Forgiveness
and Cleansing; 1 John 2:12
1
John 2:12 NASB “I am writing to you, little children,
because your sins have been forgiven you for His name’s sake.” “Little
children” is the Greek word teknion
and it a technical term to refer to the whole congregation. John looks upon
them as his children in the faith because he has pastured them, taught them,
nurtured them along spiritually through the feeding of the Word. That is how
believers grow: through the teaching of the Word under the filling of God the
Holy Spirit. It is only from feeding on the Word of God that we can advance as
children of God to maturity and glorify God.
“…because
your sins have been forgiven you for His name’s sake.” This is not the best
translation and we have to pull out some emphases, otherwise it would seem as
if John is saying that because you are little children your sins are
automatically forgiven. There are some people who believe that and teach that,
i.e. that because Christ died on the cross for our sins that our sins are not
only paid for but all sins, past, present and future, are forgiven, and so we
never need to confess our sins. That is not what this is implying or saying. The phrase hoti aphiemi.
hoti is the causal particle and it
can refer to cause, but it also can introduce either a direct or indirect
quotation and it also has an explanatory force. This is not a causal hoti and it shouldn’t be translated
“because.” He is giving a reason, but a reason is not always a cause. There is
a distinction between cause and effect. He is not writing because their sins
are forgiven. That would means that “their sins are forgiven” directly caused
his writing. He is not writing to them because their sins are forgiven, he is
writing to them because they are being impacted by false teaching. He is
writing to them since
their sins are forgiven; he is writing to them in light of the fact that their
sins are forgiven. We might even say “for your sins are forgiven; “for” implies
an explanation. The word for sins is the standard word hamartia, which refers to sin, missing the mark of God’s
standard. Every single sin, past, present and future, was paid for by Jesus
Christ on the cross. In the English it says “your sins” but that implies a
genitive construction—the sins of you, possession. That is not what the
Greek says, it says “the sins to you are forgiven,”
the sins that you have committed. Literally it should be translated: “because
the sins are forgiven to you.” It is a dative of advantage.
Then
the final phrase: “for His name’s sake.” That doesn’t mean a whole lot to us,
partly because we don’t use the word “name” in the same sense that the writers
of Scripture used it, but also because the translators—especially of the NASB—shifted
the two words. They put “for” at the end—“for His name’s sake”—as
if they are explaining a reason, and they put “because” at the beginning as if
that was cause. They got it reversed.
It is “because of His name,” the preposition dia plus the accusative for “name.” That is important
because dia plus the accusative
means cause, and what this is saying is that the cause for our forgiveness is
Him. It is His name, and name in the Bible relates to the character of
somebody. So what John is saying here is: “I am writing to you … for the sins
are forgiven to you because of His character.” The basis for forgiveness is His
character; it is not based on the fact that we were shocked and remorseful.
The
important verb here is aphiemi,
third person plural, perfect passive indicative. This is the key to understanding
what John is saying. The indicative is the mood of reality, of fact, so it is
stating a fact about our sins, that they are forgiven. The passive voice means
that the subject receives the action of the verb. The third person plural is
because it is talking about their sins. The sins receive the action of the
verb. The perfect tense is where we have to be careful in the Greek. There are
various nuances to the perfect tense in the Greek; it is not like the perfect
tense in the English. It emphasises action that is completed in the past with
results that go on. It can either emphasise the completedness
of the action or it can emphasise the abiding results of the completed action. If the emphasis is on the continuing or abiding results of the
action that is what is called an intensive perfect. There is another
nuance to the perfect which is typical of most verbs and that is a gnomic
aspect. Gnomic refers to something which is the proverbial, something that is
normative characteristic, a general principle; something that is envisioned on
many occasions or for many individuals, something that is generally true at all
times. The interesting thing about the syntax of the perfect tense is when
there is a gnomic perfect tense it doesn’t do away with either the intensive or
the extensive nuance of the verb. So what we have here is that it is still
extensive, it is a general principle emphasising the present ongoing reality.
What
this means is that he is writing to the congregation and is saying that “your
sins are continuously now (present tense) being forgiven you as a general
matter of course because of a past completed action. That past completed action
is what he referred to back in 1 John 1:7 which states the basis for our
cleansing; 1 John 1:9 states the occasion for the
application of that forgiveness—If we confess our sins. If we are
automatically cleansed of our sins just because we are saved then 1 John 1:9 is
irrelevant and we don’t need to confess our sins.
On
the temporal side we still sin. When we are filled by the Holy Spirit and
walking by means of the Holy Spirit is where we are enjoying fellowship. We can
never get out of our eternal relationship with God but we get out of our
temporal fellowship whenever we sin. We still have a sin nature and can commit
any sin, and when we do we are out of fellowship and walking in darkness. But
when we confess our sins (1 John 1:9) we are restored to fellowship and we
start walking by the Holy Spirit again. The point is to stay walking in the
light, to continue to abide, because that is the status of being cleansed. The
issue in 1 John 1:9 is cleansing.
Exodus
29:1-6. When the high priest was installed in the high priesthood he was washed
from head to toe. In the LXX
the word louo to describe that.
It lectured salvation. But the priest would do things and go places that were
wrong and sinful, so every time after that when the priest went into the
tabernacle or the temple he had to go to the golden laver to wash his hands and
wash his feet, but not his whole body.
John
chapter 13 is the beginning of the upper room discourse. Jesus us preparing
them for the meal and He is going to wash their feet. [7] “What I do you do not
realize now, but you will understand hereafter.” In other words, this isn’t a
vital principle for right now because you are still under the Mosaic Law. It is
going to be in the church age ministry of God the Holy Spirit that they were
going to understand the significance of what he was getting ready to do. [8]
Peter said to Him, “Never shall You wash my feet!”
Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” The Greek word here for wash is nipto, the same LXX word used for hand washing and foot
washing of the high priest when he went into the tabernacle or the temple, not the
word luo used for the overall
washing. In Jesus’ response to Peter we have the word meros, a technical word used in legal testamentary
literature (a will) in order to indicate the inheritance, share or portion
given to the heir. What He is saying to Peter is, “If you don’t let me forgive
you for your post-salvation sins by washing your feet [that is the symbolism]
you are not going to have an inheritance because all your obedience between
here and the time you die is going to be in the flesh, and human good not
divine good, because you are not going to be in fellowship at all. [1] “Jesus
said to him, ‘He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely
clean [katharizo…’” katharizo is the same word as used in 1
John 1:9.
Revelation
3:14 begins the letter to the church at Laodicea, a church made up of lukewarm
believers. They are useless, neither hot nor cold, nevertheless they are still
saved. In verse 19 Jesus says, “Those whom I love [PHILEO], I reprove
and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent.” Only believers are the
objects of Jesus’ PHILEO love. He tells these believers to
repent, to change their minds about their carnality. [20] NASB
“Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the
door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.” This is a
picture of fellowship. [21] “He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down
with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His
throne.” How do we overcome? By staying in fellowship. Verse 21 is talking
about rewards, inheritance, the meros.
If we are going to have gold, silver and precious stones at the judgment seat
of Christ then that is only produced by staying in fellowship, and that is an
ongoing, continuing thing in the believer’s life.