Berean Standard Bible
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
King James Version
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
About this verse
The surprise is in the adjectives. You would expect "He is faithful and merciful to forgive" — instead John writes "faithful and just." Forgiveness here is not God bending the rules in a soft moment; because the debt has been dealt with in Christ, forgiving the one who confesses is the right thing for God to do. Justice is on your side of the ledger. And the cleansing goes past your inventory: "from all unrighteousness," including what you can't name.
John — by early church tradition the last of the apostles, writing near the end of his life — sent this letter to churches he pastored. The surrounding verses target two opposite lies: the person who claims to be without sin, and the person drowning in guilt. This verse answers both with one condition: confession, which simply means agreeing with God about what the thing is.
This is the verse for the third relapse and the repeated confession — the moment you wonder whether the account is overdrawn. Notice what the condition is not: achieving change first, feeling sorry enough, waiting a decent interval. It is confessing. The faithfulness and the justice belong to him.
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