the gospel to the Jewish people was always repent and be baptised. The gospel message to the gentiles was believe and be baptised. Why should there be a difference? The Jewish people were looking for the Messiah, and they expected a Messiah who would come and join them in their fight against Rome. John’s message to the Jewish people was “Change your mind about the Messiah he is not coming politically he is coming to die for your sins.” The gentiles did not need to repent because they did not know about the Messiah in the same way the Jewish people did so they were told to believe “who” Jesus was i.e. the Messiah.
2 Corinthians 7: 9-10
is relevant. Repentance means they changed their minds. Godly sorrow produces repentance. There are of course Christians who are sorry but it does lead to a change of mind or lifestyle. Yes they are sorry either for themselves or that they have been found out. Repentance means you are sorry for what you have been doing and you are going to change. Repentance is different from remorse.
- Homologoe is the word for confess used in a court of law, for example “I confess that I am” whoever you are.
We return to
1 John 1: 8-9. Verse 8 challenges us if we say that we have no sin.
The point John is making in this verse is that we are all sinners, and if on any pretext we deny that fact we utterly deceive ourselves. We are at all times and in all circumstances to admit the painful truth that we all sin at times.
We deceive ourselves
We have at times wrong views about our character.
And the truth is not in us
People who maintain that they have never committed sin are not being truthful about themselves.
So (Verse 9) if we confess our sins
Pardon in the Scripture always supposes that there is a confession and there is no promise of forgiveness unless we confess.
We can also study:
Psalm 51:2-3,
Luke 15:18,
Luke 7:41,
Proverbs 28:13
He is faithful
God is faithful to his promise He will do what He has said he will do.
And just to forgive us our sins
The word “just” here cannot be used in a strict and proper sense, since the forgiveness of sins is never an act of justice but is an act of mercy. What is being said here is that God will fully pardon us if we exercise true repentance and faith and that includes the statement in
Matthew 6: 12
The measure of forgiveness we give to others is the measure of forgiveness we receive from God and 1 John 1: 9 includes this verse in Matthew 6.
And to cleanse us from all unrighteousness
By forgiving all that is past, treating us as if we were righteous, and removing all stains of guilt from us. Paul had the same problems we have.
Romans 7: 14-25
So we will continue to sin because we have an old sin nature inside of us.
We know
We admit, I concede, it is a well-understood point.
The Torah (Law) is Spiritual
This does not mean the Torah is to control the spirit. Paul is just saying that the fact that the Torah is showing the evils he is speaking about was not the fault of the Torah. The Torah in its nature was not sensual, corrupt, earthly, or carnal, but was pure and spiritual. The word spiritual is often used to describe what is pure and holy as opposed to what is fleshly and carnal.
Romans 8: 5-6
Galatians 5: 16-23
The flesh is described as the sources of evil passions and desires. The spirit as the source of purity or what is agreeable to the Holy Spirit.
But I am
Paul is describing how he was at the time he was writing.
Carnal
Fleshly, sensual, opposed to the spiritual.
Galatians 5: 19-21
Shows us that these corrupt passions still retain a strong and distressing influence over the mind. The renewed person is still exposed to temptation from the strong old nature in other words his natural inclination is to indulge himself.
Sold under sin
The expression used here is borrowed from the practice of selling captives taken in war as slaves. It means to “deliver into the power of” so that the slaves will be under that person’s control. Sin is against what he knows he should do. But such was the power of being sold under sin, that what he knew he should do (as against to what the natural mind wanted him to do) was producing conflict within him.
For that which I do
The evil that I do, the sin that I am conscious of, is what troubles me.
I allow not
I am against it, I do not wish to do it, I do not approve that is what Paul is saying,
For what I would
In other words what I approve of is what I would always want to do. The discussion goes on like that in the next few verses.
All Christians experience this. In our minds we want to serve God, but sometimes the inclination to do wrong overtakes us and we choose to sin. That usually brings us down, and what we need to do straight away is confess our sin to God and get it dealt with and then press on and turn from the wrong and start doing the right. Paul then goes on up to verse 25 describing the battle that we all go through.
1 John 1: 9
This “if” here is “perhaps you will perhaps you won’t” the choice is yours. After this verse you are as spiritual as you were before you sinned and it is as easy as that. With that said we can now look at three parables that deal with that point.
- The Lost Sheep
- The Lost Coin
- The Lost Son
Luke 15: 1-32
The word lost here has nothing to do with salvation in fact at the end of the parable about the son it says he was dead’ and now he is alive. The son that was lost was not dead he was cut off from his father. When telling these parables Jesus is faced with four groups of Jewish people
- The Publicans. …they were tax collectors. Matthew was a tax collector and these tax collectors were the lowest of the low in Jewish society because they had sided with the Romans and the other Jewish people hated them.
- The sinners were those who were not doing what the law said they ought to do.
- The Pharisees and the Scribes were religious men, and the Scribes and one group of the Pharisees attacked Jesus more than any other group of people.
Philippians 3: 5-6
Paul describes himself before he became a believer and he kept the law to the letter.
The groups that Jesus is talking to can be spilt into two groups
- One who kept the law.
- The second group who did not keep the law and it is this group that Jesus is going to meet and eat with, the publicans and sinners.
Luke 15: 3
What is a parable? The word parable means to take something and lay it along side something else like a railway track, two lines laid along side each other. We get the word parallel from the same word. When Jesus told a story, he invited you to lay it alongside the truth and the story would explain the truth. People get the parable wrong because they lay it along side the wrong bit of truth.
Jesus is using three parables in relation to righteous Jewish people under the law and “out of fellowship” Jewish people under the law, but they can teach us something about Christians who are in fellowship with God and Christians who are out of fellowship with God.
Sheep
In the Bible the word sheep always refers to believers. In this parable the 99 sheep are in fellowship with the shepherd and one is not because that sheep has walked away. The shepherd goes and looks for the sheep that is lost and when he finds it he brings it back rejoicing. Notice that there are 100 “sheep”, not 99 sheep and one goat.
Coin
Luke 15: 8-10
The woman owns the coins and when one is lost she searches for the coin and rejoices when it is found. All the coins were originally on the necklace, and the lost one needed to be brought back into “fellowship” with the others.
Son
Luke 15: 11-32
This parable is talking about two believers they are both their father’s sons. One gets out of fellowship but comes back to his father and in fellowship at the end. One thing we need to remember is that you cannot produce fruit for God when you are out of fellowship.
There is the principle in operation of 1 John 1: 9 and there is no need for any believer to be out of fellowship with God.
