Verse 12.— I write unto you, little children. John calls all the followers of Christ little children. While to him they were a loving charge, I rather think the use of this phrase was designed by him to impress upon their minds his parental anxiety over their spiritual welfare, and his care for them in this respect. Taking the whole body of believers into account, this is the view he would impress upon them: The relation of the teacher and the taught of father and children. This view becomes the more apparent when we lay alongside of the common version the expression as it appears in the Syriac. It is, "dear children," or, as it is elsewhere, "children." John subsequently divides them into three classes, as we shall soon see. Because your sins are forgiven. The reason is here given for his writing to them, and the anxiety he manifests toward them. They were in cove­nant relation with God; they were in Christ Jesus. They had obeyed and thus came into Christ, and, as his children, their sins were forgiven; and through him, as their advocate, future sins would be forgiven upon confession, repentance and prayer.