MICHAELS By Water and Blood 161
a sin which does not lead to death (\ix\ TTpos Savaxov), he shall ask and
shall give him life—that is, to those committing sin not leading to death'
(5.16a). After a brief acknowledgment of another kind of sin that does lead
to death (anapxia TTpos SCXVOCTOV, v. 16b),^26 the author concludes that
there is plenty of room for effective prayer because 'All unrighteousness is
sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death' (v. 17). Most of the discus-
sion of this passage has focused on the (to us) mysterious 'sin that leads to
death', but the author's interest is in the other kind, the sin that does not.
What we forget is that in John's world, as in Paul's (see Rom. 5.12, 21;
6.23), sin leading to death is the norm (see Jn 8.21, 24), and sin not
leading to death is the exception. Here, sin leading to death is the sin of the
world, and sin not leading to death is the sin of the Christian believer.^27
Why? Because 'the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin' (1.7),
and 'if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous, so as to forgive us
those sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness' (1.9). Those who con-
fess their sins and seek forgiveness prove thereby that they no longer
belong to the world but to Jesus (see Jn 15.19; 17.6,16). They are 'clean',
not by nature but by Jesus' blood. When they sin even as believers, there
is continued cleansing and forgiveness for them if they confess their sins,
or if other believers intercede on their behalf.
- Conclusion
On the subject of purification from sin, 1 John offers an indispensable
postscript to the Gospel of John. Jesus' death on the cross does more than
simply confer life on those who 'come to him' and 'believe', more than
unite 'the children of God' into one (Jn 11.52) or gather all Jesus' 'sheep'
into a single flock (Jn 10.16). Jesus' death presupposes that those who
come to him in faith do so as those who belong to 'the world', and conse-- The point of mentioning the 'sin leading to death' is probably not that one
should not 'pray' for such a sin, but that one should not 'ask a question' about it
(epcoTav, v. 16b; for this meaning of the verb, see Jn 16.5,23, and 30). That is, one
should pray without raising the question of whether or not the sin 'leads to death'. If
the sinner is a brother or sister, after all (i.e. a believer), then it clearly does not (see
P. Trudinger, 'Concerning Sins, Mortal and Otherwise: A Note on 1 John 5, 16-17',
Bib 52 [1971], pp. 541-42 [542]). - See D.M. Scholer,'Sins Within and Sins Without: An Interpretation of 1 John
5.16-17', in G.F. Hawthorne (ed.), Current Issues in Biblical and Patristic Interpre-
tation: Studies in Honor of Merrill C Tenney Presented by his Former Students
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), pp. 230-46 (232).