{"id":3205,"date":"2025-12-12T03:54:52","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T03:54:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stevehusting.com\/alivetogod\/?p=3205"},"modified":"2025-11-26T04:00:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T04:00:12","slug":"meditations-on-1-john-34-9-with-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevehusting.com\/alivetogod\/meditations-on-1-john-34-9-with-notes\/","title":{"rendered":"Meditations on 1 John 3:4-9, with Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For an explanation of this layout and the key to the books referenced, read here. <\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sin and the Child of God, 3:4-9<\/strong> NKJV<\/p>\n\n\n\n

v. 4,<\/strong> Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Bible Knowl Comm NT) \u201c(Lit., the first clause in v. 4 is, \u2018Everyone who commits wickedness.\u2019) Sin must not be taken lightly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Moody) \u201cThose who make a practice of sin disregard the divine standard and resort to their own measuring stick.\u201d (Life) \u201cA believer who commits a sin repents, confesses, and finds forgiveness.\u201d An unbeliever is not sorry and doesn\u2019t confess and receive forgiveness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

(ESV) \u201cBut to disregard sin\u2019s grave implications is disastrous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Vincent\u2019s II) \u201cThe phrase to do sin<\/em> regards sin as something actually realized in its completeness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

v. 5,<\/strong> You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Moody) \u201cOnly because in Him there is no sin<\/strong> could He remove ours.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Life) \u201cBecause Jesus lived a perfect life and sacrificed himself for our sins, we can be completely forgiven (2:2)\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(ESV) \u201cbut also so that it [sin] might cease to exercise its tyrannical bondage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Recovery) \u201cThis qualified Him to take away both the indwelling sin and the sins committed in man\u2019s daily life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Vincent\u2019s II) Omit our.<\/em> \u201cThe plural here regards all that I contained in the inclusive term the sin:<\/em> all manifestation or realizations of sin.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

v. 6,<\/strong> No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Bible Knowl Comm NT) Since Jesus came to take away sins, \u201cIt follows logically from this that a person who is (\u2018abides\u2019) 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 \u2018keeps on\u2019 or \u2018continues to\u2019 or \u2018habitually.\u2019 … 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).\u201d Paul\u2019s 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).\u201d \u201c(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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Moody) \u201cno person who abides in a relationship with Him persists in sin.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(ESV) \u201cTrue followers of Christ do not recklessly … violate what their anointing … has planted within them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

v. 7,<\/strong> Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Bible Knowl Comm NT) \u201cPerhaps the antichrists felt free to sin while … denying their guilt and claiming to behave righteously.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Vincent\u2019s II) \u201cDoeth righteousness.<\/strong> … the <\/em>righteousness. … Not merely doing righteous acts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

v. 8,<\/strong> 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.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Bible Knowl Comm NT) \u201cOnly 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\u2019s] activity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Moody) \u201cthe one who<\/strong> persists in sin is of the devil<\/strong>\u2014i.e., influenced and dominated by him. Jesus came to destroy the<\/strong> influence of the devil<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(ESV) Knowing Christ means becoming involved in an all-out war against the works of the devil<\/strong>, that is, the practice of sinning<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Prophecy) \u201cJohn, like Jesus, believed in the reality of the devil.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Vincent\u2019s II) \u201cMight destroy.<\/strong> Lit., dissolve, loosen<\/em>. \u2018But Christ, by His coming, has revealed them in their complete unsubstantiality. He has \u201cun-done\u201d the seeming bonds by which they were held together\u2019 (Westcott).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

v. 9,<\/strong> No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God\u2019s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Bible Knowl Comm NT) \u201c \u2018God\u2019s seed\u2019 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\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Moody) \u201cThe one \u2018born of God\u2019 does not persist in sin; that is, there is a difference between the believer\u2019s old, unregenerate life, and his new life in Christ. The Christian now sins periodically, but no longer incessantly as the devil does.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Life) Believers are not \u201cindifferent to God\u2019s moral law. … we are \u2018born of God\u2019 when the Holy Spirit lives in us and gives us Jesus\u2019 new life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(ESV) \u201cSince 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\u2019s heart through the work of the Spirit, the believer cannot keep on sinning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Vincent\u2019s II) \u201cHis seed.<\/strong> The divine principle of life.\u201d \u201cCannot. <\/strong>Conceived as a perfect ideal, life in God excludes the possibility of sin.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FIRST JOHN 3 MEDITATION vv. 4-9<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s words can be sharp barbs to us who have been steeped in the world. \u201cSin is lawlessness\u201d (v. 4). Jesus told His disciples that whoever had His command and kept it, that\u2019s 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!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. \u201cYou shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins\u201d (Matthew 1:21). The antichrists don\u2019t count sin as a big deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is the abiding in Christ. \u201cIn Him there is no sin\u201d (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<\/em> the disciple does not sin. Sin will not be part of that life: \u201cWhoever abides in Him does not sin\u201d (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\u2019s 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\u2019re taught, we gain understanding of Christ and grow from glory to glory into His likeness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him\u201d (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\u2019t follow in His steps of obedience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John continues with his strong words. \u201cHe who sins is of the devil\u201d (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 \u201cdestroy the works of the devil\u201d (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 \u201cborn of God\u201d in John\u2019s epistle is a nuanced version of born again. It\u2019s 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. \u201cHe cannot sin, because he has been born of God\u201d (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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[593],"tags":[591],"class_list":["post-3205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1-john-with-notes","tag-meditations-on-1-john"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevehusting.com\/alivetogod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevehusting.com\/alivetogod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevehusting.com\/alivetogod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevehusting.com\/alivetogod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevehusting.com\/alivetogod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3205"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevehusting.com\/alivetogod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3206,"href":"https:\/\/stevehusting.com\/alivetogod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3205\/revisions\/3206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevehusting.com\/alivetogod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevehusting.com\/alivetogod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevehusting.com\/alivetogod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}