"I am writing to you, little children, because the sins have been forgiven to you because of His Name."
-Six reasons. John now proceeds to give us six reasons for why he is writing this letter to those who are following Jesus, to us.
-Reason #1: forgiveness. Forgiveness. He is writing to those who apparently are harboring hate in hearts towards their brother, an oxymoronic state if there ever was one (at least in heavenly terms), and he knows that the starting point, the healing salve, is forgiveness. It all starts here. Your sins have been forgiven you. Because of His Name (let’s not forget that either).
-First, your sins have been forgiven you. Um, that is one sizeable tab which God paid in full for me and for you. A monstrous gargantuan mountain of a sin debt which we never could have paid off in a million gazillion lifetimes. Because, you know, SIN. It’s the quintessantial elephant in the room. The payment for sin is death, the shedding of INNOCENT blood. To pay it first of all means separation from God, but in order to fully and satisfactorily pay it one must be sin-less. So it’s unpayable, because ALL have sinned. Not gonna happen. You and I could never have paid it. Nobody could. We would be paying it off FOREVER. But the eternal God against Whom we had sinned, He stepped down out of eternity and out of heaven and into time and space, He became a baby and lived a perfect sinless life and then laid it down - for us. He freely, willingly chose to lay down his life and pay the penalty for each and every one of our sins, which we deserved to pay (but again, could not ever do). And it wasn’t simply some quick and painless bullet in the head execution. He endured the most gruesome form of human torture and execution ever devised - Roman crucifixion. And even worse, (somehow) He endured separation from His eternal Father, something which is beyond the ability of our finite minds to even comprehend, yet a state so horrific we cannot even imagine the suffering and anguish it produced for our Savior as He bled out and died. And purchased eternal forgiveness. For me. For you. For those who were killing Him! And even as He died, He implored His Father to FORGIVE His executioners. He was - and is - forgiveness waiting to happen. This is what John is trying to bring to our minds. It must be received, but we have been forgiven EVERYTHING. Every last big and small transgression and misstep, all the multiplied sins, the worst and the ugliest evils of all mankind - they have all been paid in full. But to be sure, my debt alone, the darkness and brokenness and evil in my own heart, the things which just me-myself-and-I have done and said and thought, the eternal death penalty which I deserved to pay myself - those alone are enough to create a mountain of sin debt so unimaginably high as to set my level of indebtedness - and gratitude - at maximum. Infinite. Such that when I, or you, or anyone receives that gift of forgiveness - by faith - when we enter in to the brotherhood of the forgiven, we enter in as equals. Equally bankrupt to begin with. But we are under obligation to let go the faults and missteps of others to the same n-th degree to which God has done that for us. Seventy times seven (Matthew 18.21-22) and then some. John says, you have been forgiven. You need to likewise be forgiveness waiting to happen, waiting to be unleashed on your brother who has sinned against you. I gotta let them go. My ability to let go of the sins of others is a pretty good indicator of whether or not I have actually received forgiveness of my own sins (Matthew 6.12-15, 18.32-33).
-And this forgiveness we have received because of His Name. Not one thing we have done or could ever do to earn or deserve it, other than call on His Name (Matthew 1.21; Luke 24.47; Acts 2.21, 10.43). We call on His Name, we believe in His Name, we are forgiven by His Name, healed by His Name, saved by His Name. Yes, His very Name means, God saves. The Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Jesus. Forgive me. Against You I have sinned. Yes, forgiveness does not depend on the offender. It is always up to the offended.
-So yes, it is the name of Jesus on which we have called, and it then becomes the name BY which we are called. The forgiven people become the forgiving people. We (are to) reflect to the unforgiven world what our forgiving God is like, this One Who would gather an assembly of people who have called on His Name (for forgiveness) and who are zealous for His Name, zealous for it to be honored and shown off in a way that truly displays the greatness of our God, and how great is His heart and readiness to forgive. His Name - the means of forgiveness, and the goal of forgiveness.
-In reason #1, John calls us "little children". No doubt there is tenderness and care in his heart, yet could it be that somehow children have a greater need to be taught and reminded of the principles of forgiveness? Surely we all need to be reminded, need to understand this truth at deeper levels. But John says, little children. Little brothers (and sisters!) who are family because we all have the same Daddy - live into this forgiveness, for His Name’s sake...
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