A Christian is someone who follows Jesus. In following Jesus, John says in 1:8, it is inevitable that you will stumble and fall along the way. But that is different to outrightly rejecting Jesus and going in the opposite direction. That is what the false teachers, who John speaks of in this letter, were doing. He refers to them as having “the spirit of the antichrist” (4:3). In fact, it seems that it may be them that John is thinking about when he speaks about “the sin that leads to death”. This is probably the sin that the writer of Hebrews speaks of in Hebrews 6:4-6, and also, the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit that Jesus spoke of (Matthew 12:28). This is the deliberate, open-eyed rejection of known truth. John wants the believers to pray for those who stumble along the way (5:16). In contrast, these others should be left to go their own way (5:16). There is an inexhaustible and unending source of grace for those who have gone the wrong way and turn back to Christ, however far they have gone. This same grace is extended to Christians who stumble and fall, however many times they do so and however badly. But for those who know the truth and reject it outrightly, there is no more hope because Jesus is the only hope there is. If you have fallen, and you want Jesus to forgive and restore you, then you should never doubt that he will. Those who are in most danger are not those who feel ashamed by their failures but those who don’t think they have failed and who don’t care.
Recommit yourself to God today and ask him to keep you close to him.
Read 1 John 5:13-21
