As exhortation and promise always go hand in hand in this epistle, John now, after having shown what belongs to the nature of the Christian life, addresses them again as their spiritual Father, in order to cheer their hearts under the sense of unlikeness to this life, under the sense of sin. lie calls to them all as his children: "I write unto you little children, because [that] your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake." He comforts them with the assurance of sins forgiven through the mediation of Christ. For the name of Christ are their sins forgiven; that is, for the sake of what Christ is as the Son of God and the Son of Man, the divine-human Redeemer, -- it being as such that they invoke Him as their Mediator. There is reference here to what he had before said of the reconciliation effected by Christ.