For an explanation of this layout and the key to the books referenced, read here.
Sin and the Child of God, 3:4-9 NKJV
v. 4, Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.
(Bible Knowl Comm NT) “(Lit., the first clause in v. 4 is, ‘Everyone who commits wickedness.’) Sin must not be taken lightly.”
(Moody) “Those who make a practice of sin disregard the divine standard and resort to their own measuring stick.” (Life) “A believer who commits a sin repents, confesses, and finds forgiveness.” An unbeliever is not sorry and doesn’t confess and receive forgiveness.
(ESV) “But to disregard sin’s grave implications is disastrous.”
(Vincent’s II) “The phrase to do sin regards sin as something actually realized in its completeness.”
v. 5, You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.
(Moody) “Only because in Him there is no sin could He remove ours.”
(Life) “Because Jesus lived a perfect life and sacrificed himself for our sins, we can be completely forgiven (2:2)”.
(ESV) “but also so that it [sin] might cease to exercise its tyrannical bondage.”
(Recovery) “This qualified Him to take away both the indwelling sin and the sins committed in man’s daily life.”
(Vincent’s II) Omit our. “The plural here regards all that I contained in the inclusive term the sin: all manifestation or realizations of sin.”
v. 6, No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.
(Bible Knowl Comm NT) Since Jesus came to take away sins, “It follows logically from this that a person who is (‘abides’) in a sinless Person must himself be sinless, for he has a sinless, regenerate nature. … the Greek text has no words to represent phrases such as ‘keeps on’ or ‘continues to’ or ‘habitually.’ … Sin can never come out of seeing and knowing God. It can never be a part of the experience of abiding in Christ (v. 6a).” Paul’s struggle with sin in Rom. 7 concluded that sin was not a part of who he really was in his inmost being (Ro 7:25).” “(Gal. 2:20) … If Christ alone really lives [in us], sin can be no part of that experience. Insofar as God is experienced by a believer, that experience is sinless.”
(Moody) “no person who abides in a relationship with Him persists in sin.”
(ESV) “True followers of Christ do not recklessly … violate what their anointing … has planted within them.”
v. 7, Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.
(Bible Knowl Comm NT) “Perhaps the antichrists felt free to sin while … denying their guilt and claiming to behave righteously.”
(Vincent’s II) “Doeth righteousness. … the righteousness. … Not merely doing righteous acts.”
v. 8, Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.
(Bible Knowl Comm NT) “Only righteousness springs from a righteous nature. …All sin, of whatever kind or degree, is satanic in nature. … To take part in sin at all is to take part in his [Satan’s] activity.”
(Moody) “the one who persists in sin is of the devil—i.e., influenced and dominated by him. Jesus came to destroy the influence of the devil.”
(ESV) Knowing Christ means becoming involved in an all-out war against the works of the devil, that is, the practice of sinning.”
(Prophecy) “John, like Jesus, believed in the reality of the devil.”
(Vincent’s II) “Might destroy. Lit., dissolve, loosen. ‘But Christ, by His coming, has revealed them in their complete unsubstantiality. He has “un-done” the seeming bonds by which they were held together’ (Westcott).”
v. 9, No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God.
(Bible Knowl Comm NT) “ ‘God’s seed’ is His nature, given to each believer at salvation. … the child partakes of the nature of his Parent. The thought of a sinless Parent who begets a child who only sins a little is far from the author’s mind. … Sin is not, nor ever can be, anything but satanic. It can never spring from what a Christian truly is at the level of his regenerate being.”
(Moody) “The one ‘born of God’ does not persist in sin; that is, there is a difference between the believer’s old, unregenerate life, and his new life in Christ. The Christian now sins periodically, but no longer incessantly as the devil does.”
(Life) Believers are not “indifferent to God’s moral law. … we are ‘born of God’ when the Holy Spirit lives in us and gives us Jesus’ new life.”
(ESV) “Since the Holy Spirit works through the Word in regeneration, both of these ideas are likely intended here. … because the Word is present in the believer’s heart through the work of the Spirit, the believer cannot keep on sinning.”
(Vincent’s II) “His seed. The divine principle of life.” “Cannot. Conceived as a perfect ideal, life in God excludes the possibility of sin.”
FIRST JOHN 3 MEDITATION vv. 4-9
John has had several decades under his belt since Jesus first spoke to him the words he recorded in his gospel. During that time, His words percolated and brewed. So John’s words can be sharp barbs to us who have been steeped in the world. “Sin is lawlessness” (v. 4). Jesus told His disciples that whoever had His command and kept it, that’s the one who loved Him (John 14:21). If we did not, we live in lawlessness, disobedience, rebellion. We found something better to do than obey the Savior and follow in His steps. Sharp words!
Jesus came to take away sins (1 John 3:5). If Christians dabble in sin without repenting of it, then why come to a Savior in the first place? Their faith is hollow, and John is pointing it out. This is not eternal life. With these passages, John could also be pointing out the errors of the antichrists who made light of sin, and he warns that their teachings and lifestyle could corrupt the local church. We must not be fooled by their doctrine. “You shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). The antichrists don’t count sin as a big deal.
Whoever abides in Christ does not sin. This sounds like a contradiction to the verse in chapter one where John writes that all sin. We will understand the harmony in the verses when we first understand abiding, a term used in John’s epistle repeatedly. It is also used in John 14:23, where, as a consequence of constantly having His command and following it, the Father and the Son come and abide with that disciple, and that disciple will abide in Him. Abiding is not something every believer will know; it is reserved for those who have His Word and keep it, who follow through on the truth and are thereby set free, a process Jesus noted in John 8:31-32 for the disciple. This abiding is from the Holy Spirit teaching the disciple who diligently follows through on the Word in faith, basing his life on it day by day. In the process, he finds Christ living in him.
This is the abiding in Christ. “In Him there is no sin” (1 John 3:5b). Since there is no sin in Jesus, and Jesus is living His life through the disciple set free, then in that state of abiding the disciple does not sin. Sin will not be part of that life: “Whoever abides in Him does not sin” (3:6a). Through the Word and the Spirit, the fellowship with God and believer remains unbroken and strong. Knowing Him makes the difference. The Spirit’s work is to magnify Christ, to teach us about Christ, and help us relate to Christ properly. With the illumination of the Spirit through the Word and doing what we’re taught, we gain understanding of Christ and grow from glory to glory into His likeness.
“Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him” (3:6b). When we choose our way instead of the commands of the Word, we do not grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus; we cannot grow in our appreciation of Him. He always kept the commands of the Father, even to the death on the cross. When we do not keep His commandments, we don’t follow in His steps of obedience.
John continues with his strong words. “He who sins is of the devil” (3:8a). The devil had always sinned, so when we sin, we show the influence of the devil on our lives. If the Holy Spirit is not leading us, then something else is. The enemy of God is steering our lives in the wrong direction, one that keeps the abiding out of reach. Jesus came to “destroy the works of the devil” (3:8), to expose the lies of the devil that hold us in bondage to sin, and set us free. Christ has already broken the power of sin; first through the gospel, then through the Word and the Spirit He trains the careful disciple in His ways to lead him to liberty. I wonder if the phrase “born of God” in John’s epistle is a nuanced version of born again. It’s clear there is a difference between those who are born again: those who are immature and those who are spiritual. The spiritual have Christ abiding in them, and its evidence is seen in their not sinning. “He cannot sin, because he has been born of God” (v. 9). During the abiding of Christ, when He manifests Himself, when Christ lives in the disciple, he will not sin. See Galatians 2:20, where Christ lives in the life of Paul.
