(3) THE CONSEQUENCE OF THE DIVINE BIRTH ON HUMAN CONDUCT (1 John 3:4-10). — This paragraph is an expansion of the thought of 1 John 2:3, which was the practical conclusion of the meditation on the divine love as seen in the new birth. In thinking of the nature of righteousness, of the new birth, and of purity, the Apostle is led to dwell on their opposite, lawlessness, the synonym and essence of sin. His object being to bring purity and righteousness into relief, and to determine who are the children of God and who of the devil, he pursues the contrast by a series of antitheses, introducing, after his manner, reflections suggested by particular stages of the thought.
1st Contrast: Purity, and the act of sin regarded as lawlessness (abstract).
Reflection: Christ manifested to take away our sins.
2nd Contrast: Abiding in Christ, we sin not; sinning, we have neither seen nor known (practical).
3rd Contrast (in the form of a warning): The righteous are like God; sinners are of the devil (hortatory).
Reflection: Christ manifested to destroy the works of the devil.
4th Contrast: The sons of the devil sin; the sons of God keep the germ from Him, and sin not (explanatory).
5th Contrast: The criterion between the two sonships is doing righteousness and (a new thought in this passage) loving the brother (the test).
(4) Transgresseth also the law. — Rather, doeth lawlessness.
The transgression of the law. — Or, lawlessness. He is not thinking of the law of Moses, but defining and analysing the nature of sin in general: it is acting from caprice instead of on principle, disobeying the conscience, neglecting the will of God, rebelling against His commandments.
(5) And ye know... — The Incarnation is here mentioned with the purpose of strengthening the appeal to purity. The very object of Christ’s coming was to take away our sins by atonement, and their power in us by reformation. He is Himself sinless. Those who really rest firm in Him cannot be habitual sinners, nor, on the other hand, can habitual sinners be really in Him.
To take away our sins. — See John 1:29. For the use of the word “take away,” compare John 11:48; John 15:2; John 17:15; John 19:31; John 19:38. The idea of sacrificial substitution was uppermost in 1 John 2:2. Here it is rather that of sanctification; but the other is not excluded. The two are always connected in St. John’s mind. (Comp. 1 John 1:7; 1 John 4:9-11.) The purpose of Christ’s coming was not so much to teach a new doctrine as to produce a new life; the first was the means to the second.
And in him is no sin. — The fact that Christ is perfectly sinless is dwelt on because He is the vital element of the Christian’s being, and if present in him must produce a result like Himself.
(6) Abideth in him. — See 1 John 2:6; 1 John 2:24, and John 15:4. The whole nature must consciously repose in Christ, breathe His spiritual atmosphere, draw all nourishment from Him, have no principle of thought or action apart from Him. This intimate union is regarded as the direct consequence of Christ’s manifestation, and of His sinless character as manifested.
Sinneth not. — See Romans 7:17. Although the Christian does not always do what is best, he does not willingly commit sin; his real self is on the side of God’s law.
Whosoever sinneth. — Adopts the lawless disposition deliberately. In the moment of conscious wilful sin, any former partial sight or knowledge he may have had of Christ becomes a thing of the past, as if it were not, and proves its own inadequacy. Ignatius says, “None who professeth faith sinneth, and none who hath love hateth. They who profess themselves Christians will be manifest by what they do.” (Comp. 1 John 2:19, and Matthew 7:23.) A real saving sight of Christ is when our mind becomes conscious of the convincing truth, beauty, perfection, love, and power of His existence. The corresponding knowledge is when that sight has become experience, the soul having learnt the effect of His strengthening, purifying grace; having proved the happiness of spiritual intercourse with Him; and having meditated continually on the records of the sayings and doings of His earthly manifestation. There may be here a reference to the Gnostics, who said that their “knowledge” was so great that they had no need to work righteousness: grace would be enough, without works.
(7, 8) By the solemn appeal, “My little children,” the practical contrast of 1 John 2:7 is introduced in the form of a warning in 1 John 2:7-8. The words “is of the devil,” in the second branch of the antithesis, show that the words “is righteous, even as he is righteous,” are meant to claim for the true Christian a likeness of nature to Christ. Although there is no allusion to it here, the teaching of the Epistle to the Romans shows that the eternal righteousness of Christ may be an object of faith, even though His name and earthly manifestation be unknown.
(8) Of the devil. — See on John 8:44. Not that the devil has created the sinner, but that the sinner has allowed him to generate his evil nature, until gradually the whole nature may have become evil, and therefore generated by the devil, to the exclusion of any elements of goodness. By making the devil the antithesis to Christ, St. John insists as strongly as it would be possible for him to insist on the moral importance of remembering the existence and kingdom of an allowed power of evil. The work of the Messiah cannot be fully understood without acknowledging this fact of human consciousness.
For the devil sinneth from the beginning. — “For” states the reason why sinners are of the devil. By “from the beginning,” therefore, we understand, not the date of the devil’s existence, or of the creation of the earth and solar system, or of human history, or of the devil’s fall, but the beginning of human sin. As soon as human sin began, then the devil was at work and claiming his parentage.
The Son of God was manifested. — The devil is not honoured by being placed over against the whole Almighty Deity, but is regarded as the special antagonist of the Son. (Compare 1 John 2:5.) In taking away our sins Christ would be destroying the works of the devil, which are every possible variety of sin. The consequences of sin — affliction, death, condemnation — are rather the wholesome discipline of God.
1 John 2:9 repeats, in a more perfect form of contrast to 1 John 2:8, the thought of 1 John 2:7. (Comp. 1 John 2:29; 1 John 3:6.) We have seen that the birth of the new nature is not complete till we enter into our rest; so also the freedom from sin is progressive. His seed is the Holy Spirit: that influence proceeding from God, imbued with divine vitality, regenerating, renewing, refreshing, causing the nature of holiness to spring, to grow, to bloom, to bear fruit. The result is the same whether the metaphor is regarded as animal or vegetable. The Christian does not say, “I have the seed of God within me, so I need not mind if I am betrayed into sin.” That would alone be enough to prove that the seed of God is not there. If he is betrayed into sin, he trembles lest the seed of God should not be there. He struggles to free his permanent will from all participation in what was wrong. He claims the help of the Spirit in his struggle; and his sincerity shows that it was a genuine bond fide betrayal, not a pre-conceived moral choice. “Sinneth not,” therefore, looks rather to the Christian’s course as a whole. “He cannot sin,” means that if he is really born of God it is an impossibility for him deliberately to choose evil. If he deliberately chooses evil he is not born of God. “A child of God in this conflict receives indeed wounds daily, but never throws away his arms or makes peace with his deadly foe” (Luther).
1 John 2:10 sums up the matter in a terse distinction: all mankind are either children of God or children of the devil — they who try to do good, and they who deliberately and consciously choose evil. It is not even for an Apostle to judge which man belongs to which class; at any rate, the true Christian can never be a wilful rebel. And here, as the importance of brotherly love is so constantly before his mind, St. John allows the note which he struck in 1 John 2:9 to enter again into the melody of his thoughts. Brotherly love, the most prominent part of Christian righteousness, may well be mentioned in the contrast between sin and holiness, as it is the most comprehensive of all virtues.