1 John 3:6

3:3-10 The sons of God know that their Lord is of purer eyes than to allow any thing unholy and impure to dwell with him. It is the hope of hypocrites, not of the sons of God, that makes allowance for gratifying impure desires and lusts. May we be followers of him as his dear children, thus show our sense of his unspeakable mercy, and express that obedient, grateful, humble mind which becomes us. Sin is the rejecting the Divine law. In him, that is, in Christ, was no sin. All the sinless weaknesses that were consequences of the fall, he took; that is, all those infirmities of mind or body which subject man to suffering, and expose him to temptation. But our moral infirmities, our proneness to sin, he had not. He that abides in Christ, continues not in the practice of sin. Renouncing sin is the great proof of spiritual union with, continuance in, and saving knowledge of the Lord Christ. Beware of self-deceit. He that doeth righteousness is righteous, and to be a follower of Christ, shows an interest by faith in his obedience and sufferings. But a man cannot act like the devil, and at the same time be a disciple of Christ Jesus. Let us not serve or indulge what the Son of God came to destroy. To be born of God is to be inwardly renewed by the power of the Spirit of God. Renewing grace is an abiding principle. Religion is not an art, a matter of dexterity and skill, but a new nature.

And the regenerate person cannot sin as he did before he was born of God, and as others do who are not born again. There is that light in his mind, which shows him the evil and malignity of sin. There is that bias upon his heart, which disposes him to loathe and hate sin. There is the spiritual principle that opposes sinful acts. And there is repentance for sin, if committed. It goes against him to sin with forethought. The children of God and the children of the devil have their distinct characters. The seed of the serpent are known by neglect of religion, and by their hating real Christians. He only is righteous before God, as a justified believer, who is taught and disposed to righteousness by the Holy Spirit. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil. May all professors of the gospel lay these truths to heart, and try themselves by them.

1 John 3:6 . This seems a stark contradiction of 1 John 1:8 to 1 John 2:2 . (1) St. Augustine first limits the statement: “In quantum in ipso manet, in tantum non peccat,” and then narrows the idea of “sin” by defining it as “not loving one’s brother” ( 1 John 3:10 ). (2) St. Bernard ( De Nat. et Dign. Am. Div. vi.) compares Romans 7:17 ; Romans 7:20 : “secundum hoc quod natus est ex Deo, id est secundum interioris hominis rationem, in tantum non peccat, in quantum peccatum quod corpus mortis foris operatur, odit potius quam approbat, semine spiritualis nativitatis quo ex Deo natus est eum interius conservante”. (3) Romanists limit “sin” to “mortal sin”. (4) Many commentators say that St. John is thinking only of the ideal. All these simply explain away the emphatic declaration. There is really no contradiction, and the Apostle’s meaning appears when account is taken of the terms he employs with accurate precision. In the earlier passage he says that there is indwelling sin in the believer. The sinful principle ( ἁμαρτία ) remains, and it manifests its presence by lapses from holiness—occasional sins, definite, isolated acts of sin. This is the force ot the aorists, ἁμάρτητε , ἁμάρτῃ in 1 John 2:1 . Here he uses the present ἁμαρτάνειν (varied by ποιεῖν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ) with the implication of continuance in sin .

The distinction between present and aorist is well exemplified by Matt. 6 11: δὸς σήμερον as contrasted with Luke 11:3 : δίδου τὸ καθʼ ἡμέραν , and Matthew 14:22 : ἐμβῆναι … καὶ προάγειν . The distinction was obvious to St. John’s Greek readers, and they would feel no difficulty when he said, on the one hand: ἐάν τις ἁμάρτῃ , Παράκλητον ἔχομεν , and, on the other: πᾶς ὁ ἁμαρτάνων οὐχ ἑώρακεν αὐτόν . The believer may fall into sin but he will not walk in it. “Hath not seen Him,” because he is “in the darkness” ( cf. 1 John 1:5-7 ).

1 John 3:6 . Whosoever abideth in union and fellowship with him — By loving faith; sinneth not — Doth not commit known sin, while he so abideth: whosoever sinneth — Transgresseth any known law of God; hath not seen him, neither known him — His views and knowledge of him have been so superficial that they deserve not to be mentioned, since they have not conquered his love of sin, and the prevalence of it, and brought him to a holy temper and life. Or he has not attained to, or has not retained, a spiritual, experimental acquaintance and communion with him. For, certainly, when a person sins, or transgresseth any known law of God, the loving eye of his soul is not fixed upon God; neither doth he then experimentally know him, whatever he did in time past. Macknight thinks it probable that “some of the heretical teachers, condemned by the apostle in this epistle, to make their disciples believe that their opinions were derived from Christ, boasted their having seen and conversed with him during his ministry on earth, consequently that they knew his doctrine perfectly. But the apostle assured his children that, if these teachers, who avowedly continued in sin, had ever seen or conversed with Christ, they had utterly mistaken both his character and his doctrine.”

Abideth Compare John 15:4-10. To abide in Christ is more than to be in Him, since it represents a condition maintained by communion with God and by the habitual doing of His will. See on 1 John 2:6. Sinneth not John does not teach that believers do not sin, but is speaking of a character, a habit. Throughout the Epistle he deals with the ideal reality of life in God, in which the love of God and sin exclude each other as light and darkness. Seen - known The vision of Christ and the appropriation of what is seen. Rev., correctly, knoweth.

1 John 3:6 . Οὐχ ἁμαρτάνει , sinneth not ) In him the good of righteousness is not overcome by the evil of sin.— οὐχ ἑώρακεν αὐτὸν ) hath not seen Him in spirit; although perhaps, as to personal appearance, he hath seen Him in the flesh: or even, though he hath seen Him in spirit, at the very moment of sin he becomes such, as though he had never seen Him in any way.— οὐδὲ ἔγνωκεν αὐτὸν , nor known Him ) in truth; although perhaps he hath formerly known Him personally. Light and knowledge produce likeness to God: 1 John 3:2 .

Verse 6. - Every one that abideth in Christ ipso facto sinneth not; for, if he sins, he ceases to abide in him. Just in so far as he abides, he does not sin. Or it may mean that be who abides in Christ cannot deliberately and habitually sin. But then would not St. John have written, "He that abideth in Christ abideth not in sin"? But the main difficulty is in the second half. In what sense is it true that every one that sinneth hath not seen Christ? In the main two explanations are given. (1) The Greek perfect expresses the present and permanent result of a past action, and is often equivalent to a present. No doubt; and all would be easy if we had only to deal with ὤγνωκε , which means, "he hath come to know," equivalent to "he knoweth." But does ἑώρακε ever mean "he seeth," as Alford suggests as the best rendering for a version? If St. John simply means that whoever sins thereby ceases to see and know Christ, he would hardly express himself thus. (2) The fact of the man's sinning proves that his perception and knowledge have been imperfect, if not superficial, or even imaginary; just as the fact of Christians leaving the Church proves that they never were really members of it ( 1 John 2:19 ). This explanation is preferable. In verse 2 we were told that seeing God will make us like God; and similarly, to see and know Christ make us like Christ. Whoever is unlike Christ, to that extent has not seen nor come to know him.

6. He reasons from Christ's own entire separation from sin, that those in him must also be separate from it. abideth in him—as the branch in the vine, by vital union living by His life. sinneth not—In so far as he abides in Christ, so far is he free from all sin. The ideal of the Christian. The life of sin and the life of God mutually exclude one another, just as darkness and light. In matter of fact, believers do fall into sins (1Jo 1:8-10; 2:1, 2); but all such sins are alien from the life of God, and need Christ's cleansing blood, without application to which the life of God could not be maintained. He sinneth not so long as he abideth in Christ. whosoever sinneth hath not seen him—Greek perfect, "has not seen, and does not see Him." Again the ideal of Christian intuition and knowledge is presented (Mt 7:23). All sin as such is at variance with the notion of one regenerated. Not that "whosoever is betrayed into sins has never seen nor known God"; but in so far as sin exists, in that degree the spiritual intuition and knowledge of God do not exist in him. neither—"not even." To see spiritually is a further step than to know; for by knowing we come to seeing by vivid realization and experimentally.