A Sentence about the Cross

The Bible is a book made up of 66 books. Technically some of those books are letters or short accounts of history or prophesy. Of course others are longer books of history and song. To make it easier to find specific sections of the Bible, much later, each book was broken down into chapters and then verses. Most of the verses are simply numbered sentences.

A sentence can contain a wealth of truth. How much more a sentence that has been inspired by God himself? Let’s consider one sentence from the Bible about the cross of Jesus Christ. Even though this sentence doesn’t use the word cross or give the name of Jesus, I think you will agree it is the foundation for the sentence.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

The important issues of confession, sin, and forgiveness stand out in these words. It even appears to be a promise. Because of the significance of the topic and the potential to have found the solution for humanity’s greatest problem, it is critical that we understand this sentence from the Scripture.

The sentences of the Bible are not little islands, even though they have their own chapter and number. Remember, the Bible originally had no chapters and verses. Our sentence comes straight out of a letter that John the Apostle (one of Jesus’ closest friends and representatives) wrote.

Because our sentence is part of a larger letter, it is important to read through its section of the letter and even the entire letter to best understand the significance of the sentence. When you have a few minutes, find a Bible and do just that—don’t take my word for what I am saying, check it out on your own. But, for the sake of time, let me make a few observations about other sentences in John’s letter.

Towards the end of the letter John reveals his purpose. “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.” John’s big purpose for his letter is to help people who have said that they believe in Jesus to know for sure that they are Christians.

That seems like an especially relevant issue in the South where so many folks have some church in their background. Almost everyone I talk to assumes that they are a Christian. This becomes apparent at funerals. Is it really enough be a Christian just to say you once believed in Jesus? Are there any tests in Bible to sort out the real Christians from the kind-of Christians? Yes, that is the entire point of John’s letter.

As we return to the section of the letter surrounding our sentence, we notice that they also speak to the subject of sin. The words just before our sentence are: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” The words that follow are: “If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”

Both of these surrounding sentences clearly fit with John’s big picture purpose of testing to see whether a person who claims to be a Christian really is a Christian. Some people don’t take sin seriously. They don’t think that they have ever sinned or that they continue to sin.

In one sense you might think who in the world doesn’t think that they have sinned? But how many people minimize their sins against God? How many people change the name of their sins to nicer sounding things like “white lies,” “the wrong side of the bed,” “just giving them back what they deserve,” or “a little misspeaking”?

How many people think that their good works will outweigh their bad works? How many people think in the end God will just overlook their sins, saying, “I just love everyone, come on in to heaven anyway!”? These attitudes about sin are not the attitudes of true Christians.

Our sentence says that true Christians are confessors. They recognize their sins for what they are and they openly confess them as such to God himself.

The wonderful truth of our Bible sentence is that God really does promise to forgive such people. The parallel line is a powerful video clip of what is happening to the confessor’s soul—it is being cleansed from all unrighteousness. All of the moral filth of a sin in the face of eternal holy God dissolves in the forgiveness of that same God.

A true Christian is not just one that says they are a Christian. One of the tests in John’s letter says that a true Christian takes his or her sin seriously. As the Reformer Martin Luther once noted, the Christian life begins with repentance and it is a life of repentance.

How can a just and holy God make such a promise to forgive sinful men and women? The only way God can be both just and the justifier of sinners is that he punished Jesus in the place of such sinners.

God treated Jesus on the cross AS IF he had committed every sin of every person who would ever believe in Jesus. Jesus took our hell on his cross. God did that so that he could treat believers AS IF we were as righteous as Jesus!

We don’t become righteous by our many confessions. God treats true Christians, who are always marked by confessing their sins, as if we are righteous because of Jesus. God raised Jesus from the dead to give his public affirmation of all that Jesus said and did.

Are you a real Christian or do you just say that you are with no proof? Today, take a good look inside. What are you living for? What do you love the most? Is Jesus your highest priority? Do you seek him earnestly in the Bible and do all that he commands you to do? Do you confess your sins when you fail? Ask him to make it clear to you.

Read John’s first letter for yourself (it only takes about 15 minutes). It is the book in the Bible called 1 John (as opposed the Gospel of John, often just called John in the Table of Contents). What other tests of true Christianity can you find in John’s short letter? Do you pass them?