Sin: Grace + Truth

In John's epistle in the book of 1 John, John is concerned with the importance of the Christian walk. John talks openly on the concept of sin and instructs the Christians on how to handle the issue of sin once it comes up(1 John 2:1). I thought this was pretty interesting since sin is inevitable in the life of the Christian. John then makes it clear that Jesus has provided a rescue for the sinner and he accomplishes this through His sacrifice. His sacrifice enabled Him to be the Advocate to the Father and through this he is the propitation for our sin. This word propitiation is cool. Basically He took care of this issue for us. So what does that mean?

1. We all sin. We all will always sin. We cannot change that this side of heaven.

2. When we sin Jesus is our Advocate. He fights for us and defends us.

Is that all? Basically we have nothing to worry about, we can just chill out because Jesus is our Advocate and died on the cross?

John takes it farther than that. He talks about obedience and love as key elements to the Christian life.


1 John 2:3

"Now by this we know that we know Him if we keep His commandments."

1 John 2:9

"But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes."

John talks about these very important issues in the lives of all believers. All believers want to know about sin. They don't like sin and if they are really honest, they hate it. If they are truly sold out or trying to follow God with all their hearts, they will have to face this issue. One cannot simply believe Jesus loves me and that's it. That is true but if our lives never reflect Christ than one has to wonder, is Christ really there? Is He real to the Christian? Are they real?

The awesome part of God is He knew in advance our sinful state because He created us. He knew what would happen in the Garden of Eden. He knew He would need to send Jesus to Earth because He is God and He is omniscient(all knowing). So, He didn't just leave us out there without a paddle. He loves us enough to not only provide an Advocate Jesus who pleads our case to God but He is love. He gives us the grace to follow Him. We just simply need to cry out. We need to take up our cross every day and surrender our lives and our wills to Him. It's simple. We do the surrendering, He has the grace. We have the faith, He does the work.