What Does It Mean That God Will “Cleanse Us From All Unrighteousness”?

Q: In 1 John 1:9, when God promises to forgive our sins if we confess them, what does it mean to “cleanse us from all unrighteousness?” I used to think that it meant that we would be rid of that sin. But sometimes I feel like I’m repeating the same sin, and I wonder where God’s promise of cleansing from all unrighteousness will happen.

1 John 1:9 – If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

A: I don’t blame you for thinking that maybe to “cleanse me from all unrighteousness” means I will never have that sinful desire again. But the basic nature of our sinful desires is that we need to keep bringing them back under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and to keep dying to the flesh daily. Paul says in his letters about his own life, “I die daily.” He talked about considering himself crucified with Christ. This is an ongoing process in the Christian life.

I would say that the idea of cleansing us from all unrighteousness means to cleanse us from any sense of penalty from God and to free us from the power of sin. The Bible promises that the believer is set free from sin in three ways: we’re set free from the penalty of sin, we’re set free from the power of sin, and we’re set free from the presence of sin. Right now, the believer is set free from the penalty of sin; it’s been canceled out. It was put upon Jesus Christ. We are also set free the power of sin. We have the ability right now to live in freedom from being under the dominion of sin. It doesn’t mean we’re going to be sinlessly perfect, but it means that God hasn’t put us in a system where we must sin as Christians. You can say that we will inevitably sin, and we won’t be sinlessly perfect until we graduate to our resurrected glory. I get that, but it’s not because God has engineered a system where I have to sin.

So, we have been set free from the penalty of sin; we are being set free from the power of sin; and one day, we’re going to be set free from even the presence of sin.

I don’t blame you for this, because it’s the longing of all of our hearts, but it sounds like you want to be set free from the presence of sin right now, or at least the presence of a particular sin. You’d like to be able to say, “Lord, if I really confess it, and if I really repent of it before You, I’m just never going to have to deal with it again.” Now, there may be wonderful occasions where God grants that kind of victory to a Christian, but I would say that’s not normal. God’s normal operating procedure is to work these things out in the Christian life through a growth in grace and the ongoing process of sanctification.