06/12/20 – 1 John 1:8-2:2
1 John 1:8 – If we say that
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
sin – hamartia (to be without a share in; to
miss the mark; to err; to be mistaken; sin; to miss or wander from the path of uprightness;
wander from or violate God’s law)
deceive – planao (cause
to go astray; lead aside from the right way; go astray; wander; lead away from
truth; lead into error; deceive; be led into error; sin; fall away from the
truth)
If we say we have no sin obviously assumes that we have not confessed our sin as per Vs 9 below. While we may (and do) sin, we also may (and should) be cleansed from sin through the blood of Jesus (“and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” – 1 John 1:7). This makes it possible to momentarily not have sin, but if we say we have no sin (as an ongoing problem), then we deceive ourselves. If we say we are not sinners and do not require cleansing (and therefore see no need to repent and confess), then the truth is not in us. This was probably a major issue with the Nicolaitans in Ephesus and Pergamum (Revelation 2:6 & 15).
The Nicolaitans (a liberal sect of the Gnostics) taught that because we were redeemed by grace, then God’s grace was always more than sufficient to cover all our sins; thus we could sin freely for the sake of pleasure because it therefore wasn’t technically a sin! See vs 10 below for further on this under Sonship Theology.
Tertullian, an early Christian author (in “Prescription Against Heretics”) wrote, “Theirs (the Nicolaitans) is called the Gaian heresy.” This referred to the Cainians. “The Cainites, or Cainians were a Gnostic and Antinomian sect known to venerate Cain as the first victim of the Demiurge, the deity of the Tanakh, who was identified by many groups of Gnostics as evil.”
“Gnostic” comes from the Greek word gnosis (to know; to have knowledge of). Gnostics believed that salvation comes through the gaining of knowledge, hence their name. (Those who lacked knowledge or opposed the gaining of knowledge were therefore called “agnostics”.) Gnostics believed that good and evil were relative to your thinking, and that all things could be either good or evil depending on your assessment of them. Thus, good and evil are a duality which must co-exist in order to keep the balance (note the Buddhist/Hindu/Jainism yin/yang or swastika symbology; note also Star Wars duality of light [good] and dark [evil] sides of “the force”). Therefore, with Gnostic theology, you must have a balance of both good and evil in order to have perfected knowledge without which you cannot be saved. If you leave out evil, therefore, your knowledge will be incomplete and cannot lead to salvation (transcendence).
Augustine belonged to the Manicheans which was also a sect of the Gnostics; hence his confused views of good and evil in his Enchiridion (some of which is quoted later in this study). His Gnostic teachings have influenced much of Calvin’s teachings.
John may have lived for some time in Ephesus and is likely to have written 1 John to counter some of these Gnostic teachings, especially those of the Nicolaitans. In the same way as the Galatians were being set upon to conform to the law of circumcision as a necessary requirement to be a good Christian, those at Ephesus and Pergamum were facing the sinless perfection problem, where if you could do it as a Christian, then it couldn’t really be sin at all (the Nicolaitan heresy).
Such pleasure-seeking is termed hedonism, often labelled as the love of the pleasures of the world. It is interesting that Piper has written a book entitled Christian Hedonism. It was allegedly based upon the Gnostic teachings of Jonathan Edwards, that calvinist teacher who claimed that sin is necessary for God to be perceived as perfect by his creatures. That is, both good and evil are necessary for the perfection of our souls. “So evil is necessary, in order to the highest happiness of the creature, and the completeness of that communication of God, for which he made the world; because the creature's happiness consists in the knowledge of God, and the sense of his love. And if the knowledge of him be imperfect, the happiness of the creature must be proportionably imperfect.” (Jonathan Edwards, “Concerning the Divine Decrees”) That is, man’s knowledge of God is imperfect without evil present. This is Gnostic thinking! And Piper declared Edwards to be “the greatest religious thinker America has ever produced”!!
However, while we may have joy in serving God through obedience, it is not acceptable to make our enjoyment and pleasure at serving God the central aim. We serve God because of who He is, not because we desire to derive pleasure from our service. To aim at deriving pleasure from such service would then make it unacceptable for us to serve God unless we could derive pleasure from it.
Note that the pronoun “we” has changed from referring to John (plus other disciples etc) as eye witnesses of Christ (1 John 1:1-5) to “we” meaning John plus those he is writing to (which then must include all those who are Christians for all time to whom the Bible is ultimately written). This “we” including all Christians commenced in 1 John 1:6 (If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:)
From 1 John 1:6 on, John uses pronouns to speak on behalf of all he is writing to. He declares his audience “My little children” in 1 John 2:1, also using “I” for when he speaks of himself.
1 John 2:1 – “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not.”
Therefore we can assume the universal application of these teachings to all believers for all time.
Thus any Christian at any time who says that he has no sin is deceiving himself and the truth is not in him (that is, he cannot speak the truth).
This understanding of the pronouns used is important, demonstrating that John applies these rules consistently across all Christians for all time, all to whom the Bible is the truth by which they measure their lives. It isn’t just those to whom John is writing that “we” refers to; otherwise the epistle of 1 John would not be part of God’s word to all His people. This also applies to such as Isaiah 53:6 – “All we like sheep” includes all mankind, not just God’s people Israel about whom Isaiah is originally writing. Also note “All scripture is given ….” (2 Timothy 3:16).
1 John 1:9 – If we confess
our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us [our] sins, and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
confess – homologeo (say
the same thing as another; agree with; concede; not to refuse or deny; to
promise; confess; admit or declare one guilty as accused; profess) From homou (together; of persons assembled
together; same) and logos (a word; speech; discourse; doctrine;
teaching)
It would have the idea of agreeing with God’s assessment of us,
conceding that God knows all and therefore may judge all. If He declares us
guilty, then there are no grounds for an appeal of any sort against God’s
sovereign judgment. To confess means to agree with God’s judgment, no argument,
no negotiations, and therefore plead guilty.
faithful – pistos (trusty;
faithful) God will carry out exactly what He has promised.
just – dikaios (righteous;
observing divine laws) In this sense God will not bend any of His rules in order to bring
judgment upon us. Therefore God is declared righteous.
to forgive – aphiemi (send
away; of a husband divorcing his wife; send forth; leave; yield; let go; let
alone; let be; disregard; give up a debt; forgive)
to cleanse – katharizo (make
clean; cleanse; cleanse by curing (a leper); to free from defilement of sin and
faults; purify from wickedness; consecrate; dedicate; pronounce clean in a levitical sense) That is, ceremonially clean from the point of
view of the law.
unrighteousness – adikia (injustice;
unrighteousness of heart and life; a deed violating law and justice) Note that this
is derived from the negative of the same root word that dikaios
(“just”) above is derived.
Note carefully that the verse commences with “If”. If we
confess our sins …… but if we don’t, then he is faithful and just to not
forgive us our sins ….
The responsibility is on us to decide whether or not to confess
our sins. Our forgiveness starts with our confession of wrong-doing. God has
set up the conditions for our forgiveness and cleansing, but we must start the
ball rolling by choosing to confess. Of course, the calvinist elect don’t have
to choose because they can’t choose; it’s all fore-ordained beforehand that
they will confess and they will be forgiven. In fact, new calvinism’s main criterion for assessment of their elect
status is that they are restored back into fellowship again (by the church,
that is, usually via their “Biblical Counselling” procedures). If they are
assessed by the church as unrepentant, they may not be restored to fellowship,
and therefore they have effectively been declared non-elect.
But the Bible puts the onus for choosing to repent and confess on us.
If we remain unrighteous, it is because we refused God’s
requirements for righteousness.
1 John 1:10 – If we say that
we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
John re-words
what he has written in Vs 8:
1 John 1:8 – If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
Thus, if we say we haven’t sinned, then we are effectively calling God a liar, but in reality, because God is not a liar, then we are really deceiving ourselves. And John 17:17 states that God’s word is truth, so avoiding God’s word is effectively the same as avoiding the truth. John is making a logical point here: that without God’s word we cannot have the truth, and that without God’s word (the truth) we must be declared liars, and if we still think that we are right and therefore God is wrong, then we’re the ones who need to open our eyes and see things the way they really are.
Paul made a similar point. Could not believing render God’s faithfulness invalid?
Romans 3:3-4 – 3For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? 4God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.
It’s a bit like sticking our heads in the sand and saying it cannot be there because I cannot see it. There are none so blind as those who will not see. The blindest of all must be those who think they can spiritually see the way for other blind people, like the spiritually-blind pharisees leading their followers into a ditch (Matthew 15:14). Also note Paul’s similar teaching on this in Romans 2:19.
Sonship Theology, the fore-runner of new calvinism, is largely derived from Nicolaitan Gnostic beliefs. Sonship theology believes that Christians (the elect) are effectively sinless. It teaches that there is no sin that the genuine child of God can possibly commit that can ever prevent that person from entering heaven. If you commit sin, then God has permitted it, or even decreed that you commit this sin, and therefore it cannot be defined as sin for God’s elect people (named the sons of God). This has led many churches into a belief in sinless perfectionism; that is, the elect cannot actually sin! The Presbyterian Church of Australia has suffered somewhat from this heresy.
Sonship Theology as it is known today was largely developed at Westminster Theological Seminary during the 1970s after Robert Brinsmead brought his perfectionist views from Australia to USA via the “Australian Forum”. Brinsmead had previously been disfellowshipped from his Seventh Day Adventist church in 1961 for his writings on perfectionism.
1 John 1:10 may refer to the Nicolaitans who believed that “nothing was forbidden to the children of God under the gospel, and that in the freedom conferred on Christians they were at liberty to do what they pleased.” (Barnes) Revelation 2:6 notes that the Nicolaitans were a problem at the church at Ephesus, the place where John is said to have spent much of his latter life. Revelation 2:15 also mentions them at Pergamum which was a little north of Ephesus. The Nicolaitans were a liberal Gnostic sect, and it is likely that part of the reason that John wrote 1 John was to counter the negative effects that Gnosticism was having on the early churches. Basically, they believed that if it gave you pleasure, then it couldn’t really be all that wrong. The Nicolaitans were followers of Nicolas who is recorded as teaching that regular sexual pleasure was essential for salvation.
The same Nicolaitan Gnostic teaching may be found in calvinist author Gary Thomas’ “Sacred Marriage”. He writes that “a healthy look at sex can provide fruitful meditation on our need and desire for God”. (P 211) Gary Thomas elsewhere in this book quotes from Mary Oliver’s rude, crude and evil “Conjugal Spirituality”.
1 John 2:1 – My little
children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin,
we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
My little children – “little children” (teknion) is used 7 times in 1 John, with 2 of those having “My” added as it is here. John also uses paidion (“little children”) 2 times.
There are only 16 occurrences of “little children” (using both Greek terms) in the NT. John is writing as an older person might to a much younger audience. He refers to himself as “The elder” in 2 John and 3 John.
The elder unto the elect lady and her children …. (2 John 1:1)
The elder unto the wellbeloved Gaius …. (3 John 1:1)
an advocate – parakletos (one
who is called to one’s aid; one who pleads another’s cause before a judge;
advocate; intercessor) It is used 5 times in the NT, all by John. It is translated “Comforter” four times in
John’s gospel where it refers to the Holy Spirit each time.
John 15:26-27 – 26But when the Comforter (parakletos) is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, [even] the
Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he
shall testify of me: 27And ye also shall bear witness, because ye
have been with me from the beginning.
Christ is our advocate pleading our case as He did even in the OT.
Zechariah 3:1-2 – 1And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. 2And the Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: [is] not this a brand plucked out of the fire?
The Angel of the Lord here is Christ the judge as per John 5:22.
It is clear that 1 John 2:1 follows on directly from the previous 3 verses (1 John 1:8-10) with John telling them to “sin not”! He has told them that if they think they are without sin, then they are liars and have deceived themselves. John does not tell them that they cannot sin. Rather, he tells them that they will sin and that they need to do something about it. Christians are not perfect; instead they are forgiven.
That is, try not to sin; do not consider sin to be in any way good. Not like Gnostic calvinist A.W. Pink who wrote that “though God does not esteem evil to be good, yet He accounts it good that evil should be.” (“The Total Depravity of Man”) Note that Pink has merely reworded Augustine’s teachings underlined below. Once again, this is Gnostic belief that the knowledge of both good and evil is necessary for salvation.
Pink got this idiocy from Augustine (whom Calvin considered his preferred teacher).
Augustine wrote (in his Enchiridion) concerning good and evil. Note again the Gnostic teachings here are loud and clear!
“From all this we arrive at the
curious result: that since every being, so far as it is a being, is good, when
we say that a faulty being is an evil being, we just seem to say that what is
good is evil, and that nothing but what is good can be evil, seeing that every
being is good, and that no evil can exist except in a being. Nothing, then, can
be evil except something which is good. …..
“Nor can we doubt that God does well even in the permission of what is evil. For He permits it only in the justice of His judgment. And surely all that is just is good. Although, therefore, evil, in so far as it is evil, is not a good; yet the fact that evil as well as good exists, is a good. For if it were not a good that evil should exist, its existence would not be permitted by the omnipotent Good, who without doubt can as easily refuse to permit what He does not wish, as bring about what He does wish.”
1 John 2:2 – And he is the
propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for [the sins of]
the whole world.
propitiation – hilasmos (an
appeasing; propitiating; the means of appeasing; a propitiation) It is only used
twice in the NT, both in 1 John. (The other is 1 John 4:10)
A verb form of this, hilaskomai (to
appease; to be propitious; be gracious; conciliate to one’s self; make
propitiation for) is translated “be merciful” in Luke 18:13 – And
the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as [his] eyes
unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful (hilaskomai) to me a sinner.
1 John 2:2 is where the pronouns must be read properly, for it is the misinterpretation of these pronouns that leads to the calvinist lie of limited atonement.
We have “he” (a pronoun which refers to its antecedent noun) and “ours” (a possessive pronoun that must also refer back to its antecedent noun).
“our” is not a pronoun here because it precedes a noun; it is then usually called a possessive determiner or a possessive adjective. However, “our” still requires its antecedent to define it properly.
An antecedent is a noun that generally precedes a pronoun. It lets us define who or what the pronoun is referring to. The antecedents for both these pronouns (and the possessive adjective) are found in the previous verse, 1 John 2:1.
The antecedent of
“he” is Jesus Christ (“an
advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous”).
The antecedent of both “our” and “ours” is “My little children”, those to whom John is writing. It is also the antecedent of both “ye” and “we” in 1 John 2:1.
What this means is that the group to whom “our” and “ours” refers are those to whom John is writing and therefore applies to all Christians throughout all time. And if “our sins” refers to the sins of all Christians for all time, then “but also for the sins of the whole world” must apply to a larger group than all Christians for all time. Therefore, “the whole world” must logically include those who are not believers and never will be believers. Yet MacArthur, along with many other calvinists, says that “the whole world” refers only to those who will believe.
1 John 2:1-2 forms a single sentence in the original. This is normal and correct grammar in order to ensure that pronouns used are clearly identified to avoid confusion. It is necessary to study both verses together to gain the clearest interpretation. One must ask: Why would MacArthur break this up into 2 messages:
(a) 1 John 2:1 (“Our Divine Defense Attorney”) where he states that “it could only be applied to true Christians”. He makes it clear that Jesus is the advocate for all genuine believers. This, at least, is true.
(b) 1 John 2:2 (“The Sacrifice that Satisfied”) where
MacArthur states that “our sins” are
primarily those of Israel. “First John 2:2, that He
is the propitiation for our sins as a nation, Israel. But not for ours only but
also for all the sins of the world, or the sins of the whole world. Same thing
here. Jesus dies not for the nation only, but for the children of God scattered
abroad, Gentiles.
Please notice, He died for the children of God. He died for the children of God. Those God determined to be His children from Israel and from the whole world.” That is, according to MacArthur, “our sins” refers to the sins of the nation of Israel, and that the propitiation was also for the rest of God’s children of the world; that is, an atonement for believers only. “Christ actually paid the penalty only for those who would repent and believe.” (“One Perfect Life” MacArthur)
It is the pronouns that demonstrate MacArthur’s lie here. If Jesus is our advocate (for all who will ever believe), then He is also the propitiation for all who will ever believe, and not only for the sins of all who will ever believe, but also for the sins of the whole world as well.
1 John 1:9 says that if we confess “our sins” ….. Consistency of interpretation means that MacArthur also must only apply this to only those sins of the nation of Israel, and not to all believers of all time. It is ridiculous to suppose that “our” suddenly and without any scriptural information refers to only the Christians of Israel. To be consistent, MacArthur would have to teach that only the Christians of Israel to whom John was supposedly writing could “confess our sins” and be forgiven as per 1 John 1:9.
And, if “the whole world” refers to believers only, then why does John use the same phrase in 1 John 5:19 – [And] we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness. Does “the whole world” here also only refer to believers?
And, why are we to not love the world nor anything in it (1 John 2:15-17) if we alone as believers are, as MacArthur teaches, “the whole world”?
It is a shame that this heresy is so gullibly believed by so many church-goers today.
Therefore, the real truth about the atonement is that it was for all mankind and not just for a chosen few. If God refused to pay for the sins of most of mankind, then He would be effectively foreordaining them to hell without any option of choice at all. It is little different to ordering a soldier to kill, then executing him for murder.
For God so loved the whole world that He sent His only begotten Son to die for that world (John 3:16). Even if they should reject that sacrifice, He would still have died for them. He did still die for them. He even died for sinners, His enemies!
Romans 5:8-10 – 8But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. 10For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
God desires that all should be saved.
1 Timothy 2:3-4 – 3For this [is] good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; 4Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
(Even if they reject His salvation, He still died for them!)
That confused calvinist Slick says of 1 Timothy 2:3-4 that “The answer is simple: The "all" are the Christians.” (http://www.mslick.com/allmen.htm) Then why didn’t Paul make that clear to Timothy?? Didn’t Paul know that he was supposed to be calvinist?
Calvinists have to believe in limited atonement or else they cannot be genuine calvinists. But some calvinists understand (correctly) that limited atonement (“L”) is non-biblical. So they declare themselves to be 4-point calvinists. However, why would the calvinist God die for all mankind and then choose only a few to receive the benefit? It’s like buying 100 people a meal, then permitting only one to eat, effectively wasting the rest of the food. And for what purpose? Thus an unlimited atonement makes unconditional election (“U”) ridiculous. The other dominoes would also fall. Total inability (“T”) makes no sense if God no longer unconditionally elects man for salvation, and therefore we would have to have man able to choose for himself this day whom he would serve. This would render the Irresistibility of the Spirit (“I”) irrelevant, because in order to be able to choose, man has to have the option of refusing. So already we’re down to 1-point calvinists, only believing in the Perseverance of the saints (“P”). But wait, the calvinist perseverance only means that the test of being one of the elect is to persevere to the end. If you do not persevere to the end, calvinism has to declare you non-elect. Whoops! Zero-point calvinists?? Why not declare them to be finally biblical and not calvinists at all? In fact, a calvinist has to be a 5-point calvinist or else he literally cannot be a genuine calvinist. Biblical calvinists do not actually exist! And all because Jesus died for all people, including all who would end up being condemned to hell.
MacArthur then says that if Jesus paid for their sins, then they shouldn’t go to hell to pay for their sins again. Wrong! No-one goes to hell to pay for their sins. There is nowhere in the Bible that teaches this. In fact, we go to hell because our names are not written in the Lamb’s book of life (Revelation 20:15). And our names are written in that book when we call upon the name of the Lord to be saved.
Finally, all who have sinned have been freely justified; the Bible teaches this clearly.
Romans 3:23-25 – 23For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; 24Being
justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 25Whom
God hath set forth [to be] a propitiation through faith in his blood, to
declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the
forbearance of God;
Yet if the
atonement is limited to only God’s elect, then they are the only ones who have
been freely justified, and therefore the only ones who have sinned according to
Romans
3:23-25! It is only those
who are declared sinners who are justified!
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