“If
we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we
make Him a liar and His word is not in us.” 1 John 1:8-10 NKJV
We
have to be aware of the presence of sin in our lives, but we should not
convince ourselves that every little thing is sinful and that this God simply
cannot be pleased. But there is another, often overlooked part of this
passage that may require more attention. “If we confess our sins,
He is faithful and just to forgive …” What is “just” about
committing sin and being given a pass? If there is to be real justice,
would it not be “just” that a wrong would have to be made right? That
Jesus paid the price for sin is not in question. What is highly
questionable is how we have chosen to interpret that doctrine to serve our own
purposes.
Jesus’
death on the cross cannot be said to have removed our need to understand
justice and our part in it because sin must be understood not as an insult to
The Lord alone; sin very nearly always involves harm to someone else.
Someone we harmed physically as well as emotionally – deliberately striking or
gossiping. Someone we harmed inadvertently by our neglect and inward
focus on “me only”; self-indulgence and gluttony when we know there are
hungry children. Justice in the objective sense, then, requires that if
someone is harmed or hurting through no fault of their own, they become
entitled. They are owed something especially if they were harmed because
of a) our evil intentions, or b) our deliberate neglect (that is, never giving
a mind to someone else, thinking only of self).
None
of this is to say The Lord cannot or will not forgive our neglect or our
deliberate designs on harm in our irrational anger when we act before we
think. We should understand, however, that before it can be said to be
“just”, the wrong has to be corrected – by us. When St. John the Baptizer
was speaking of “bearing fruit worthy of repentance”, making right our wrongs
done to others was precisely what he was referring to. That is, prove to
The Lord and to our neighbors that we really are sorry enough to make up
for what we did. Too often we think of “repentance” as strictly
apologizing to The Lord, but apologizing is only a small component of the whole
process of “turning about”, choosing a whole new direction, a whole new way of
living. Part of the process of repentance is not only the apology we must
make to The Lord as in a prayer of confession; we must also be prepared to
correct what we have done wrong and, if necessary, pay a civil price as in
paying a fine or serving time in jail.
Sin
has consequences – not only spiritually but socially. When we use Jesus’
death on the Cross as our excuse for refusing to make right our wrongs,
we “make Him a liar, and His word is not in us”. It is a
huge mistake to become convinced that sin magically bounces off us or that the
Cross has provided some magic “force field” that prevents sin from penetrating
our hearts. We still have an active spiritual and social role, as in “you
must love your neighbor as yourself”. See? Our responsibility to
one another has not in any way been removed or altered by the Cross, and no one
is so “personally” saved that they need not concern themselves with the
well-being of one’s neighbor.
So
if we “confess our sins” with earnest sorrow, The Lord is “faithful” to forgive.
Let us not, however, neglect His demand for justice. Let us look to The
Lord so The Lord may show us what is required of us so true justice may be
served.
Blessings,
Michael
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