I JOHN 3:1-9 CAN A BELIEVER SIN?

 

` I John 3:1-9 Can a believer sin?

This passage is an excellent illustration of John's rather convoluted writing style which is awfully hard to follow since the same themes appear and reappear in different combinations, circling around, and seemingly going nowhere. It is best seen by the sort of diagramming shown below:

        A. Love is given by the Father (1a)

                B. We are children of God (1b)

                        C. The world does not know us or God (1c)

Beloved (2a)

                B. We are God's children (2b)

                        C. What we will be is not revealed (2c)

                        C. We know when he is revealed we will see him (2d)

                                D. All who hope will be pure (3)

                                D. Who sins is guilty of lawlessness (4a)

                        C. You know he was revealed (4b)

                                D. to take sins away (4c)

                                D. In him is no sin (4d)

                B. No one who abides (5a)

                                D. in him sins (5b)

                                D. no one sins (6a)

                        C. who has seen him or known him (6b)

                B. Little children (7a)

                                D. Everyone who does right is righteous as he is righteous (7b)

                                D. Everyone who sins (8a)

                B. is a child of the devil (8b)

                                D. For the devil sinned from the beginning (8c)

                        C. The Son of God was revealed to destroy the devil (8d)

                B. Those born of God (9a)

                                D. do not sin (9b)

                B. God's seed abides in them (9c)

                                D. They cannot sin (9d)

                B. because they are born of God (9e)

So, you can see from the above that this whole passage presents a number of variations on only four basic themes (and their opposites): God's love (A), being a child of God or the devil (B), revelation so that something can be made known (C), and sin/sinlessness (D).

Of all these verses, perhaps the hardest to understand is the last one, I John 3:9, in which it is strongly stated that a believer does not and cannot sin. That statement certainly seems to run counter to our personal experience and to our observations of other believers.

I knew one young man in our Sunday school class who announced the fact that he was incapable of sinning and was planning to be a preacher without taking any seminary classes since he didn't need them. He took a very Pharisaical attitude toward the rest of us who hadn't arrived at his high spiritual plane, but on occasion when he didn't have anything better to do he deigned to teach our class as long as it was convenient for him. But he made it obvious to us that he felt it was like casting his pearls before swine, and so he soon gave up trying. His idea of preparing for a lesson was to pray for 10 minutes before the class with a similarly enlightened friend and from that point on let the Spirit guide his lips. He once volunteered to lead us in a study of the Book of Romans, but after six weeks he hadn't even addressed Romans 1:1. Instead he bored us endlessly with stories of how God had enlightened him while he was weeding his garden.

So as you can tell, I am a bit up in the air as to what John had in mind. Here is what a few scholars have to say that may help us to clarify this verse:

Kistemaker notes that “John writes not 'able not to sin, but 'not able to sin.' Some grammarians take the present infinitive to be durative [i.e., denoting or relating to continuing action]; others understand it as a state. That is, a Christian sins but he cannot be called a sinner. He belongs to Christ who has redeemed and sanctified him and who has destroyed the devil's work.”

Bruce states that “the new birth involves a radical change in human nature; for those who have not experienced it, sin is natural, whereas for those who have experienced it, sin is unnatural – so unnatural, indeed, that its practice constitutes a powerful refutation of any claim to possess the divine life. John's antitheses are clear-cut. While they are to be understood in the context of his letter and of the situation which it presupposes, any attempt to weaken them out of regard for human infirmity, or to make them less sharp and uncompromising than they are, is to misinterpret them. True interpretation must allow an author to mean what he says, even if that meaning is uncongenial to the interpreter.”

“Acting sinfully is the inherent activity of those who belong to the devil's family, just as doing what is right is the inherent activity of those who belong to God's family. The fact that some people commit sin, not by choice but because they are what they are removes them (in the thought of late antiquity) from the category of blame, but not from the category of guilt. They are destructive and bear the consequences of their destructive actions. Correspondingly, those who are born of God can claim no credit for doing what is right; they cannot sin. This extraordinary, artificial division of mankind into those who are bound to sin and those who cannot sin must be regarded as a debater's device against his opponents. It was no doubt the dissidents who first made the claim that their anointing released them from the normal standards of what is right for, whatever they did, they could not sin.” (Grayston)

Thompson does not go into any detail in her explanation other than to say that “when Jesus' work both opposes and destroys sin, how can those who are born of God dwell in it? John continues with the explanatory statement that they cannot sin because God's seed remains in [them]. Exactly what this seed is does not receive further explanation, and it has puzzled commentators. Obviously we must take it here in a metaphorical sense. Some have suggested that it means the Holy Spirit; others, the Word of God; and others, that it means both.”

“John's point is clear: there is not a single regenerated person who lives a life of habitual sin. As in v. 6, the writer's use of the present tense accentuates that the child of God does not continually engage in sin. John is not suggesting the believer is completely free from sin, but that the Christian's life is not characterized by sin, which is the mark of the follower of Satan..” (Akin)

Marshall says, “He [i.e., Paul] takes up the idea of being born of God, which was introduced in 2:29, where it was said positively that those who do what is right demonstrate that they are God's children. Later on we shall be told that God's children are characterized by love for one another (4:7), belief in Jesus (5:1), and victory over the world (5:4). Now the same point can be made negatively: a person who is born of God does not sin. John makes his statements in absolute terms...There are no shades of grey here: it is a case of belonging to the light or the darkness, to God or the devil, to righteousness and love or to sin.”

Raymond Brown does the most thorough job in discussing this verse in over ten pages in his Anchor Bible commentary. For one thing, he notes the great similarity between four statements made in I John:

    No one who abides in Him commits sin (3:6a)

    No one begotten by God acts sinfully (3:9a)

    He [who is begotten by God] cannot commit sin (3:9b)

    No one begotten by God commits sin (5:18a)

On the other hand, such definite statements as these appear to be contradicted by a number of comments made elsewhere in this same letter. You may want to read these, which are found at I John 1:8a,9,10; 2:1-2; and 5:16. Brown says, “No other NT author contradicts himself so sharply within such a short span of writing, and inevitably much scholarly energy has been devoted to proving that no contradiction exists.” He then groups such explanations into seven different categories, which I will attempt to briefly summarize below:

    Two different authors must have been involved in writing this letter.

    Two different types of audience are being addressed.

    Two different groups of adversaries are being contradicted.

    Only certain types of sin are in John's mind, not all sins.

    Only certain elite Christians cannot sin.

    John speaks on two levels: a real or pastoral level and an ideal level.

    John is addressing two different time periods: at the point of an individual's conversion and conditions in the Last Days.

But Brown then raises rather strong objections to each of these seven proposals without really coming to any firm conclusion as to which, if any, comes the closest to the idea John had in mind. We must keep in mind that John, in his writing, has been characterized as a dualist. That is, he tends to think in terms of absolute right and wrong – you are either of God or opposed to Him with no shades of gray in between.