Some Words From Augustus Neander

Some Words From Dr. Augustus Neander Regarding:

1st John 2:1-2 (NIV)
(1)  My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 
(2)  He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

As part of a lengthy commentary on 1st John, Neander (1789 - 1850) writes:

History teaches us to estimate aright the deep significance of this christian truth, here developed from the words of the Apostle. The entire dependence of all Christians alike upon this one advocacy, to the exclusion of every other, being based upon this truth; we accordingly see that whenever it became obscured in the christian consciousness, that dependence was again, as in the ante-christian period, transferred to a human priesthood and to a multiplicity of mediations, and again the distinction between priests and laity, between spiritual and secular, found admission.

And thus will it ever be, when this reference of the religious consciousness in all believers, to the one mediation through Christ, is cast into the background, is obscured or misunderstood.

The Apostle has thus shown, that at the basis of the ever-continuing mediation by Christ, there lies the reference to what he once wrought for the reconciliation of man with God, to that one all sufficient offering of himself. He accordingly now directs attention specially to the fact, that He is "the reconciliation for our sins," - referring to that once-accomplished and still abiding and operative work of redemption.

For he it is through whom man has been made free from sin; through whom that sin which pressed down humanity, separating it from God and his fellowship, and intercepting the communications of divine love, has been taken away, has become as if it were not; so that henceforth, all mankind should appear before God as freed from sin by this self-offering of Christ, - as in him pure in the sight of God.

This, which according to the divine plan, the purposes of divine grace, the yearning love of Christ who bore all mankind upon his heart, should embrace all, is realized in those who open their hearts to its reception, who believingly appropriate the redeeming grace thus offered.

It is so realized when they first enter into christian fellowship, renouncing the former standpoint of a life of worldliness and sin; it is this which marks the boundary between the old and the new life.

But as John here shows, although this boundary has been once fixed, yet in the conflict with the remaining influence of that former state, there is still need of the ever renewed appropriation of this reconciliation, which is Christ himself. When this reconciliation, as the all-sufficient agency for the progressive and ultimately complete sanctification of the redeemed, and the constant appropriation of it as such, have ceased to be recognized in their connection and become obscured in the christian consciousness, new methods of atonement and purification have then been resorted to, as necessary for sins committed after baptism.


But when John speaks of the reconciliation for OUR sins, he feels constrained to guard against every limitation of the universal reference of the work of redemption.

He calls to mind such words of Christ as those respecting the one fold and the one shepherd, and his vision widens to embrace all humanity; to behold in Christ not alone the reconciliation for those who already believe, but for those also who as yet know nothing of Christ, who as yet belong to the world.

The reconciliation of Christ has for its object all humanity in its estrangement from God; all which belongs to the world, as it stands opposed to the kingdom of God. Humanity as a whole is to be embraced in the reconciliation with Christ, is to be thereby separated from the world and incorporated into the kingdom of God. The reconciliation, once instituted by Christ, continues its uninterrupted work until it shall have achieved this its glorious consummation.