SEV Biblia, Chapter 1:9
Si confesamos nuestros pecados, l es fiel y justo para que nos perdone nuestros pecados, y nos limpie de toda maldad.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - 1 John 1:9
Verse 9. If we confess our sins] If, from a deep sense of our guilt, impurity, and helplessness, we humble ourselves before God, acknowledging our iniquity, his holiness, and our own utter helplessness, and implore mercy for his sake who has died for us; he is faithful, because to such he has promised mercy, Psa. xxxii. 5; Prov. xxviii. 13; and just, for Christ has died for us, and thus made an atonement to the Divine justice; so that God can now be just, and yet the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus. And to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.] Not only to forgive the sin, but to purify the heart.
OBSERVE here, 1. Sin exists in the soul after two modes or forms: (1.) In guilt, which requires forgiveness or pardon. (2.) In pollution, which requires cleansing.
2. Guilt, to be forgiven, must be confessed; and pollution, to be cleansed, must be also confessed. In order to find mercy, a man must know and feel himself to be a sinner, that he may fervently apply to God for pardon; in order to get a clean heart, a man must know and feel its depravity, acknowledge and deplore it before God, in order to be fully sanctified.
3. Few are pardoned, because they do not feel and confess their sins; and few are sanctified or cleansed from all sin, because they do not feel and confess their own sore, and the plague of their hearts.
4. As the blood of Jesus Christ, the merit of his passion and death, applied by faith, purges the conscience from all dead works, so the same cleanses the heart from all unrighteousness.
5. As all unrighteousness is sin, so he that is cleansed from all unrighteousness is cleansed from all sin. To attempt to evade this, and plead for the continuance of sin in the heart through life, is ungrateful, wicked, and even blasphemous; for as he who says he has not sinned, ver. 10, makes God a liar, who has declared the contrary through every part of his revelation; so he that says the blood of Christ either cannot or will not cleanse us from all sin in this life, gives also the lie to his Maker, who has declared the contrary, and thus shows that the word - the doctrine of God is not in him.
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. See the notes on the parallel passages in the margin; and particularly in St. John's gospel, John 1.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 9. If we confess our sins , &c.] Not to one other; for though it is our duty to confess our faults to our fellow creatures and fellow Christians which are committed against them, yet are under no obligation to confess such as are more immediately against God, and which lie between him and ourselves; or at least it is sufficient to confess and acknowledge in general what sinful creatures we are, without entering into particulars; for confession of sin is to be made to God, against whom it is committed, and who only can pardon: and a man that truly confesses his sin is one that the Spirit of God has convinced of it, and has shown him its exceeding sinfulness, and filled him with a godly sorrow for it, and given him repentance unto salvation, that needeth not to be repented of; and who, under such a sight and sense of sin, and concern for it, comes and acknowledges it before the Lord, humbly imploring, for Christ's sake, his pardoning grace and mercy; and such obtain it: he is faithful and just to forgive us [our] sins : forgiveness of sin here intends not the act of forgiveness, as in God, proceeding upon the bloodshed and sacrifice of Christ, which is done at once, and includes all sin, past, present, and to come; but an application of pardoning grace to a poor sensible sinner, humbled under a sense of sin, and confessing it before the Lord; and confession of sin is not the cause or condition of pardon, nor of the manifestation of it, but is descriptive of the person, and points him out, to whom God will and does make known his forgiving love; for to whomsoever he grants repentance, he gives the remission of sin; in doing of which he is faithful to his word of promise; such as in ( Proverbs 28:13 Isaiah 55:7); and just; in being true, as the Arabic version adds, to his word; and showing a proper regard to the blood and sacrifice of his Son; for his blood being shed, and hereby satisfaction made to the law and justice of God, it is a righteous thing in him to justify from sin, and forgive the sinner for whom Christ has shed his blood, and not impute it to him, or punish him for it; though the word here used may answer to the Hebrew word qydx , which sometimes carries in it the notion and idea of mercy and beneficence; hence mercy to the poor is sometimes expressed by righteousness; and the righteous acts of God intend his mercies and Daniel 4:27 1 Samuel 12:7); and so forgiveness of sin springs from the tender mercies of our God, and is both Christ, and of pure grace and mercy to the pardoned sinner: the following clause, unrighteousness , is but the same thing unrighteousness is sin, and to cleanse from sin is to remove the guilt of it, by an application of the blood of Christ who is light, and with whom the saints have fellowship; or his Son Jesus Christ, who is the nearest antecedent, and who, being truly God, has a Ver. 10. , &c.] Have never sinned, in time past as well as now; deny original sin, and that men are born in sin, but concupiscence is not sin; and so not regarding internal lusts and desires as sinful, only what is external, fancy they have so lived as to have been we make him a liar : that is, God, who in his word declares that the wicked speaking lies; that his own people are transgressors from the womb; that all have sinned and come short of his glory; and that there is none that does and become filthy by it, and so obnoxious to the wrath of God: and his word is not in us word of God which declares these things; no regard is had unto it; it is not with us, as the Ethiopic versions render it; it is not used and attended to as the rule and standard of truth, but is east away and despised; for, was this the case, they would have other notions of themselves than that of sinless creatures. The apostle has regard either to the Gnostics, a set even in the midst of all their impurities, and notwithstanding their vicious lives; or to entertained such sort of notions as these of being perfect and without sin f8
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 5-10 - A message from the Lord Jesus, the Word of life, the eternal Word, we should all gladly receive. The great God should be represented to thi dark world, as pure and perfect light. As this is the nature of God his doctrines and precepts must be such. And as his perfect happines cannot be separated from his perfect holiness, so our happiness will be in proportion to our being made holy. To walk in darkness, is to liv and act against religion. God holds no heavenly fellowship of intercourse with unholy souls. There is no truth in their profession their practice shows its folly and falsehood. The eternal Life, the eternal Son, put on flesh and blood, and died to wash us from our sin in his own blood, and procures for us the sacred influences by whic sin is to be subdued more and more, till it is quite done away. Whil the necessity of a holy walk is insisted upon, as the effect an evidence of the knowledge of God in Christ Jesus, the opposite error of self-righteous pride is guarded against with equal care. All who wal near to God, in holiness and righteousness, are sensible that their best days and duties are mixed with sin. God has given testimony to the sinfulness of the world, by providing a sufficient, effectual Sacrific for sin, needed in all ages; and the sinfulness of believers themselve is shown, by requiring them continually to confess their sins, and to apply by faith to the blood of that Sacrifice. Let us plead guilt before God, be humble, and willing to know the worst of our case. Le us honestly confess all our sins in their full extent, relying wholl on his mercy and truth through the righteousness of Christ, for a fre and full forgiveness, and our deliverance from the power and practic of sin __________________________________________________________________
Greek Textus Receptus
εαν 1437 COND ειπωμεν 2036 5632 V-2AAS-1P οτι 3754 CONJ ουχ 3756 PRT-N ημαρτηκαμεν 264 5758 V-RAI-1P ψευστην 5583 N-ASM ποιουμεν 4160 5719 V-PAI-1P αυτον 846 P-ASM και 2532 CONJ ο 3588 T-NSM λογος 3056 N-NSM αυτου 846 P-GSM ουκ 3756 PRT-N εστιν 2076 5748 V-PXI-3S εν 1722 PREP ημιν 2254 P-1DP
