EVERYONE WHO PRACTICES SIN?

1 John 3:4–6

Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. 5 You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.


I chose this text this morning for two reasons. One is because it is Christmas time when we are thinking about the coming of Christ into the world, and verse 8 is one of the clearest statements in the Bible about why Christ came. Verse 8b: "The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil."
We will come back to see what that means in the next post!!
[piping hot delicious cup of JEHOVAH awaits you]

The second reason I chose this text is that I have been wrestling with the teaching in Romans 2:6-10 that eternal life is given to those who persevere in a life of good works or a life of love. I have tried to show that this does not contradict justification by faith alone, because our good deeds confirm faith, but don't replace faith as the means of our justification. This passage in 1 John, and indeed the whole book of 1 John, sheds light on this issue.

So let's begin by seeing what's helpful in this book in regard to the issue of Romans 2:6-10. Here's what's helpful.

1 John seems to be one of the most perfectionistic books in the New Testament and one of the least perfectionistic books in the New Testament. It has verses in it that sound like Christians "simply don't sin."
As if we are perfect. But it also has some of the verses that say "most clearly" that "everybody, including Christians, DOES sin."

So if we can understand why this is, it will help us grasp Paul's point in Romans 2:6ff that you have to persevere in a life of love in order to have eternal life, but this does not mean that you have to be perfect. [Cause you cannot in this life]

Christians are Perfect?

Let me show you these two sides of 1 John. First, let's look at a group of verses that seem to say Christians are perfect and don't sin. Maybe you would want to put "NS" in the margin beside these verses for "not sin".

1 John 2:3 - "By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments." Keeping the commandments is one means of our assurance.

1 John 3:6 - "No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him." And again in 3:9 - "No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." Same thing again in 5:18 - "We know that no one who is born of God sins."

1 John 4:8 - "The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love." Loving others is the evidence that you know God. If you don't love people, you don't know God.

These verses show you what I mean when I say that 1 John seems to be one of the most perfectionistic books in the New Testament. We will come back in a minute to see what this means.

Christians Are Not Perfect?

But look at the other side. I said that 1 John also seems to be one of the least perfectionistic books in the New Testament. It has some of the clearest statements that everyone sins, including Christians. Let's take a look at these. You might want to put "S" in the margin for "sin". Then you can show someone who is stumbling over the perfectionistic verses that there is another side to the issue.

1 John 1:8-10 - "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us." This is written to Christians. The "we" of verse 9 is believers. We must confess our sins, because we do sin.

1 John 2:1 - "My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." Here is the heartening realism: "If anyone does sin, we have an advocate." The AIM is that we NOT sin, but the REALITY is that we DO sin.

1 John 3:2 - "Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is." We are already God's children because of immense and incomprehensible love, but we are not yet like him the way we will be when he comes. There is yet a *purifying work to do.

1 John 5:16-17 - "If anyone sees his brother committing a [omit "a" - the Greek text does not require it] sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will for him give life to those who commit sin not leading to death. There is a [omit "a"] sin leading to death; I do not say that he should make request for this. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a [omit "a"] sin not leading to death." This last verse seems to be targeted pointedly at perfectionists who say: all sinning is equally damning and the only person who can escape judgment is the one who commits no sin. John emphatically says in verse 17b, "There is a [omit "a"] sin not leading to death."

What Does John Mean by "Sin"

Now let's go to our text and look at it against this bigger backdrop.

When 1 John 3:6 says, "No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him," and when verse 9 says, "No one who is born of God practices sin," the key is to realize that the present tense verbs used here in Greek for "sins" (verse 6) and "practices" (verse 9) imply ongoing, continuous action.

This probably means that, in John's mind, what is impossible for the Christian is a life of "unchanged continuation in sin" the same as when he was not born of God. In view of all his insistence that Christians do sin, we can't take these verses to mean Christians don't sin at all. We should take them to mean that Christians -don't go on sinning without conflict and confession!-

-Christians SEE it, HATE it, CONFESS it, AND FIGHT it. And they do so -with "increasing vigilance" as they grow up into Christ!

That is what Romans 2:7 is trying to say: "To those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, [God will give] eternal life."

The point is not that doing good earns eternal life or gets us connected to the life of God in Christ.

The *point is that a changed life shows you are already connected to God as his child. 1 John 3:9 says that the reason born-again people don't go on casually sinning is that "no one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin."

In other words, God has come into their lives, caused them to be born again, put his "seed" - or his Spirit - in them, and is working in them to awaken them to the ugliness and folly and danger of sin so that they will be unable to choose it.

They don't avoid sin first, in order to get God into their lives. God gets into their lives first, and then they start overcoming sin.

You can see this clearly in 3:14, "We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren." Passing out of death into life happens first, and then we know that it has happened because of its effect in our lives. We start to love people like we never did before. You don't love people in order to get out of death into life by new birth. You experience new birth, pass out of death into life and the effect is love.

What Can I Do to Make New Birth Happen?

So if you ask, Well, what can I do, then, to make the new birth happen?, the answer is that you can't do anything to make the new birth happen, any more than an unborn baby can do anything to get born.

We can't believe the new birth into happening, we can't love the new birth into happening, because the new birth has to happen first so that we can believe and so that we can love.

The truth is that we are dead in trespasses and sins and cannot make ourselves alive, any more than Lazarus could raise himself from the dead. God must make us alive, as Paul said in Ephesians 2:5, so that we can believe. Look at 1 John 5:1, "Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God." Not "will be born of God," but "is born of God," or more literally, "has been born of God." The new birth precedes and enables faith. Faith is the evidence of new birth, not the cause.

If you want to know what to do to be right with God, the answer is "believe that Jesus is the Christ." Put your trust in Jesus as the fulfillment of all God's promises and bank on those promises as your only hope. Treasure Christ. Find your pleasure in Christ. When you believe in Christ, you know that you are born of him. Therefore, believe this morning. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved" (Acts 6:31). You will find God working in your life to save you and you will rejoice and give him the glory.

Two cups of coffee.....later!

Enjoy God
(by reading the next post! v7-8)