Christians Walk in True Forgiveness

Well, if you haven't already, please turn in your Bible to 1 John 1. And I already kind of gave you the heads up that the titles are all going to sort of be me forcing the issue. Even though the book does teach what I'm saying, I don't want you to think— I don't want to be manipulative, but I also want to confess to you that every title will have the word Christians in it or Christianity or something like that, except for the first one, which is an introduction.

So last time we saw that Christians walk in the light. God is light and there's no darkness in Him at all. And if we say we have fellowship with Him, but we don't walk in the light, then we are not the real thing. This is essentially the same thing. John's going to say the same thing. It's funny because the very first line of my introduction is about moving the goalpost, and that happened in conversation yesterday. But the idea is that many— it can be difficult sometimes to know what to aim for if the person telling you what to aim for is not clear.

Well, you will not ever have that problem with John. John is very, very clear, like to the point of me wondering— and I will even say it this morning— me wondering how anybody can read this book and not understand John's points. It's so very clear. And so sometimes we have trouble obeying something because the commandment or the instruction is not clear. If you have trouble obeying what John says in this part of his first epistle, That is because you're not obeying what God says. That's all. It's very simple, very plain, absolutely clear.

No, there's not a person in this room, I don't think, that who knows the English language, even without knowing how to read or write it, who won't understand what John is saying. I'm saying all that because I'm still amazed that it says what it says in the context that it says it, and people only think verse 9 is in this context. That, like, I, I don't know anybody that has chapter 2, verse 1 memorized. But I know lots of people that have chapter 1, verse 9 memorized. So I'm going to emphasize both, hopefully not at the expense of either.

Also, toward the end, I want you to get geared up because we are going to talk Calvinism and its view of propitiation. So I want you to get your thinking caps on and be ready because I am going to handle that, the passage and the doctrine related to it. It's funny that that came up in Sunday school, one of the classic things that happens, right, where you talk about something you know it's coming in the sermon, but we discussed it in Sunday school, so it happened again. Because we did mention that briefly.

John's going to say many different ways in this book, "Don't sin." He's going to say it a lot. In fact, it's one of the major themes of the book is not to sin. But we are going to argue with John whether we think it or not. Whenever you have in your guts this tendency, if you do, maybe you don't, maybe you don't have this tendency, but I have seen over the years lots of people have this tendency. Where they say we're only a sinner saved by grace. That's all we are anyway. All I am is a depraved sinner. All I am is a worm. I can't do anything else. In fact, if you talk about doing anything else, you might be talking about works.

And then because of that, because we have that idea that I'm only a sinner saved by grace, then what we need to do is amplify grace to a degree that will cover all possible contingency sin-related issues so that we'll say things like, God forgives an infinite number of times, right? God gives second and tenth and hundredth chances. And we keep saying these things so much, and we keep shouting forgiveness while whispering sanctification.

Now, I just used an analogy that I saw somebody use not long ago in a very important discussion that happened, and I didn't like when they did it. Okay, so when they did it, they said God whispers that homosexuality is a sin, but he screams other things like love and forgiveness, right? Well, I don't like doing that kind of thing. Because the Bible says both. The Bible does say God is against homosexuality, and it does say he forgives sin.

Well, in this case, I think that if you look at the text, the amount of text as John keeps saying over and over again, put away sin, stop sinning, and it's at least equal with forgiveness, at least equal in sheer number of verses. So I don't think it's safe for us to say forgiveness, forgiveness, forgiveness, forgiveness, But that holiness thing is something that we can't attain. We need to be balanced with the text. And you'll see, John will do it for us. He's already done it once, the idea of if we say one thing and do another, then we're hypocrites. He's already said that.

Christians do need forgiveness. Christians need forgiveness, not just the unbelieving world. Christians need forgiveness. And you're going to see John talk about us and we and ours. He's talking to Christians, and we need forgiveness. But we also need to put away sin. And that's the challenge of the text is to make sure that we see both and internalize both, not just sinners saved by grace making excuses for sin, but we're going to say, if we sin, we get quick forgiveness of sin, we move quickly to forgiveness in verse 9, but we make sure and put away sin from us as well. And then we have an advocate when we fail. And that's the good news of this text too, is we definitely see Jesus as the advocate for people who fail and seek forgiveness genuinely.

So that's the beauty of the text. Let's pray and we'll dig into it together.

Father, it's so clear in your word that you give forgiveness to the worst of sinners. Like Paul said, he was the chief. I don't know that I agree with him because I sometimes feel like the chief of sinners. And I do know, Father, that your word is very, very clear that there is no sinner so far that your grace would not be powerful enough to forgive. And we will talk about this morning who that's for, but it's very clear that there's no limit to forgiveness. There's no limit to the amount that you'll forgive a sinner.

But Father, your word is very clear that you don't forgive us from our sin for us to stay in our sin. You forgive us because sin is a problem, and the problem doesn't just require forgiveness, it also requires action and obedience on our part, sanctification, progress. Commitment to commandment keeping. Though we won't cover it in our text this morning, it's the very next verse that if we say we love you, we have to keep your commandments. Those are not exclusive. Help us see that, Father. Help us see that commandments are beautiful and they're what people who love you want to keep. And also help us, Father, not be hypocrites that think we're okay while we walk in sin. Help us put away sin. Help us grow in righteousness. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, you're in verse 8 of 1 John chapter 1, and John does what he does where he essentially talks about what things people might say rather than what they might do, their speech rather than their behavior. And if we say, he says, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. So it is— I said it last time, I'm going to say it multiple times in this series— that it is possible to say a thing that isn't true. It's possible. You might need to put that in your pocket because we use things all the time like, "That person said they were a Christian." Yeah, I say I'm a genius too. Do you believe that? People can say anything. Words are words, but that doesn't make them true. If God says something, it's always true. But if humans say something, it may or may not be true.

So it is possible to say we have no sin. Now the interesting part here, I don't want to dig into this too much. Because John doesn't do it. But I do think I need to pad a little bit as we approach this text to make sure we're clear that what John will never say in the book of 1 John, or in any other passage of the Bible, is that you have to earn salvation. I want to make sure we're really clear. He's not ever going to say you have to earn salvation. He's also never going to say that you can lose it. So whatever he's saying when he says, "If we," Christians, "say we have no sin," You can pretty much conclude if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, that people who say they have no sin, whether they're Christian or not, are liars, right? They're wrong.

But it doesn't mean that Christians who say they have no sin are necessarily, because of that fact that they're saying it, are now hypocrites and now to be dismissed as Christians at all. Christians say dumb things. And sometimes we can say that we're sinless. In fact, back to the Sunday school, sinless perfectionism. That might be what John is addressing here, the people who believe that you can reach the point in sanctification to have no more sin. He might be speaking pretty formally here, fundamentally, to the idea of sinless perfectionism, like the Wesleyans think. That's in my notes, by the way. I'm not just stealing that from Sunday school. Okay? So 2 things from Sunday school are in my sermon notes this morning. 3, actually.

So why would anybody say it? That's the real question. Why would anybody ever say we have no sin? Well, I would ask you, do you know how many times I've been in the counseling room with people who are completely sinless? Did you know that? Did you know that everybody in prison is innocent? I don't know if you knew that. It's a really big problem that all the people in prison are innocent. But they all say they're innocent. So you can say you're sinless. You can say it. And people do say, "It's not my fault. I didn't do it. I'm always right." They don't say that last part, but they live it.

A way you can say, "We have no sin," is change what sin means. Instead of violating God's moral truth or moral law in thought, word, or deed, you make sin small and say, "Everybody makes mistakes." See, if I make mistakes, that doesn't mean I sin. See, if you redefine sin, then I can say I have no sin. You could say, "I don't have a sin problem. I'm not an alcoholic." I have a disease, so now it's no longer a sin. So I can say I have no sin. You see it? Or I can say my family is completely upside down and dysfunctional, and there's abuse, and there's neglect, and there's— I'm not leaving my home. It's dysfunctional. My family's dysfunctional. Well, if people in the home are abdicating their roles that God has given them, what God would call that is sin. So all you have to do to say you have no sin is redefine sin. That isn't what John means, but that's what we can do so that we can say we have no sin.

So if anybody is looking for an out to say, I have no sin, John gives the answer to it. Whatever you're doing to say, I have no sin, whether it's excuses, redefining sin, or just outright thinking you're good when you're not— that's the obvious one— or if you go to the doctrinal way and say that maybe he's arguing against people who think they can become sinful, he says we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Truth or deception, those are your two options. There's no half-truth, there's no half-deceptions.

If you say you have no sin— and I'll talk about the Greek word here for 'have' in a moment, I'll mention it later, not in depth or detail, but I'll say it later. The next thing he says, now in contrast, but maybe we don't see it in contrast, look at the next thing he says in verse 9: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Now, I'm going to ask you as a Bible student and somebody who wants to know the Word and wants to live the Word and understand it, what is the opposite of verse 9? Verse 9 just said, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins," one of the most beautiful promises of Scripture, "and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." The opposite of verse 9 is verse 8. Do you follow what I'm saying? Instead of saying, "I have no sin," and being self-deceived, verse 9 happens. I do have sin, and what do I do with it? I confess it and get forgiveness for it. So don't separate verse 9 from verse 8 or verse 10, what comes right after it too. I want you to see that. I want you to see that this isn't just, "If I feel like I made a mistake, then maybe I'll bring it to the Lord and ask for forgiveness." That's not what it said. This is not a small thing. This is, "Don't lie to yourself and say you have no sin." You do have sin, but in order to deal with sin correctly, you have to do what God says and take his prescription to deal with sin.

What you don't do is cover it up with your own fig leaves and your own self-denial and your own self-deception. You don't have the truth in you if you think there is another option for sin and the sin problem than confession and asking for forgiveness. But God makes it clear, doesn't he, that if you ask, he gives it. But I want you to see, don't try to justify yourself. Don't try to deny the sin. Don't try to say you're all right if you're not all right. I really would ask you to pay close attention when you have the potential of saying, "Nobody's perfect. We're all just sinners saved by grace." If you're not running to confession, running to forgiveness, you can be in big trouble. Because if you don't make it a habit of apologizing to the Lord or who somebody you've offended, if you don't make a habit of pursuing repentance and confession, then you might be doing verse 8 instead of verse 9.

Maybe I could just ask you how often you're going to the Lord for forgiveness. So self-deceived Christians don't confess their sin. They say they don't have any. That— and then those people do not have the truth in them. But don't forget that if you do sin, he forgives every time. I'll emphasize that when we get to Jesus being the advocate in a moment.

I don't want to brush past the famous verse, verse 9, but I do want to connect verse 9 to its surrounding context, that it's very important to see that this— verse 9 didn't plop out of heaven, "If you confess, you're forgiven." No, verse 9 landed between verse 8 and 10 to tell us that if we pretend we have no sin, if we minimize our sin, if we say we have no sin, if we think we're all right with God when we're not and we have violated his commandments, then we must confess. There's an urgency to it. This is practically, instead of just a nice tone of forgiveness, it's practically John the Baptist style. Deal with it. Be right with God. Don't stay in darkness. Don't be self-deceived. So there's an urgency in verse 9.

Frankly, folks, I've been reading this book of ours here for 30 years, and I never saw that until I exegeted the text. I never saw the urgency of verse 9. I always offer verse 9 as a beautiful option for somebody who might need relief and forgiveness of sins. What I've never done is say, "You better do it or else." But that is what John is doing in our context. You have to confess. It's the only option. That gets us to verse 10: "If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us."

Just like the previous verses before verse 5, same thing— before verse 7, sorry. Before— between 5 and 7, similar language is using. Is John being repetitive, or do we need to hear it? Is John forgetting he said that already and he's repeating it again, like I do sometimes when I think I've said something and then I say it again? No, we need to hear all the times he says it, but he also, folks, he says He does it just a little different. Like I said to you before, everybody in prison is innocent. Now, the kids, just so you know, I'm being sarcastic when I say that. What I mean is all the prisoners— I should ask the law enforcement guy in here. Everybody's innocent, right? When you pull them over, "Ah, well, I didn't do it," or "You got the wrong guy," or "I was justified in doing it."

So the idea here is the first one, he says, if we say we have no sin, and here he is saying If we have not sinned, we make him a liar. And there is a difference in the two words, in the two halves of verse 8 and verse 10. And I'll emphasize it in a moment, but the first thing I want you to see, make it very clear without any question, you can either have no truth in you, or you can have his word not in you, and both of those are the same. What is truth? Sanctify them by your truth. "Your word is truth." So John might be just doing what a good Hebrew writer does and emphasizing with a different use of words. It might be a parallelism. John might be doing that like the Proverbs do and Psalms and other places and passages.

"If we say"—again, it's possible that we can say a thing that's not true—"if we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar." Now, here's the thing. What I want to say about the grammar here, I don't want to get too lost in it, but I want to make sure we're clear. Is that one of them is an active voice verb and the other one is a perfect tense. So they're all present and perfect. They're all active. The one I want you to catch though here is that one of them is about the sins committed and the other one is more about the principle of whether or not you're a sinner. Okay? So if I were to summarize it and make it really sinful— simple— sinful. If we deny our sinfulness, we're liars. And if we deny the particular sins, we're liars. Got it? So if I say, "I'm not a sinful person," John just called me a liar. And if I say, "I didn't do that thing you think I did," John just called me a liar. Meaning, if you actually commit a labeled sin, an actual commandment-violating behavior, John says if you do that and pretend you didn't and say you didn't, you're a liar or you're self-deceived, or in this case, you call God a liar.

I just want you to see that both are covered. If you say, "I'm an innocent human being, but I haven't sinned yet. I'm an innocent human being," God says, "No, you're not." And if you say, "The thing that you're trying to call sin that the Bible clearly calls sin is not sin, and I'm okay, and I didn't do it," God is saying, "No, you're not. You're not okay." So he covers all of the bases, John does. So the perfect tense means it has the idea of an action that was completed in the past but has continuing results. That's the idea here, is to say, if you say in the perfect tense, that you have not sinned or are not currently sinning. If you try to say that, "Oh, maybe I prayed a little prayer when I was a kid in the past and that covered everything, so I'm not sinning right now, or I haven't sinned right now. I have my bases covered. I have my 'get out of hell free' card, and I said the thing I was supposed to say, and I was very sincere. And so even though right now I'm walking in sin, even though right now I'm not living for the Lord, I am harboring sin, I'm fine because that happened." So John is covering everything here. He's not just saying it's not an individual thing you have done that makes you a liar. He's also saying it's what you say you are that might make you a liar.

You know the old saying, isn't it? We're not sinners because we sin, we sin because we're sinners, right? So both are true. We do sin, the action of sin. But the other thing is also true. We, in our fallenness since Adam, are sinners by nature. So if we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar. Why would God be a liar if we say we haven't sinned? The answer is because he says we have. It's so simple. God says we have sinned. I can tell you this this morning, everybody in the room right now, I'm just going to say it. God says you have sinned. So what would you be saying if you say you haven't? What would you be saying if you right now say, "I have not sinned," but God said you have? It isn't just you lying, like he already said in verse 8, and you're self-deceived. You're also calling him a liar because he makes a statement about our sinfulness. So it's really important to see. He's already said it twice. Sandwiched in between, or the bread of the sandwich of verse 9, is verse 8 and verse 10. And like I said, I never hear anybody quoting— you don't ever see on any sort of macramé or embroidery or any sort of dishes or any sort of pictures on someone's fireplace mantel, you don't ever see verse 10. That verse doesn't ever make it. Like I always talk about John 3:16, right? So God so loved the world. You never see John 3:18. On In-N-Out Burger cups, the one that says we're condemned? That verse never makes the cup. The guy with the rainbow wig at the football game, he's never got John 3:18 on his chest, painted on his chest. It's always 3:16. Why? Because we love forgiveness.

Well, the question is, do we love righteousness? Do we hate sin? Do we recognize that forgiveness is not merely God putting his arms around us in love, it is also God dealing with our problem, the problem called sin? The thing that separates us from him. And John wants to make it really clear: Christians do not do that. They don't pretend they're okay when they're not, and they don't make for themselves their own forgiveness and self-justification for their behavior. They don't look for an out that isn't named Jesus. They know that if they sin, the only answer is forgiveness, and the only way you get forgiveness is confession.

So as beautiful and as loving and as forgiving as the passage is, it's surrounded by some very serious language saying sin is really bad, and you don't want to say you're okay with sin if you're not. I'm always kind of shocked at that, by the way. I'm always kind of shocked that people claim innocence so quickly with verses like this in the Bible. Like, it doesn't— in my experience now, I might be a little judgy here, forgive me if I'm judging self-righteously or whatever, but I'm always surprised at how quick people are to self-justify rather than quickly getting to admitting fault. It seems to me that the safe course of action is to get— just to assume, because I'm a sinner, that I might have sinned, right? To start with that. To not begin with self-justification. To not begin with how right I am. To not begin with me not thinking I feel guilty, so I might not be guilty.

But it's so wild in conversations and in life how quick we are to blame, how quick we are to not take responsibility for our failures, for our sins. I would think that Christians of all people who hear a verse that says, "If I say I have not sinned, I make God a liar and his word is not in me," I would think that we would be very quick to get to the option that I might have sinned because I don't want to make him a liar. I would not dare even— I don't want to be in the neighborhood of calling God a liar. So you would think that we would maybe default to I might have sinned and I need to check that first rather than I'm probably okay because I'm not the kind of person that would do such a thing. I'm not the kind of person that would say what you say I say. I'm not the kind of person that thinks what you think I think. I'm not the kind of person that would do that kind of behavior you're telling me to do? And we put the little halo over our head so that everybody sees how great we are? It says, "If we say we have not sinned, we make God a liar." So even if you have not sinned, I would think there would be a little hesitation to say you have not sinned because I don't want to make him a liar. Just a little moment of reflection, a little time that considers, "Hey, I do not want to be close to calling God a liar, so the first thing I'm going to do is examine myself." That's the first thing I'm going to do. If I've been accused of sin or convicted of sin or I'm struggling with sin, the first thing I'm going to do is genuinely consider that this sinner might sin? And then get to its answer quickly. Get to its answer quickly.

And by the way, I'm talking about you and your sin, not everybody else's around you. I mean you, your self-examination, you before the Lord. I don't want anybody in here right now saying, "Yeah, why don't he do that? Why isn't she doing that? Why aren't you doing that?" No, no, no, no. This is all reflection, us. That if it's possible to call God a liar, by saying we haven't sinned. We should be really, really scared to say we haven't sinned. I want you to take that with you. Be quick to get to the point where you know you're right with God. And the way you know you're right with God is by doing what John says here.

Now, verse 1 of chapter 2, I didn't want to stop there. I wanted to keep going because the theme keeps going here where John says, "My little children," which is beautiful every time he does it. Whenever John does it, you get that heart of a of a father, of a pastor, of somebody who loves the people he's talking to. "These things I write to you." Why? Why are you writing, John? You want to encourage us, right? That's why you're writing. You want— John, you're writing to us to make sure that we know we're forgiven. That's the most important thing is that we're saved. That's what everybody says. The most important thing is that somebody's saved, right? "My little children, I'm writing to you so that you know and you have that assurance and happiness that you're saved."

Now, John will say something like that in chapter 5. But he's not saying it yet. Why is John writing this section of 1 John? My little children, these things I write to you so that you may not sin. That's what he's saying. So he's already said if we lie and say we're not sinning, we're in trouble. And so now he's saying the way you can fix that— you say, well, you already said how you fix that is by confessing. Yeah, that's true. Or there's a second option too. Don't sin. That's another option. Did you know it? You're free not to sin. And you say, "No, I'm just a sinner saved by grace." Yeah, if you keep saying that, you're going to keep sinning expecting to get grace and presuming God's grace.

But the right action is to say, "I'm allowed to be holy. I'm called to be holy. I've been given the Holy Spirit. I've been redeemed from my sin. I have the Word of God. I have all the tools. I don't have to sin." So instead of making an excuse for sin and then saying it's not as bad as it is, maybe going all the way and saying, "I haven't sinned," and me being self-deceived or calling God a liar, Hey, John says don't sin. Thanks, John. Good coach. I appreciate that. That's very helpful for you to say that for me. Instead of me saying, well, I'm going to sin. Of course I sin. I always sin. I'm going to sin. I'm a sinner. What else can I do but sin? You keep talking like that, you're going to fulfill that identity. You're going to live what you just said. If you say, I can't help but sin, I only sin, I'm addicted, I'm an alcoholic, I have a disease. If you keep saying that, you're going to believe it. You become your own preacher and you believe it.

How about we all believe John instead? When John says, "Hey, I'm writing so you don't sin. I don't want you to sin." And we say, "Wait, John, are you telling me it's possible for me not to sin?" Yeah. Well, thanks, John. I'm happy to hear that. I'm happy that I got that option in the toolbox, that I'm able to live in righteousness. Instead of me constantly thinking I can't, I have the opportunity to live in righteousness.

Instead of calling God a liar and saying I'm fine and trying to self-justify, cover myself with my own fig leaves instead of the blood of Christ, Instead of walking in newness of life. I don't know if you know, but John hates sin. He talks a lot about it, like he hates it. And I think that would be a good thing for us to adopt. We should hate it too. He hates what it does to us, breaking our fellowship with each other and with the Lord. He hates what it does to God, violates his perfect nature. So don't sin. First part of verse 1 is don't sin. I'm writing, this is why I'm writing to you, so that you don't sin. If you don't sin, you don't have to confess, right? If you don't sin, you're walking in righteousness. If you don't sin, you're growing into Christlikeness. It's better to not sin. Then the second half of the verse: And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He's not saying you will sin. Do you notice it doesn't say if you absolutely will sin? Do you notice it doesn't say that like we do? It says if you sin. So what does that mean? You don't have to, but if you do— now let's go back to the previous 3 verses. The first verse says that if we say we do not have sin, we're liars, self-deceived, right? Truth is not in us. Verse 10 tells us if we say we don't have sin, in that case, the actions of sin, not the principle of sin, but the actions of sin, then we're calling God a liar and His word is not in us. So it's safe to say the conclusion that if we argue with God and say, God, you are wrong, When you say, "I have sinned," and by the way, that is the meaning of the word confession. The meaning of the word confession is the opposite of that, where you say, "I agree with you, God, when you say I have sinned." It's literally homologeo, to say the same thing. So confession is saying, "God, you have called me a sinner. You have said I'm in sin. Your word has pointed out and shined a light on my sin. So I'm a sinner. Please forgive me." That's what confession does, right? So now, follow me. 8 says if you say it and it's not true, you're self-deceived. 10 says if you say it and it's not true, you're calling God a liar. And now verse 1 of chapter 2, the whole verse is saying, if you who are not like verse 8 and verse 10 confess— don't miss that context. Remember, if anyone sins— I know that sounds like anyone evangelistically, but no, he's talking to the little children in the same verse. He's talking to Christians. Christians.

If any Christian sins, If any Christians do the actions that God forbids, if any Christians violate God's moral law in thought, word, or deed, and instead of saying they haven't, instead of making God a liar, instead of walking as though the truth and the Word are not in them, instead of doing that, they go to the Lord with honesty and freedom and go to the Lord and say, "I have sinned. I'm not lying and saying I haven't. I'm not calling you a liar. I have sinned." there is the promise of verse 2. So I don't want you to— again, like verse 9 is a fluffy verse by itself, but in context it's an urgent verse. The same with verse 1 of chapter 2. The second half of it might be fluffy by itself, but in its context he's saying, I'm writing so that you don't sin, but if you do, we have an advocate.

And this advocate is the word you know already because it's the word that's always used of the Holy Spirit that you all know, the Paraclete, Parakletos. This is the only time it's used of Jesus, where he is the advocate. This is not the word for mediator. It's the word for comforter, for consoler, for helper that John uses in other places. So if we sin honestly and transparently before the Lord, instead of trying to cover it ourselves, we go to the Lord, we confess to the Lord, we're there in his presence and asking for help, we're honest instead of self-deceived.

If we do that, we do have the Paraclete named Jesus. He's our attorney before the Lord. He argues our case before the Lord. He counsels us and comforts us, and then he goes to the Lord as the mediator and says, "They're honest, Father. They're asking for real. They want to be right with you, and I want to advocate for them. I will stand in their stead. They, instead of lying to themselves, are telling the truth, even as Christians who fail." And it says we have an advocate with the Father, who's the judge, right? And who is our attorney? He's right there, Jesus Christ the righteous. He's the advocate.

So Jesus goes into heaven and says, I know Johnny has sinned, but Johnny's honest about his sin and he's confessed his sin. So Father, here I am to represent him. Forgive him, restore him, strengthen him. It's powerful what we get in the gospel. I just heard someone this week talking about the beauty of being an American, and I love our country. And this person came from Iran, and then he served in our armed services, so he's talking about what's going going on on the other side of the world right now. And he starts talking about getting to serve our country and starts crying that he gets to serve in the United States military. He just starts weeping like, "This country has done so much for me, and I'm so thankful I get to serve it."

And I thought about that when I looked at this passage, that God knows I'm going to fail, but instead of me making excuses for it and planning to fail, I want to not sin the way I've been encouraged not to sin, but I know for sure that if I fail, I have an advocate. I already have a teammate. I already have somebody standing there for me, ready to go before the Father and say, he failed, Father, but he hates it. He failed, Father, but he knows it hurts you. He failed. He sinned, Father, but he hates sin. He does. But in that moment, he loved it and failed when he loved it. And he knows that that was love that should have been given to you instead of the sin and to his flesh. He knows that. He's saying that, Father.

You just see Jesus fighting for sinners. Oh, not this one, Father. Yes, he does look like he's doing what the world does, but in his heart of hearts, he wants to honor you, and he's being honest and transparent about it. So here I stand. I'm standing on behalf of Johnny here. Please forgive him. That's why I went to the cross, Father. I did that so that he could be forgiven. I love it.

It almost sounds like an official title, doesn't it? An advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. Sounds like he's got a title, like he's a tough guy, and I like it. He's righteous when I'm not. He gives me his righteousness, and then he argues that righteousness with the Father right to his face. I remember when I imputed my righteousness to him, Father. When I went to the cross, we imputed that righteousness to Johnny. And yes, he's failing and acting like he doesn't see it, but I'm righteous. He has our righteousness that we gave him in the gospel. So he's not wrong to do it. He's an advocate.

Now here comes the heavier doctrinal part that to me is not heavy at all, but beautiful, in verse 2, "And he himself"—that's Jesus directly—"is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the whole world." So we have to handle 2 things, 3 things here. First of all, we have to handle when Jesus advocates for us, that Jesus is quite literally putting himself between us and God's wrath.

Okay. So maybe you've seen that before where you've seen maybe somebody stand in the place, you know, somebody's bullying somebody and then somebody stands in between them, the victim and the bully, right, and advocates and fights for somebody. Or somebody's a good attorney, fights for their client. Or a good insurance agent, if there is such a thing, and there are, there's good insurance agents out there who fight for their client, right. A good contractor who who fights both for himself and for the client. When somebody actually advocates for somebody, that idea that they stand in the gap and essentially take the heat for the person they're standing in the gap for.

So I want you to see that the advocate does that as the advocate. In his advocacy, he's the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours, but for the whole world. So let me handle first the meaning of the word. And I'm going to ask you, I said it earlier, put your thinking cap on and follow closely, please. And if you have any aversion to the doctrines of grace, or Calvinism, if it gets called that, just— I'm asking you to hear me out. This is an area where I often say you don't have to agree with me, you don't have to agree with Calvinism or me, but you definitely have to agree with the meaning of this word.

This word means something. It has a lexical meaning, it has a technical meaning. It doesn't have anything to do with our emotions. So when John says he himself is the propitiation for our sins, it is in a direct context of him being an advocate standing before the Father and pleading our case. Are you with me? It came right after it. You don't get to ignore the advocacy part. Now you have to ask, what does an advocate do? Well, first of all, you know, he usually just argues the case of both sides or whatever, of his side. And that is true, he does do that.

But when it turns this corner and says he is the propitiation, this Greek word propitiation is elasmus. There's a couple of versions of it. Elaskomai is a verb form of it. This word means appeasing. It means to appease. Christians do not like that because it sounds like the paganism out there where you appease the angry god of the volcano. And so they don't like that idea because it sounds wrong to appease a god. Isn't that what those Aztecs did when they used to sacrifice people, or the people of Moloch, where they— aren't they trying to appease their god? And most, by the way, most people think that's what Christianity is too, is us trying to appease a god in heaven.

Well, guess what? God in heaven needs to be appeased. It's a fact. It's a fact that God must be made whole when we have violated him. It's a fact that God must pour out wrath or he's not a good judge. He has to pour out wrath. If he doesn't punish sin, he is a bad God and a bad judge. He has to punish sin.

Now, the intricacy of this word— hear me out, please— salvation, that word, to be saved, and to be delivered are synonyms in the Bible. When you see the word saved or salvation and the word delivered, you can say those two words are referring to the same thing. When you sometimes you see the word test and the word trial, those words can be used interchangeably, can be translated as synonyms. They mean the same thing. But let me tell you something, propitiation is not forgiveness. It is not reconciliation. It is not redemption. It is not the other words related to salvation. Propitiation has a very specific meaning.

It is this: God is going to pour out his wrath on someone because he must to be righteous. He has to execute wrath to be a good judge. There has to be a punishment for sins. He's going to pour out his wrath, and he's either going to pour it out on the sinner, and in this case, the liar who says they haven't sinned, or he's going to point it— pour it out on the Advocate, Jesus. So what Jesus does when he becomes our propitiation— sometimes you'll see translations try to make it expiation, the removal of guilt. It's not about the guilt, it's about the wrath.

And God must pour out his wrath. And propitiation says that Jesus stands there and says, pour it out on me. I will satisfy your wrath. The work of propitiation is Godward. It's upward instead of usward. He is a propitiation. It doesn't say to our sins, but for our sins. Very important to see this. It's not expiation. It's not redemption. It's involved in all of those things. All those things are related. They're interchangeable. They're gears, all gears in the machine, for sure. But I want to make sure we're clear on the meaning of the word.

Propitiation is not about forgiveness and what we get. Propitiation, the word, is about what God gets. And when God is propitiated, when he is satisfied, that means wrath has been dealt with, properly executed, justice has been done, right has been done, sin has been dealt with. But it was dealt with in the one who satisfies God, not the one who doesn't. Very important to see this. Very important. I'll get to the world in a second, but I want to make sure we're clear on the meaning of propitiation.

The end result of Christ's propitiation is the satisfaction of God in his justice and to be able to pour out wrath. That is the meaning of the word. Okay, the meanings of words are important. We talk about jots and tittles all the time, the very specifics and the meanings of words. That word elasmos, elaskomai, whatever form it's in, that word means God is angry. He must pour out his wrath. He will be satisfied. He's going to pour it out. And Jesus stands in the gap and says, "Pour the wrath out on me."

God pours out the wrath on him on the cross. We all know when that happened. And when he pours out the wrath on him, now God says, "I, God, the righteous judge, am satisfied." And did you notice in none of what I said there did I mention you? Propitiation is not a "us" word. It's upward. Forgiveness is usward. Justification is usward. Redemption is usward. Reconciliation is usward. But the most important part is to see that propitiation pays for sins, pays, satisfies God.

Now, with that in mind, then you can discuss what it means that it's for the whole world or not. You have to know what the word means before you see how it applies to the whole world or not. So if it means the wrath of God is absolutely satisfied, and the sins that have been incurred by us who owe God the debt of righteousness have been paid for, absolutely satisfied the wrath of God, our sins have been paid for, is it possible to say that the whole world's wrath was paid for at the cross? You cannot say that. You cannot say that Jesus' death pays for the sins of the whole wide world. You can't. You're violating the meaning of propitiation, and folks, you're also violating the meaning of the word "world."

No. When it says he is the propitiation for the whole world, it does not mean that the whole world's sins problem has been dealt with in his sacrifice. It hasn't been. Because people still go to hell. They still go to hell. Does that mean if God was satisfied with Jesus pouring out, taking his wrath for the sinner that goes to hell, then why do they go to hell? This is why I believe in limited atonement. You have to believe it. Because if your sin is paid for, whether you repent or not, then God sending you to hell is wrong.

You only pay for sins once. You either pay in yourself or they get paid for in the cross. But if my sins before I'm saved are paid for and God sends me to hell, what would that say about the judge? Does he take that back real quick and say, "No, I didn't really mean it"? No, what it means is— the meaning of the word propitiation has to mean wrath is satisfied. But the meaning of the word "world" does not have to mean every human.

So make sure you know you're not asking what the Bible can say. You have to ask what it must say. And propitiation must say wrath is satisfied for whoever believes. But the word "world," now we can ask what it does mean. What does John mean when he uses the word "world"? I'm going to ask you to turn— I don't ever do this, but I'm asking you to change the page this morning. Turn to John chapter 17. You all know John 3:16, so you don't have to turn there. You don't have to turn to John 3:16. I should ask you, not the kids. The kids all have it memorized. I want to know if the grown-ups still have it memorized.

If I were to ask you to quote from memory John 3:16, would you be able to do it? "For God so loved the—" Oh, that means that he loved everybody in the world, right? That's what that has to mean. He loves everybody in the world. That's the only meaning of that word. He has to love everybody in the world.

Now everybody looking at John 17:9 and the high priest prayer of Jesus. You're looking at it with me. He's there offering the prayer right now, and leading up to his crucifixion, and he's praying for his disciples. And look what he says in verse 9: I pray for them. These, the ones you gave me. Jesus says that, right? These right here in his immediate presence, the ones you gave me, I pray for them. I pray for them. I do not pray for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.

And unless you think, well, he only means the disciples in that case, you can go down to verse 20 if you want, because he's also praying for those who would believe in their name. But let me tell you who he's not praying for, the whole world. So you can say, I think it's the whole world. And I'm just going to ask you then, what does he mean when he's saying he's not praying for the whole world? How do you deal with that? What— how do you deal with that? Because I know how I deal with it. The whole world doesn't get saved, and he didn't die for the whole world. He died for the elect. That's my answer.

So what's your answer? If he dies for everybody, how do you answer for the fact that he sits here and says he's not praying for everybody? You have to reconcile those passages. And you can do what everybody else does if you want and say, "Well, it's just a mystery. We don't understand it." Or you can accept the understanding that propitiation means the wrath is satisfied. God is satisfied in His wrath. And the only people that get that are Christians.

Back to your text in 1 John. What does he mean then, "not for ours only"? Who is the "ours"? Who is the "ours"? It's not Christians in general. It's the little children he's talking to. You got to use good hermeneutics. We see ours as us. We do that immediately. We jump over all the interpretive principles in understanding Scripture correctly. We don't rightly divide. We immediately say, "He is not the propitiation for ours only." Well, that's me. He's talking about me there. No, he's not.

This was preserved for us, but it was not written to us. It was written to the audience of the little children that John is encouraging and calling to faithfulness. You can apply it to you, but in its direct context, John is saying, We who might think Jesus is only our propitiation need to understand it is not just us who get propitiated, who God's wrath gets satisfied for. It's not just us. It's others too. He's the Savior of the world. That doesn't mean he's the Savior of every human. It can't mean that.

I could read these texts. I am going to read them. Psalm 11:5, "The Lord tests the righteous, but the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates. He tests the righteous, but the one who does violence, the Bible says God hates him. Okay? Now, you can try if you want to say he can hate somebody while he's loving them and perpetuating their sins if you want. You can say that. To me, it's a contradiction. He can't hate somebody and love somebody at the same time. He hates the workers of iniquity, but when he grants them repentance and gives his loving favor to them and writes their name in the Book of Life before the foundation of the world, those are people he will love.

Proverbs 6, "These 6 things the Lord hates." You ever heard the person that says he hates the sin but he loves the sinner? Let's see what Proverbs says about that. "These 6 things the Lord hates; yes, 7 are an abomination to him: A proud look." Who makes proud looks? Oh, no, he only hates the look. He doesn't hate the proud person. "A lying tongue." No, it's only the tongue that he hates. He doesn't hate the person. It's just the lying tongue. Lying part of it. Hands that shed innocent blood. Oh, he doesn't hate hands. It's the innocence of blood being shed that he hates.

A heart that devises wicked plans. Huh, somehow we're going to have to take the heart out of us so that he can hate the heart but not the person who has the heart. And then lastly, feet that are— or second to last— feet that are swift in running to evil. And then a false witness who speaks lies. Who speaks lies? A person that he hates. And then one who sows discord among the brethren. The Bible says in multiple places that God hates people. Multiple. And you might say, well, it does say he hated Esau, but that means he loved less.

Do yourself the favor, look up in your concordance the word hate that is used in Romans about Esau. Look up that word, okay? And if you want that word to mean love less, go look the word up in all your concordances. You can do it on your phone, you can do it on your concordance, the word hate for Esau. And go look at all the other uses in the New Testament. And see if you can make it mean love less in all the other contexts. Because what you're going to find out is it only means love less of Esau in Romans 9 when people teach it. It doesn't mean love less in other places.

You'll see what that word means, the word hate, oddly enough, when you define it and look it up. You look it up in the Greek. You can look it up in the Hebrew. You can look it up in Oxford's dictionary. You can look it up in Webster's dictionary. What you're going to find out is the word hate means hate. That's what it means. And there are people, not just sins, people that God hates. And I'm going to ask you this plainly: if He hates the sin but loves the sinner, which one of those does He send to hell? Does He only send the sin to hell, or does He send sinners to hell? And how can He send any sinner to hell who His wrath has been satisfied for? He can't.

Propitiation is not for every individual, just like the love of John chapter 3 is not for every individual, just like the election is not for every individual. I'm sorry to tell you, but these doctrines of grace stand the biblical test. And I would challenge you really to be thinking about things instead of you thinking that you might have the ability to see a bigger love than God has, than electing love. Please be careful.

And if it makes you feel better to say God is able to save everybody, in other words, that the cross is capable of saving everybody, but it doesn't save everybody. Even that kind of language to me pushes these things. God has a plan and a purpose. It's been determined before the foundation of the world. He predestined, and his people were predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son. And if you find out that people do not and do not accept the gospel and its free grace and are not conformed to the image of his Son, you can assume they were not predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.

Predestined, election, all of those things are all like every other thing where God says, I have purposed it and I will do it. Why am I fighting for this? Because I can truly tell you, I don't get to say this a lot, and I often don't say it in private because I don't want to attack anybody. But now that I have your ear and I'm talking about the literal exegetical definition of the meaning of words in their lexical form, in their original form, I can tell you it hurts my feelings when people think that Jesus dies for everybody but his death is a waste for some of them. It bothers me. I don't like it. I love limited atonement. Can I say that out loud to you? I don't have the same wrestling other people do with it.

I love it because it makes sense of God's pointed love and his sovereignty, that he does everything with an absolute clear purpose, that he determines everything, the end from the beginning. I love it. Now, you do not have to hold to it, and I don't hold it against you if you have trouble with it because it says the whole world and you're struggling with trying to understand what the whole world means. I respect you for that. I promise. I promise you, I respect you if you're trying to make sense of the whole world. I promise.

Like 1 Timothy, when it talks about he wishes, he wants— like when we pray so that we can pray for leaders and all those who are in authority, because the implication there in 1 Timothy is that God wants everybody saved. I don't care if you think that. That's up to you to wrestle with the text. Please wrestle with the text. If Jesus isn't praying for the world, how can he love the whole world? If you have a good answer to that, hallelujah.

If propitiation literally means God's wrath is satisfied, satisfied, deal done, forensic done, sins paid for, that's what it means. How can you say the sins of the world are paid for, a lost sinner? And by the way, I've seen the arguments. Don't think I haven't seen the Arminian arguments. I have seen them. The argument that your sin is paid for in you and in Jesus at the same time is not a contradiction in your mind? That's okay. If you can do that, Please, I don't want to pressure you. I just want you to see what the text says. Wrestle with the text.

And my personal feeling, now my opinion is, I love it. I love it because it's the only thing that makes sense to me. It's the only thing that makes sense to me when I see a sinful world acting like a sinful world, hating God. And seeing people not affected by the propitiation for them, seeing people not affected by a love that God has for them. This is why I think the rich young ruler is in heaven. Did you know that? He went away sorrowful. And you say, well, that means he wasn't saved. Ah, but the text also says that Jesus loved him. So I think he might be in heaven. You don't have to fight me on that.

But you have to have an answer for those words. The words mean things. Our emotions are not the final arbiter of truth. Here's what the text does say though. If we say we have no sin, we're lying. But if we do sin, we ask for forgiveness, we have an advocate, And now my part of the propitiation part of that is that God is satisfied. Maybe that will help you. Maybe doctrinally, practically, you take that with you today.

If God's wrath is satisfied and you're struggling with conviction, but you are struggling and you want to please the Lord and you want to honor him and you're struggling and you go back to the— to your knees again and pray to the Lord, I need forgiveness, can you rest in the idea that God is satisfied on your behalf with the propitiation of Jesus? That your sins are not only paid for, you're not only been justified, you've not only been redeemed, you've not only been drawn and regenerated and all the other words, but also God will never pour out his wrath on you because it's been poured out on his Son.

Isn't that a relief that I can never not be propitiated for? I can never revoke the propitiation and the satisfaction of God so that when God looks at me, he is always satisfied because of the work of his Son. Ah, it's beautiful.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for all that John tells us, even the hard stuff. And I would ask, Father, that we would be people that instead of trying to cover our own sin or saying one thing that isn't true, we don't want to make you a liar, that we would indeed be real and honest and vulnerable with you. And when we need forgiveness, we would get it. And when we get it, we would have the confidence it came from our Advocate. And thank you for it, in Jesus' name. Amen.