Satan, the accuser, may prosecute our sin before the judgment seat of God, and we may cower because we know he is right. We have sinned. We do sin. But our risen Lord Jesus intercedes for us to say that our debt is real and ongoing, but He paid that debt in full. “It is finished” is His continued declaration for our sin. The guilt is atoned for. The wrath is satisfied. Perfect righteousness credited. 

the wicked one does not touch him (1 John 5:18, NKJV)

I speak from personal painful plumbing experience. If you see water dripping, however so slowly, from the repair you just made to your toilet or sink, the problem has not been fixed.

That can be our personal experience with sin. If we continue to see the steady drip of sin in our lives, we might conclude that the problem has not been fixed. We can question whether we have in fact been saved, particularly when John says things like this: “We know that whoever is born of God does not sin” (1 John 5:18). John said something similar to this earlier (3:9) and evidently he wants us to hear it again.

But John cannot mean that we don’t sin. Early on in his epistle he insisted that we do sin (1 John 1:8, 10) and that awareness of sin is a mark of being spiritually alive and having salvation in Christ (2:2). Christ is our righteousness.

John answers our sin with the advocacy of Christ. “We know that no one who is born of God sins; but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him” (1 John 5:18, NASB95).

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