Reading the First Epistle of John can be a little daunting due to the many repetitions of ideas and wording present. You may want to look at my blog post entitled “I John: Introduction to the Literary Structure” as a rough guide on navigating this letter. In that analysis, I offered two possible ways of structuring the material that John presents. In both of these alternative organizations you will find that verses 1:8-10 and 3:6-9 appear in parallel sections. Therefore it is strange to note that they seem to contradict each other in regard to the subject question above. In chapter 1, John says that even Christians sin, but in chapter 3 he says that they do not. This has always confused me, and so I dug into the subject a little deeper to see what scholars had to say on the subject.
But before addressing the question at hand, let me first show how the verses above fit into their respective surroundings. Beginning with 1:5-2:6, one can see the following arrangement, with v. 5 as an introduction:
If we say...we lie (1:6)
But if we walk, we have fellowship (1:7)
If we say...we lie to ourselves (1:8)
But if we confess, he will forgive (1:9)
If we say...we make him a liar (1:10)
But if anyone sins, we have an advocate (2:1-2)
By this, we may be sure that we know him (2:3)
Whoever says...is a liar (2:4)
But whoever obeys, the love of God has reached perfection (2:5a)
By this, we may be sure that we are in him (2:5b-6)
The key verses 8 and 10 are treated as duplicates of the same idea by Grayston and Akin, and Bruce says that the distinction between the two “must be a fine one.” M.M. Thompson also feels that the two are synonymous although she admits that some feel (a) v. 8 refers to a principle of sin while v. 10 refers to sinful acts or (b) v. 8 refers to the guilt resulting from sin and v. 10 refers to the acts themselves. Akin concludes, “Most likely, it is the existing state of having sinned and thus having guilt from the sin.”
In any case, the question arises as to whom is being addressed in these verses. Reese feels that the primary audience was the false teachers in the congregation who rejected the need for the saving death of Jesus since true believers, such as themselves, do not sin.” (Reese) If this was true, then it is obvious that John is also exposing this lie to true believers by telling them that they indeed do sin. This is reflected by the use of the first person “we” in these verses.
Thus, one suggested approach to reconciling the teachings in ch. 1 with those in ch. 3 must be rejected, namely that the first group of people say that they are beyond sin (John responds in 1:7-9) and the other argues that their sins don't matter (addressed in 3:9). Davids, however, opts for this solution and notes that it characterizes two different strains of thinking found in later Gnosticism.
Moving on next to I John 3:4-10a, it can also be seen to possess a symmetrical organization:
Sin is lawlessness (3:4)
Christ came to take away sin (3:5)
No one who lives in Christ keeps on sinning (3:6)
All who do what is right are righteous (3:7)
Sin is of the devil (3:8a)
Christ came to destroy the devil's works (3:8b)
No one who is born of God will continue to sin (3:9)
All who do not do what is right are not from God (3:10a)
Back to the question of the contradiction between these two sections, Thompson has provided a convenient summary of ten different approaches to resolving the problem. So how can John state in 3:6,9 that a Christian doesn't and is not able to sin?
1. Christians simply do not commit any acts of sin.
2. Christians do not commit certain sins.
3. Christians do not sin in God's eyes.
4. When Christians do sin, it is not in their new nature.
5. John presents a theoretical ideal.
6. John is using exaggeration to make his point.
7. The Christian does not sin willfully or purposely.
8. Sin does not characterize his life.
9. When a Christian does sin, he is not abiding in Christ at that time.
10.There is no unbroken state of sinful behavior from the past and continuing into the future.
Solution 1: As unlikely this possibility seems to us in light of our own experience, Marshall mentions the possibility that the early Christians believed that the Age to Come had already arrived and thus believers should expect to be totally sinless. This is related to the teaching among some early Church Fathers that one was damned if he sinned after conversion. That belief is said to have been why the Emperor Constantine waited until he was on his death-bed before he got baptized.
Similarly, Reese explains that although the Catholic and many Protestant traditions teach that it is impossible for a believer to be perfected in this life, “the Wesleyan tradition claims that it is possible for believers to reach perfection in this life by being completely immersed in God's love and glory.”
Solution 2: Davids brings up this possibility, based on I John 5:16-17, in which some classes of sin lead to death and others do not. If so, there is a difference of opinion as to what these two categories consist of, perhaps purposeful vs. involuntary or (in the Catholic tradition) mortal vs. venial. The problem with this view, he argues, is that if there are two different categories of sin, why did John wait until chapter 5 before pointing it out?
Solution 3: One could possibly invoke some of Paul's teachings elsewhere to confirm this view. In other words, when God looks at us He sees only Christ's spotless life, not our failings. This may be true, but it seems to be foreign to John's thought in this epistle. I have not read any commentator who ascribes to this particular method of resolution.
Solution 4: Davids comes close to this conclusion when he says that we need to “appropriate that new life again each day.”
Solution 5: This view can be explained as the tension in the Christian walk between the ideal and reality. (Davids) This possibility fits in well with what Raymond Brown has said: The Christian “life not only expresses itself in action but also grows, and increasing sinlessness is a mark of that growth.” This is why one can't simply compare the actions of a random Christian with a random atheist to see which one follows the most moral life. The Christian may have recently come out of a very sinful life while the atheist may have had a very moral upbringing. You would actually have to compare their growth morally over a period of time to see the direction in which they are trending – toward God and sinlessness or in the other direction.
Marshall similarly notes “that what John is depicting here is the ideal character of the Christian...Another complementary way of regarding John's statement is to see them as implicit imperatives. They are statements of what Christians ought to be.”
Solution 6: For this to be true, one would have to demonstrate that the use of hyperbole was regularly employed by John in this letter and in his other writings for it to be a reasonable suggestion.
Solution 7: For this approach, see the comment on Solution 2 above.
Solution 8: In Marshall's opinion, which is probably accurate, this is the most popular way of resolving this issue, and it is based on a grammatical argument. Thus, consider the following comments by scholars who hold to this view:
Wheaton: “Both verbs [in 3:6] are in the Greek continuous present. Thus, John is in effect stating, 'No-one who continually abides in him makes it a habit of sinning.' He is not speaking about individual acts of sin (which would be better expressed by the Gk. aorist) but about habitual attitudes.”
Orr on v. 2:1: Both verbs are aorist: acts of sin rather than a sinful course of life are in view.” By contrast, the verb “to sin” in 3:9 is in the “present indicative, with the sense of continued or habitual actions.” But Orr admits that others caution about placing too much reliance on the different tenses between here and in 2:1.
Bruce: “John is not asserting that it is impossible for a believer to commit an occasional act of sin...What he does assert is that a sinful life does not mark a child of God...”
Akins: “Although numerous suggestions have been made, and none is completely satisfying, the most reasonable still seems to center on John's use of the present tense verb.”
However, this is not the last word on the subject by any means.
Davids points out that this solution “relies on a grammatical subtlety” which doesn't make sense in other places where it is used in the NT. For example, he cites I John 5:16.
Marshall rejects any solution based on a distinction between verb tenses.
Zane Hodges reminds the reader that such a distinction “is based on an understanding of the Greek present tense which is now widely in dispute among New Testament scholars.”
But Hodge's solution to the contradiction, based on an appeal to I John 3:3, seems to be quite close to Solution 8 anyway: “From this it follows that the regenerate life is, in one sense, an essentially and fundamentally sinless life. For the believer sin is abnormal and unnatural; his whole bent of life is away from sin. The fact remains, however, that Christians do not experience the sinless life perfectly on this earth, hence 1:8,10 remain true. The Christian still experiences a genuine struggle with the flesh and overcomes its impulses only by the help of the Holy Spirit.”
Solution 9: This is almost a truism, and it is poor exegesis of both 3:6 and 3:9.
Solution 10: This is the preferred view of Daniel Akins. It is certainly true that when one undergoes genuine conversion, there should be a pronounced shift in one's behavior. But it is not at all clear that this is what John is driving at in these verses. The context would seem to indicate otherwise.
If you look at the possibilities above carefully, you will probably notice that there is quite an overlap of thought between these various proposed solutions to the apparent contradiction within I John. Therefore there is really no need to make a hard and fast choice between them since many of them appear to express at least a partial aspect of John's teaching on sin.
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