Evaluating Confession and Calamity in 1 John 1:6--9
Question: Dear Dr. Evangelical, I have a question about your favorite verses, 1 John 1:6-9. I realize there is a spectrum. On the one end, we have a runny nose, flat tire on the way to work is unconfessed sin in your life and out of fellowship with God. On the other end, we have the really bad calamity, and you say that is clearly bad stuff happening to good people. Can you explain where the cutoff is in your invisible barometer? Sincerely, anonymous kermagin and concerned citizen.
Evangelicalism applies 1 John 1:6-9 to the body of Christ, and then must improvise explanations for life’s problems that the passage itself does not provide. This produces the inconsistent “invisible barometer” you describe, where a runny nose or flat tire may be labeled as proof of unconfessed sin, yet a severe calamity is reinterpreted as “spiritual warfare” or “the devil attacking a faithful servant.”
The text of 1 John 1:6-9 is straightforward: it presents a conditional, works-based structure.
"If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’’
Future Subscription: In the future a subscription may be required to read the full answer. But for now it is free!
Walk is a work verb. It is not a vague, inward sentiment. The structure is: if we walk in the light and have fellowship, then the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. If we confess our sins, then he forgives and cleanses. If we do not, the condition is not met.
If someone tried to use these verses as a gospel presentation, they would necessarily preach works: walking in the light, having fellowship, confessing sins in detail. They would also have to ask what happens to sins forgotten, unknown, or unconfessed. The passage itself raises more questions than it answers for the present dispensation.
My conclusion is that 1 John is written to Jewish believers under the kingdom gospel, not to the body of Christ under the mystery revealed to Paul. John, as an apostle to the circumcision, speaks within that framework. When evangelicalism insists on applying these verses directly to us, it must then invent explanations to keep modern Christian experience from obviously contradicting the text. That is where the “barometer” comes from: people are simply making it up as they go.
Because the passage does not belong to our dispensation, there is in fact no valid “cutoff point” to define which level of suffering proves “out of fellowship” and which does not. The entire barometer is built on a misapplication of the text. The remedy is not to fine-tune the scale, but to remove 1 John 1:6-9—and, indeed, the Johannine epistles—from direct doctrinal application to the body of Christ.
When we rightly divide and recognize that our standing is based on grace through faith apart from works, and that our daily circumstances are not governed by a conditional fellowship system from 1 John, the artificial barometer disappears. Life’s difficulties can then be faced without trying to decode every ache, flat tire, or tragedy as a calibrated message about the status of our confession list.
questiontransition