IX - THE DISCOVERY AND ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF SIN

Summary

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”

—1 John i. 8–10.

Was there any need, we are tempted to think, for St. John to use this strong language? Can any one be found proud or foolish enough to assert what St. John denies, to say calmly he has no sin? Yes, St. John's words strike not at one here and another there among us, but at all. It is because of an almost universal doubt as to the reality of sin that his words are so fitted to be spoken to every Christian congregation at the beginning of their worship. It is not too much to speak thus of “our” doubt, though not many will at once recognize this state as their own. Described thus broadly, the notion is shocking to ordinary Christians. How can it be supposed, they ask, that we believe there is no such thing as sin, when we hold the Bible in our hands, and come to church, and join without repugnance in the prayers which everywhere imply its existence? Surely, they would say, such doctrines of unbelief, when not arising from reckless immorality, are confined to a few speculative dreamers who bewilder themselves with their own subtleties till they are lost out of the circle of Christian truth.