Those born of God, act like their Father
1 John 2:28-3:10
Part 5 of our series in 1 John:
28 And now, children, remain in him that, when he appears, we might have boldness and not be disgraced before him, at his advent. 29 If you know that he is just, you know that everyone that performs justice, has been born of him. 3:1 See what kind of affection the Father has given us, that we be called children of God, and we are! This is why the World does not know us, because it did not know him.
2 My dearest friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet appeared; we know that when1 he appears, we will be like him, because we will see him just as he is. 3 And everyone who holds this expectation in him, keeps themselves pure just as he is pure.
4 Everyone performing sin, also performs lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. 5 and you know that he appeared, that he might remove sins, and there isn’t sin in him. 6 Everyone remaining in him does not sin; every person that sins, has not seen him nor known him.
7 Children, let no one lead you astray: the one performing justice, is just exactly as he is just. 8 The one performing sin is of the Devil, because the Devil has been sinning from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God appeared – that he might dissolve the Devil’s deeds. 9 Every person that is born of God does not perform sin, because his seed remains in him; and they are not able to sin, because they have been born of God. 10 In this it’s clear who are the God’s children and who the Devil’s children. Every person not performing justice, is not of God, and the one not loving his [Christian] brother or sister.
The more you sit with John’s writing, the more its powerful dichotomies hit you. In this section, John connects whose child you are, with ethical transformation. It also contains some of his trickiest verses.
Let’s trace the dichotomy like this. On the one hand, John has a powerful and persuasive vision of what it means to be a child of God. That means:
Enacting justice, just as God and Christ as just (2:29, 3:7)
Being a child of God by the act of God’s love (3:1)
Future transformation to be like God (3:2)
Present moral purity to be like God (3.3)
A life free from sin (3.6, 9)
What on earth is going on in 3:6 and 9? That’s the tough question here, and I’ll just shelve it for a moment.
On the other hand, the person who isn’t a child of God, is:
Enacting not only sin, but lawlessness, because these are related (3:4)
Sinning, because they haven’t known God (3:6b)
Is a child of the Devil! (3:8)
Not enacting justice, and not loving their fellow human beings (3:10)
Some of this language has very clear antecedents in the gospel. For example, the language of being a child of the Devil comes up in John 8:31-47. There, Jesus is debating with opponents, who are claiming Abraham as their Father, and then up the ante to claim God as their Father. Jesus says otherwise: “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (Jn 8:44)
Secondly, 3:6b is a lot clearer than 6a. The person who hasn’t had a radical encounter with God’s grace, a transformative one, remains as they were – a sinful human being who goes on sinning. It’s characteristic of them.
I think we’ll return to vv9-10 in our next post as well, as I think they are transitional to the next section, and the ethical call of John’s letter. But in this context, let’s try to see what John is trying to say about sin and Christians.
Here’s the one thing that I think he can’t be saying – that Christians do not commit sins. This isn’t sinless perfectionism. Why? Because John already told you that wasn’t his position when he told you that no one is without sin, and what to do if a believer sins (1:8, 10; 2:1). Nor do I find those arguments based on the Greek present tense convincing enough (e.g. “keep on sinning”), though it’s difficult to evaluate.
I’m inclined to follow Yarborough on this: that the lawlessness comment in v4, and the “sin unto death” of 5:15, both shed light on what John means here. There is a kind of pattern of persistent sin that amounts to rebellion against God, which is indicative that one isn’t born of God, one isn’t a child of God, one isn’t living in repentance and seeking forgiveness, but has abandoned (in doctrine, ethics, or relationships) the proper response to God and to sin. In that sense, John does seem to have different connotations to the word ‘sin’, and doesn’t just lump it all together. It’s not even that John thinks that some sins are more or less serious, i.e. the Catholic distinction between mortal and venial sins (the former requiring priestly absolution before death). Even heinous sins, I think John would say, are forgiven in Christ and forgivable. But denying that Christ came in the flesh (or other doctrinal errors that rend asunder the fabric of the Christian gospel), or claiming to know God but living a life ethically traitorous to such a claim, or the failure to love in relationship in the Christian community, are all treacherous rocks on the sea of faith that shipwreck us, and may reveal that in fact this person has not been born of God, born again, born to a transformed life in Christ.
Instead, instead see what kind of affection the Father has given us! (3:1) The love, the abounding love, the abiding love of God for us is to lead us to transformation. It’s the basis of our expectation of future transformation (3:2), and so the motivation for us to live lives of justice (3:7) and purity (3:3) and love (3:10).
If - but it’s difficult to read ‘if’ here and understand the sense of it properly in English. I think John is using ‘if’ in a way that we’d use ‘when’.