NOTES for Jo1 1:9

The language of the Holy Scriptures is a language of paradoxes, because the reality, which God's word describes, doesn’t house in one sense formulations. God Himself is paradoxical: He is One and Trinity at the same time. His relationship with us is paradoxical: He loves us as we are, but we don’t please Him, the way we are. This world is paradoxical: it was created perfect by God, but lies in evil. It is of such a paradox inside us that the apostle John writes in his Message.

On one hand, we "have known Him", what manifests itself in our fulfillment of God's commandments. And on the other hand, "if we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us". Here is the simultaneous presence in us of the incompatible - sin and grace, which constitute the tension, the dynamism of Christian life, our movement from darkness to light.

And this verse that we read today, tells us how we have to make this movement. It is necessary to confess openly before God his sins (discovered by us as the transgression of Christ’s commandments to love one another), recognize that we are not self-sufficient and ask Him to intervene in this situation. And then He will cleanse us from inside with His forgiveness, giving us the power of the Holy Spirit to change our life, to ascent to Him.