1 John 3:4-10

3. The Way of God’s Children Passes Through God’s Law

1 John 3:4-10 a

4Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law1: for sin2 is the transgression of the law3 5And ye know that he was manifested to take away our4 sins; and in him is no6sin5. Whosoever6 abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever7 sinneth hath not seen him, 7neither known him. Little children8 let no man deceive you9:he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. 8He that committeth10 sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose11 the Son of God was manifested,9that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever12 is born of God doth not commit sin; for13 his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. 10In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

Connection. The Apostle having traced the glory of the sonship up to the power (which it derives from hope in God) of working out self-purification, annexes 1 John 3:4 with a more general antithesis which, as usual, contains a progression of the argument. The positive: “Every one that hath this hope purifieth himself;” is contrasted with the negative: “Every one that doeth sin, doeth lawlessness.” He does not negatively resume the notion of the subject (“every one that hath this hope”), but that of the predicate (“purifieth himself”). However, by this annexation of the notion of the predicate he denies also, by implication, that such an one is the child and heir of God, and adds a new point, viz. such an one not only injures himself and his portion but he violates also the law and ordinance of God, at the same time, referring back to the leading thought in 1 John 2:29, since all doing of sin is repugnant to the righteousness of God revealed in the law (1 John 3:4) and in Christ (1 John 3:5-7), and delineates rather the children of the devil (1 John 3:8-10), than the children of God, who, abiding in Christ, do righteousness and not sin (1 John 3:6; 1 John 3:9-10).

The nature of sin. 1 John 3:4.

1 John 3:4. Every one that committeth sin, committeth also lawlessness.—“The Apostle is anxious to show that the truth of the thought is unexceptionable.” (Huther.)—The first point to be determined here is the notion ἁμαρτία. Suidas derives ἁμαρτία from μάρπτω to grasp, to seize, consequently=missing the mark (Rom. 21:8, 302, 311, 23, 62); then moral omission. Oecumenius: ἀποτυχεῖν σκοποῦ, ἡ τοῦ , on the other hand ἀνομία=ἡ περὶ τὸν θετὸν νόμον πλημμέλεια πλὴν–μέλος contrary to the melody, a false note, an error). ̔Αμαρτία, of course, is as much an opposition to the Divine righteousness (ἀδικία), as a departure from the Divine law, a violation of the same (ἀνομία), and this ἡ is here not only a not having the law (as ἄνομος 1 Corinthians 9:21 denotes one who has not law), but signifies the refractoriness opposed to the law. Neither ἁμαρτία nor ἀνομία are qualified by anything which would narrow this their meaning, nor may such a qualification be added from the context. Although the Article distinctly takes sin in the sense of an offence [old English: missing. M.] towards God, and ἀνομία as an opposition to the law of God, and removes all indefinite generality, yet no qualification within this ethico-religious sphere is admissible. But we must not attach too much importance to this, since the Article is wanting in 1 John 3:9 : ἁμαρτίαν οὐ ποιεῖν and ποιεῖν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν and ἁμαρτάνειν (1 John 3:4; 1 John 3:6; 1 John 3:8-9) are used promiscue, so that we must not attach too much importance to ποιεῖν. To this must be added that καὶ before τὴν ανομίαν conveys the idea that the doing of the ἁμαρτία is as such also as the doing of the ἀνομία.” (Düsterdieck.) “Quishquis committit peccatum, idem committit iniquitatem.” (Erasmus.) Καὶ must neither be taken in a causal sense, nor changed into “yea” (Brückner); but we have to hold with Ebrard that the fuller idea, ποιεῖν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν, in the beginning helps to qualify the other terms, ποιεῖν ἁμαρτίαν, and ἁμαρτάνειν, and that the antithesis ἁγνίζειν ἑαυτὸν is also coëfficient, and that the reference, so far from being to sins of haste or infirmity, is rather to sin, though only a single act, yet a voluntary act. Hence the following explanations cannot be received: that ἁμαρτία denotes peccatum mortale (Estius and the Roman Catholics), or “grave, unrepented sins” (Luther, al.), or that ποιεῖν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν is=peccare contumaciter (Aretius), contra conscientiam el impœnitenter (Rosenmüller), or peccato operam dare (Beza), peccare scientem et volentem (Spener), or the actual moral bias of life (Brückner). It is equally inadmissible to assume an intensification of the notion ἁμαρτία into ἀνομία (Baumgarten-Crusius, Bengel), or that ἀνομία includes crimes and vices proper, as if ἁμαρτία were the principle and source of the ἀνομία (de Wette). Paraphrases of ποιεῖν , such as Deum offendere (Grotius) and religioni adversari (Carpzov), do incorrectly weaken the idea. The two ideas, although distinguished from each other, are not convertible. We have here the general proposition: “whoever doeth sin, of whatever kind it be, doeth also lawlessness, violates the Divine rule and order,” which is not directed against Antinomians, but against all those who are loose on the subject of sin; the idea of ἀνομία imparts a peculiar severity to that of sin.

And sin is lawlessness.—We must of course take ἁμαρτία here in the same sense, as in the clause immediately preceding, and in the same generality. Hence the first ἁμαρτία is not sinful doings, and the second an offence against God (Köstlin). The Article also forbids our taking ἁμαρτία as the predicate of the subject ἀνομία, as in John 1:1. ̔Ο θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος (Köstlin). Ἁνομία also is as general here as in the preceding clause. Νόμος denotes not only the Mosaic law of the O. T. but also the law of the N. T. in Christ, and by Him explained in the word and exhibited in the life (1 John 2:16; 1 John 2:7; 1 John 4:21; 1 John 5:3. cf Matthew 5:17-19), as the law written in man’s heart for his special direction; it embraces the whole complex of the divine ἐντολαί. Hence this proposition contains not so much a definition (Sander), as the nature of sin viewed from that side on which its absolute opposition to every Divine fellowship shows itself in the most decided form (Brückner); “the Apostle could not have more sharply drawn the contrast of the nature of a believer who is a τέκνον θεοῦ and will be ὅμοιος θεῷ than by declaring ἁμαρτία to be ἀνομία.” (Huther); or he that leads an ungodly life, abrogates the Divine rule of life to which he is subject as a Christian (Hofmann). Hence Hilgenfeld’s exposition disfigures the thought: “not every one who deviates from the ceremonial laws, but the sinner only falls under the category of ἀνομία.” Calvin also goes far beyond the contents of the verse in affirming the sum and substance of the thought to be that the life of those who yield themselves to sin is hateful and unendurable to God.—The Apostle annexes the sentence with καὶ and not with ὅτι, because he thereby gives the thought a more independent form. We cannot agree with Bengel in explaining καὶ by imo, as if before there had been only conjuncta notio peccati et iniquitatis, but now eadem; the identity is already expressed in the first sentence.—[The following definitions will shed additional light on this passage. Ambrose: “Quid est peccatum nisi prævaricatio legis divinæ, et cœlestium inobedientia præceptorum.”—Augustine: “Peccatum est factum vel dictum vel concupiltum aliquid contra æternem legem.”—“Quid verum est, nisi et Dominum dare præcepta, et animas liberiæ esse voluntatis, et malum naturam non esse, sed esse aversionem a Dei præceptis?”—“Neque negandum est hoc Deum jubere, ita nos in facienda justitia esse debere perfectos, ut nullum habeamus omnino peccatum; nam neque peccatum erit, si quid erit, si non divinitus jubeatur, ut non sit.”—M.]

Aid against sin. 1 John 3:5-6.

1 John 3:5. And ye know that He was manifested in order that He might take away our sin.—Appealing to their own consciousness, as at 1Jn 2:12-14; 1 John 2:20; 1 John 2:27, the Apostle now refers to the Lord and affirms of Him two things: First: the purpose of His manifestation is the redemption from sin. Ἐκεῖνος denotes Christ, as in 1 John 3:3. It is wholly untenable to understand here the Gospel (Socinus, Episcopius, Grotius), concerning which it surely cannot be said that it τὰς ἁμαρτίας αἴρει, or that this is its end and aim.—̓Εφανερώθη the context requires us to apply to Christ’s manifestation in the flesh. Cf. 1, 2. It points to Christ’s previously hidden existence in heaven (Huther). The purpose of this manifestation is, ἵνα τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν ἄρῃ. The reading ἡμῶν is well authenticated and intensifies the appeal to personal experience, without restricting the forgiveness of sins to those only who “suffer the beneficial purpose of the incarnation of the Son of God to be carried out on them in faith” (Düsterdieck), and to set back the universality of the Divine purpose of salvation (1 John 2:2.); we would rather say that paracletic element, which after all is the main point here (1 John 3:3), comes out more strongly; the οἴδατε, at least, does not contain sufficient ground for finding here a specific indication of the doctrinal. Nor is there any necessity for extending ἡμῶν to all men (Spener). “The Plural, τὰς ἁμαρτίας, affords a far more lucid and forcible view than if we had here, as in 1 John 3:4, τὴν ἁμαρτίαν; John does not take sin in its general character, but he adverts to all the forms of it.” (Düsterdieck). It is wrong to explain it by peccati reatum, dominium, pœnam (J. Lange and others); but it signifies: the sins themselves. The αἴρειν connected here as at John 1:29, with ἁμαρτία signifies in John’s writings (John 11:48; John 15:2; John 17:15; John 19:31; John 19:38) auferre, to carry away, to take away. The ἀμνός, John 1:29, the idea of the sacrificial lamb, implies what is expressed at 1 Peter 2:24, with reference to Isaiah 53:4 sqq., by the verb ἀνάφερειν: to take upon oneself by way of atonement, substitution, death and reconciliation, while αἴρειν indicated a taking away by sanctification; John 1:29 we have a blending of both meanings, while Peter adverts to one, the first, and John to the other, the second work of Christ, the former to His atonement, the latter to His work of redemption. John, who discusses the former at 1 John 2:2, dwells here upon the latter, and hence denies neither; nor does he separate the one from the other, as if the first were without this consequence, and the latter without that cause (1Jn 1:7; 1 John 4:9; 1 John 4:11; 1 John 5:6). But the context with its ethical import, that sin must be avoided and shunned, suggests the reference to the fact that Christ came for the purpose of removing sin, of taking it away from us; what Christian would then oppose or frustrate the design of Christ! Hence Oecumenius correctly observes that Christ came ἐπ̓ ἀναιρέσει τῆς ἁμαρτίας (so also Luther, Calvin, Neander, Ebrard, Düsterdieck, Huther, and al.)—Bede’s remark, “Tollit peccata et dimittendo, quæ facta sunt, et adjuvando, ne fiant, et perducendo ad vitam, ubi fieri omnino non possunt,” is perfectly true, but considerably transcends the measure of what is contained in this passage. The same applies to those who combine here said two references, e.g. Spener, Bengel (explains indeed “tolleret,” but refers to his exposition of John 1:29 : “primum a mundo in se recepit, deinde a se ipso devolvit peccati sarcinam”), Lücke (in his 1st ed.), Sander, Besser.—Lücke (in the later edition), de Wette and others take αἴρειν=carry; false!

Secondly: He is sinless.

And sin is not in Him.—Καὶ coördinates this clause with the former. Oecumenius errs in his καὶ as well as in the paraphrase: καθ̓ ὅτι . So also Augustine: “In quo non est peccatum, ipse venit auferre peccatum; nam si esset et in illo peccatum, auferendum esset illi, non ipse auferret,” and a Lapide: “Ideο Christus potens fuit tollere peccatum, quia carebat omni peccato, imo potestate peccandi.” So also Sander, Neander and al. Ἐστι also must be retained and is not to be taken in the sense of ἦν Oecumenius, Grotius: “peccatum in eo non erat, nempe, cum vitam mortalem ageret,” and al.); the reference here, as in 1 John 3:3, is “to the nature of Christ in its eternal consistence” [Huther]. Hence we may not say with Winer (p. 283) that “the sinlessness of Christ is considered as still present in faith.” Ἐν αὐτῷ, the reference of which has always to be determined by the context, denotes Christ understood in ἐκεῖνος, it denotes Christ Himself as to His Person and not (as Calov supposes) totum corpus, the Church, or as if we ought to explain ἐν αὐτῷ by ἐν κοινωνίᾳ μετ̓ αὐτοῦ. Thus the clause “and sin is not in Him” coördinated with that preceding it, is the foundation of the sequel, since the Sinless, Pure and Righteous One is held up not as an example or pattern, but as the vital power and element of life in which the Christian must be and abide.

The immediate consequence.

1 John 3:6. Every one that abideth in Him sinneth not.—By all means retain the full force of μένειν ἐν αὐτῷ to be and abide in Him, to derive nourishment from Him and His life (1 John 1:3; 1 John 1:6; 1 John 2:5-6; (1 John 2:23 sq.; 1 John 2:27 sq.), and do not exchange it for credere in Christum, of weaken it into Christi discipulum esse (Semler and al.); nor is ἁμαρτάνειν to be taken as = persistere in peccato (Luther), sinere regnare peccatum (Hunnius), sceleratum esse (Capellus), peccata mortalia committere (Roman Catholics), and to be thus enforced. The Apostle sets forth “abiding in Christ and sinning as irreconcilable opposites; but he does not mean to say that believing Christians entirely cease to sin or that those, who are yet sinning, are not yet in Christ (1Jn 1:8-10; 1 John 2:1-2; 1 John 3:3)” (Huther). “John is here dealing with realities and about to give us the signs whereby we may know whether we love the Lord or not, whether we are the children of God or of the wicked one” (Sander). Hence it is rather hazardous to refer here with de Wette and Düsterdieck to the Apostle’s ideal mode of representation, and a misapprehension of the fact that the Christian, though he sins, is yet free from sin, has actually-parted company with it, and it is his properly Christian and inmost being in decided opposition to it, so that not sin, but his opposition to it (as something alien to his being), determines the conduct of his life, exactly as St. Paul puts it (Romans 7:17): “νυνὶ δὲ οὐκέτι ἐγὼ κατεργάζομαι αὐτὸ, ἀλλ̓ ἡ οἰκοῦσα ἐν ἐμοὶ ἁμαρτία.” Augustine: “Etsi infirmitate labitur, peccato tamen non consentit, quia potius gemendo luctatur.”—“In quantum in ipso manet, in tantum non peccat.” Besser excellently says: “A Christian does not sin, but suffers it.”

Every one that sinneth hath not seen Him, neither known Him.—As usual John turns the thought and develops it by an antithesis. The verb ἁμαρτάνειν has the same sense as in the preceding clause; actual sinning in word, or work or in the thought of the heart. Of such an one he says quite generally οὐ χ ἑώρακεν αὐτὸν οὐδὲ ἔγνωκεν αὐτὸν. First of all we have to take οὐδὲ disjunctively (Winer, p. 509 sqq.); and although this does not decide the question which of the two verbs ὁρᾷν and γινώσκειν is the stronger and more important, yet it does indicate that they are different from each other. The pronoun αὐτὸν requires us to think in both verbs of the Person of Christ. Hence the sentence: ἁμαρτία ἐν αὐτῷ οὐκ ἔστιν is not the object of ὁρᾷν, nor is the sentence: ἐφανερώθη ἵνα τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἅρῃ the object of γινώσκειν, in order to indicate the purpose of the whole redemptive work of Christ (Rickli, Neander).̔Ορᾷν, to see, physically (1 John 1:1; 1Jn 1:3; 1 John 4:20; John 1:18; John 6:36; John 6:46; John 8:57; John 9:37; John 15:24), spiritually (3 John 1:11; John 3:11; John 3:32; John 6:46; John 8:38; John 14:7; John 14:9), and that directly and immediately if used of Christ in heaven, or indirectly and mediately if applied to believers in consequence of their illumination,—denotes consequently in this passage “seeing Christ,” “when we become absolutely conscious of the glory of Christ so that our spiritual eye beholds Him as He is in the totality of His Essence” (Huther); γινώσκειν means to know as the result of searching contemplation of His word, His life, the history of His kingdom, or of one’s own experience in the life around us, or within ourselves, and indicates here “the right understanding of Him,” brought about by said instrumentality, “so that we have become fully conscious both of His Nature and of His relation to us” (Huther). This intimates already that in the case of the former, viz. spiritual intuition and contemplation, the efficient agency belongs more to the object which represents itself before the eye of the spirit, and that in the case of the latter, viz. knowledge acquired by reflection in the way of reasoning and inquiry, the efficient agency belongs more to the subject, which makes it the object of contemplation (Sander, Huther). Hence it follows that ἑώρακεν is not something less, and οὐδὲ=“much less” (Sander, Lücke 1st ed. al.), nor something more than ἔγνωκεν and οὐδὲ=“and not even” (Socinus, Neander and al.); there is no reference whatever to a difference in degree. Although despite all their difference the two have something in common, we cannot, because of this latter circumstance, overlook or underrate the former [the difference] and say with Düsterdieck that the two notions are essentially equal and that ἔγνωκεν is simply added in order to indicate the spiritual import of ἑώρακεν. Of course it is impossible to interpret (with Lücke) ὁρᾷν of outward knowledge in spite of which one may sin, and γινώσκειν of real, spiritual knowledge. This connection is analogous to that of πιστεύειν and γινώσκειν (1 John 4:16; John 6:69), so that ὁρᾷν and πιστεύειν might be combined yet so as to keep up the difference of πιστεύειν ὁρᾷν from γινώσκειν. The force of these notions is very shallow in the explanation of Grotius: “Neque de Christo sic cogitat, ut oportet, neque facto ostendit, se scire, quanti sit habenda Christi voluntas.”—The Perfects, ἑώρακεν, ἔγυωκεν are to be preserved; they point to the past when the beginning of seeing and knowing took place, yet so that that which had its beginning in the past still acts and continues in the present, which is especially noticed by Erasmus (cognitum habet), Lücke, Brückner, Düsterdieck and Huther. It is wholly unwarranted to take the Perfect in the sense of the Present (Didymus: “non videt eum;” Augustine: “non credit;” Bede, Grotius, Estius, who construes the Perfect as a Hebraism for the Present). John’s idea therefore is this: Every one that sinneth, and that while he is sinning, is one in whom seeing and knowing Christ is a fact of the past, but without continuing to act and to last to the present. Hence Bengel says not amiss: “In ipso peccati momento talis fit, ac si eum nullo viderit modo.”—Instructive is the reference to 1 John 2:19 (J. Lange, Sander) and the comparison with Matthew 7:23 : οὐδέποτε ἔγυων ὑμᾶς (i.e. as mine). The reference is, as the ancients rightly observe, to an efficax scientia (Dydimus), an affectiva et dilectiva (Estius), although Lyra goes as much beyond the mark with his fides formata caritate, as Ebrard with his loving knowledge, or S. G. Lange with his γινώσκειν=amare. [Ignatius, the disciple of John, says: “No one who professeth faith, sinneth; and no one who hath love, hateth. They, who profess themselves Christians, will be manifested by what they do.” (Ignatius, ad Eph.; also Jerome in Jovin. 1 John 2:1, and contra Pelagianos I. 3).—M.]

The issue 1 John 3:7-9.

1 John 3:7. Little children, let no one seduce you.—This impressive address, (unchanged whether we read παιδία or τεκνία) introduces an admonition in respect of the clearly-perceived and ruin-fraught danger, unless they avail themselves of the aid provided in their glorious Lord and Saviour. The Apostle speaks of ἑαυτοὺς πλανῶμεν, 1 John 1:8. Here, however, he adverts not to self-deception, but refers “in matters affecting the energizing and outwardly operative exhibition of the Divine life” (Düsterdieck), to deception and seductions coming from without, not springing from relations and events, but from men (μηδεὶς), who are more dangerous by far than relations or events. But there is no reason why we should think here of distinct forms of error, say e.g. those of the antinomian Gnostics (Düsterdieck, Huther). [On the other hand Ebrard and Wordsworth see here an unmistakable reference to the Gnostics. The latter observes: “that these verses cannot he understood without reference to their tenets and practices,” and then mentions the followers of Simon Magus, who said that they could please God without righteousness, and that whatever might be the case with others, who had not their spiritual gnosis, they themselves had no need to work righteousness, but that they would be saved by grace, whatever their works might be. “Liberos agere quæ velint; secundum enim ipsius (Simonis) gratiam salvari homines, sed non secundum operas jusias.” Irenæus I. 20 ed. Grabe. Hippolytus, Philosoph. p. 175; Theodoret, Haer fab. i. 1, who testifies that on the presumption of the indefectibility of special grace within themselves, they fell into all kinds of lasciviousness.”—M.].—This admonition is in point of form like 1 Timothy 4:12; Titus 2:15, in point of sense like μὴ πλανᾶσθε, 1 Corinthians 6:9; 1 Corinthians 6:15-20; Luke 21:8. But that form at the same time exhibits a more lively sense of danger.

He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous.—On δικαιοσύνην ποιεῖν and δίκαιος, see notes on 1 John 2:29. The Apostle does not say here πᾶς ὁ ποιῶν, but only ὁ ποιῶν; the idea of unexceptional universality makes room for the importance of the fact. Instead of the predicate ἑώρακε αὐτὸν καὶ ἔγνωκεν αὐτὸν (1 John 3:6), or μένει ἐν αὐτῷ (1 John 3:5), or ἐξ αὐτοῦ γεγέννηται (1 John 2:29), there follows, as usual with the addition of a new particular, the consequence thereof, viz.: δίκαιός ἐστιν, either with reference to ὅμοιοι αὐτῷ ἐσόμεθα (1 John 3:2) or in order to denote the corresponding attitude towards the law. It is evident that the predicate is not acquired after that which is affirmed in the subject-sentence has taken place; the predicate is immanent in the subject, the nature of the righteous appears from his doing righteousness, it is already in its existence and does not only become so, as held by the Roman Catholics (Lyra, Emser, Estius, al.), and the Socinians, Arminians and Rationalists (Socinus, Grotius, al.) against the Protestants (Luther, Calvin). “He that doeth not righteousness, proves thereby that he is not righteous” (Huther). [Compare the words of Ignatius in the last note on 1 John 3:6. M.] The additional clause refers to the righteousness of Christ, as manifesting the righteousness of God and standing out as a bright pattern. The Apostle once more uses ἐκεῖνος, although the previous αὐτὸς designated Christ, so that he might have put αὐτὸς without giving rise to misunderstanding, and thus have absolutely removed any and every want of clearness, that αὐτὸς in 1 John 2:29 had reference to Christ. By Him the Christian should ever measure and adjust himself. Baumgarten-Crusius’s explanation is altogether irrelevant; viz.: “he that is good, follows the example of Christ,” or “he only that hath been righteous through Christ, doeth righteousness.” [Huther justly observes, that as there is no reference whatever to justification in this passage, a Lapide’s assertion, that the thought of this verse contradicts the Protestant Dogma of justification by faith, is altogether futile. The explanation of Lorinus also, that “ὁ ποιῶν τὴν δικαιοσύνην is =qui habet in se justitiam, i.e. opus gratiæ, videlicet virtutem infusam,” is manifestly false.—M.].

1 John 3:8. He that committeth sin, is of the devil.—This is the progressive antithesis. On ὁ ποιῶν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν compare note on 1 John 3:4. It is “the more significant and precise” expression for ἁμαρτάνειν 1 John 3:6 (Düsterdieck). Of such an one John does not say: ἄδικός ἐστι but ἐκ τοῦ διαβόλου ἐστίν and thus states the final cause of the thought. The phrase ἐκ τοῦ διαβόλου εἶναι must be interpreted after the analogy of ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ εἶναι (cf. on 1 John 2:16), and this is the more incumbent upon us because 1 John 3:10 specifies τὰ τέκνα τοῦ θεοῦ and τά τέκνα τοῦ διαβόλου, and the paternal name is actually given to Satan at John 8:44. Still there is wanting an analogy to γεγεννῆσθαι ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ (cf. on 1 John 2:29) both for the adherents of the devil and the κόσμος, although we have ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου εἶναι at 1 John 2:16 and οἱ υἱοὶ τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου at Luke 16:8. Hence, although ἐκ τοῦ διαβόλου εἶναι contains no reference to a regeneration from beneath,—as if the devil had created the sinner, into whom he has only infused evil (Russmeyer), so that the Apostle adverts simply to corruptio and not to generatio (Bengel), and that consequently the phrase must be construed ethically and not physically (so that we cannot say τέκνον τοῦ διαβόλου in the same sense and with the same right as we say τέκνον θέου, see note on 1 John 3:10 a),—yet are we obliged to think of an origin from the devil and of a sameness in kind and an intimate union with the devil as well as of an inheritance of woe in hell to be meted out to the devil and his adherents, and to reject the volatilization of the idea by perversion into a mere belonging to (de Wette), following (Semler), resembling and spiritual affinity with the devil (Grotius, Socinus, al.). Nor does the analogy warrant the assertion that it is not at all necessary to assume John to believe the existence of the devil, that this is only a mode of representation current among heretical Jewish Christians (Semler), or a Jewish formula of teaching without all dogmatical importance, or used only for the purpose of intensifying the idea of sin as hostility to God (Baumgarten-Crusius). See no. 4 below in “Doctrinal and Ethical.”

Because the devil sinneth from the beginning.—The connection by ὅτι specifies the reason of the sentence, “He that doeth sin is of the devil;” hence the reference is to man’s sinning and his relation to the devil. For this reason ἀπ̓ ἀρχῆς emphatically put first, is to be interpreted of the beginning of man’s sinning, like John 8:44, and the Apostle declares that from that beginning the devil has been showing himself as the sinner [the sinning one], he is not only a sinner in himself, but he did also bring about the first sin of man as a seducer, and not the first sin only, but he does bring about every sin even until now (the Present ἁμαρτάνει); sinning is his work from the beginning. Bengel: “Omnium peccatorum causa est; nunquam satiatur.” Hence there is no reference here to the beginning of the devil’s existence from the creation of the world (Bede; for that would contradict John 8:44, οὐκ ἔστηκεν), or to the beginning of the creation of the earth and the solar system (Estius), or to the beginning of the res humanæ (Semler), or to the beginning of the devil’s fall (Calvin, Calov, Bengel: “Ex quo diabolus est diabolus; minime diu tenuisse videtur tatum primitivum,” Neander, Sander and others.). Nor may we interpret ἁμαρτάνει like Bengel: “Peccat et ad peccandum inducit,” but rather compare Romans 7:17. The influxus, suggestio, inspiratio, directio, coöperatio of the devil (Calov) lie not in the verb ἁμαρτάνει, but in the whole context: because the devil has sinned from the beginning and goes on sinning, every one that is sinning is of the devil; for the real connection of the person sinning with the devil or of the devil with the person sinning, is here evidently presumed, yet so that the first proposition describes the state of the sinner as essentially belonging to the sphere of the devil’s life and kingdom, while the second proposition, connected with the former by ὅτι, marks the continuing activity of the devil, so that the latter is the cause of the former.

For this was the Son of God manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil.—Bengel: “Diabolus peccandi finem non facit; peccatum solvere filii dei opus est.” Without using a conjunction the Apostle rapidly and in terse language specifies with sharpness and distinctness of outline the antithesis: διάβολος—υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ; ἐκεῖνος would have been too weak and inadequate here, and contrasts the hidden seduction of Satan with the manifestation (ἐφανερώθη) of the Son of God for the destruction of the works of the devil (John 12:31; John 16:11; Matthew 12:29; Luke 10:18). He is not only δίκαιος (1 John 3:7) but He also destroys sins (λύσῃ). This is the end of His coming, as in 1 John 3:5 : αἵρειν τὰς ἁμαρτίας is parallel to λυειν τὰ ἔργα τοῦ διαβόλου. The last expression consequently denotes sins and, with reference to διάβολος ἁμαρτάνει, as the works of the devil who committeth them. Hence the reference is here to the ἔργα τοῦ διαβόλου, sins, not to the wages of sin—affliction, death, condemnation (Calov, Spener). For these are rather the works of God who is righteous and decrees the penalty, and only by way of consequence the object of the redemptive work of Christ, but not the object of λύειν. This verb signifies the destruction of a building (John 2:19; 2 Peter 3:10-12), or of a ship (Acts 27:41) and also the loosing of chains (Acts 22:30). Bengel: (“Opera confortissima quæ solvere res digna erat filio Dei”), Spener, Besser and others retain the sense of “loosening, untying’ as if sins were the cords or bands of Satan; but this is manifestly a departure from the plain sense of the words and although useful for practical purposes, a rather artificial interpretation. Since nothing is said here of the three offices of Christ concurring in this work, or how that concurrence is to take place, the text neither authorizes us to assume that the officium sacerdotale and the officium regium without the officium propheticum will be engaged in the destruction of the works of the devil and to think only of the passion of our Lord, nor to infer anything for or against that sentence from “Etiamsi Adam non peccasset, Christus incarnatus esset.” Besides, John adverts only, as he had written (ἐφανερώθη—λύσῃ.) “to what Christ did purpose and achieve by His manifestation in the flesh” (Düsterdieck), without intending to describe or even to deny the continuous victory of Christ; he refers to that 1 John 1:7; 1Jn 2:1-2; 1 John 2:13-14; 1 John 4:4; 1 John 4:14; 1 John 5:5, but not primarily here. [Ignatius, the disciple of John, uses λύειν in the sense of the text, viz., the destruction of evil, ad Ephesians 1:3; Ephesians 1:19, λύεται ὄλεθρος, ἐλύετο πᾶσα μάγεια.—M.].

1 John 3:9. Every one that is born of God, doth not commit sin, because his seed abideth in him.—This is the antithesis of 1 John 3:8 a, and ὅτι here like there denotes the reason why; the structure of the sentences too is alike, with the sole difference that by the usual inversion the subjects and predicates have changed places. Ὀ γεγεννημένος ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ opp.: ἐκ διαβόλου ἐστιν,—ἁμαρτίαν οὐ ποιεῖ opp.: ὁ ποιῶν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν,—ὅτι ̓ ἀρχῆς ὁ διάβολος ἁμαρτάνει opp.: ὅτι σπέρμα αὐτοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ μένει. Thus John contrasts sinning in its extreme and inmost nature with the children of God in the possession of their highest and most glorious gift and an attitude conformable thereto. Πᾶς denotes the general character of the sense. We know from 1 John 2:29; 1 John 3:6, that being born of God, doing righteousness or not sinning belong together and that the former is incompatible with the commission of sin. Cf. 1 John 1:5. Hence ἁμαρτίαν stands emphatically in ante position; the Apostle regards sin as devilish, and righteousness as divine; and hence righteousness and sin are as absolutely and diametrically opposed to each other as are God and the devil. The clause annexed by ὅτι specifies the reason why one born of God does not commit sin, and being parallel to the similar clause in 1 John 3:8, sheds a light on the latter in confirmation of the interpretation given here. The reference of σπέρμα αὐτον͂ to θεοῦ is obvious. The seed of God necessarily denotes something that proceeds from God, is instinct with vital power and full of life, develops itself, blossoms and bears fruit, and begets the Divine. We cannot see here a reference to the word of God (with Clement of Alex., Augustine, Bede, Luther, Calov, Spener, Bengel, Besser, Socinus, Grotius and others), notwithstanding Matthew 13:3 sqq.; James 1:18; 1 Peter 1:23; cf. 1 Corinthians 4:15; Galatians 4:19, because that simile from the vegetable kingdom does not answer to the reference to begetting and birth, and because the Word of God or the Gospel in other passages is mentioned only as the instrument of begetting, as a carrier and conductor of the Divine σπέρμα, but not the σπέρμα itself. [Alford, who takes the view impugned here, says: “But whether we regard the generation of plants, or animal procreation, which latter is more in question here, what words can more accurately describe the office of the seed, than these? And what is the word of God but the continually abiding and working seed of the new life in the child of God? Nay, it seems to be that exactly of which we are in search: not the Holy Spirit, the personal agent; not the power of the new life, the thing begotten; but just that which intervenes between the two, the word, the utterance of God,—dropt into the soul of man, taking it up by Divine power into itself, and developing the new life continually. This is in the most precise and satisfactory sense the σπέρμα τοῦ θεοῦ; and in this all Scripture symbolism is agreed: cf. 1 Peter 1:23; James 1:18. In fact, the very passage which is the key to this, is John 5:38, τὸν λόγον αὐτοῦ οὐκ ἔχετε μένοντα ἐν ὑμῖν. Nor should any exception have been taken by Huther and Düsterdieck to the comparison with the parable of the sower (“wie viele ältere Ausleger mit ungeschickter Vergleichung von Matthew 13:3 sqq.” Düsterdieck), for though the attendant circumstances of generation are different, the analogy is the same.”—M.] It follows from this that the reference is to the Spirit of God, even the Holy Spirit, who communicates Himself in and of His own. Hence σπέρμα must not be applied to His whole Person but as the πνεῦμα radiating from Him which is at once He Himself and His gift, a gift from Him and of His Nature. This construction is rendered imperative by ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ in the final and substantiating clause of this verse which runs parallel to σπέρμα. Just as one who is born of God is not on that account God and has not like Christ the fulness of God bodily indwelling, so σπέρμα is not the full Person of the Spirit of God, of the Holy Spirit, but something that comes forth from His Being, which, while it cannot be separated from Him, must be distinguished from Him. Therefore we have to say with the Greek expositors that σπέρμα is πνεῦμα υἱοθέσιας, τὸ πνευματικὸν χάρισμα, the Spiritus Sanctus et ejus virtus (Calvin, Beza, Düsterdieck), nativitas spiritualis (Estius), vires regenerations (S. Schmidt), Divine life-powers (de Wette, Neander), the πνεῦμα begotten of the Holy Spirit (Sander), the germ of the new life, of the new man, Christ implanted in us (Ebrard, Lücke, Huther). But it is not σπέρμα as analogous to זֶרַע =τέκνον (Bengel: “semen dei i.e. qui natus est ex deo”), or “semen quasi divinum” (Semler), the formative principle of the good (Paulus), or religion (Fritzsche).—It is important to recollect that while μένει is used of σπέρμα, μένει is also said of the believer (1 John 3:6), and that he is bidden notwithstanding: μένετε=(1 John 2:28). On this account, and because the reference is not to a full ear of grain gathered in the barn, but to σπέρμα cast into the earth destined to grow under the influence of all kinds of weather, we need not suppose, that therefore it must abide and could neither be lost again nor perish. Nothing is said on this point, it is neither affirmed nor denied, and therefore we are not warranted to introduce or assume it here; the subject in question is simply and solely that in the σπέρμα and its abiding in conformity with its nature, the child of God receives the power of not committing sin. Although we cannot explain ὅτι by ἐφ̓ ὅσον as if it wepe=quantum, quamdiu, quatenus, it is involved in the thought (The Greek, R. Catholic and Evangelical commentators).

And he cannot sin, because he is born of God.—Now the Apostle adds the most important particular, viz., his inability of sinning on the ground of his having been born of God, with which St. John began, as he now concludes this section. With reference to the seed of God abiding in the child of God, he now asserts the absolute contrariety of a child of God and sinning in the words: οὐ δύναται ἁμαρτάνειν. Non potest peccare is at all events much stronger and more than potest non peccare; it declares not the possibility of not sinning, but the impossibility of sinning. A servant of sin has become a servant of righteousness (Romans 6:16-23); in virtue of the seed of God abiding in him he only wills and only can do the Divine, righteousness (Düsterdieck and most expositors); hence ἁμαρτάνειν must neither be intensified into “committing mortal sins” (the Romanists), to sin diabolically (Besser), to sin deliberately and intentionally (Ebrard), nor be limited to hating the brethren (Augustine, Bede), nor must οὐ δύναται be weakened into ægre, difficulter est (Grotius, “res aliena est ab ejus ingenio;” Paulus, “his whole spiritual nature and Habit resist it”). Nor must it be changed into οὐ βούλεται (the Greek commentators) or non debet. Nor is this declaration of the Apostle only a goal and standard far above the reality of the Christian life on earth, only of relative importance and without reality. Bengel: “Res se habet, ut in abstemio, qui non potest vinum bibere, et in variis antipathiæ generibus.” On the substantiating clause Bengel strikingly observes: “priora verba ex deo majorem habent in pronunciando accentum; quod ubi observatur, patet, non idem per idem probari, collato initio versus.” Because he is born of God, he that is born of God cannot sin; the child of God cannot sin, because it is the child of God. Very pertinent also is the note of Luther: “In summa nos Christiani nascimur, nec fuco quodam aut specie, sed ipsa natura sumus Christiani, quare non est possibile ut peccemus.” [Wordsworth: “He that hath been born of God, and liveth as a son of God cannot be a sinner. It is inconsistent with the essential condition of his spiritual birth, by which he is dead to sin. It is contrary to the nature which he has as a child of God. This is well expressed by Didymus here, who says, “St. John does not assert that the man who has been born of God will never commit sin; but he asserts that he does not work sin.—Non scriptum est non peccabit, sed non peccatum facit, non idem est peccare et peccatum facere; a child of two days old, by reason of his natural childhood, cannot sin, but a child of God cannot be a sinner.” This distinction he draws from the difference between the Present Infinite and the Aorist Infinitive; see Winer § 44, p. 346, 348, 349, who quotes from Stallbaum, Plat. Euthyd., p. 1John 140: “Aoristus (Infin.) quia nullam facit significationem perpetuitatis et continuationis, prouti vel initium vel progressus vel finis actionis verbo expressæ spectatur, ita solet usurpari, ut dicatur vel de eo, quod statim et e vestigio fit ideoque etiam certo futurum est, vel de re semel tantum eveniente, quæ diurnitatis et perpeluitatis cogitationem aut non fert aut certe non requirit, vel denique de re brevi et uno veluti temporis ictu peracta.” Thus e.g. πιστεῦσαι is to make a profession of faith, or an act of faith, at a particular time; but πιστεύειν is to believe, to be a believer; δουλεῦσαι is to do an act of service, δουλεύειν, to be a slave; οὐδεὶς οἰκέτης δύναται δυσὶ κυρίοις δούλεύειν, no servant can be a slave to two masters; so ἁμαρτεῖν is to commit a sin, but ἁμαρτάνειν is much more than this, it is to be a sinner.”

Ignatius, ad. Eph. 8 says: “Let no one deceive you. They who are carnal cannot do the things which are spiritual; nor can they who are spiritual do the things which are carnal. Faith cannot do the works of unbelief, nor can unbelief do the works of faith. The works which ye do in the flesh are spiritual, because ye work all your works in Jesus Christ.”—M.].

Conclusion. 1 John 3:10 a.

1 John 3:10 a. In this are manifest the children of God and the children of the devil. —Ἐν τούτῳ refers back to the preceding. Cf. on 1 John 2:3. The point under notice is ἐκ τοῦ δεοῦ and ἐκ τοῦ διαβόλου εἶναι. This is apparent in the doing of righteousness or in the working of sin, the sinner entangling himself in sin, as a child of the devil, while the believer, as being born of God, resists it. Being a child of God or a child of the devil is hidden and manifest in doing. Hence this clause must not be referred to the sequel (Grotius, Spener, Ebrard and others) as there is not the least occasion for it; de Wette, Sander, and others leave this point undetermined. It is not said here to whom τὰ τέκνα τοῦ θεοῦ and, τὰ τέκνα τοῦ διαβόλου φανερά ἐστιν but 1 John 3:1 (κόσμος οὐ γινώσκει ἡμᾶς) renders it certain that it is not manifest to the world but only to the Christian. That difference is only manifest in the light of the divine κρίσις, the uncritical world blends together and confounds good and evil, God and the devil (Lücke, Sander). “To the children of the devil their own moral nature remains a mystery until they accept the judgment of the Holy Spirit and through the divine seed are born of God and become the children of God.” Cf. Matthew 7:16-21; Luke 6:43-46.—The phrase τὰ τέκνα τοῦ διαβόλου occurs only here in the New Testament although we encounter the following variations: υἱὸς διαβόλου said of Elymas Bar-Jesus, Acts 13:10; ὁ υἱὸς τῆς said of Judas, John 17:12; and υἱοὶ τῆς and τέκνα φύσει ὀργῆς, Ephesians 2:3, instead of which τέκνον τοῦ διαβόλου might have been used, if that expression had not been studiously avoided in order to prevent the misunderstanding that we might as well speak of a birth (out) of the devil as of a birth (out) of God (see notes on 1 John 3:8) and in order not to give nourishment to the dualistic notion that their conversion or regeneration is impossible, to intimate, on the contrary, that it is more probable to see a child of the devil become a child of God than a child of God become a child of the devil. But it cannot be inferred from these different expressions that the terms τὰ τέκνα τοῦ θεοῦ and τὰ τέκνα τοῦ διαβόλου denote the two extremes between which other men are found. This antithesis embraces rather the totality of mankind just as ἁμαρτάνειν and οὐχ ἁμαρτάνειν comprise the whole attitude of men. Socinus is surely right: “Ex apostoli verbis satis aperte colligi potest, quod inter filios dei et filios diaboli nulli sint homines medii.”

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The nature of sin. The word ἁμαρτία while indicating aberration from the right way, the right goal, the straight direction and order does not tell us wherefrom said aberration takes place. On this account the word ἀνομία is added. It is evident that sin is in direct antagonism to the νόμος, the divine ordinance. Hofmann pertinently compares 2 Thessalonians 2:7 (Schriftbeweis I., 487). The first thing is that sin contradicts the divine ordinance. The extent of ἀνομία is also that of ἁμαρτία; whatever does not accord with the divine ordinance of life, be it little or small or as it please, is ἁμαρτῖα, which is always to be regarded primarily as an injury done to God who has appointed the νόμος. Hence the notion of guilt adheres at all events to the notion of sin, although the sinner be not conscious of it at the time or soon after the act; the sense of guilt is sure to come sooner or later, but invariably with the knowledge of sin, even as David expresses it: “Against thee only, have I sinned” (Psalms 51:4) and St. Paul ὑπόδικος τῷ θεῷ (Romans 3:19). The injury done to one’s own soul which lies at the bottom of ἁγνίζειν ἑαυτὸν, and is declared in τηρεῖ αὐτὸν as contrasted (ἀλλὰ) with ἁμαρτάνειν is likewise the reason why the sinner is outside of fellowship with Christ who is life, gives life and takes away sin.

[Pearson (p. 539) says: “The law of God is the rule of the actions of men, and any aberration from that rule is sin: the law of God is pure and whatsoever is contrary to the law is impure. Whatsoever therefore is done by man, or is in man, having any contrariety or opposition to the law of God, is sin. Every action, every word, every thought, against the law, is a sin of omission, as it is terminated to an object dissonant from, and contrary to, the prohibition of the law, as a negative precept. Every omission of a duty required of us is a sin, as being contrary to the commanding part of the law, or an affirmative precept. Every evil habit contracted in the soul of man by the actions committed against the law of God, is a sin constituting a man truly a sinner, even then, when he actually sinneth not. Any corruption and inclination in the soul, to do that which God forbiddeth, and to omit that which God commandeth, howsoever such corruption and evil inclination came into the soul, whether by an act of his own will, or by the act of the will of another, is a sin, as being something dissonant from, and repugnant to the law of God. And this I conceive sufficient to declare the nature of sin.”—M.].2. The nature of righteousness, as the opposite of sin, is therefore a conduct consonant with the νόμος, a doing regulated by the divine ordinances of life, from the work of our hands to the act of thinking and the power of the will.

3. The corruption of sin is manifest in that it entangles men in a relation to Satan which at once defines his attitude and shows itself in it. It comes from Satan and is the act of Satan, so that living in sin and the working of sin are evidences of the sinner’s dependence on the devil, his appurtenance and similarity of nature to the devil. Although man’s sin is the sin of the seduced, in virtue of such seduction he is yet as much doomed to the power of the kingdom of the Evil One as he is guilty before God; and he that ought and might have become a child of God, has become a child of the devil. As surely as fellowship with God and righteousness are gained in Christ, so surely does sin evidence fellowship with the devil.

4. Satan is a person, opposed to God, the opposite of God and not only of Christ, who came to take away sin and to destroy the works of the devil. Strauss (Dogmatik II. 15) justly observes: “The whole idea of Messiah and His kingdom is as impossible without its counterpart of a kingdom of demons with a personal head, as the north pole of a magnet without the south pole. If Christ came to destroy the works of the devil, there was no necessity for His coming if there was no devil; if there is a devil, but only as the personification of the principle of evil—well, then we ought also to be satisfied with a Christ as an impersonal idea.” Besides to deny the existence and personality of the devil is to give up the personality of God Himself. God would be the Absolute and not the absolute Personality, if in this Johannean complex of ideas we are permitted to understand Satan to be only a principle, though it be the cosmical.—But there are here no data whatsoever for a dualistic conception. Two things are certain; First: the devil’s opposition to God cannot be so construed as to give the devil the character of the contestant counter-god from all eternity and to divest him of the attributes of the creature; the text contains no warranty for either; the purpose of Christ’s manifestation and the circumstance that this purpose must be supposed to be fully accomplished and accomplishing in all essential points, warrant us rather to conclude that said true assumptions, as a perfectly dualistic opposition of the devil and God, are incompatible with the fundamental views of the Apostle. Secondly: it cannot be inferred from this passage that men are naturally and essentially devilish. For John plainly declares that not the devil’s nature (to which he does not make the faintest allusion), but the devil’s work shows itself in the sins of men and that Christ came not to destroy the nature of the devil but to destroy the works of the devil. Nor must it be overlooked that, as contrasted with the terms γεγεννημένος ἐν τοῦ θεοῦ, σπέρμα θεοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ, ἐκ θεοῦ εἶναι, ἐκ αὐτῷ μένων, τέκνον θεοῦ, the Apostle is very sparing in his reference to the devil and does not go beyond saying ἐκ τοῦ διαβόλου εἶναι and τέκνον τοῦ διαβόλου, opposing the latter term, as it were by constraint, to the phrase “child of God,” so that Augustine justly refers to an imitari diabolum, observing: “Omnes peccatores ex diabolo nati sunt, in quantum peccatores. Adam a deo factus est. sed quando consensit diabolo, ex diabolo natus est, et tales omnes genuit qualis erat.” There is not the faintest intimation for the supposition that man does not sin of his own will, not voluntaria but naturaliter, and that the sin which he commits is not his fault, but solely the devil’s fault; the contrary is evident from the exhortation in 1 John 3:7 and the paracletical tendency which lies at the bottom of the whole. Neither dualism nor determinism can be deduced from this passage. But concerning subjection and personal transactions reference is made to cosmical powers in God the Father with the Son and in the devil, as the ultimate and chief factors of all personal development.

5. The work of Satan is sin, and sin from the beginning, i.e. from the beginning of sin on the part of mankind, which is the only subject under notice here. Hence he is most truly the sinner, the original sinner. As he was actively engaged in the first sin, so he still is actively engaged in every sin. But beyond this fact nothing is said as to the nature of his activity, as to its concurrence with that of man which is not excluded, and as to the manner how sin comes to pass. But it is intimated that contrary to Christ who was manifested and did appear in order to destroy the works of the devil, the devil was not manifested but remained and continued to walk in concealment, and that the children of God and the children of the devil cannot be identified at once, even as the world (which knows neither God nor the children of God (1 John 3:1), nor itself) does not discover the devil’s work in its own sin; for the reference is to πνευματικὰ τῆς πονηρίας (Ephesians 6:12). It is just the man, who, as St. James says (James 1:14 sq.), is incited and enticed by his own lust (ὑπὸ τῆς ἰδίας ἐπιθυμίας ἐξελκόμενος καὶ δελεαζόμενος) and commits sin without an inward struggle, without offering any resistance, in a calm course of development (ἡ ἐπιθυμία συλλαβοῦσα τίκτει τὴν ἁμαρτίαν), has the devil as the father of sin and is himself a child of the devil. In sins it becomes manifest that the anti-divine on earth is intimately and vitally connected with the kingdom and influence of the devil and that ultimately the whole matter resolves itself into a world-combat between God and the devil, and a world-victory of God in Christ over the devil (compare Harless, Ethics § 28. ***: Nitzsch, System. p. 244. sqq.)

6. Redemption from sin is the work of the Sinless One, the purpose of the manifestation of the Sinless One, whose aim it is not to bring a new doctrine but to produce a new life. According to this the most important thing is, of course, not the exposition of the law marked by the utmost profoundness of apprehension and lucidity of statement, but the exhibition of the law to its full extent in a pure life, which not only evinces its strength in suffering and the assumption of human sin, but also satisfies and reconciles the Father, so that for the Son’s sake He now once more turns to mankind as hallowed and mankind overcome and attracted by the Sinless One, parts company with sin and turns away from it. It is inconceivable to have known and understood the Sinless One and yet to continue in sin all the same; to abide in Christ and to abide in sin are incompatible opposites; the one excludes the other. John, to be sure, has respect only to the principle or the result, as the issue is a life that terminates not in a moment but has its historical course and internal development. This is predicated of the life in Christ (1 John 3:2-3,) and by analogy we are constrained to assume it of the life in sin.

7. Being determines the doing, the doing does not determine the being, but we know the being from the doing. The being is the cause, the doing the effect. Hence he that does not commit sin but worketh righteousness (1 John 3:6-9) must be born of God (1 John 2:29; 1 John 3:9-10) and have seen and known Christ (1 John 3:6), but he that is of the devil, commits sin and worketh no righteousness (1 John 3:8). So Luther (Erlangen ed. 27, 191): “Good, pious works nevermore make a good, pious man, but a good pious man will do good, pious works. Evil works nevermore make an evil man, but an evil man will do evil works. Consequently the person must everyways be good and pious prior to all good works, and good works must follow and proceed from the good, pious person (Matthew 7:18).” Hence a man must have become righteous by justification, before he can act righteously in sanctification. This is the truth and the right of the Lutheran and Reformed confessions in opposition to Rome; but on the subject of becoming righteous John confines himself to saying that it takes place (out) of God in Christ by regeneration and propitiation; hence it simply indicates the objective ground and not the subjective accomplishment. On this point no other particulars can be inferred from our passage.

8. While the not-sinning and the impossibility of sinning on the part of a Christian born of God, must be held fast as a fact, we must be on our guard against hasty inferences therefrom, for which John gives us no warrant. In the first place this passage (1 John 3:9) must be susceptible of a construction that does not contradict 1 John 1:8 sqq., for John could not have made both statements, if they were incompatible with one another. Hence the Roman Catholics are as much in the wrong for holding, as de Lyra says, that it is the prerogative of the saints, i.e. only individuals in virtue of special grace in regeneration, not to sin and not being able to sin, as are the Lutherans for contending that all truly regenerated persons live without sin; for such an assertion is as arrogant as that contained in the sentence of Seneca, the Stoic (see Düsterdieck II. 148 from Wetstein): “Vir bonus non potest non facere, quod facit; in omni actu par sibi, jam non consilio bonus, sed more eo perductus; ut non tantum recte facere possit, sed nisi recte facere non possit.” 1 John 1:8 sqq. forbids such a construction of 1 John 3:9. The Gichtelites, who in virtue of Matthew 22:30 used to call themselves the brethren of the angels and refusing to be considered a sect laid claim to being the invisible Church, and the Molinists who were Quietists, claimed with some Pietists such a state of perfection, and being called Perfectists by their adversaries, called them in turn Conatists; the Methodists who maintain that they stand daily and hourly in need of the atoning merits of Christ do not belong to this category although they hold the sinless perfection of the regenerate; but this certainly exposes them like the Roman Catholics to the danger of regarding or treating concupiscence as a matter of indifference. The Synod of Dort, moreover, cannot on the strength of this passage reject the following proposition (see Niemeyer, p. 719 sub III): “Vere credentes et regenitos non tantum posse a fide justificante, item gratia et salute totaliter et finaliter excidere, sed eitam reipsa non raro ex iis excidere atque in æternum perire,” nor is Calvin warranted to say: “Johannes non solum docet, quam efficaciter agat semel deus in homine, sed clare affirmat, spiritum suam gratiam in nobis ad extremum usque persequi, ut ad vitæ novitatem inflexibilis perseverantia accedat,” because the Apostle teaches here not a word on that subject. He neither says 1 John 1:8 sqq. that the regenerate in reality does not seldom fall from grace and perish eternally (!), but only, that his sinning notwithstanding, his sins would be forgiven him, nor here at 1 John 3:9, that the gift of sonship and regeneration can never be lost again or impaired, or that the σπέρμα is and must be brought to perfection in every child of God, or that the donum perseverantiæ is added by God to the gift of His grace, so that the two are intimately united and inseparable. A view hitting the truth may be found already in Jovinian (at the end of the fourth century) as stated in the controversial writing of his opponent (Hieronymus adv. Jovinianum libri II), if we remember that he said besides what here follows, viz: “eos, qui plena fide in baptismate renati sunt, a diabolo non posse subverti,” or “a diabolo non posse tentari; quicunque autem tentati fuerint, ostendi eos aqua tantum et non spiritu baptizatos”—that the Christian is not called upon to fight and to labour “ut majora præmia accipiat” but only “ne perdat quod accepit,” and that he did add “qui suum baptisma servaverint.” For John neither affirms nor excludes by an intimation that the work and act of God to man must be accepted and received by man, that man with the divinely-given strength must become self-acting so that he not only do not resist and thus not resisting, obicem non ponens, become sanctified after having been justified, but also that entering into the work and act of God he exercise himself by his own personal efforts and thus appropriate more and more and receive into his own nature that which is God’s, by giving up and sacrificing his self without doing injury to his seity. All these things John does not touch upon because he is not concerned with subjective execution but solely with the objective ground and foundation. Hence he says: he that is born of God, as such (as God’s child), without any reference to his former condition and its reaction, does not really sin in the literal acceptation of the term; sin may still take place in him, but he himself, as the child of God, in the power of regeneration, does not and cannot commit it (cf. Harless Ethics § 26. **).—Hence we cannot see at all why the regenerate, if he neglects, in conflicts and collisions which may arise, to be on his guard and to hold fast all that God has given to him, done for him and is offering to him, may not by degrees fall entirely from grace, and such an issue necessitates or justifies the assumption that God did not seriously intend, energetically will and efficiently accomplish his regeneration and that lastly the lapsed was right and God in the wrong, that it is God’s fault that he, though already redeemed from the power of the devil, had again fallen a prey to the devil. Hebrews 6:4 sqq. which only declares that it is impossible to recover those who have fallen away from such true regeneration has no connection with this passage (in opposition to Ebrard), but we ought rather to take note of μένων in 1 John 3:6., which points to that unexpressed train of thought. Cf. Romans 7:15 sqq. where mention is made of the ἔσω ἄνθρωπος as the σπέρμα θεοῦ and the ἐγὼ of the regenerate warring against the old ego.—[Düsterdieck: “The difference between the older and more modern expositors14 lies in this, that the former are more anxious to moderate the details of the Apostle’s sentiment, and to tone down his assertion to the actual life of Christians, while the moderns recognize the full precision of the text as it stands, but then remind us that the ideal truth of the principle announced by St. John continually, so to speak, floats above the actual life of believers as their rule and aim and that, in so far, the Apostle’s saying finds in such actual life only a, relative fulfilment. None however of all the expositors, who in any way has recognized the ideal character of St. John’s view, has overlooked the fact, that even in the actual life of all that are born of God there is something which in full verity answers to the ideal words “they cannot sin.” The children of God, in whom the Divine seed of their eternal life abides, have, in reality, a holy privilege, as Steinhofer says,—they sin not and they cannot sin, just in proportion as the new Divine life, unconditionally opposed to all sin, and manifesting itself in godlike righteousness, is present and abides in them. Expositors of all these logical tendencies, in all times, e.g. Didymus, Oecum., Estius, Schlichting, Luther, Hunnius, Seb. Schmidt, Calov, Bengel, Joachim Lange, Rosenmüller, Lücke, Neander, etc. point to this, that the new life of believers, veritably begotten by regeneration from God, is simply incompatible with sin15; the life which essentially alienates the spirit from all sin,16 fills it with an irreconcilable hate against every sin, and urges it to an increasing conflict against all unrighteousness. Luther excellently says, that a child of God in this conflict receives indeed wounds daily, but never throws away his arms or makes peace with his deadly foe. Sin is ever active, but no longer dominant; the normal direction of life’s energies in the believer is against sin, is an absence of sin, a no-will-to-sin and a no-power-to-sin. He that is born of God has become, from being a servant of sin, a servant of righteousness; according to the Divine seed remaining in him, or, as St. Paul says, according to the inner man17, he will and he can work only that which is like God,—righteousness, though the flesh not yet fully mortified, rebels and sins: so that even in and by the power of the new life sin must be ever confessed, forgiveness received18, the temptation of the evil one avoided and overcome19, and self-purification and sanctification carried on.”—M.].

9. John speaks of being born in order to live, Paul of dying in order to live.

[Ezek. Hopkins: This place may, perhaps, be among the number of those, that had been more clear, if they had been less expounded. I shall only give you the genuine native sense of the words and then proceed to manage them to my present purpose. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin. Some from hence have concluded a possibility, at least, of a sinless state in this life: others, the infallible certainty of it; not only that a child of God might attain to such a perfection as is exclusive of all sin, but that whoever is a child of God cannot upon that very account be guilty of any sin: so like are errors to precipices, that, if a man lose his firm footing, usually he falls headlong; nor does he stop, till he dash himself against the bottom and foundation of all religion and piety: had these men but seriously pondered what the same Apostle saith in his first chapter, 1Jn 3:8; 1 John 3:10 : “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us;” and “If we say that we have not sinned, we make God a liar,” they would not have entertained such an over-weening conceit of a spotless perfection of life here; whereof the greatest part is no better than sin and the best of it, but too, too much defiled with it. Others interpret thus: So long as we are the children of God, we cannot sin; and so the Papists go; but these go upon an erroneous supposition, that every mortal sin, as they call them, makes an intercision of justifying grace; and doth, as it were, annihilate the new creature. Others interpret it thus: in quantum sumus filii Dei: we cannot sin under that respect and notion, as we are the children of God; but even so far as we are, the best of us in the most part, unrenewed; though this is a certain truth, yet it is but a dilute and waterish exposition of this place; and it amounts to no more than this, that a regenerate man sins not as he is regenerate, that the principle of grace in him is not that principle from whence sinful actions proceed; and certainly, no man, that considers the weight of this Scripture expression, will think that the Apostle, by such an instance and ingemination, would press so thin a meaning as this is. The interpretation, therefore, that I judge to be the most natural and unforced is this: He, that is born of God, doth not commit sin; that is, he doth not sin in that malignant manner, in which the children of the devil do: he doth not make a trade of sin, nor live in the constant and allowed practice of it. Neither can he thus sin, because his seed remaineth in him; that is either the energy of the word of God whereby he is begotten again to a spiritual life, or the complexion of the graces of the spirit that are as it were the seminary and the seed-plot of glory. Nor he cannot sin, because his seed remaineth in him: this seed remains, and keeps him, that he cannot sin; either as apostates do who totally forsake the ways of God, or as profane persons do, who never embraced them. There is a great difference betwixt regenerate and unregenerate persons, in the very sins that they commit: all, indeed, sin; but a child of God cannot sin; that is, though he doth sin, yet he cannot sin after such a manner as wicked and unregenerate men do: there is a vast difference betwixt them, even in that wherein they do most of all agree: see that place in Deuteronomy 32:5. Their spot is not the spot of his children: even deformities themselves are characteristic: and a true Christian may come to know by his sins, that he is not a sinner. And, as they differ in the committing of sin, so much more in the opposing of it.”—M.].

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

Thou art wont in other respects to attach importance to the right name and the right word. Well, sin is immorality; what thou callest a slip, an error, an infirmity or a foible, is essentially—immorality.—Be not concerned as much about earthly losses or disgrace before men as about outraging the Divine majesty, which marks the nature of sin even more graphically than the outrage done to thy own soul.—What does it avail thee to be praised of men, even in newspapers, if God regards thee as a transgressor? Remember the case of Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, who was hateful to the Emperor; the courtiers said: “Burn him, confiscate his property, put him in irons, and have him killed.” But others replied, saying: “You will not gain anything by all this; for in exile he would find a home with his God; you deprive the poor, not him, of property; he kisses his chains; death opens heaven to him. There is only one way to render him unhappy; force him to sin; he fears nothing in the world but sin.”—Dost thou honestly abide the law of the land, especially the fundamental law—then maintain also the law of God’s kingdom, His fundamental law.—The sinner does the very thing which Christ desires to remove: he twines for Him a crown of thorns and crucifies Him anew.—Hold fast the sinlessness and death of Christ. Why was it necessary for the Sinless One to die if not for the sin of men? What is he that does not like the Sinless One and does every thing in his power to put Him out of the way? What is the public opinion which crowned that attempt with success? Of what consequence must sin be, if He had to die by and for it?—He did not come for the sake of the doctrine, which did not take away sin, that the prophet might be praised, but He came for the sake of sin, that the Lamb of God and the High priest might be praised together.—He came to acquire for Himself a people that it might live of and by Him; He came not to receive from it what were its possessions, but to take away from it, what is its grievance and to grant to it His glory.—A Christian, as a Christian, never does sin, he only suffers it.—In and with Christ we lose all pleasure in sin and loathe its service.—Sin dazzles men and prevents their seeing and knowing the glory of Christ.—To overlook the glory of Christ denotes not a low degree of immorality.—The illumination of our spirit is not without the purification of our heart, without the deliverance of our will from the chains of sin.—As sin is ever growing so that thin threads of lust become cords of vanity and cart-ropes of unrighteousness (Is. 1 John 3:18), the small rent of doubt grows into a shipwreck concerning faith (1 Timothy 1:19) and a little spark causes a great fire (James 3:5), so in like manner the forgiveness of sins in justification grows to the annihilation of sin in sanctification, and the regenerate grows into manhood, so that while Ahab, though wholly mail-clad, was mortally wounded in one place, Paul though bitten by a venomous viper, shook off the beast into the fire and remained unhurt.—Christ is the point where men must choose the way that leadeth to the kingdom of darkness, or that which conducts to the kingdom of light.—Man’s way ends in the former kingdom with his belonging to Satan, but it begins in the latter with his regeneration.—Just those who are the devil’s know least of him, deny his existence and personality; those who with God resist him, know his nature and power much better than his servants.—Be not deceived, 1. Concerning the nature of sin; 2. Concerning the glory of Christ; 3. Concerning the activity of Satan; 4. Concerning the power of regeneration.—Fear sin! 1. It breaks the ordinance of God; 2. It is the cause of Christ’s sufferings; 3. It leads to the slavery of Satan; 4. It destroys thy adoption of God.—Child of God, rejoice! 1. God’s law is a sure and straight path; 2. The merit of Christ affords thee a mighty help; 3. The gift of the Spirit will yield thee precious fruit.

Augustine:—The doing of righteousness does not precede but succeed justification.

Starke:—Whatever is contrary to the law of God, whether done inwardly or outwardly, in thought, manner, words or works—is sin.—Let every one diligently study the law of God so that he may learn what is right and wrong and not do ignorantly what might have been avoided.—Sin must be a terrible and horrible thing, because for its sake Christ had to come, to suffer and to die. Every thing is in harmony: begone, sin! there is no room for thee with the redeemed! It is apostasy from the law, the opposite of the Image of Christ, the progeny of Satan, a mark of his slaves.—Thou sayest: I am a sinful man and not a sinful angel! True; but if thou art truly a believing Christian, sin must not reign in thee but thou must reign over sin and not serve sin in any particular.—Not certain, believers are exposed to the danger of being seduced.—Appearance, propriety of conduct, and observance of the externals of worship are not paramount in Christianity, but the heart must be changed and that takes place in regeneration.—It is ill-befitting a Christian to appeal to and boast of his illustrious descent, the distinction of his family and connections; the grace of regeneration, which invests him with the prerogatives of the adoption, truly ennobles him before God and men.—The children of Satan are often unknown, but more to themselves and those like them than to the godly.—The godly also are often hidden, but more from the ungodly than from themselves, for they know very well in virtue of the spirit of adoption both what they have received and what is promised to them.—There is a difference between the children of God and the children of the devil; they may and ought to be identified, but the identification requires a spiritual discernment, otherwise it cannot take place.—Honest preachers must not give evangelical consolation to those who are openly ungodly, though they say that preachers cannot condemn. True; they cannot condemn but they can denounce the damnable condition.

Bengel:—“Iniquitas horribilius quiddam, apud eos præsertim, qui legem et dei voluntatem magni faciunt, sonat, quam peccatum. Ex lege agnitio peccati. Linea curva cernitur per se; sed magis, ad regulam collata.”

Steinhofer:—The children of God in whom the divine seed of their eternal life is truly abiding, have really the holy privilege of not being able to sin.

Heubner:—Not the hurtfulness of sin is its nature, for that is accidental, but its opposition to God.—The chief purpose of the manifestation of Christ was the cancelling of sin, the atonement for our sin, and sanctification by means of reconciliation. Hence continuing in sin frustrates the purpose of Christ and contradicts His holiness.—Christianity is not gnosis, but an honest mind and conversation.—Recollect that as long as sinning is thy element, thou art in the devil’s sphere and exposed to his influence.—Take note: 1. That the destruction of the works of the devil is not something that has been done, finished and perfected once for all but is progressive in its nature, advancing to perfection to the end of time. 2. That Christ has laid the foundation by His suffering and death as well as by the establishment of His Church, that incessant warfare may be waged against the kingdom of the devil and that at the last it shall be entirely destroyed. 3. That Christ has enabled all who believe in Him and receive His power to overcome Satan. The power of Satan is broken in believers. The works of the devil are being destroyed in proportion as the Gospel spreads intensively and extensively. 4. That the absolute and total destruction of the kingdom of the devil will take place at the second coming of Christ. Then it will be fully consummated. At present believers are only called upon to make war against Satan.—As the seed does only push forth the fruit it contains, and cannot produce a fruit different in kind, and as it is peculiar to the nature, even to the germinating principle in the seed to produce the right fruit, so it is also with those in whom is laid the seed of God, the Spirit of God; its germinating principle prompts godliness of living. But this does not warrant the assertion of absolute sinlessness.—It is not a physically absolute impossibility, but a moral impossibility; it is impossible to the sanctified will.—The indwelling spirit effects so essential a difference among men, that it seems as if they were wholly different races. But because it is invisible, God causes it to become manifest in its persevering fruit.—How sharply does Holy Scripture distinguish between men; they are either the children of God or the children of the devil; it knows nothing of half-Christians, of an amphibious race; man can only be one or the other.—Be not deceived by this sharp dichotomy, as if it were unkind and uncharitable thus to judge, for it is not taught here that we should thus judge and classify others (for that is the prerogative of God), but that we should judge and range ourselves.

Reinhard:—Christ takes away

1. The deception and fraud of sin—by His doctrine.

2. The punishment of sin—by His death.

3. The dominion of sin—by His Spirit and example.

Besser:—With God every transgression is a crime; the Judge above does not treat sin as a trifle, a peccadillo (peccatilio, a little sin). Every sin and all sin has the character of treason.—True Christians know that the Saviour was manifested as the enemy and atoner of sin, and they agree with Him in heart and mind in pronouncing the same sentence on sin which was passed upon it in His bitter sufferings and painful death. Every one that abides in Christ, to whom he belongs once for all, does not commit sin, but says no to sin, which belongs to the old man, and resists its foreign power. The Christian’s will, his ego resting in and governed by Christ is not one with sin but one with Christ in whom there is no sin. Hatred of sin is the feeling which the children of God have in common, the love of sin the universal dowry of the children of the devil. Just as only those truly love good who know the Good One, so they only hate evil with perfect hatred who hate the Evil One as actively engaged in every evil and abhor sin as the work of the beginner of sin.—The will which worketh sin, is of the devil and not of God. Out of the new, divine life-ground laid in the children of God grows up the pure delight in the good and perfect will of God, and whatever is displeasing to the Father (and sin is unrighteousness and wrong) is equally displeasing to the child.

Tholuck:—Do not trifle with sin. 1. Because our hope is so glorious. Here the blessed rights of children, there the splendour and joys of children; should not he shun sin that hath such a hope? Ingratitude is one of the meanest vices; he that does not experience the necessity of gratitude for benefits received is one of the poorest and most hopeless of men. Christ who burst the chains and shunned no indignity in order to help us, should we not be grateful to Him—by fighting against sin? 2. Because sin is so culpable. Sin, did it only hurt us, we might get over it, but as it hurts God, it becomes a more fearful thing. The true child of God ceases to commit sin and greatly grieves at the presence of any and every sin. [A stanza of a German hymn.—M.] Every, even the smallest sin always hits the nerve of the law, unlike the eye, where the skin only and not the ophthalmic nerve needs to be injured; and the sinful lust is followed by the culpable word and the culpable word by the culpable deed. Misfortune is seldom alone and sin even more seldom. To become free from sin is the life-task of the Christian. He knows of no care greater than that of getting rid of a diseased conscience. Repentance cuts the nerve away from the lust of sin.

Gerok:—(on 1 John 2:28 to 1 John 3:8). Of the paradise of the divine sonship. 1. of the noble state of being a child; 2. of the holy duty of a child; 3. of the blessed children’s right of the children of God.

[1 John 3:7. Burkitt:—The Scriptures speak of doing righteousness in two senses: 1. in a legal sense, which consists in an exact obedience and fulfilling of the law; and thus there is “none righteous, no not one;” 2. in an evangelical sense, which means walking uprightly according to the rules of the Gospel, conscientiously avoiding all known sin, and performing every commanded duty, observing a constant course of holy actions and making it our daily care to please God in all that we do. And it is the duty of every Christian, who would not be deceived as to his spiritual condition, to try himself by this infallible mark: “He that doeth righteousness is righteous;—whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God.”—M.].

[1 John 3:8. Bp. Hall:—He that gives himself over to the commission of sin, and makes it his willing practice, that man is not of God but of the devil: for it is and hath been, the trade of that wicked spirit, even from the beginning, ever since his fall [?], to sin against God, and to draw others into sin and condemnation with him.—M.].

[Secker:—Herein is the plain trial of our condition. If we are destitute of “the fruits of the spirit,” it is bad; if we find them in our hearts and lives, we have proof enough of its being good, and need never disquiet ourselves for want of any other. Being able to tell the very moment when we became pious and virtuous, is not material, provided we are so now; and happiest of all are they, who remember not themselves ever to have been otherwise. All feelings are imaginary and deceitful, unless they be accompanied with that one, which the Apostle experienced and mentioned: “For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity we have had our conversation in the world.” 2 Corinthians 1:12. Our Saviour’s rule of “knowing every tree by its fruits” Luke 6:44, is the only sure way to judge of ourselves as well as of others. And though we may perhaps be sometimes at a loss how to judge, or inclined, and even strongly, to fear the worst; yet if this arise not from presumptuous sins or habitual negligence, but merely from excessive humility or weakness of spirits, a modest diffidence will never hinder our future happiness, nor will a bold positiveness ever forward it. Good men may be cast down and bad men elevated without any reason. The former may see much in themselves to dislike; and yet God may see enough of what He approves to accept them: they may experience little joy in serving Him, and yet “walk” more completely “worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing,” Colossians 1:10, for doing it without the encouragement of a present reward. The latter, on the other hand, may build upon groundless fancies of their own, mistaking them for Divine communications: may be absolutely confident, wonderfully transported, yet find themselves at last fatally deceived. It is not, therefore, by their fears, or their hopes, or their raptures, that men are to judge of their spiritual condition. “Hereby,” saith St. John, “do we know that we know God, if we keep His commandments,”1 John 2:3; 1 John 2:3. “Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous; he that committeth sin is of the devil.”—M.]

[Tucker:—As therefore we are well assured, that repentance will re-instate us, and that obedience will continue us, in the Divine favour, according to the gracious terms of the Gospel, so let us likewise remember, that he who wilfully and habitually committeth sin, whatever evidence of his new birth or justification, his adoption or acceptance, he may fancy himself possessed of, is actually no other than the servant of sin and the slave of the devil. In short, virtue and vice, holiness and wickedness, Christ and Belial, can never, never unite together. If therefore we design ourselves to be the candidates for heaven, we must endeavour to acquire such qualifications as will, render us fit for that holy place. Because unless we really acquire them during the present state, the alternative is dreadful indeed: for he who committeth sin is of the devil. How shocking even to repeat; yet much more shocking to feel! to feel not only for a time but forever! Whereas on the contrary, “he who doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous;” righteous he is, because he will have, not only his manifold failings and imperfections all forgiven, through the mercies of the Gospel-covenant, but even his deliberate sins and offences cancelled and blotted out on his sincere repentance: and what is still more than ever could have been thought of, much less petitioned for, he will find himself permitted to appear before God as “holy, unblameable and unreproveable in His sight,” Colossians 1:22.—M.].

[1 John 3:9. Pyle: Whosoever is born of God, etc. As if he had said: In fine, while a man preserves his Christian principle, and answers the character of a true member of God’s Church, he can never be guilty of deliberate and habitual vice. Make it therefore a sure test to whom a man belongs, in whose service he is listed, and from whom he may expect his wages, whether of God or of the devil, by the good or wicked practices of his life, by his behaviour towards God and towards his brethren.—M.].

[Hammond:—The phrase “born of God” is not to be taken here, as to denote the single transient act of regeneration; but rather a continued course, a permanent state, so that a regenerate man and a child of God are of the same meaning, and signify him that lives a pious and godly life and continues to do so. For the phrase “a child” or “a son” of any kind of father, signifies a resemblance or similitude of inclinations and actions; as a child of the devil, Acts 13:10; sons of Belial, Judges 19:22; children of Abraham, Galatians 3:7. And so generally in this Epistle, he that is “born of God,” signifies a man truly pious, an obedient servant of God: and such is the subject of this proposition when of such an one it is said, that “he cannot sin:” not affirming that he cannot cease to be what he is, cannot fall off from the performance of his duty, of the possibility of Which the many warnings and exhortations that are given to pious men are evidences, see 1 John 2:1; 1 Corinthians 10:12; Heb 3:12; 2 Peter 3:17; but that remaining thus, a pious follower, imitator, and so a “child of God,” he cannot yield deliberately to any kind of sin.—M.].

[Whitby:—He cannot sin. Now that doth not import a good man cannot be overtaken with a fault (Galatians 6:1). No, even those “little children” whose “sins are forgiven,” and who have “known the Father,” may and will be obnoxious still to some infirmities and wanderings out of the way. (1 John 2:1). They may “sin not unto death,” and therefore may still have the spiritual life remaining in them (1 John 5:16-18). But the true import of that phrase is this (Ita de Catone Minore Velleius Paterculus: Homo virtuti simillimus, et per omnia ingenio diis quam hominibus proprior, qui nunquam recte fecit ut facere videretur, sed quia aliter, facere non poterat. Hist. R. II. 34. Omnibus humanis vitiis immunis. Ibid.): That he hath such an inward frame of heart, such a disposition of spirit, as renders sin exceeding odious and hateful to him; so that he cannot entertain the thoughts of doing it, or a temptation to commit it, without the utmost detestation and the greatest horror, and so can very rarely, and only through surprise, or want of due deliberation, or through such violent temptations as prevent or hinder his consideration, be obnoxious to sin; and when he comes to consider of such an action, is presently condemning himself for it, bitterly repenting of it, and for the future watching most carefully against it. Cf. Matthew 12:34; Matthew 17:18; John 7:7; John 8:43; John 12:39; John 14:17; Rom 8:7-8; 1 Corinthians 2:14; Revelation 2:2.—M.].

He that committeth sin is of the devil. It is not he who committeth one or more sins of infirmity, for so did Christ’s disciples while they were with Him; nor he who committeth one great sin through the power of a strong temptation, of which he bitterly repents, and from which he returns to his obedience; for thus did David and Peter, who yet were not then the children of the devil; but they who comply with the lusts of Satan and who will do them. John 8:44. The other interpretations which are given of these words seem either vain or impertinent, or false and dangerous, and

1. Vain is that sense which some put on these words: “He that is born of God, non debet peccare, ought not to sin,” or that it is absurd for him to sin; for the Apostle speaks not of what he ought not to do, but of what he doth not. Such is that also of those fathers, who interpret this of him who is perfectly born of God by a παλιγγενεσία, or “a resurrection from the dead,” for the Apostle doth not speak of what he shall do hereafter, but of what he doth not do at present.

2. False seems to be the sense which Origen, Jerome, and Ambrose put upon the words, that “he that is born of God sinneth not, quamdiu renatus est, whilst he is born of God, because he ceaseth to be a child of God when he sins; for this is not only confuted by the examples of David and Peter, whose faith under that great miscarriage failed not (Luke 22:32), but by the words of the Apostle, ‘Little children, if we sin we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous, and He is the Propitiation for our sins’ ” (John 2:1), who yet is only the Advocate for the sons of God. For the same reason I cannot assent to that exposition which saith: “A child of God cannot be guilty of any great or deliberate crime,” as Tertullian, de pudicitiâ c. 19.

3. Dangerous is the exposition of Bernard (In Septuag. Serm. 1), that “they who are born of God sin not, quia etiamsi peccata illis neutiquam imputentur, because their sins will never be imputed to them;” and of those who think it sufficient to say, “He sins not without great reluctancy, or not willingly, the evil that he doeth being that which he would not do;” for the will of that man, who, after some contest in his soul, yields to the commission of sin, is more strongly inclined to sin than to the avoiding of it, and so is not renewed. Nor doth the Apostle say, he that is born of God sins not willingly, or without reluctance; but absolutely, “He doth not commit sin.”

[I conclude with Gataker: “He that is born of God sinneth not,” that is: Vitam a peccato immuneum quantum potest sibi proponit, nec peccato unquam sponte dat operam; si aliquando præter animi propositum deliquerit, non in eodem persistit, sed errore agnito, ad institutum vitæ pristinum quamprimum quantumque potest, festinus revertitur.”—M.].

Footnotes:

[1][1 John 3:4 German: “Every one that doeth (the) sin, doeth also (the) lawlessness.”—M.]

[2]ἡ ἁμαρτία A. B. C. G. K. al. Sin. The Article is very strongly supported and syntactically required.

[3][German: “And (the) sin is the lawlessness.”—M.]

1 John 3:5; 1 John 3:5 ἡμῶν, omitted in A. B. Vulg. al., is found in C. G. K. Sin. [Also the reading of Syr. Theophyl. Oecum. Bede, Lachm. Tischend. Buttmann.—M.]

[5][German: “That He (that One) was manifested to take away our sins and sin is not in Him.”

[6][1 John 3:6 German: “Every one that.”—M.]

[7][Same as 6.—M.]

1 John 3:7; 1 John 3:7 παιδία A. C. al. τεκνία B. Sin. [Undecided which is the true reading.—M.]

[9][German: “Let no one seduce you.”—M.]

[10][1 John 3:8 German: “He that doeth sin.”—M.]

[11][German: “For this” (εἰς τοῦτο). No warrant for the additional “purpose” in E. V.—M.]

[12][1 John 3:9 Same as note 6. German: “Every one that is born (out) of God, doeth not sin.”—M.]

[13][German: “Because.”—M.]

[14]Lücke, Rickli, de Wette and Neander.

[15]Didymus: ἀκόλουθον καὶ .

[16]Oecumenius: ἀνεπίδεκτον ἁμαρτίας τὸν νοῦν ἡμῶν ποιεῖ.

Romans 8:15; Romans 8:15.

1 John 1:8; 1 John 1:8 sqq.

1 John 3:18; 1 John 3:18.