My little children, I am writing this to you so that you may not sin; but if any one does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the expiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.

Three Parts of the Text

The text has three parts. I would summarize them like this: Don't sin. Don't despair when you do sin. Don't hog Jesus for yourselves alone. A Continuation from Last Week Last week

we saw the foundation of John's message in 1:5 (God is light), and the application in 1:6–7 (Walk in the light), and a clarification in 1:8–10 (Don't claim to be perfect; confess your sin). Today's text continues the application and clarification from last week. The application said, "Walk in the light." This is continued in the first half of 2:1, "My little children, I am writing this to you so that you may not sin." Don't sin; walk in the light. The clarification said, "Don't say you have no sin; confess your sin." This is continued in the second half of 2:1, "If any one does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." Don't hide your sin, admit it; you have an all-sufficient advocate. Then 2:2 describes the basis of Christ's advocacy and in effect says, "Don't hog it." The basis of his advocacy is his expiating (or propitiating) work on the cross. "He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world." Since his work on the cross is not just for you, don't hog it. Share it. Love the same way you have been loved. Let's take these three parts of the text one at a time and unpack them. 1. DON'T SIN (2:1a) "My little children, I am writing this to you so that you may not sin." Under this heading observe three things: 1.1 Sin is insubordination against God.1.2 Sin is very serious.1.3 Scripture overcomes sin.

1.1—Sin is insubordination against God. John's aim is that they not sin. So we need a definition of sin. What is it? 1 John 3:4 gives the most straightforward definition of sin in this book. "Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness." Sin is lawlessness. In other words sin is man's refusal to submit to God's law, that is, God's Word. It is insubordination. When God's Word says, "What God has joined together, let no man put asunder," and someone pursues divorce, that's sin. When God's Word says, "Put away all deceit," and you distort your financial picture on your tax forms, that's sin. When God says, "Bring up your children in the instruction of the Lord," and you make no effort to teach your children the Scriptures, that's sin. Among civilized people sin is usually discreet. It is usually encased in attractive containers of rationalization. And it's not usually considered to be very serious. Not many people weep over their sin these days—even though it stands to reason that nothing in all the world is more wicked or more terrifying than insubordination against our Creator. Which leads us to consider the truth that . . . 1.2—Sin is very serious. There are at least four reasons given in this book why sin should be taken with tremendous seriousness—with far more seriousness than it is taken today. 1.2.1—Sin is serious because it insults the suffering of Christ. According to 3:8, "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil." The reason Christ came into the world and suffered was to destroy sin. Paul said that Christ died to purify for himself a bride (Ephesians 5:25 –27). "He gave himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity and to purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds" (Titus 2:14 ). Therefore, whenever we sin, we join those who call the cross foolishness. If the aim of the cross is the purity of the church and the victory over sin, we cannot honestly regard the cross as the wisdom of God when we sin. Sin says to Christ, "I do not regard your suffering as sufficient incentive to keep me back from this act. You may have died to prevent me from doing this, but I'm going to do it anyway." Thus sin insults the suffering of Christ. And that is very serious. 1.2.2—Sin is serious because it suggests that we have the nature of Satan rather than God. 1 John 3:8 is very blunt on this score: "He who commits sin is of the devil." Verse 9 gives the opposite: "No one born of God commits sin; for God's nature abides in him." We don't take these verses to imply a perfectionism that would contradict 1:8–10 and 2:1b. The reference seems to be to a life of sin—sinning that is unhated, unassaulted, and too often unconquered. But the very least that you can say from these verses is that sin is very serious because it is the fruit not of God's nature in us but of Satan's nature. When you sin, you are acting the way Satan does. There are two songs in the world—the song of Satan and the song of Christ. When you sin, your heart is tuned to the song of Satan and you play it his way. But when you act from faith in obedience to God's Word, your heart is tuned to the song of Christ and you play it his way. And it is a very serious thing when you find your heart again and again whistling the song of Satan. 1.2.3—Sin is serious because it jeopardizes our assurance of salvation. 1 John 2:3–4 says, "And by this we may be sure that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He who says 'I know him' but disobeys his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him." Perhaps one of the reasons that sin is taken so lightly today and there is so little brokenness among God's people is that this truth is not taught in the church. Instead people are taught that your assurance of salvation has no relation to whether you obey God or not. We are taught that saving faith is such a weak and powerless thing that it cannot guarantee any changes in life, and therefore to look for those changes as the evidence of saving faith is wrong. If that is so, the first epistle of John is going to have to come out of the Bible. Because no matter how hard they try, the easy-gospelers cannot make it mean that. Chapter 3, verse 14 says, "We know (i.e., we have assurance) that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love remains in death." You cannot have assurance of having passed out of death into life if you are an unloving person. Persistence in sin destroys the assurance of salvation. A whole branch of "evangelical" theology has come into existence to provide assurance of salvation to lukewarm, disobedient people who call themselves Christians. And this book was written to blow that theology out of the water. Sin is serious because it jeopardizes our assurance. (More on that next week.) 1.2.4—Sin is serious because it can put you beyond the reach of hope. Notice 1 John 5:16 –17. I am going to translate these verses very literally so we can see more clearly their implications. "If anyone sees his brother sinning sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and [God] will give to him life, namely, to those who are sinning not unto death. There is sin that is unto death. Not concerning that do I say that you should request. All unrighteousness is sin and there is sin not unto death." These verses are a summary of all the warnings of this book. They help us avoid two errors. One error would be the claim that any sin you commit after conversion rules you out of the kingdom. John avoids this error by saying at the beginning of verse 16 and at the end of verse 17: No, there is sin that is not unto death. Not all sin puts you beyond the reach of hope. This is what 1:8–10 and 2:1 were trying to make clear. But the other error John avoids is the claim that no amount or kind of sinning can put a professing Christian beyond the hope of salvation. John avoids this error by saying at the end of 5:16 , "There is sin unto death." He does not even say we should pray for such sin. There is sin that puts a person beyond hope. There is a habit of insubordination that becomes so strong we can no longer genuinely confess it as sin and repent of it. Forgiveness is offered in 1:9 to all who confess their sin. But there is a depth and persistence of sin that can put you beyond the ability to confess, that is, beyond the ability to see and feel your sin the way God does, and hate it and flee from it. There does come a point of no return in sinning. So John, in the great love that he has for his "little children," writes to them so that they will not sin—because sin is very serious. For these four reasons: It insults the suffering of Christ.It suggests we have the nature of Satan not God.It jeopardizes our assurance of salvation.It can put us beyond the reach of hope.1.3—Scripture overcomes sin. There is one other implication of the first half of 2:1. John says, "My little children, I am writing this to you so that you may not sin." The implication is that John believes his letter can help them keep from sinning. And if it can help them, it can help us. Look at 4:5–6 for John's astonishing claim about this little book. Concerning those who deny Jesus he says, "They are of the world, therefore what they say is of the world, and the world listens to them. We are of God. Whoever knows

God listens to us, and he who is not of God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error." Can you think of a more arrogant thing that John could have said?—If people listen to what I say, they are of God; if they don't, they are of the world. What I write to you is the ultimate test of the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. That is the height of arrogance—unless it's true! Have you ever thought that whenever you read this book, you have to make a choice? You have to decide whether this book is the ultimate test of who is of God and who is of the world, or whether it was written by an arrogant egotist. John won't let us be fence-sitters about his writing. He forces the issue by claiming ultimate authority: