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. (1 John 1:8–9)
Wesleyan theology is pessimistic about the sinful nature of mankind but optimistic about divine grace and the extent of deliverance from sin. These two verses express that tension.
We have inherited this corruption from Adam. The original sin that Adam committed resulted in the total depravity of humanity. And, in the words of the Methodist Articles of Religion, we are very far gone from the original righteousness in which we were created.
According to John Wesley, those who deny this original sin are heathens.((Wesley, “Original Sin,” Sermon #44, 3:1–2.)) In contrast, liberalism denies this reality, instead affirming the basic goodness of mankind. But such denial is actually deception. One such theologian, who denied total depravity, conceded, “The disorder runs pretty deep.”((MacQuarrie, Principles of Christian Theology, 61.)) It runs so deep, in fact, that Jeremiah exclaimed, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (17:9).
This deception is exposed in verse 6. Willful sin does break fellowship with God. We cannot walk in darkness and claim to be in fellowship with God. Verse 8 also exposes the deception that we are not naturally in a sinful state. And verse 10 exposes the deception that claims actions that Scripture forbids are not sin. The first view amounts to a wrong view of sin. The second view is a wrong view of ourselves. The third view amounts to a redefinition of sin from something negative to something positive.
Thus, verse 8 refers to a sinful principle and verse 10 refers to the outworking of that sinful nature. B. F. Westcott wrote that this distinction between the principle of sin and the manifestation of individual sins is of primary importance.((Westcott, Epistles, 38.)) The error exposed in verse 8 is sinless perfection, while the error of verse 10 is sinful perfection.
Wesley takes 1 John 3:9 as the governing principle, “A Christian is so far perfect as not to commit sin.”((Wesley, “Christian Perfection,” Sermon #40, 2.20.)) Thus, he interprets the false views in 1:8–10 as referring to past sin, not present sin. When past sins are confessed, the confessor is cleansed from all unrighteousness and lives in harmony with this governing principle. Thomas Coke insisted that verse 8 referred “solely to the unawakened or unconverted, and having no allusion to the children of God.”((Coke, Commentary, 6:853.)) George Findlay summarized it like this, “The Apostle’s little children cannot say ‘that they have not sinned,’ nor ‘that they have no sin,’ but they understand that now, since they are forgiven and cleansed by the blood of God’s Son, they must not and need not sin.”((Findlay, Studies in John’s Epistles, 128–129.))
We can be forgiven and cleansed from all sin. While we can agree with Calvinism in the interpretation of verse 8, we must break with them at verse 9. They speak often about sovereign grace, but here they deny the optimism of grace.((see Cliff Sanders, The Optimism of Grace (2016) for a good introduction to Wesleyan theology.)) The point of disagreement, however, is not over forgiveness. Both they and we affirm justification by faith. If we acknowledge our sin, God forgives. He is able to release us from the penalty of our sins because of the atoning work of Jesus Christ. However, without diminishing the glory of justification, Steve DeNeff wrote More Than Forgiveness (2002) to expand our concept of full salvation. Sanctification goes beyond initial and progressive. It can be entire.
God is also faithful to cleanse us from all unrighteousness—the sinful principle. The Greek verb katharízo means to make pure or clean, removing all mixture or intermingling of filth. This same verb is used in verse 7 in the present tense, but here in verse 9 it is the aorist tense. Here John describes sanctification as both crisis and process. William Burt Pope taught that verse 7 is “preaching a perpetual removal of all sin as pollution in the sight and in the very light of God.” However, he explained that verse 9 enlarges the meaning beyond verse 7. “It is a cleansing from the very principle in us that gives birth to sin, our deviation from holy right or our ‘unrighteousness.’”((Pope, A Popular Commentary on the New Testament, 4:297.)) Wesley concluded that he could speak of sanctification as both gradual and instantaneous “without any manner of contradiction.”((Wesley, BE Works, 13:106.))
John Calvin, however, held that as long as we sojourn in the world, we are never cleansed from all unrighteousness. He explained, “For as long as we are surrounded with flesh, we ought to be in a continual state of progress; but what he has once begun, he goes on daily to do, until he at length completes it.” However, he conflates sanctification with justification, making sanctification little more than imputed righteousness.((Calvin, Commentary, 22:168–169.)) Typically, any “completion” of sanctification occurs at the “article of death” for Calvinism.
Wesley taught that there is a cleansing from both original and actual sin, “taking away all guilt and all the power.”((Wesley, Notes, 631.)) Thus, we do not understand forgiveness and cleansing to be merely two ways of saying the same thing. Daniel Whedon argued, “The distinction between the forgive and the cleanse should be carefully retained.”((Whedon, Commentary, 5:257.)) Howard Marshall explained that most commentators regard the two terms, forgive and cleanse, as synonymous. But he said it is possible that purification signifies the removal not only of the guilt of sin but also of the power of sin.((Marshall, New International Commentary on the New Testament, 114.)) Henry Alford held that cleansing is distinguished from forgiveness as sanctification is distinct from justification and that the sanctification referenced here is to sanctify wholly and entirely.((Alford, Greek Testament, 4.2:428, 430.))
With Calvinism we can agree that sin exists, that sin is serious because it is rebellion against Almighty God, and that we all have sinned. We agree that the Christian may make progress in living holy. But we do not agree that we must continue to sin because of the “sovereignty” of the flesh and sin. Adam Clarke wrote,
Reader, it is the birthright of every child of God to be cleansed from all sin, to keep himself unspotted from the world, and so to live as never more to offend his Maker. All things are possible to him that believeth; because all things are possible to the infinitely meritorious blood and energetic Spirit of the Lord Jesus.((Clarke, Commentary, 6:905.))
John McClintock declared, “If there be any text in the whole Bible that declares the doctrine of Christian purity this does it.”((Crooks, Life of John McClintock, 161. McClintock, along with his colleague at Drew, James Strong, who compiled the famous concordance, together edited the massive, twelve-volume Cyclopedia of Biblical Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature.))
Sermon Suggestions
- Are you conscious that you have been forgiven for all past sins?
- Are you making progress in living the Christian life?
- Does the blood of Jesus Christ cleanse you from all sin?