Question:  Dear Greg,

            What is the context of 1 John 1:9?  Is it to the unbelievers or to those who were already believers?  I have heard different answers to this.

            Richie

Answer:  Dear Richie,

            The use of the word “we” in 1 John is not perfectly clear—which could be a part of the reason why you have heard different answers to your question.  Each time the word “we” is used, the immediate context needs to be considered.  For example, the “we” and “our” of verses 1-4 is clearly believers.

            When one examines the entire letter of 1 John it seems that John generally uses “we” to refer to believers, and when he speaks of non-believers he uses “they”—“the whole world”—etc.

            Verse 9, about which you ask, is within the passage including verses 5-10.  There are two spurious, false claims John confronts: 1) verse 6—if we claim that we have fellowship with God but do not walk in the Light of Christ, we have no fellowship.  Fellowship is by and through the Lord Jesus Christ, the Light of the world.  Jesus is how we become “we”.

            Verses 8 and 10 deal with a denial that Christians sin—that “we” no longer sin, because we are now “we”—not “them”.  John, in verse 9, the specific verse you question, simply says that one of the hallmarks of Christians, a way to identify those in whom Jesus lives his new resurrected life (Galatians 2:20) is that “we” confess our sins, rather than living in denial that we ever do sin.

            In Christ,

            Greg Albrecht