1 John 3:4-10
4 Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.
5 And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin.
6 Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.
7 Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.
8 He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.
9 Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
10 In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.
The Grace New Testament Commentary - 1 John 3:6-10
3:6 Since there is no sin in Christ, the believer who abides in Him does not sin (cf. 1 John 2:28). Many efforts have been made, both here and in v 9, to soften this assertion. One popular way has been to understand the present tense (does not sin) as "does not continue to sin." Another popular view is that John is speaking of an ideal which is not fully realized in present experience.
Against both of these views is the statement of v 5 that "in Him is no sin." Since this is so, the one who abides in the Sinless One cannot be said to be only "a little bit" sinful! If there can be "no sin" in Christ at all, one cannot take even a little bit of sin into an experience that is specifically said to be in Him. The failure to recognize the logical connection between vv 5 and 6 is the reason v 6 has been misunderstood. As a result, this misunderstanding carries over into v 9.
1 John 1:8 makes it clear that no Christian can ever claim to be experientially completely free from sin in this life. But at the same time the experience of "abiding in Him" is a sinless experience. One area of obedience is not "contaminated" by the presence of sin in other areas. If a person obeys the command to love his brother, that obedience is not tainted in God's sight by some different sort of failure in the life, such as a lack of watchfulness in prayer (cf. Eph 6:18).
When a believer is walking in fellowship with God, He is able to look past all his failures and sin and see the actual obedience that is there. In 1 John 1:7 John explained that even while walking in the light, there is cleansing going on by virtue of the blood of Christ. As a believer walks in the light and does what God commands, God sees him as one who is totally cleansed and is without any charge of unrighteousness.
Thus, when a believer abides in Him, the positive obedience is what God takes account of and recognizes. The sin that still remains is not in any sense sourced in the abiding life, and that sin is cleansed in accord with 1:7. The experience of "abiding" is therefore equivalent to obedience. Since sin has no part of the abiding experience, it follows that whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him.
It is wrong to resort to the present tense of the verb sins, as though it means "continues to sin," (see v 9). The flow of thought points to an antithesis between sin and Christ, between sin and abiding. Every attempt to accommodate "a little bit of sin" or "an occasional sin" in John's statements completely nullifies the contrast the apostle is drawing. Since even believers sin (1 John 1:8), the statement is intended to stigmatize all sin as the product not only of not abiding but also of blindness toward God.
Every sin in some way is deceiving (Heb 3:13), and flows out of a darkening of the heart toward God. Not to recognize that John's statement is true of all sin is to miss his point completely. If the Revisionists rationalized sin, they were wrong. People sin when in some way they are blind to and ignorant of the true God.
3:7 Simplicity of mind and spirit is often the best hedge for the Christian against heresies that purport to have more "profound" knowledge to share. Clearly in the preceding material (esp. vv 4-6) John has had the Revisionists in mind. The readers are not to allow these antichrists to deceive them. Some believers probably thought they could commit sin and still claim to be in touch with God.
In order not to be deceived, the readers must keep in mind the simple fact that he who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. John's point is that righteousness (rather than sin) is what indicates that a person has a perfect, inward righteous standing with God (see 2:29).
Only righteousness arises from the inner nature of one who is already righteous as God is righteous, for "in Him there is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5). When a believer sins, it is not a manifestation of divine righteousness.
3:8 If believers are righteous, and sin is not a manifestation of that righteousness, then the sin all believers commit (1 John 1:8) is of the devil, that is, sourced in him. Interpreters who take a statement like this as the equivalent of saying that a professing Christian is unsaved miss the point. Since even John acknowledges that Christians sin (see 1 John 1:7-10), if he who sins is unsaved, everyone is unsaved!
John states that the devil has sinned from the beginning, that is, he is the source of all sin, and his sinful career dates from the beginning. The beginning does not refer here to eternity past, since the devil is a created being and not eternal. The reference is to the original state of creation as it was when Satan introduced sin into it (Isa 14:12-15; Ezek 28:11-15). To be of the devil means "to be doing the devil's work" (cf. Jesus' words to Peter in Matt 16:23).
Also participation in sin is participation in the very thing that Jesus came to destroy, because the Son of God was manifested in order that He might destroy the works of the devil (cf. v 5, He "was manifested to take away our sins").
3:9 The person who has been born of God has God's seed within him and so is not capable of sin (he cannot sin) by virtue of his birth from God. Naturally, many have wondered how this claim can be squared with reality since Christians do sin, as even John acknowledges (1 John 1:8). But the answer lies near at hand. In 1 John 1:8 John warns, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves." But in 1 John 3:9 he says, whoever has been born of God does not sin. As total persons, believers do sin and can never claim to be free of it, but their "inward self" that is regenerated does not sin.
In describing his struggle with sin, Paul notes that two diverse impulses are at work. So he can say, "For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members" (Rom 7:22-23). Previous to this, he had concluded, "Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells in me" (v 20). His conclusion is simple: "So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin" (v 24). At the core of his being (in his inward man), he does not and cannot sin. The inward man (the "regenerate self") is absolutely impervious to sin, fully enslaved to God's will. If sin occurs, it is not the inward man who performs it.
Sin does exist in the Christian, but it is foreign and extraneous to his regenerated inner self, where Christ dwells in perfect holiness. Since Christ is eternal life (1 John 5:20), the one who possesses that life cannot sin because he is born of God. The divine seed (sperma) of that life remains (menō, "abides," "stays") in him who is born again, making sin an impossibility at the level of his regenerate inward self.
This understanding of 1 John 3:9 builds naturally on 1 John 2:29-3:8. Absolute contrasts are a familiar part of Johannine discourse. Most prominent among these are the light/darkness and the death/life antitheses. But to these must be added the sin/righteousness polarity that has appeared prominently in this unit.
For a number of decades, the opinion was popular that the key to understanding 1 John 3:9 is in the present tense of the verb to sin. In this view, the verse should read, "Whoever has been born of God does not continue to sin; for His seed remains in him; and he cannot continue to sin, because he has been born of God." (The NIV has a similar rendering.) In this view, prolonged continuation in sin does not occur if one is born again.
But this raises more questions than it answers. Do not all Christians continue to sin until the day of their death? Furthermore, do not all Christians sin daily? How can anyone claim not to be continuing to sin? Does the born-again person come to some point at which he ceases to sin? This proposed translation solves nothing.
The regenerate person can express himself only through righteousness (cf. 1 John 2:29) and can never express himself through sin because he cannot sin.
3:10 The NKJV takes this statement as a reference to what follows it (note the colon in its translation). But it is preferable to take the last half of the verse as the beginning of a new unit. The words In this refer backward rather than forward in this context. The use of the words are manifest in verse 10a links the statement with what has preceded in 1 John 2:29-3:9. The children of God... are manifest by their doing righteousness. This is not to be viewed as a test of salvation. John's one and only test of salvation is faith (cf. 1 John 5:1, 5:9-13). Instead, this is simply a statement about how God's children do manifest themselves.
Those who see 1 John as a handbook for deciding who is saved and who is not misuse the book grievously. John is advancing the theme stated in 1 John 2:28 that boldness in the presence of the Lord is offered to those who abide in Him. By abiding in Him, believers can and do manifest themselves as children of God. But those who do not abide do not so manifest themselves. The reality of their regenerate inward man remains hidden.
The same principle applies to the children of the devil. There is no good reason to take this phrase as a reference to unsaved people generally (see v 8). The term children of the devil is descriptive in nature. In light of 2 John 1:9 (see comments there), the Christian who has deviated from sound doctrine about the person and work of Jesus Christ and who vigorously opposes the truth could be so described. This is no more strange than the fact that Jesus addressed His own disciple Peter as "Satan" (Matt 16:23). The "child of the devil" is anyone who does the devil's work by opposing the truth.
Here John affirms that what is true of whoever does not [do] righteousness is true also of whoever does not love his brother. In both cases, the person is not of God in the sense that God is not behind what he is doing.
As was the case with the phrase of the devil in v 8, it is wrong to take the phrase not of God (ek tou theou) as though it meant "not born of God." The NIV rendering, "Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God," paraphrases the text and misinterprets it at the same time. There is nothing in this text about not being a child of God. How could there be? One must be a child of God before one could hate his brother. An unsaved person has no Christian brother to hate (cf. 1 John 2:9).
John also moves from a broader to a narrower theme. The words whoever does not practice [lit. "do"] righteousness can refer to anyone who lacks righteous conduct, whether saved or unsaved. But the words he who does not love his brother introduce a specific kind of righteousness that only a Christian can manifest or fail to manifest.
Charles Bing - Grace, Salvation, and Discipleship - Whoever Sins Does Not Know God, 1 John 3:6, 9-10
(Salvation) Interpretation: People who continue to sin or do not love others are not saved.
(Discipleship) Interpretation: Believers who continue to sin or do not love their brothers do not have intimate fellowship with God.
While most Christians admit that all Christians sin occasionally, there are some who use this passage to insist that Christians cannot sin continuously and still be Christians. Specifically, the lack of love for others is cited as proof that these people in question either lose their salvation or never were saved at all.
If this (Salvation) interpretation is correct, then these verses would contradict what John says in 1:8 and 9: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins..." Believers sin and sin regularly, and that is why God gives us a way to deal with sins through confession.
Again, we must note that the issue is not believing in Christ, but abiding in Him. Since abiding speaks of intimate knowledge and close relationship, it is easy to see how John can say that those who abide in Christ (that is, remain in fellowship with Him) do not sin. John says that those who sin (that is, those who do not abide in Christ) "have neither seen Him or known Him." While these terms can be used for the salvation experience (as Salvation teaching), John often uses them for the believer's experience. To see (from horaō) can refer to one's perception and experience of something (John 6:36; 12:45; 14:9; 15:24: 3 John 1:11), and we have already shown how know (from epiginōskō) can denote a personal acquaintance or familiarity, which we call fellowship.
Some support a (Salvation) interpretation by arguing from the use of the present tense in the passages. Those who claim this like to translate the verbs as "keeps on sinning" or "continues to practice sin." These translations are even reflected in many Bible versions (NIV, NET Bible, ESV, NASB). The resulting interpretation is that this describes a person who habitually or continuously sins. There are some problems with that view, however. First, if that was the meaning of the present tense, it would require additional words to clarify the sense of habitual action (much like we might clarify the statement "He is cursing" with words such as "He is cursing all the time"). Unless there are clarifying words, John's readers would not assume a habitual meaning for this present tense. It seems that the habitual interpretation is derived from a theological bias that assumes Christians will not and cannot persevere in sin. Another problem that arises from this (Salvation) interpretation is how to determine what qualifies as habitual sin. Would that include anger, lust, pride, and prayerlessness? And how often would it have to be committed to be considered habitual - once a day, once a week, once a month, or every year?
The key to understanding these statements about sin is what John says in 3:5 about Jesus: "in Him there is no sin." Verse 6 is simply saying that when believers abide in Jesus Christ, it is impossible to sin because there is no sin in Him. Verse 9 says they cannot sin; in other words, fellowship with Christ never results in sin. The Christian has a new nature from God, or as verse 9 says, we have His "seed." A sinless parent begets sinless children. This divine life in us can never express itself by sinning. Therefore, those who sin are not abiding in Christ, but are serving their old corrupt sinful desires. This struggle between our divine life and our sinful desires is described in Romans 7:14-25 and Galatians 5:16-25. In 1 John 1:8, John speaks of Christians in their general experience, while in 1 John 3:9, he speaks of Christians viewed through their new flawless life.
Real Christians sin, sometimes seriously and repeatedly. We know this from experience and from the testimony of Scripture. But God gives us a way to avoid sin - abide in Christ. When we sin, we can confess that sin and restore fellowship with God. Jesus came to take away the sin of the world. He did that provisionally when He died on the cross for all people, and we appropriate the benefit of His death when we believe in Him as Savior. But we experience the benefits of His sacrifice and avoidance of sin through fellowship when we abide in Him.
Charles Bing - Grace, Salvation, and Discipleship - Whoever Sins is of the Devil, 1 John 3:8, 10
(Salvation) Interpretation: People who sin are of the devil and are not saved.
(Discipleship) Interpretation: Believers who sin show that the source of their inspiration is the devil, not God.
At first glance, the strong language of this passage seems to say that anyone who sins is unsaved. How can children of God be called children of the devil? However, when we compare other Scriptures, we see that such language can indeed fit Christians.So John uses equally strong language with precedent.
- Jesus tells Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan!" (Matt. 16:23)
- Ananias lies to the Holy Spirit because Satan filled his heart. (Acts 5:3)
- Paul writes that Christians can be taken captive by Satan to do his will. (2 Tim. 2:26)
- James says that believers can choose demonic "wisdom" over God's. (James 3:15-17)
If this passage teaches that those who sin are unsaved, then all professing Christians are unsaved because all Christians sin (made clear in 1 John 1:7-10). As seen previously with 1 John 3:6, 9, interpreting the present tense in verse 8 as "practices sins" or "continues to sin" is not a good argument because it relies on a subtlety of understanding that is not normal or apparent in the text. Christians sin, and they may sin regularly. Determining what comprises habitual sin that forfeits salvation is subjective and without Scriptural delineation.
To understand the contrast John makes between the children of God and the children of the devil, it is helpful to observe how John is fond of absolute contrasts in this epistle: He speaks of walking in darkness or light, of loving or hating one's brother, of life and death, and of Christ and antichrist. John sees two opposite sources of spiritual orientation.
In 1 John 3:8, 10, John is distinguishing two opposite sources for Christian behavior. In 1 John 3:9, when he states that the believer in his regenerate person cannot sin because Jesus Christ cannot sin, he implies that sin must come from another source. In 1 John 3:8, he names that source as the devil who "has sinned from the beginning." The devil deceived man into sin causing him to be controlled by sin. Satan and Jesus Christ are at odds in their purposes and character, thus Jesus came to destroy the devil's works (v. 8).
When believers sin, verses 8 and 10 remind us that they are manifesting their Satan-inspired proclivity to sin, just as when believers do right, they manifest their God-given divine life (v. 9). The word "children" (tekna) does not imply a biological or genetic relationship, but is often used to describe those who have characteristics derived from another person in the sense of a kind or class of persons (see Matt. 11:19, Luke 7:35; Gal. 4:31; Eph. 2:3; 5:8: 1 Pet. 3:6). John is simply saying that those believers who sin show that the ultimate source of their actions is the devil, not Christ.
John goes on to use Cain murdering Abel as a physical illustration of this spiritual truth (1 John 3:12). This example is not a statement about whether Cain is saved or not, but only shows that his envious attitude and atrocious deed were inspired by Satan. In his Gospel, John recorded Jesus' declaration that the devil "was a murderer from the beginning" (John 8:44).
It is an unfortunate (Discipleship teaching) reality that Scripture and contemporary experience both teach that Christians can do the devil's work. Anyone who has seen Christians involved in sexual immorality, church splits, child abuse, or embezzlement of ministry money must recognize the satanic influence behind the sinner. It is too simplistic to dismiss these perpetrators as unsaved people. Why else would God direct us to practice church discipline and restorative action in the New Testament? Sin does not prove that one is not a Christian. It only shows that there are two conflicting realities competing for the believer's allegiance. As Christians we can choose to manifest our God-given divine life, or our Satan-inspired sinfulness.