According to the revelation in the New Testament, in the progressing stage, the stage of transformation, of God’s full salvation, the first item is to experience and enjoy the processed Triune God in His triune dispensing.
At the same time, we continuously experience God’s redemption in forgiveness, cleansing, sanctification, justification, and reconciliation. This is not an occasional or even a frequently occurring application of the redemption of God but rather a constant and uninterrupted application. As we contact God moment by moment, His redemption is applied continuously.
First John 1:1-9 indicates that the experience and enjoyment of the Triune God and the continuous application of God’s redemption are related to a cycle in our spiritual life. This cycle is 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 fellowship, the fellowship of the 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 eternal life we have, the more 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. This cycle brings us onward in the growth of the divine life until we reach the maturity of life.
The eternal life that we have received leads us into the divine fellowship, and the divine fellowship leads us into the divine light. In the divine light we are exposed to see our defects, failures, and sins. We also sense our need for God’s forgiveness and the cleansing of the blood of Jesus, and we confess to the Lord. God, in His faithfulness and righteousness, then forgives us of our sins and cleanses us from all unrighteousness. Through forgiveness and cleansing we are brought deeper into the divine life and the fellowship of the divine life, we see more of our failures, we have a more thorough confession of sins, and we have a deeper experience of forgiveness and cleansing. By this continuous and deepening cycle, we grow in the divine life daily, even moment by moment.
The believers need to experience God’s redemption in their being forgiven of their sins. God’s forgiveness of our sins releases us from the offense of our sins. God’s forgiveness is continuous. Moment by moment we need God’s forgiveness. As long as we live on this earth of the old creation, we need God’s redemption. Each time we contact Him, we should sense the need for His forgiveness.
Our sin (singular), 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 (plural), our trespasses, have also 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 regeneration we still need to take Christ as our sin offering for the sin in our nature, as indicated in 1 John 1:8; in addition, we need to take Christ as our trespass offering for the sins in our conduct as indicated in 1 John 1:9.
First John 1:8 says, “If we say that we do not have sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” To say that we do not have sin is to say that we do not have the indwelling sin within our nature. In his first Epistle John wanted to inoculate the believers against this false teaching. First John 1:7 through 2:2 deals with the believers’ sinning after regeneration. This sinning interrupts our fellowship with God. If we did not have sin in our nature after regeneration, how could we sin in our conduct? Even if we only sin occasionally, rather than habitually, this sinning is adequate proof that we still have sin working within us. The apostle’s teaching condemns the teaching of perfectionism, which suggests that a state of freedom from sin is attainable or has been attained in this earthly life. It also annuls the erroneous teaching of the eradication of the sinful nature, which, contrary to the word in 3:9 and 5:18, says that regenerated persons cannot sin because their sinful nature has been totally eradicated. To say that we cannot sin because we have been regenerated is to deceive ourselves and to deny the actual fact of our own experience; this leads us astray. After our regeneration, sin still remains in our flesh, in our sinful nature.
The Bible reveals that the old creation has been crucified with Christ on the cross. Experientially, however, the old creation, our old man, still remains with us and affects us greatly. We will be able to say that sin is no longer with us only when our body is transfigured, that is, when our body is redeemed. As long as we are living in this body of oldness, sin is with us. Even though we may not willingly sin or be conscious of our sin, we still are bound by sin and defiled by sin. Hence, we need to apply the cleansing blood of Jesus to our actual condition moment by moment.