Don’t view yourself as a better Christian in the journey of faith

St John was the “disciple that Jesus loved”. He was the evangelist that recorded for us the New Commandment—to love one another as Jesus loves us. During the final years of his life, he preached about God’s love: “My dear people, since God has loved us so much, we too should love another.”

If you read through his first letter, you will find many phrases about love, like the one I just quoted. In addition to words about love, there are two phrases about sin that seem to contradict each other.

One says: “If we say we have no sin in us, we are deceiving ourselves. To say that we have never sinned is to call God a liar.” The other phrase says: “We know that anyone who has been begotten by God does not sin.”

When we find some difficulty in Scripture, the best thing is to go back to the writings of the early Christians to see how they interpreted the same passage. In this particular case, St Augustine, in his commentary on the writings of St John, noted that there does seem to be a contradiction.

But he also noted that it is the same apostle writing both phrases and writing them in the same letter. So there must be some way to resolve the difficulty, and, indeed, the best way is to remember that other phrase of sacred Scripture: “Charity covers a multitude of sins.”

Do not be surprised that, despite your effort to live a holy life, you find yourself having to say what St Paul said in his Letter to the Romans:

“It seems to be a rule that, every time I want to do good, it is something evil that comes to hand.”

We must constantly fight against the tendency to boast about ourselves, to be greedy, to get angry, to seek revenge, to be lazy, etc. In that sense, St John is saying the obvious when he insists that we are all sinners.

Nevertheless, charity is the one thing that really should define a Christian. That is why St John insists in his first letter: “Anyone who lives in God does not sin”, while also saying, “Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the dark.”

Are you ever tempted by hatred, tempted “to fight fire with fire”? Jesus tells us what we have to do: “Do good to those who hate you.” A

Christian cannot harbour hatred towards anybody.

Besides, we are wrong if we think we are better than our enemies. Perhaps they have sinned, but God has to forgive me as much as anyone else. So I must always be ready to forgive, ready to be understanding, even with those who hate me.

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