“I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 John 2:1). Focusing on this wonderfully reassuring verse, alongside others from 1 John 1:5-2:2, I recently presented three propositions about sin: (i) no one is without sin; (ii) we can put sin off; and (iii) Christ must save us from our sin. I argued that we must hold those propositions together if we’re to understand the gospel and avoid moralism, unnecessary guilt as well as an indifference towards personal holiness. Put another way, my propositions function to give clarity about both salvation and sanctification.

God Saves Us, and He Changes Us

Ultimately, the third proposition must have primacy—apart from Christ we cannot be saved. At conversion and throughout the Christian life it is him that we cling to. As that familiar hymn sweetly opens, “My hope is built on nothing less / than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.” From beginning to end, “he is the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 2:2; see also 1:7, 9). Thus the same hymn concludes, “When he shall come with trumpet sound, / O may I then in him be found: / dressed in his righteousness alone, / faultless to stand before the throne.” Regardless of our struggles and success over sin, the foundation of our confidence before God must not change. Only this can’t mean that we ourselves aren’t changed.

One of the contentions of my article was that if we make too little—or too much—of any of those three propositions we run into trouble. And a few readers pointed out something I’ve written on both recently and in the recesses of Rekindle: that is, low expectations among Protestants when it comes to personal holiness. This is typically dressed up as pietistic realism, humbly insisting on the first proposition: no one is without sin. Simultaneously, however, it ignores the second proposition and stated purpose of John’s epistle: Christians are able to resist sin. Sin isn’t inevitable. And while moral perfection remains impossible, we must make progress in our sanctification. For personal holiness is possible. Posse non peccare.

1 John Makes a Concession for Sin

If we go back to John’s purpose statement (1 John 2:1), you’ll notice that sin is a concession whereas his expectation is that Christians won’t sin. While I would never want to be understood as detracting from the latter half of that verse—”if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ”—there is a very real danger that we can exaggerate it to the detriment of personal sanctification. In my far from extensive survey of commentaries on 1 John, this seems to be the case. Furthermore, all the preaching I’ve heard on the epistle has majored in gospel reassurances at the expense of gospel-driven sanctification. Because the apostle deems progressive holiness a very real possibility we must be alert to defeatism concerning personal sin.

One commentator argues that 1 John 2:1 is about us “having a genuine knowledge of Christ, what he has done and what he is doing for us.” Indeed, that Christ advocates for us before the Father with his own atoning blood is a truth to be treasured. As that same commentator goes on to say, “Our belief about Christ is always the foundational test for reality in scriptural experience. If we are wrong here, nothing else will be right.” Amen. Only, again, none of this should undermine the apostle’s purpose: that believers might not sin. “By this we know that we have come to know him,” writes John, “if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:3). I take it that obedience here assumes the active resistance and mortification of sin.

As I concluded the previous post, “Continuing in sin because we’re too spiritually lethargic is very different to prayerfully struggling with sin and practising repentance. Putting off sin is possible, personal holiness should be an ambition of every believer.” As the apostle puts it, “Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 John 2:6).

“Draw Near to God” (James 4:8)

I’m not advocating for some kind of triumphalism or Christian perfectionism. I know myself too well—along with enough church history—to suggest that the believer’s struggle with sin won’t last for their lifetime. It will. As John Owen writes in his Mortification, “I am a poor, weak creature; unstable as water, I cannot excel. This corruption is too hard for me, and is at the very door of ruining my soul; and what to do I know not. My soul is become as parched ground, and an habitation of dragons. I have made promises and broken them; vows and engagements have been as a thing of nought. Many persuasions have I had that I had got the victory and should be delivered, but I am deceived; so that I plainly see, that without some eminent succour and assistance, I am lost.”

Yet Owen doesn’t stop there. Neither should we. He continues, “though this be my state and condition, let the hands that hang down be lifted up, and the feeble knees be strengthened. Behold, the Lord Christ, that hath all fulness of grace in his heart, all fullness of power in his hand, he is able to slay all these his enemies. There is sufficient provision in him for my relief and assistance. He can take my drooping, dying soul and make me more than a conqueror.”

Similarly, and a little more succinctly, Helmut Thielicke writes, “So long as we stand within our Lord’s field of power, no power can touch us. Nobody and nothing can break the bond of faith which the Lord has established with his own. He has promised to be with us in temptation, and even those who fall he pursues and raises up again.”