Pursuit of wisdom for today from the Ancient of Days
1 John 2:1,2
A Wonderful Savior.
Unsurprisingly John’s comments in our passage balance, clarify, and extend what comes before regarding a healthy view of good and evil. On the one hand those who walk in evil are engaged in a life of deception. On the other, believers walking in fellowship with our gloriously holy God are being continuously cleansed from their present sins.
They enjoy such closeness to God because of the blood of the Lord Jesus. The depth of this privilege and the power of God’s gracious gift are worth contemplation. Gratitude and the faith to take God at His word will have a powerful affect for good upon our lives.
But be careful. This truth, properly understood, does not imply that you should allow sin to run rampant in your life simply because grace is strong enough to deal with it. John writes this instruction to produce a cessation of sinning rather than its prolonging.
Paul dealt with a similar train of thought in Romans 5 and 6. There grace is described as super-abounding over all our sin. To the rhetorical question as to whether that means we should make a habit of sinning, Paul’s reply was abrupt and emphatic: May such a thing never happen.
Paul also makes a similar case in Titus 2 where he instructs us that grace teaches us to deny ungodly urges and to pursue with eagerness a life of good deeds. John writes in accord with these sentiments.
Walking in eternal life presently fellowshipping with our holy God leads us away from a life of sinning while dealing continuously with the times we do. So John’s elaboration is that we should not allow ourselves to sin but that when we do our life is not lost.
He wrote earlier that the blood of the Son of God cleanses us. Here he personalizes the case: we have the assistance of the Lord Jesus to stand and plead our case with the Father.
It is in this way that His blood is entered on the docket. He doesn’t plead our worthiness. He pleads His redemptive purchase. In fact, we learn here that Jesus Himself is the propitiation on our behalf in view of our sins — a word we use infrequently.
Propitiation refers to a change in the mind of God whereby our personal offense of a holy God caused by our sin is satisfied and God’s righteous wrath is quenched. This happens not because the wrath is ignored and forgotten.
No, it is poured out upon the Savior instead. He made Him who knew no sin to become sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)
What implications should we draw from these considerations?
We must harbor no doubts about our sin debt: it is forgiven and we are entirely clean through our union with the Lord Jesus in His death. He produces propitiation for us. (Romans 6:3-7)
We must harbor no despair when faced with our own sinful failures day by day. The passage underscores our constant possession of a Comforter, Encourager, Advocate who applies to us the balm of forgiveness in each case without fail.
We must harbor no delinquency in choosing right from wrong. Grace has entered our lives to rescue us from the pain, self-destruction, and guilt of sinning.
What a wonderful Savior is Jesus our Lord!
Previous Scripture Notes
You can find notes that were published earlier on this page.
Pursuit of wisdom for today from the Ancient of Days
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