The Real Meaning of 1 John 1:9
When I first met my wife, the thing that drew me to her more than anything was her love for Jesus. It was obvious that she was so grateful for her salvation and being in a relationship with Him was so meaningful and important to her. And we spent time talking about Jesus, praying together, going to church together…and it was great.
But as I spent more and more time with her, I started to notice that she doubted her salvation a lot. She really worried and feared that she might not go to heaven when she died.
The more we began to talk about it and the more she began to trust me, she opened up and shared that it had to do with a few different things, but one of the main ones was what she was taught in church about 1 John 1:9 which says this…
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)
What she was taught as a teenager was that this was about ongoing confession of sin as a Christian.
That means, each time you confess your sins to God, He will forgive you.
Well, that produced a tremendous amount of fear in her life because what if you don’t confess one?
I mean, if we are forgiven after we confess our sin to God but forget to confess some of our sins then we are not truly forgiven for those which means that we won’t go to heaven when we die!
And so that was the time that she began keeping a record of all of her sins. Not only that, but as soon as she did something wrong or even had a bad thought in her head, she had to immediately confess because she didn’t want to forget it.
She didn’t want to have some accident and die with unconfessed sin in her life and go to hell.
She lived in bondage…shackles…chains…so much fear and anxiety and worry.
Now, at some point she talked to some people about that and they tried to comfort her by telling her…
“No, your sins are forgiven, but they are forgiven positionally. It’s just that when you sin, you are out of fellowship with Jesus. There’s kind of this separation between you and him because of this sin in your life. But when you confess, then he applies that forgiveness to you experientially and then you are back in good fellowship with Him.”
Well, that didn’t help at all! I mean, who wants to be out of fellowship with Jesus?
That just made her continue to keep an account of all of her sins and to try to remember to confess them immediately and completely so that she would always be in good fellowship with Him.
And really with this kind of teaching, it means that it’s basically impossible to ever be in good fellowship with Jesus or maybe to go to heaven when you die.
Here’s why: Even if you confess 99.9% of your sins, but you just forget one of them, then it is impossible to ever be in good fellowship with Jesus because that one sin will always be unconfessed. That means that you won’t go to heaven either because that one sin you forgot to confess will be unforgiven.
But is this really what this verse means? Did God really intend for us to live our lives in such bondage and with such worry and fear?
No, that’s not what that verse means!
Forgiveness in the New Testament
Before, we look at the context of 1 John 1:9, let’s consider what the rest of the New Testament says about forgiveness after the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ.
In Acts 13, the apostle Paul is preaching the gospel to a group of people, and here is what he says in verse 38-39:
Therefore, my friends, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is set free from every sin. (Acts 13:38-39)
Here’s what the apostle Paul says to the believers in Ephesus and Colossae:
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. (Eph. 1:7-8)
13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins (Colossians 2:13)
And this is what the author of Hebrews says about Jesus not covering sin but doing away with it:
…He has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. (Hebrews 9:26)
Notice that there is no mention of ongoing confession at all in any of these verses! If confession is necessary to forgive sins, then why don’t these verses say that?
The message of the New Covenant is that Jesus made a one-time sacrifice for all sins, and that when you put your faith and trust in Him for salvation, you are completely forgiven of all your past, present, and future sins in that moment.
Not only that, but you are forever joined in a spiritual union with Jesus (Gal. 2:20; 1 Cor. 6:17). There’s never a moment that you are not in fellowship with Jesus.
And so, the question is:
If we are completely forgiven in Christ and are always in fellowship with Jesus, then why would we need to confess our sins to be forgiven or to restore our fellowship?
And the answer is, you don’t. Ongoing confession of sin is not necessary to have your sins forgiven, and ongoing confession of sin is not necessary to restore your relationship with Jesus.
So, now the big question is: why does 1 John 1:9 say that we need to confess our sins?
Well, here’s what you need to know about why John was writing this letter…
Gnosticism
Gnostics were people who believed and taught that the spirit is good, but matter is evil. So, they would say things like this:
Man is not really sinful in his spirit. He’s actually good. The problem is that matter is evil, and our physical bodies are matter. Therefore, man’s problem is not that he’s sinful but that he’s got this sinful body. And since that body is going to go away one day, then you might as well just indulge it. Do whatever you want because it doesn’t really matter. You are a spirit, not body.
The problem with that of course, is that first, Scripture tells us that we are spirit, soul, and body. And second, Scripture declares that we are not inherently good but that we are all sinners, that we have a sin nature (before we come to Christ).
Now, the other thing Gnostics taught is that Jesus wasn’t really human. They taught that Jesus is God, but because matter is evil and the body is matter, then there’s no way that Jesus was human.
Therefore, they would teach either that Jesus was just a phantom (a spirit), or that Christ came upon the human man Jesus and enabled him to do what he did but when it came time for the crucifixion, he left Jesus because after all, God can’t die.
The problem with this is that if God did not become one of us (human), he could not substitute Himself for us to save us from our sins through the cross!
So, Gnosticism was a big deal, and this is one of the big reasons that John was writing this letter, and as we go back and look at 1 John 1:9 in context, we see this all over what John is saying here.
1 John 1:9 Meaning
To understand what John wrote in verse 9 of chapter 1 in context, we need to back up and look at the verses prior to it and notice that he is addressing the Gnostics discussed above.
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. (1 John 1:1)
Look closely at the language John is using here, that which we have seen with our eyes… which our hands have touched.
He’s acknowledging right off the bat that Jesus was human! He’s denying what the Gnostics were saying about Jesus.
And he continues to emphasize this as he goes on:
The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. (1 John 1:2)
John is saying that Jesus is God (He was with the Father) but he appeared to us in the flesh. He was fully God and fully human.
We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete. (1 John 1:3-4)
There is a “so that” clause that John uses here. He is saying, “We are declaring this to you so that you may have fellowship with us,” and then John describes their fellowship as being with the Father and His Son, Jesus.
HERE’S MY POINT: John is saying to the Gnostics, “You don’t have fellowship with God or us.” What do we call people who don’t have fellowship with God and others in the church? Unbelievers. Unregenerate. Those who are not born again into the family of God.
John wants to make sure that those who say they are part of the church and are teaching Gnosticism know that they in fact are not. They are not saved. They are not Christians.
He is saying; however, that if they’ll come to understand their sinfulness and that Jesus came as a human to die for their sins and receive Him as their Savior then they will be in fellowship, just as John and the others are!
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. (1 John 1:5-6)
Again, think about what the Gnostics claimed. The problem isn’t that we are sinners but that our bodies are sinful, and since they’ll go away one day, we might as well just do whatever we want. It doesn’t really matter.
So, John is saying, it does matter! You guys are actually walking in the darkness (you are not in the sphere of Jesus…in a spiritual union with Him). You are deceived and not living in truth. You live in lies.
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (1 John 1:7)
Believers are those who are in the light, in fellowship with one another because we are in fellowship with Jesus, the one who is light (and He even purifies us from all sin).
However, John is also showing the Gnostics that being in fellowship with Him results in Him working through our bodies to shine His light through us in this dark world.
Remember, the Gnostics would say that our bodies are evil and that it doesn’t matter what we do. But John is showing them that our bodies do matter and that Jesus is actively involved in our bodies to use them to shine His light in this world!
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. (1 John 1:8)
John is still addressing this Gnostic heresy head on. They claimed to not be a sinner, and John says you can’t claim to not be a sinner and be a Christian because there would have been no need for Jesus in the first place!
We’ve all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Ro. 3:23), and the wages of sin is death (6:23)
But here’s the good news…1 John 1:9:
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)
In other words, what we see when you look at this verse in context is that this is an evangelistic verse! It’s about salvation!
If the Gnostics will stop claiming to be without sin and confess that they are sinners and in need of a Savior, then Jesus is faithful and will forgive them of all of their sins (past, present, and future)!
As a matter of fact, this is exactly what John tells the believers in the next chapter!
I am writing to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name. (1 John 2:12)
Notice it’s past tense! Not if you confess you will be forgiven, but you have been forgiven!
The bottom line is that this verse is not about ongoing confession to be forgiven or restore fellowship but about a one-time confession of sin and a need for a Savior in order to be saved!
Conclusion
If you are a believer in Christ for salvation, all of your sins have been forgiven (past, present, and future). There is no need for ongoing confession in order to be forgiven. You are in a forever spiritual union with Jesus (already spiritually seated in heaven – Eph. 2:6, Col. 3:1, Phil. 3:20). That would not be possible if you were not already completely forgiven because Jesus can’t be in the presence of sin.
Not only do you not need to confess sin to be forgiven, but you don’t have to confess sin to restore fellowship. You are always completely forgiven and in fellowship with Jesus.
You are not forgiven in just some kind of positional sense.
No, you are really forgiven and you and Him are okay.
Now, does that mean you don’t acknowledge your sin before God?
Of course not!
Acknowledge it. Declare that you what you did in that moment was sin and not what God desired for you.
Declare that you were trying to find life in something other than Jesus or that you were trying to get a need met that was already met in Jesus.
Then thank Him for forgiveness and repent. To repent means to turn your focus back on Jesus and all that you have in Him instead of focusing on the sin and what you think it will bring you.
God does not want you living in bondage and keeping track of every sin in order to get forgiven or to constantly make sure that you are in good fellowship with Him. That’s why Scripture is constantly telling us to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, not on sin management (Heb. 12:2, Col. 3:2, Ro. 6:11, etc.)!
God wants you to know and to live in the freedom of complete forgiveness and a loving, forever relationship with Him, and He died once for all sins so that you could experience just that.
Rest in His forgiveness. Thank Him for it, and enjoy the intimate, forever fellowship that you have with Him now and forever!