If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us the sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
We may, at the same time, consider “just” as having reference to forgiveness, and “faithful” to cleansing, according to a very common mode of stating things both in the Old and New Testament, the order in the second clause being reversed. Then “just ” means the same as when Paul says, “that he might be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus,” Romans 3:26. Forgiveness is thus an act of justice, then, not to us, but to Christ, who made an atonement for sins. — Ed. 