the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Grace for Today
John 13:15
‘If any man sin’
Read Romans 7:1-25
The apostle, John writes to us as the children of God in this world, and says, ‘My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.’ These are two of the most precious, most comforting, most soul-cheering verses to be found in the whole Word of God. Yet they remind us of a very sad fact, which we must never, forget.
All of God’s children in this world, at their very best, are still sinners. ‘My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not.’ Children of God, ‘do not sin!’ We should never sin. We must oppose sin and resist it. It is an astonishing thing to realize that men and women who are loved of God, redeemed by the blood of Christ and regenerated by the power and grace of the Holy Spirit need to be urged not to sin. But the admonition is needed by us all: ‘Do not sin!’ Yet John knew very well that all of God’s saints in this world do sin. Therefore he says, ‘If any man sin.’ The apostle uses gentle language, but he knew that we would sin. It was John who said, ‘If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not, in us’ (1 John 1:8). So long as we live in this world, in this body of flesh, we shall sin. Sin is what we are by nature. Sin is mixed with all we do. Sin mars even our best deeds. ‘We are all as an unclean thing; and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags’ (Isaiah 64:6). All of God’s people in this world have learned to confess, with the apostle Paul, ‘I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing’ (Romans 7:18). Every believer mournfully cries, ‘O wretched man that I am!’ (Romans 7:24), because every believer knows himself to be a vile sinner.
