Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary 1 John 1:10

"If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." — 1 John 1:10 (ASV)

This verse gives the third and final false claim: “If we claim we have not sinned.” But is this a different assertion from the one in v.8 or just a restatement of the same issue with an even more dramatic conclusion: “We make him [God] out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives”? In favor of the former possibility is the change in the verbal construction from “we have no sin” to “we have not sinned.” The latter statement is more inclusive. The persons involved could be saying, “Whatever is true about the sin principle in others, we as Gnostic believers have transcended it all. We do not sin! We have not sinned! Sin has gained no foothold in us.”

Probably both statements had their adherents among the Gnostic believers. Some may have said it one way, some the other. Some may have claimed that through their “knowledge” derived from the Christian proclamation they were removed from the possibility of sin. Others may have boasted that they had entered a sinless state through “knowledge” before the Gospel had even come to them. This latter statement, in other words, is far more blatant and defiant.

It makes a mockery of the Gospel. It states that the reason God acted in grace and mercy toward us for the sake of our sins is false, that God first deceived us about ourselves and then becomes himself the Deceiver. The statement “his word has no place in our lives” means that the word proclaimed, the tradition received, and the witness from the OT Scriptures have no place in the heart and conscience of those who deny their sin. Consequently the possibility of hearing a redemptive word is also denied, and one can neither live by the Word nor receive forgiveness offered by God.