First John 1:7b says, “The blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from every sin.” When we live in the divine light, we are under its enlightenment, and it exposes, according to God’s divine nature and through God’s nature in us, all our sins, trespasses, failures, and defects, which contradict His pure light, perfect love, absolute holiness, and excelling righteousness. At such a time we sense in our enlightened conscience the need of the cleansing of the redeeming blood of the Lord Jesus, and it cleanses us in our conscience from all sins that our fellowship with God and with one another may be maintained. Our relationship with God is unbreakable, yet our fellowship with Him can be interrupted. The former is of life, whereas the latter is based on our living, though it also is of life. One is unconditional; the other is conditional. Our fellowship, which is conditional, needs to be maintained by the constant cleansing of the Lord’s blood.
Light takes away all our cover-ups; it penetrates every hiding place. It so exposes us that we cry out, “Woe is me! I am unclean!” At that moment the blood cleanses. Verse 7 clearly tells us that if we are in the light, the blood follows the light to cleanse us. There is no requirement on our part to apply the blood. To apply the blood means that we have the realization that we are sinful but have not yet had our sins exposed in the light. Whatever the light exposes, the blood cleanses. We should praise the Lord for His provision.
The blood of Jesus, God’s Son, cleanses us from every sin. The name Jesus denotes the Lord’s humanity, which is needed for the shedding of the redeeming blood, and the title His Son denotes the Lord’s divinity, which is needed for the eternal efficacy of the redeeming blood. Thus, the blood of Jesus His Son indicates that this blood is the proper blood of a genuine man shed for the redeeming of God’s fallen creatures, with the divine surety as its eternal efficacy, an efficacy that is all-prevailing in space and everlasting in time.
No other verse in the New Testament uses the expression Jesus His Son. Jesus was a true man, a genuine human being, and the blood of Jesus was the blood of a real man. Because we are human beings, we need to be redeemed by human blood. In the Old Testament the blood for atonement was of animals, and was a type of the blood of Christ. However, animal blood could not actually redeem us, because we are human beings, not animals. As human beings, we need the efficacious blood of Jesus, the blood of a genuine man.
The Lord’s divinity indicated by the words His Son is a guarantee, a surety, that the efficacy of the blood of Jesus will remain forever. The Lord’s humanity qualifies Him to have the blood to shed for our redemption, and His divinity insures the efficacy of the power of this redeeming blood. The efficacy of the cleansing blood of Jesus is insured forever by His divinity.
The tense of this verb cleanses in Greek is present and denotes continuous action, indicating that the blood of Jesus the Son of God cleanses us all the time, continuously and constantly. Cleansing here refers to the instant cleansing of the Lord’s blood in our conscience. Before God, the redeeming blood of the Lord has cleansed us once for all eternally (Heb. 9:12, 14), and the efficacy of that cleansing lasts forever before God, so that that cleansing need not be repeated. However, in our conscience we need the instant application of the constant cleansing of the Lord’s blood again and again whenever our conscience is enlightened by the divine light in our fellowship with God.
On the one hand, the Lord’s blood washes our sin and sins in the presence of God. According to the typology in the Old Testament, the blood of the sacrifice was brought into the tabernacle and sprinkled in the Holy of Holies in the presence of God. This signifies the once-for-all washing of our sin and sins in the presence of God. On the other hand, the Lord’s blood washes our sin and sins in our conscience. This instant cleansing is typified by the purification with the water of impurity mixed with the ashes of the heifer (Num. 19:2-10). The cleansing in 1 John 1:7 is not the eternal cleansing before God; rather, it is the continuous cleansing in our conscience. As we abide in the light, we are cleansed continually by the blood of Jesus.
The New Testament deals with the problem of sin by using both the word sin (singular) and the word sins (plural). Sin refers to the indwelling sin, which came through Adam into mankind from Satan (Rom. 5:12). It is dealt with in the second section of Romans, 5:12—8:13 (with the exception of 7:5, where sins is mentioned). Sins refers to the sinful deeds, the fruits of the indwelling sin, which are dealt with in the first section of Romans, 1:18—5:11. However, in 1 John 1:7 sin in the singular, used with the adjective every, does not denote the indwelling sin but every single sin we commit (v. 10) after we are regenerated; each such sin defiles our purged conscience and needs to be cleansed away by the blood of the Lord in our fellowship with God.
Our sin, the indwelling sin in our nature (Rom. 7:17), has been dealt with by Christ as our sin offering (Lev. 4; Isa. 53:10; Rom. 8:3; 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 9:26). Our sins, our trespasses, have been dealt with by Christ as our trespass offering (Lev. 5; Isa. 53:11; 1 Cor. 15:3; 1 Pet. 2:24; Heb. 9:28). However, after our regeneration we still need to take Christ as our sin offering for the sin in our nature as indicated in 1 John 1:8, and as our trespass offering for the sins in our conduct as indicated in verse 9.
In 1 John 1 there is a cycle in our spiritual life, a cycle formed of four crucial things—the eternal life, the fellowship of the eternal life, the divine light, and the blood of Jesus the Son of God. Eternal life issues in its fellowship, the fellowship of eternal life brings in the divine light, and the divine light increases the need for the blood of Jesus the Son of God that we may have more eternal life. The more we have of eternal life, the more of its fellowship it brings to us. The more fellowship of the divine life we enjoy, the more divine light we receive. The more divine light we receive, the more we participate in the cleansing of the blood of Jesus. Such a cycle brings us onward in the growth of the divine life until we reach the maturity of life.