“Sin” in 1 John 1:6 as explained without referring to the Greek and then with referring to the Greek

     First is a block quote from the book The Early Church Fathers in which Augustin of Hippo, explaining without referring to the Greek, missed most of the points made in the second block quote: Had he read the Greek and noticed the aorist tense of the verbs in the verses he discussed, he would have grasped the thinking made by the one in the second block quote!
  1John1:1(KJV) Homily I— 1John1:1–2:11 .....“ 1John1:6. For see what He saith; “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”£ Consequently, if thou hast confessed thyself a sinner, the truth is in thee: for the Truth itself is light. Thy life hath not yet shone in perfect brightness, because there are sins in thee; but yet thou hast already begun to be enlightened, because there is in thee the confession of sins. For see what follows: “If we confess our sins,£ He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to purge us from all iniquity.”£ Not only the past, but haply if we have contracted any from this life; because a man, so long as he bears the flesh, cannot but have some at any rate light sins. But these which we call light, do not thou make light of. If thou make light of them when thou weighest them, be afraid when thou countest them. Many light make one huge sin: many drops fill the river; many grains make the lump. And what hope is there? Before all, confession: lest any think himself righteous, and, before the eyes of God who seeth that which is, man, that was not and is, lift up the neck. Before all, then, confession; then, love: for of charity what is said? “Charity covereth a multitude of sins.”£ Now let us see whether he commendeth charity in regard of the sins which subsequently overtake us: because charity alone extinguisheth sins. Pride extinguisheth charity: therefore humility strengtheneth charity; charity extinguisheth sins. Humility goes along with confession, the humility by which we confess ourselves sinners: this is humility, not to say it with the tongue, as if only to avoid arrogancy, lest we should displease men if we should say that we are righteous. This do the ungodly and insane: “I know indeed that I am righteous, but what shall I say before men? If I shall call myself righteous, who will bear it, who tolerate? let my righteousness be known unto God: I however will say that I am a sinner, but only that I may not be found odious for arrogancy.” Tell men what thou art, tell God what thou art. Because if thou tell not God what thou art, God condemneth what He shall find in thee. Wouldest thou not that He condemn thee? Condemn thou. Wouldest thou that He forgive? do thou acknowledge, that thou mayest be able to say unto God, “Turn Thy face from my sins.”£ Say also to Him those words in the same Psalm, “For I acknowledge mine iniquity.” “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to purge us from all iniquity. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”£ If thou shalt say, I have not sinned, thou makest Him a liar, while thou wishest to make thyself true. How is it possible that God should be a liar, and man true, when the Scripture saith the contrary, “Every man a liar, God alone true”?£ Consequently, God true through Himself, thou true through God; because through thyself, a liar. [1]

     This block quote from Volume 2 Wuest’s word studies from the Greek New Testament is a literal Greek analysis of verse 6:

“If we confess our sins, John says, God is faithful to forgive them and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The word “faithful” is pistos (πιστος). Vincent says of its usage here: “True to his own nature and promises; keeping faith with Himself and with man. The word is applied to God as fulfilling His own promises (Heb. 10:23; 11:11); as fulfilling the purpose for which He called men (I Thess. 5:24; I Cor. 1:9); as responding with guardianship to the trust reposed in Him by men (I Cor. 10:13; I Pet 4:19). ‘He abideth faithful. He cannot deny Himself’ (II Tim. 2:13). The same term is applied to Christ (II Thess. 3:3; Heb. 3:2; 2:17). God’s faithfulness is here spoken of not only as essential to His own being, but as faithfulness toward us; ‘fidelity to that nature of truth and light, related to His own essence, which rules in us as far as we confess our sins’ (Ebrard).”

God is also just in forgiving our sins and cleansing us from their defilement. The word “just” is dikaios (δικαιος). Vincent has this comment: “Rev. righteous. From dikē (δικη), ‘right.’ … The two words, faithful and righteous, imply each other. God, who is absolute rightness, must be faithful to His own nature, and His righteous dealing with men who partake of that nature and walk in fellowship with Him, is simply fidelity to Himself. ‘Righteousness is truth passing into action’ (Westcott).”

“To forgive” is hina aphēi (ἱνα ἀφηι), “in order that He may forgive.” Aphēi (Ἀφηι) is second aorist subjunctive, speaking, not of a process, but of a single act here. In 1 John 1:7 we have durative action, “keeps on continually cleansing,” referring to the constant cleansing of the saint from the defilement of sins of ignorance by the blood of Jesus. These are habitual in the life of the believer. But sins we confess, as in 1 John 1:9, are not habitual. No child of God knowingly sins habitually. These sins for which confession is required are infrequent, isolated instances in the well-ordered life of a believer. Therefore, the aorist tense is used here, speaking of a single act of forgiveness. The word is the second aorist subjunctive form of aphiēmi (ἀφιημι), “to send away, dismiss,” hence of sins, “to remit” as a debt, “to put away.” All sin was remitted, paid for, put away on the basis of the satisfaction offered for the demands of God’s holy law which sinners broke, when the Lord Jesus died on the Cross. The law was satisfied. All the sins the believer commits, past, those in his unsaved condition, and future, those in his saved state, were put away on a legal basis at the Cross, and are in that sense forgiven the believer the moment he places his faith in the Lord Jesus. But the forgiveness spoken of here has to do, not primarily with the breaking of God’s law, for that was taken care of at the Cross and recognized as such at the time the sinner placed his faith in the Saviour. Therefore, sin in a Christian’s life is a matter, not between a lawbreaker and a judge, but between a child and his father. It is a matter of grieving the Father’s heart when a child of God sins. The putting away of the believer’s sin upon confession is therefore a forgiveness granted by the Father and a restoration to the fellowship that was broken by that sin. When the saint confesses immediately after the commission of that sin, fellowship is not broken except for that time in which the sin was committed.

Not only does God forgive the believer, but He cleanses him from the defilement which he incurred in committing that act of sin. Here the verb “to cleanse” is aorist subjunctive, speaking of a single act of cleansing, for known sin in the life of a saint is not habitual, but the out of the ordinary thing.

Translation. If we continue to confess our sins, faithful is He and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from every unrighteousness. [2]

https://biblia.com/books/wuest/WuestNT.First_John$3A_p.105

1 Title : The Early Church Fathers: Nicene & Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, Vol. 07 Edition : First Copyright : Electronic Edition STEP Files Copyright © 2007, QuickVerse. All rights reserved.

2 Wuest, K. S. (1997). Volume 2 Wuest’s word studies from the Greek New Testament: for the English reader. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

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