If you think about it, Christians are caught between a rock and a hard place. We cannot reach sinless perfection in this life, yet we are commanded not to sin. Our goal should be to live day by day without committing sin in thought, word, or deed. A tall order to be sure! Certainly Christians ought to be people who sin less after they are saved. The Christian life is somewhat like the stock market. An upward trajectory with highs and lows. The trajectory of our lives should be toward holiness and away from sin. Sin is a serious thing. However, John is a realist about it. He knows that Christians still sin. Sin is inevitable, not excusable, and yet forgivable, because if we sin, we have a holy lawyer before the Father. "But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." We have been assigned the greatest defense attorney in the universe! If we sin, we also have a perfect Lamb before the Father. "He himself and he alone is the propitiation, the atoning sacrifice, for our sins." No one in the universe except Jesus Christ can be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Substitution is the word we have come to use: our sin is atoned for by the sacrifice of Another. Substitution brings with it a guarantee: that our forgiven sins can never be reopened. They are atoned for completely!
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David Bodanza is the pastor of Mission of Grace Church in Massachusetts. He is also a practicing lawyer. He holds an M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a J.D. from New England School of Law. He lives in Massachusetts with his wife, four children and four...
