1 John 1:10

1 John 1:10. In a third use of the universal. If we say, the great anti-christian lie is once more repeated, but as usual in a strengthened form,

that we have not sinned that we are not in fact sinners, as the result of a life of which sin has been and is the characteristic. We make him a liar, and his word is not in us: the rebuke is also repeated but deepened. We contradict the God of holiness; and His revelation, His word of truth, has absolutely no place in us. This third description of the unchristian nature has no counterpart: that follows immediately, but in another form. In all these sentences, let it be observed once more, the apostle has been laying down great principles. The ‘we say' has no specific reference to his readers. But he would not have used the phrase ‘if we say,' had he not included a universal application. While he does not declare that sin must remain in those who walk in the light, and that they must have sin in them, he warns them against the ‘saying' that they have it not. He does not declare that it is true of all that they have sinned in their renewed life down to the present moment; but he forbids their ‘saying' that they have not sinned. Supposing his later testimony concerning the destruction of sin as a principle, and the absence of sin from the regenerate, to be taken in its highest and deepest, that is, in its most natural sense, still all the sanctified avow themselves sinners who need the atonement until probation ends; they never separate between their new selves and their old in their humble confession; they still identify themselves with their sin, though this may be gone; and ‘say' with the sanctified Apostle Paul (1 Timothy 1:15), ‘sinners, of whom I am chief,' ‘looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life' (Judges 1:21).