God Without Religion_ Can It Really Be This Simple_ - Andrew Farley [55]
First John 1:9 was never intended to be the Christian’s “bar of soap” for daily cleansing. Instead, it was written as an invitation to the Gnostic heretic (or any other deluded soul) who might claim sinless perfection. Instead of believing that nonsense, John is asking them to admit and confess their sins to God. If they do, they’ll enjoy forgiveness and cleansing of “all unrighteousness” (v. 9).
Notice John’s use of the word all. Total, unconditional forgiveness and cleansing of all unrighteousness is what we receive in Jesus Christ. This verse was never meant to invite a one-by-one tallying of our sins. We don’t get more and more forgiveness, progressively, throughout our lives. That would be Judaism all over again, dressed up in 1 John 1:9 clothes!
Real forgiveness is simpler than that. Real forgiveness is “once for all” (Heb. 7:27; 10:10). We’ve been perfectly cleansed forever:
For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. (Heb. 10:14 NASB)
“All Systems, No!”
First John 1:9 is a one of a kind verse. There’s no other passage in any epistle that could even remotely be interpreted to mean that God’s forgiveness of Christians is conditional upon our daily confession. If this were really our daily “bar of soap” system, wouldn’t we find it clearly taught to Christians in various epistles? After all, remaining forgiven and cleansed before God is pretty important, don’t you think?
The reality is that any system—whether Jewish or Catholic or Protestant or other—that requires us to do something repeatedly to maintain our cleansing will fail. We have forgotten about thousands of our sins, and they would go unforgiven and uncleansed.
Any system that does not take into account our “once for all” cleansing by the one-time sacrifice of Jesus Christ is an insult to God’s finished work. We have either been forgiven (past tense) or we still need to be forgiven. They can’t both be true. Once we put 1 John 1:9 in context as an invitation to the unbelieving heretic, all other forgiveness passages throughout the New Testament shout from the rooftops that we have been forgiven completely, unconditionally, and forever.
There’s no system for getting more forgiveness. There’s no system for getting more cleansing. There’s no system for “staying right” with God. There’s no system for “staying in fellowship” with God.
There is no system.
25
It was the first time we’d experienced communion with PowerPoint. The lights dimmed as the first slide appeared on the screen: “CONFESSION,” it read in big block letters.
“Before we take of the Lord’s Supper together, we need to get right with God. So we’ll be guided through some confessions to make sure we’re in right standing first. Then we’ll partake together,” the pastor said.
The service began with “Confession as a Nation.” This was an opportunity for the congregation to repent and apologize to God for the ways America has strayed from its Christian roots. This was followed by “Confession as a Church,” an opportunity for members of the church to confess our shortcomings as a congregation. After a couple of minutes, we participated in “Confession as a Family” and were asked to think of ways our family had fallen short in being salt and light and reaching people for Christ.
From there the pastor transitioned to “Confession as an Individual.” We were then guided through a number of subcategories such as sins against a spouse, immediate family, relatives, co-workers, employers or employees, friends, and any other fellow church members. This was followed by a slide titled “Reconciliation” and an invitation to confess any sins against anyone attending the service itself.
“There are sins of commission and then there are sins of omission,” the pastor continued. “We need to think about unconfessed sins that