EVERY CHRISTIAN should always live in three arenas: 1) what we are, 2) what we shall be, and 3) what we should be. What we are is God’s children (v. 1); what we shall be is conformed to the image of Christ when we get to Heaven (v. 2); what we should be on the basis of these two are people who live pure lives (v. 3). John is fond of using family terms to talk about the Christian life. He records how Nicodemus came to Jesus and Jesus said, “Nicodemus, unless you are born again you cannot see the kingdom of God.” All through John’s Gospel and his letters, salvation is a “new birth,” being “born into the family of God,” and becoming “children of God.” The family is an apt metaphor for salvation since Christians have God as their Father.
First John 2:29 is a transitional verse in the letter. Notice the use of the word “born” or “begotten.” Prior to verse 29, that word does not occur at all in the first two chapters, but it occurs eight times from this point forward. John’s focus from this point on will be what it means to be in the family of God.
Children of God Now and Forever (vv. 1–3)
In 3:1 John writes, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God.” When John uses the word “see” or “behold,” he intends for us to direct our attention and reflect on the greatness of the Father’s love for us. The word indicates “to ponder, to study.” It invites us to, as Spurgeon said, “Pry into this secret!”1 In his letters John frequently refers to Christians as “children” of God. On the other hand, Paul characteristically refers to Christians as “sons” of God. Both are true, of course. What is the difference? “Son” is something of a legal term describing our relationship with God through Christ. Christians have been declared to be “sons” of God; they have been adopted into the family legally. John does not use the term “sons”; rather he uses here the word “children.” This is a term that describes origin, birth, family relationship, family likeness, and family characteristics. We are the children of God.
If children have been born into your family, you well remember the day they were born. All the family came to the hospital and gathered around the new baby. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters were present, along with other family members. What was the topic of conversation? Of course, it was the baby and his or her family likeness. “Look, he has Grandpa’s eyes!” “She has a full head of black hair like Grandma!” “Did you notice how he has Uncle Joe’s ears?” That is something of the idea John is conveying here. As Christians, we are part of the family of God, and we should have something of the family likeness.
How did it come about that we gained entrance into God’s family? John tells us in verse 1 it is because of God’s love for us: “See what kind of love the Father has given to us.” John places the word “Father” in a key position to emphasize the family relationship. God himself is the source of this love to us, and what a marvelous love it is! Had you lived in the first century in a Greek seaport town, you might one day be about your business, and suddenly there would be a rustle among the people down on the docks, and word would spread through the town that a ship was coming. People would move down toward the docks and look out on the horizon at the approaching ship. By the sail configuration they could tell whether the ship was from their own country or a foreign nation. You would hear people asking in Greek, “Potapēn?” which literally means, “Of what country?” “What new people are coming to visit us? What new things are we going to learn?” This is the word translated “what kind of” in 3:1. This is a very unusual word that only occurs six times in the whole New Testament, and it bristles with surprise, astonishment, urgency, and excitement. “. . . what kind of love the Father has given to us . . .” This is the word the astonished disciples uttered when Jesus calmed the sea: “What manner of man is this? Where is he from that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
Notice that this love of God is wonderful and unique because it actually does come from another country: in fact it comes from Heaven! The love of God is broad, deep, marvelous, unimaginable, incomprehensible, boundless, endless, measureless. When Paul tried to measure it, language forced him to resort to the only standard phrases available to him: “. . . the breadth and length and height and depth . . . the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” (Ephesians 3:18, 19). It is like measuring the content of the ocean with a teacup or making a personal inspection of the known universe. It is like setting up a yardstick to see how tall God is or using a tape measure to determine the breadth of his reach.2 When I look at the cross, I see there a love that shrinks from no sacrifice, is evoked by no lovableness on my part, but comes from the depth of God’s own infinite being. God is a God who loves because he must and who must because he is God. I see on the cross a love that will not be extinguished by sinfulness but pours its treasures on the unworthy, like sunshine on a dunghill.3 This love of God is one of the main themes of Christian hymnody. Contemporary Christian songs often focus on the love of God. Christians should never cease to be amazed and to marvel at God’s love for us. It’s a love that comes from another country. It far exceeds all other loves.
This love, John says, “has [been] given to us, that we should be called children of God.” The meaning of this verb coupled with the tense4 John uses suggests that this gift cannot be earned, bought, or withdrawn. This is not a love that you and I deserve. This love is a gift. God reaches down to us, unlovely though we are in the midst of our sins. Jesus died for our sins on the cross. God has “given” this love to us and has “called” each of us his child. These words describe titles of honor. God has given us the honor of bearing his name! Perhaps you bear a family name given to you in honor of a father or grandfather or other family member. God bestows an undeserved honor on us when his love for us causes him to adopt us into his family.
Lest one of us be so overwhelmed with this unbelievable fact that we are children of God, John says, “and so we are.” The missionary Ziegenbalg tells how, in translating this text with the aid of a Hindu youth, the youth rendered it “that we should be allowed to kiss His feet.” When asked why he thus diverged from the text he said, “‘Children of God!’ that is too much—too high!”5 But it is not too high! It is what God himself declares us to be! In C. S. Lewis’s famous book Screwtape Letters, Screwtape, the senior demon who is instructing his younger, inexperienced understudy, Wormwood, in the art of guiding a human being into Hell warns his pupil that his task is all the more difficult because the “Enemy” (God) “has a curious fantasy of making all these disgusting little human vermin into sons.”6
To function well as a Christian, you have to know who you are in Christ. No matter what problems you may be facing at the moment, you are his child. You are in his family now. But the news gets even better! Just as we are born only once into our family, so the new birth, which places us in the family of God, is a once-for-all event as well. We can never be disowned by God as a member of his family. You may bring dishonor to your earthly family name; you may do things the family frowns on; but you cannot get out of the family even if your family in an official capacity disowns you. You will always be a part of your earthly family biologically. The same is true of your spiritual family. You did nothing to cause yourself to be born into your earthly family. Likewise, you had nothing to do with your spiritual birth (John 1:12, 13). Adoption gives us the name of God’s children, the new birth gives us the nature of God’s children, and in both senses such we are! Adoption is the legal act by which our Father places us in his family; regeneration is the spiritual birth by which we receive the nature of our Father.7
By means of God’s forgiveness of our sins and the new birth, we are in the family of God. Unable to deal with sin, Buddhism despairs of the present life and longs for release in Nirvana, which is “nothingness.” Hinduism seeks to solve the sin problem through escape from the wheel of karma via reincarnation (rebirth). Christianity solves the sin problem not by escape into nothingness or by rebirth but rather by the new birth! “We are God’s children now.”
People who are not God’s children do not know God or recognize him as Father. They don’t recognize us as children of God either. Most of the world rejected Jesus the first time he came. The world does not know the Father; so it should not be any surprise to us that the world does not recognize us as children of God. The reason the world does not “know us” is because it did not “know him.” By “him” John could be referring to God or Christ or, most likely, God in Christ (cf. John 15:18—16:4). Remember what John said in his Gospel: Jesus was in the world, but the world did not know him. He came to his own, and they did not receive him (John 1:10, 11). Don’t you find that amazing? The majority of people missed who Jesus is when he came to this earth! Because the world does not know Jesus, they will not know us. When we enter into the family of God, our old family doesn’t know us anymore. Don’t be surprised when the world doesn’t know us.
In verse 2 John refers to his readers who are God’s children as “beloved.” Though we are currently children of God, all of the implications of what that will mean for us when we get to Heaven are not realized in this life. This is what John means when he says, “What we will be has not yet appeared.” Now we are children of God, but it has not appeared as yet what we will be. The present is the prophet of the future.8 Now we are limited to speak in the language of earth; on that day we will learn the vocabulary of Heaven.9 With respect to our future state, John affirms both our ignorance and our knowledge. He affirms our ignorance inasmuch as “what we will be has not yet appeared”; he affirms our knowledge since we have the assurance that “when [Christ] appears we shall be like him.”10 All our heart’s questions are answered in the statement “we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” Richard Baxter said it well:
My knowledge of that life is small,
The eye of faith is dim;
But ’tis enough that Christ knows all,
And I shall be like Him!11
At this point John shifts to talk about what we will be. In order to understand what we will be we have to start with who we are: children of God. But God is not only interested in making us his children; he desires for all his children to bear the family likeness. God is about the business of making us more like Jesus. Did you know that every day of your life as a Christian God is silently at work to create in you the mind of Christ? He is at work to help us learn to think like Jesus, talk like Jesus, and act like Jesus. God is about making all of his children conform to the image of our Lord Jesus Christ. Our full and final spiritual inheritance is in Heaven and awaits the return of Christ. But that inheritance is ours now, even though we have not yet come into possession of it.
E. V. Hill, the great African-American preacher, once hired a young girl to be his secretary. He did not know who she was other than her name. One day one of his friends came by and said, “Do you know who your secretary is?” Hill responded, “Of course. That’s Natalie Cole.” He said, “But do you know who Natalie Cole is?” Hill said, “Of course. She’s a very nice young lady who works very well, and I pay her $2 an hour.” The friend said, “That’s Nat King Cole’s daughter.” Hill was stunned. He asked Natalie to come into his office and asked her if she was indeed Nat King Cole’s daughter. “Yes,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me?” asked Hill. She said, “I didn’t know it was required. I just wanted a job. My daddy left me something, but I haven’t come into it yet. It won’t be mine until I am twenty-one.”12 That is the way it is with all of us who are Christians. We are children of King Jesus, but we have not yet come into our full inheritance. It is ours now, but we don’t come into it until we get to Heaven! To the world we Christians are an odd lot of people from many different walks of life. Our earthly vocations may be humble, but we are children of the King! Harriett Buell wrote the words for “I’m A Child of the King” as she walked home from church one Sunday:
My Father is rich in houses and lands;
He holdeth the wealth of the world in His hands!
Of rubies and diamonds, of silver and gold,
His coffers are full—He has riches untold.
My Father’s own Son, the Savior of men,
Once wandered o’er earth as the poorest of them;
But now He is reigning forever on high,
And will give me a home in heav’n by and by.
I once was an outcast stranger on earth,
A sinner by choice and an alien by birth;
But I’ve been adopted; my name’s written down—
An heir to a mansion, a robe, and a crown.
A tent or a cottage, why should I care?
They’re building a palace for me over there!
Though exiled from home, yet still I may sing:
All glory to God, I’m a child of the King.
Chorus:
I’m a child of the King, a child of the King!
With Jesus my Savior, I’m a child of the King!
Some of us live and work in very modest circumstances. The world would never guess that even now are we sons of God! It doesn’t look like it—we haven’t come into our inheritance yet!
“When he [Jesus] appears we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is.” When Jesus returns again to this earth, we shall be “like him.” Greek has two primary words to describe likeness. One word describes equality in number, size, and weight; the other word means similarity in characteristic. It is this second word that John uses here. There is one sense in which we can never be like Jesus because Jesus is divine, God in human flesh, the second person of the Trinity. We will never be “like him” in the sense of equality with his divine nature.13 We do not become little gods! But we will be like him in spiritual unity and righteousness. Did you know that God saved us for more reasons than just to keep us out of Hell? The Bible says that God saved us to conform us to the image of his Son and make us like Jesus. God will fulfill that purpose, and there will come a day when we will be just like Jesus in that we will be perfectly righteous. Think of it—redesigned as the spitting image of Jesus in terms of righteousness!14 I scarcely can imagine it. Until then we are utter strangers to our future selves. Out of prison we come to reign.15
What does it mean for John to say, “we shall be like him”? First, we will have glorified resurrected bodies in Heaven. John offers no outward evidence for the resurrection of Jesus or for our resurrected bodies. This is the case not because he thinks that evidences are unimportant, but because he is sure they are not enough. Evidences alone don’t satisfy. The human heart can no more be satisfied by evidences of the resurrection than hungry people can be satisfied by evidences of bread or thirsty people by evidences of water. For John, there is no point in marshaling arguments for our resurrected body. Verbal proof is unnecessary. You don’t need proof of the reality of water when your parched lips meet a gushing spring.
Paul says in Philippians 3:21 that Jesus will “transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body.” Personally I would like to be taller and thinner. I’m glad I will be able to spend Heaven in a body that I will enjoy. When you live in Heaven eternally you don’t want to be shackled by the difficulties that plague your physical body now. Your heavenly body will be something like Jesus’ resurrection body—not bound by the space/time/matter continuum. I’m looking forward to that (whether I’m taller and thinner or not!). Second, we will have purified character. We don’t want to go to Heaven as we are now because there is no sin in Heaven. If we went like we are now, we wouldn’t fit in. We would be like an Oklahoma University fan at a University of Texas alumni meeting. (Feel free to reverse the analogy if you are an OU fan!) When we go to Heaven, God will cleanse us once and for all from sin. He will eliminate once and for all that sin nature in our heart. Third, we will have a satisfied heart. Listen to Psalm 17:15: “As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness.” When we awake in Heaven after the sleep of death, we will awake in Jesus’ likeness and will be eternally satisfied! I’m not satisfied today with my life spiritually, are you? I want to do more and be more for my Savior.
By virtue of the incarnation, Jesus retains his humanity now in his glorified exalted state. Think of it, perfect humanity, the God-man, on the throne in Heaven! One day we are going to be like him, sinless in every way. One day we will see Jesus “as he is.” We will see him in all of his glory, his majesty, his perfection. I’ve seen some beautiful sights in my lifetime. The faces of my wife, children, and grandchildren are beautiful sights to me. I have seen a beautiful bride adorned in her wedding white walk down an aisle. I’ve stood atop the Rockies and looked down at the majesty of God’s creation. I’ve stood on the shoreline in California at Carmel-by-the-Sea and on the beautiful white sands of Destin, Florida and watched the sea as it rolls in. I’ve seen the sunset paint its spangled colors on an Arizona mountain. I have flown parallel to the Andes Mountains on my way to and from Peru, and what an incredible sight! But each of those beautiful sights simply cannot hold a candle to the face of Jesus in all his glory and splendor. Peter got it right when he said about Jesus, “Though you have not seen him, you love him” (1 Peter 1:8).
When I look in the mirror each morning, sometimes I don’t particularly like what I see. A shower and shave always help, but even then sometimes I don’t like what I see! In 1993 the rock group Pearl Jam released their second album entitled “P.S.” In five days they sold a record 950,000 copies. TIME magazine put the face of lead singer Eddie Vedder on the front cover. I was intrigued by what Eddie Vedder said: “I’m being honest, when I say sometimes when I see a picture of the band or a picture of my face taking up a whole page of a magazine, I hate that guy.”16 When I think about my spiritual face, reflected in the life I live, what I really want to see and what I really want other people to see when they look at me is Jesus. I want them to see a man who thinks, talks, and acts like Jesus. All the fame and fortune bestowed on you by the world means nothing unless you have God’s saving love bestowed upon you as one of his children, and you thus bear the family likeness.
Brian Kelley of Detroit underwent intestinal surgery in July 1994, and something went wrong. The doctors told him he was not going to live. Brian Kelley gathered his family around him and gave specific instructions for his body after his death. He worked at a fireworks company. He instructed his family to have his body cremated, and then his ashes were to be rolled into a twelve-inch fireworks shell. On August 12, 1994 at a pyrotechnic convention, a cannon report was heard launching that shell into the air. It had two silver streaming comet tails that followed in its ascent; then it burst, and for four seconds there were green and red stars everywhere intermingled with his ashes. Four seconds of glory and the show was over.17 Without Christ, no matter how long or short a life we live, and no matter whether we make it in this life or not, that is about all of life there is. A few seconds of glory, and then everything flickers and fades into darkness. But those who know Christ will one day be with Jesus and will become like Jesus and, as the Bible says, will shine as the stars forever with him. That is what God does for those who are his children.
What do you think makes Heaven Heaven? Not that your grandmother or grandfather are there; not that your mother or father or other family members are there; not that the angels, other Christian friends, or the street of gold are there. (Revelation never mentions “streets” of gold; only a “street” of gold!) All of that contributes to the joy of Heaven, but those are side benefits. What makes Heaven Heaven is the fact that Jesus is going to be there! A true child of God wants to be with Jesus. You want to walk with him, love him more, and just be in his presence. There is nothing more desolate than a beautiful home when somebody who was its light is gone. It may be adorned with every treasure that wealth can purchase, and yet the heart may be very lonely there. What would Heaven be without Jesus? When Paul thinks of Heaven, he always seems to think of Jesus. He never says, when life is hard and difficult, “I have a desire to depart and go to Heaven”; he says, “My desire is to depart and be with Christ” (Philippians 1:23).18
When it comes to the afterlife in Heaven, the Bible is consistently reticent. It does not undertake to tell us all that we would like to know. It makes no effort to satisfy our curiosity. Christians should be very wary of the spate of recent books purporting to tell us how someone went to Heaven when he or she died and then came back to life. I personally doubt that Jesus helped little Colton with his homework while he was supposedly in Heaven for a time during his near-death experience, as he claims in the New York Times bestseller Heaven Is for Real.19
I think about our men and women in uniform who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past several years. Many of them have been deployed for a year or longer, and some have seen multiple deployments. Some military fathers in Iraq and Afghanistan have had a child born back home, and they have only seen pictures or videos or live video on Skype of their child. They have not yet had the joy of looking into the face of their own child. Imagine that daddy when he finally gets to come home and for the first time see and hold his own child. The face of his own child moves him to tears of joy. The songwriter had it right when he said, “It will be worth it all when we see Jesus; life’s trials will seem so small when we see Christ. One glimpse of His dear face all sorrows will erase, so bravely run the race till we see Christ.” What a glorious day it will be when 1 Corinthians 13:12 is fulfilled: “now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.”
When I was in London a few years back, I toured the famous St. Paul’s Cathedral. One of the monuments was a white marble statue of John Donne, famous poet, preacher, and Dean of St. Paul’s Church from 1621 until his death in 1631. During the last few weeks of his life, Donne lay on his bed in pain as his life ebbed away. The church employed a carver to design a monument for their Dean. Donne posed for him in the posture of death as a living cadaver, hands folded, eyes closed, and a winding sheet wrapped around him. After his death it was mounted over his funeral urn. His face wears a serene expression that ironically contrasts with the suffering he endured in later life. Donne wrote and preached as much or more about pain and death than any of his contemporaries. But in spite of all he suffered, he was well acquainted with 1 John 3:1, 2, as is evidenced by the following words from one of his later sermons:
Our last day is our first day; our Saturday is our Sunday; our eve is our holy day; our sunsetting is our morning; the day of our death is the first day of our eternal life. The next day after that . . . comes that day that shall show me to myself. Here I never saw God too. . . . Here I have one faculty enlightened, and another left in darkness; mine understanding sometimes cleared, my will at the same time perverted. There I shall be all light, no shadow upon me; my soul invested in the light of joy, and my body in the light of glory.20
In verses 1, 2 John has told us what we are: “children of God.” He has told us what we will be: like Jesus when we see his face someday. Now John tells us in verse 3 what we should be: “And everyone who has thus hopes in him [Jesus] purifies himself as he is pure.” To keep us from floating away on a cloud of mysticism, John reminds us that our future destiny helps us to know our present duty. If we are to be like Christ in Heaven, then we must act like Christ now!21 What are we to be doing now before we come to the time of “what we will be”? John says what we should be is holy and how we should live is a pure life. The reason we can and should do this is because we have hope. Hope is a very important word. In English hope conveys a wishful optimism with no guarantee that the thing hoped for will ever materialize. “I hope it doesn’t rain today.” “I hope we have fried chicken for lunch today.” Earthly hope is often satiating but never satisfying. But in the New Testament “hope” means a settled certainty and confident expectation based on the promises of God. Notice carefully the object of our hope: “hopes in him.” That is, our hope is fixed on Jesus. Hope is a settled fact for Christians provided for us by Jesus who is himself our hope (Hebrews 6:19).
Hope is future-oriented. John’s “hope” is the second coming of Jesus and the fact that Christians will be conformed to his image. What should we be when Jesus returns? Holy in character and conduct. We know what we are, the “children of God”; we know what we shall be, conformed to his image. But now he says in light of all of those things what we should be today is holy in character and holy in conduct. We’ll never be holy in conduct until our character is right. Holiness begins internally and then works itself out in terms of our actions. We Christians are responsible to see to it that we are walking in holiness. Is that true for you? Think about your life. Are you walking in holiness and godliness? Are you purifying yourself day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment? Notice the pattern: we are to purify ourselves “as he is pure.” The pattern for our purity today is not our spouse or another Christian but Jesus Christ. He alone is our pattern.
“Everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he [Jesus] is pure.” Notice that our incentive for living a holy life is not rules but a relationship with Jesus. My incentive for right living is based on a higher love, a greater devotion to Jesus. When you love Jesus, you desire to be like Jesus. He is pure and holy, and his children should desire the same thing. The practical implication of living the life of hope is self-purification. There is a sense in which we partly can and a sense in which we absolutely cannot purify ourselves. We cannot do it, yet it cannot be done without us. It can only be done by our uniting our own will to the will of God.22
As Calvin said, “Our desire for holiness should not grow cold because our happiness has not yet appeared, for the hope is sufficient.”23 Our righteousness is not the ground of our hope, nor is it our warrant to hope in Christ. The only ground of our hope is Christ himself.24
A Christian teenage girl was out with friends when the decision was made by the group to go to a particular place and do things there that she was uncomfortable with. She had just a few seconds of hesitation and then spoke out and asked to be taken home. People began to snicker. One of the boys said to her, “Why don’t you want to go with us? Are you afraid your dad will hurt you if he finds out?” “No,” she said. “I’m afraid if I go there I will hurt my father.” That should be the attitude and action of Christians today. It’s not that you are afraid God will hurt you if you sin, but you love him so much that you don’t want to hurt him.
Verse 2 is a strong incentive to fulfill verse 3. “We are God’s children now.” It does not yet appear what we shall be when we see Jesus. But until then this hope motivates us to live pure lives. Satan’s deception tries to convince us that we cannot help but yield to sin. Satan is like crafty Cortes, who when the Spaniards invaded Mexico sought to make the Mexicans believe that a Spaniard cannot die, a deception that utterly unnerved them in battle. Think of it this way. When a baseball player hits a home run, he cannot be put out. But he also has to run the bases and make sure he touches all the bases. Though he is in no danger of being thrown or tagged or called out, he still has to run the bases. No one, on the field or in the bleachers, can throw him out! When Jesus died on the cross, he put it over the fence! As a Christian, I am a son of God, but I still have to run the bases of the Christian life. I’m not in any danger of losing my salvation. He who began a good work in me will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6). I’m saved, sanctified, and safe . . . for all eternity!25
True Children of God Do Not Exhibit a Sinful Lifestyle (vv. 4–6)
John further develops his point from verse 3 in verses 4–10. This passage has caused confusion because it seems that verses 6 and 9 imply that a Christian cannot sin. At first blush it might appear John has contradicted himself based on what he has already said in 1:8–10 and 2:1. However, a closer inspection reveals that is not what John means. Both grammar and context provide the interpretive key to solve the problem.26 Notice how many times phrases such as “practice of sinning,” “keep on sinning,” and “practice righteousness” occur here. The use of “practice” and “keep on” in the esv translators clearly renders the present tense aspect in these verbs. This is the key to a proper understanding of what John is saying. Our attitude to sin as Christians is of vital importance to John. Apparently the false teachers John is combating were indifferent to sin. This is something that should never be true of a Christian. You can be no more indifferent to sin than you could be indifferent to a rattlesnake in your house.
There is an important distinction to be made between a state of purity and a maintained condition of purity. Suppose you walked through a dark room with a lighted candle, and upon exiting the room, the room remained lighted because the candle had passed through it. Such a condition is impossible! If this were possible, the room would no longer be dependent upon the candle for its light. It would only be indebted to the candle for its introduction of light into the room. Sin is darkness, and Christ is the light. What the candle is to the dark room, Christ is to our hearts. By the light of his indwelling presence he keeps sin away. The cleansing we experience is not a state but a maintained condition; a condition that can only exist because of Christ’s presence in our life. Light dispels darkness, but the tendency to darkness remains. A room can only be maintained in a condition of illumination by the continual counteraction of that tendency. When we are saved, we do not possess a state of purity. We are constantly dependent upon Christ’s presence in our lives to counteract the constant tendency to sin.27
In verses 4–8 John states or imply several things about sin. He tells us what sin is, what sin does, why sin is, from where sin comes, and how sin is conquered.28 Verse 4 makes the point that “sin is lawlessness.” Lawlessness is willful rejection and active disobedience to the will of God. Hence anyone who practices sin practices lawlessness.29 “Lawlessness is a self-chosen disobedience that subverts man’s true relation to the will of God. The objective habit is coextensive with the subjective condition.”30 Spurgeon noted how sometimes we mistakenly judge the gravity of sin merely by its consequences. But it is not the amount of damage that results from it that makes the sin; it is the thing itself.31
John makes the point in verse 5 that Jesus’ purpose for coming into the world was “to take away sins.” John the Baptist stated in John 1:29, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” This statement focuses on the expiatory nature of Christ’s atonement on the cross. The finality of his sacrifice is emphasized.32 Furthermore, Jesus is himself sinless, a necessary condition for him to be qualified to atone for sin. The author of Hebrews clearly affirms the sinlessness of Christ in Hebrews 4:15: Jesus “in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Some have questioned whether his temptations could have been real if he could not have sinned as the Son of God.33 However, this misses the point. Think of unbreakable dishware. You go to the store and ask the salesperson how he knows this dishware is unbreakable. The salesperson pulls out a plate, throws it on the ground, and it does not break. He takes it and hits it against the table and the wall, yet it does not break. He beats it with a hammer. Still the plate does not break. Were the tests the plate underwent any less real just because it was unbreakable? Not at all. The trials and temptations Jesus experienced in his earthly ministry were just as real as the same kind of trials and temptations we face today. Yet Jesus did not sin.
In verse 6 John affirms that no one who “abides in [Christ],” meaning no one who is genuinely a Christian, “keeps on sinning.” The key here is the present tense verb expressing an ongoing sinful lifestyle. John has already affirmed the possibility that a Christian can sin. That is not his point here. He does not refer to an occasional specific act of sin but rather a lifestyle of sin. Such a lifestyle indicates someone who has neither “seen” nor “known” Jesus.34 The use of the word “know” here suggests knowledge based on experience. Not to “know” Christ here describes someone who is not genuinely saved.
Those Who Do Exhibit a Sinful Lifestyle Are from Their Father, the Devil (vv. 7–10)
Verse 7 provides the obverse scenario: the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as Jesus is righteous. John couches this assertion in a tender pastoral tone: “Little children, let no one deceive you.” False teachers are behind the notion that one can be born again and yet practice a sinful lifestyle. John refutes such attempted deception. “We do not attach ourselves to Christ by our own righteous acts; but because we are attached to Christ we are able to perform righteous acts. We do not make ourselves God’s children because we are good; but being the children of a good God, we can live as His children.”35 Imagine a professional football player who is an all-pro and master of his position. He knows what his responsibilities are and how to carry out his assignments. Normally he performs his tasks as he should. But occasionally he misses an assignment. He may miss a block or a tackle. But that is not the norm for him. Rather it is the exception.36 That is the way it is in our Christian life. Sin is the exception, not the rule. If sin is the rule rather than the exception, you have not been born of God.
In verse 8 John carries the trajectory of his argument even further. He tracks the source of habitual sin to Satan himself. Jesus made the same connection in John 8:44: “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” The name “devil” means “slanderer; accuser.” The devil’s lifestyle of sin has been so “from the beginning.” This probably refers to the beginning of Satan’s rebellion against God.37 John then states why Jesus “appeared” with respect to the devil: that he might destroy his works. This sounds very much like the author of Hebrews in Hebrews 2:14 where the word “destroy” is also used. John’s use of the word “appeared” emphasizes the preexistence of Christ and the historical reality of his incarnation. For the first of seven times in the letter, John refers to Jesus as the “Son of God.” This title emphasizes his deity. All the works of the devil, including atheism, ignorance, unbelief, indifference, doubting, idolatry, blasphemy, pride, deceit, hypocrisy, hate, and a hundred other sins, will one day be completely eradicated by the power of “the Son of God.”
John now begins to draw his argument to a close by stating in verse 9 that no one who has been born of God practices sin. His use of the perfect tense again stresses the complete and final nature of the new birth. The reason why the Christian cannot practice sin is because he has been given new birth by God himself. The crucial question is, what does John mean by the phrase “God’s seed”? There are four possibilities. The “seed’ could be the Word of God itself (James 1:18). A second option is the Holy Spirit. The third view is that “seed” refers to both the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. The final interpretation is the best option given the context. John is referring to the fact of the divine nature in us by virtue of the new birth. This new birth prohibits a lifestyle of sin in one who is truly born again. Christians may sin as John has already confirmed in his letter (1:5–10). But genuine Christians don’t want to sin. Sometimes people assume that the doctrine of the eternal security of the believer becomes a license for Christians to sin with impunity. Have you ever heard someone say something like, “If I believe such a doctrine, I would do as I want to since I would be saved regardless.” W. T. Conner, professor of theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in a bygone era, had a good answer to such an egregious slur on God’s saving grace: “That’s right. I do what I want to do, but in regeneration Christ did something to my ‘wanter.’ I just don’t want to do the things that you are talking about.”38
John Wesley has an interesting sermon on 1 John 3:9. He attempts to describe how it is that “no one born of God makes a practice of sinning.” If a believer is walking by faith and love, watching in prayer, then sin is excluded from his life, though even then we are liable to temptation. But if we cease to walk by faith, love, and prayer, we easily fall into the snare of the devil and commit sin. He notes that great men who clearly were children of God like David and Peter did indeed sin, and the reason for their sin is that they failed to walk by faith, love, and prayer. The Holy Spirit continually acts on our soul, and as long as this is followed by a reciprocal action of faith and love offered back to the Holy Spirit, we are able to walk in holiness. But if we turn a deaf ear to the constant work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we open ourselves up to the possibility, even the inevitability, of sin.39
John’s final point is found in verse 10. Every person is a member of one of two families: God’s family or the devil’s family. The distinguishing mark is what one practices: righteousness or sin. One who does not practice righteousness is not “of God,” meaning God is not his spiritual Father. The foolproof test in this paternity dispute is to take swabs of lifestyle, and the one that shows no evidence of someone doing the right thing can’t be God’s child.40 John then adds a final comment specifying one act of righteousness that he has already addressed and will address again: loving Christian brothers and sisters in the church. In essence God and Satan are the heads of two families. You are either a child of God or of Satan. Every person who has not been born into the family of God is a member of the family of Satan. The new birth determines what family you are in today. If you have not repented of your sin and believed on Jesus Christ as your Savior, you are still in the family of Satan. At the risk of being too culturally colloquial, in essence John is asking us a crucial question: “Who’s your daddy?”