Sermon Tone Analysis

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/4 //Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.//

//5 //You know that he appeared to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.//

//6 //No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.//

//7 //Little children, let no one deceive you.

Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.//

//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.//

//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.// //10 //By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother./

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We are in a section of John’s letter in which he is dealing with the necessity of right behavior as a “proof” that one is in fellowship with God.

It is at least the second time that John has dealt with this topic (see 2:3-6).

John wrote in 1 John 2:29: “you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.”

And in today’s passage we read, “Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.”

So what we find in this week’s passage is a continuation of what we read last week in 1 John 2:28–3:3.

We pick up in 1 John 3:4 where we left off in 2:29.

In between was John’s reflection on the significance of the new birth.

The implication is that righteousness is possible only for those who have been born again.

John does not want us to think that he is only interested in behavior modification.

He insists that true righteousness comes only from the new birth and not from human effort.

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THE INTERPRETIVE CHALLENGE

But there is something that stands in the way of righteous behavior, and it is this that John focuses on in this passage.

John has much to say about sin and the relationship those born of God have with it.

And what John has to say has been the occasion for much interpretive debate.         1 John 3:6 and 1 John 3:9 are two of the most difficult verses to comprehend in this little book.

Accordingly, many English translations have been forced to translate these verses with an interpretive bias.

But the NASB rendering of verse six is very literal and helps us to see why this passage has been the cause for the spilling of much ink.

It reads, “No one who abides in Him sins.”

And verse nine reads, “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.”

The grammar of this passage is simple enough, and John makes clear what his point is in verse 10.

He is wanting to give us yet another “test” to discern between the children of God and the children of the devil.

But what make the passage difficult to interpret are the absolute terms John uses to describe those born of God and those who are of the devil.

Those born of God are those who do not sin (even /cannot/ sin!).

Those who are children of the devil do not live righteously.

So the interpretive problem is simply this: Is John teaching sinless perfection for true believers?

If so, doesn’t that contradict what he said in 1:8-10?

It’s obvious that these questions are a bit of a problem, and there is no shame in admitting it.

We should not merely dismiss this problem by offering quick explanations.

Liberal scholars have often dealt with the problem by suggesting that John did not write these verses but they were added later by someone else.

But is there no other way to reconciling what John has to say here with what he has already said in chapter one?

I think there is.

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SIN IS LAWLESSNESS

Let’s begin where John begins, with verse four.

/“Everyone who commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.”/

John wants us to come to grips with what sin is before we can understand what more he has to say about it.

So he offers us this definition: sin is lawlessness.

It is, of course, true that sin is the breaking of God’s law.

That is, every sin is a sin against God because it is his law that we violate when we sin.

This simple fact is enough to demonstrate the seriousness of sin.

But John may have more in mind here.

He has recently told us that because the “last hour” has been inaugurated, there are many “antichrists” now on the scene.

When Paul described the coming of antichrist in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 7, he described him as “the man of lawlessness,” the same word that occurs here.

It is quite possible that the word /lawlessness/ became “associated with the final outbreak of evil against Christ and that it signifies rebellion against the will of God.”[1]

So when John says that those who commit sin are committing lawlessness, he may be referring to the fact that sin is not just the breaking of God’s law, but the aligning of one’s self in rebellion against God and in opposition to the Christ.

I do not think John intended to give us an exact definition of sin.

We are still sinners even when we are not actively doing anything in violation of God’s law.

But John seems to be more concerned here with the various /acts/ of sin.

So when John says in verse six that “no one who abides in him sins,” it is clear that John is not differentiating between different types of sin.

He does not mean, for example, that those who abide in God commit only unintentional sin but not deliberate sin.

It is sin in general that is in view here, including sins of omission (“whoever does not practice righteousness.”)

And John says that by sinning we line ourselves up with the enemies of God.

John’s opponents did not apparently have such a view of sin.

Unfortunately, many today also do not look at sin the same way God does.

How difficult it can be for us to admit that most of our failures and mistakes and “goofs” are nothing but sin.

Our tendency to underestimate the negative effects of sin indicates that we are still in need of hearing John’s message.

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THE REASON THE SON OF GOD APPEARED

Thus we can see already the seriousness of sin, knowing that all acts of sin involve the breaking of the law of God.

Sin is rebellion against God.

So serious is the subject and so damning its effects that God went to great lengths to counteract it.

It is because of sin that Jesus came to earth.

He “appeared to take away sins,” verse five tells us.

And verse eight says, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.”

So the “works of the devil” are the sins of the world.

Again we can see the connection that John makes between sin and rebellion against God.

The devil, as the arch-enemy of God, stands opposed to God in every way.

His “works,” then, would involve things done in opposition to God.

When we sin we are doing things that oppose God and are working to support the devil.

But the devil will not succeed in his opposition to God.

Jesus came to earth for the very purpose of taking away sins and thereby destroying the works of the devil.

In 1 John 2:2 we read that the /way/ that Jesus took away sins was by becoming our propitiation.

Remember that a /propitiation/ is a /satisfaction/ of the wrath of God.

Jesus needed to propitiate because of sin.

John concludes here that if Jesus came in this way for the very purpose of taking away sins, then Jesus must also be opposed to sin.

Indeed, John tells us at the end of verse five, “in him there is no sin.”

We learned last week that the ambition of every true believer is to become like Christ, and that this ambition causes us to strive for Christlikeness now.

So if Christ is sinless, our aim should be to be sinless.

And when John says in verse six, “No one who abides in him sins,” he is only drawing a logical conclusion from verses four and five.

If sin is rebellion against God, and if Christ came to take away sin, and if he himself is sinless, then those who “abide” in him will also be opposed to sin.

Radically opposed to it.

This is one reason why our “interpretive problem” cannot be solved by saying that when John mentions sinlessness he is talking only about the new nature given to believers.

Some have understood John’s words to mean that when the believer sins it is not really him that sins but his old, sinful self.

While our /desires/ may come from our two natures, our /actions/ are always singular.

We are responsible for how we behave.

Now I hope that this is as obvious to you as anything possibly could be.

Sin is serious because it is rebellion against God.

And you and I are responsible for our sins.

But it seems that these two truths are not all that obvious, either in our day or in John’s.

He writes in verse seven, “Little children, let no one deceive you.”

And then he essentially repeats what he wrote in 2:29: “Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous.”

It seems that John had to deal with those who were saying that sin was not all that significant, either because they professed to be sinless or because they didn’t think sin made much of a difference in their lives.

The Apostle Paul had to make a similar clarification: “What shall we say then?

Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?

By no means!”