I. "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." It is not deliberate falseness that we are here warned against, but a far more subtle form of falsehood, and one more apt easily to beset us as believers even when most seriously and earnestly bent on "walking in the light, as God is in the light." I am not conscious of anything very far amiss in my spiritual experience or in my practical behaviour. I begin to "say that I have no sin," but I deceive myself, and the truth is not in me. "Guile" is taking the place of "truth"; and I am very apt to lose a precious privilege, the privilege of continual and constant confession in order to continual and constant forgiveness.
II. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." God is true true to Himself and true to us. "He is faithful and just in forgiving our sins."
III. If, in the face of such a faithful manner of forgiveness on the part of God, we continue to shrink from that open dealing and guileless confession which our "walking in the light, as God is in the light," implies, we not only wrong ourselves and do violence to our own consciousness and our own conscience, but, "saying that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us."
R. S. Candlish, Lectures on First John,p. 52.
References: 1 John 1:8-10. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxi., No. 1241. 1 John 1:9. Ibid.,vol. v., No. 255; J. H. Hitchens, Christian World Pulpit,vol. i., p. 93; R. Glover, Ibid.,vol. vi., p. 88. 1 John 1:10. A. Rowland, Ibid.,vol. xxx., p. 203.