The scripture for this lesson is 1 John 1:7-10 and 2:1. I did a lesson before on 1 John 1:9 and the surrounding verses (Lesson 171), but let’s look at them again. Let’s start with 1 John 1:7, “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (NKJV).

Ephesians 5 talks about the light, about bringing things to light. God shines the light of His Word onto our lives, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Word comes alive in our hearts. The Word and the power of the Spirit can convict us of sin and remove from us the sin that is killing us. As we walk by the Spirit in the light, with Jesus the Word, He will expose harmful ways in us, and we will repent and He will be continually cleansing us from unrighteousness.

Let’s look at the next verse, “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8, NASB). We could take this a few ways, this knowing that we have sin in us. We can say this verse is before we are saved, which would be true. We could say this is at any point where God’s light shines on us and then we are in need of confessing, which would also be true. We could also say that we aren’t perfect. We aren’t the perfect likeness of Christ yet, so obviously there are some things that still need to be worked out by the Word, and the Spirit, and the cleansing. There is still sin in us, unintentional sin, but sin nonetheless. (I have another lesson about being guilty of unintentional sin.)

The next verse, 1 John 1:9, is about confessing our sin and being cleansed. Verse 10 says that if we say we don’t have sin, then we make God out to be a liar. If He has exposed sin in us, and we try to say it’s not sin, and try to cover it, justify it, and excuse it, then we’re making God out to be a liar. You have to confess it and get it cleansed away. The next verse, says that John is writing these things so that we will not sin (1 John 2:1).

These verses have nothing to do with excusing us as all sinners, that we’ll just go on sinning every day. We are not to sin. You can walk perfect before Him because He has cleansed us. He does not hold us accountable for our ignorance, thank God, but He will hold us accountable when we know we have sin. We have to remove it by our choice and His cleansing power. That’s the power of God unto salvation.