The section of scripture before us today is one of the most difficult in John’s epistles, if not in the entire New Testament. Just a cursory reading of this text seems to cause all sorts of conflicting interpretations, and seemingly contradictory interpretations. I heard someone quote John Knox as saying to Mary Queen of Scots that if you read the Bible and think you find a contradiction, then keep on reading and sooner or later you will find another passage that explains it quite satisfactorily. So in dealing with some of these statements by John we must compare scripture with scripture, and usually as you continue to study you will find within John’s own writings a suitable explanation for the seeming contradiction.
However, I want to approach this text a little differently than that this morning. I think it may be helpful to look at the big picture and then scroll down to the details, rather than just focus on the details and lose sight of the big picture. So that is the attempt I would like to make this morning. And to do that we are going to exposit the word in reverse, starting at vs 10 which I think gives us the big picture, and then work backwards in the text to discover the details.
To help explain the big picture I am going to use the same pattern that John has used repeatedly throughout this book so far. And that is, there are only two categories of people that John sees in existence; either being a child of God, or being a child of the devil. John sees everything in reference of these two absolutes; light or darkness, truth or a lie, God or the devil, life or death. And now in this section - sin or righteousness. And all of these absolutes are contingent upon one another. They are all related. For instance, darkness, child of the devil, the lie, death and sin are all related. And light, child of God, the truth, life and righteousness are all related to one another and dependent upon one another.
So I really think that in this passage John is drawing another contrast in a series of contrasts, this time between sin and righteousness. And as I have repeatedly stressed in previous messages, he makes these contrasts because one of his primary goals in writing to the church is to protect them from those who are trying to deceive them. He says in ch.2vs26, “These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you.” Those people are described as false prophets, antichrists, deceivers, who have emerged from the ranks of the church, and yet they attempt to lie and twist the truth of the gospel and as such lead astray people unto destruction.
John is saying in providing these contrasts that a false prophet will have certain characteristics about his life that are in opposition to what Christ taught. In other words, they will live in sin and thus by the evidence of their lives show that they are not of God and consequently you should not believe their word or follow their teaching.
Now it’s interesting that in this context John has chosen to contrast sin and righteousness. These two distinctions are really the root cause of all things, whether life and death, truth or the lie, a child of God or a child of Satan. Everything stems from either sin or righteousness.
For instance, at creation, God made man, and it was good. Man did not know sin, and thus was righteous. Being righteous he had fellowship with God. Being righteous, he had life, all that righteous life entails. But when man disobeyed God, and fell into sin, sin caused death, and death passed upon all their descendants, for all have sinned. Romans 5:12 “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”
So man sinned, and death passed to all men. But God had a plan from before creation to redeem man from sin and give him life again. That plan was for Jesus to come to earth as a man, to become our substitute, and our Savior, dying on the cross for our sins. He became sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Cor. 5:21) Christ’s death on our behalf not only provided the sacrifice for our sins so that we might be forgiven, but it also provided for the grace of God to be given to us, which is the righteousness of Jesus Christ. We received the benefit of His righteousness, which was imputed to our account. And as a result of righteousness, we receive life.
So to make sure you understand the two options here - sin and death, as contrasted to righteousness and life. And to extrapolate that out a bit further, we might say that sin is commensurate with being a child of the devil, and righteousness is commensurate with being a child of God. Now John makes that principle very clear in vs 10; “By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.” So righteousness is the predominate characteristic of the children of God.
Now the characteristic of the child of the devil, John says, is sin. That principle is stated in vs 8. “the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning.” Now that’s a pretty clear contrast, is it not? Forget about all the theological mumbo jumbo for a moment and just accept these statements on their face value. Are they children of God? Then they practice righteousness. They practice sin? Then they are children of the devil. John makes it a very simple equation, which should make obvious whether a person is of God or is not.
The NASB helps us to understand an important distinction here. And that is the word translated as “practices.” If you practice righteousness, then you are a child of God. If you practice sin then you are a child of the devil. The detail of note is “practice.” Practice is habitual, continual, deliberate. I talked about practicing in a previous message in reference to taking piano lessons as a kid. I found practicing my piano to be hard work. It’ took discipline. I didn’t practice, so I failed at piano. I found that I couldn’t accidentally practice. It took conscientious, deliberate, dedicated practice.
That’s the idea behind the practicing of either righteousness or sinfulness. Now granted, the impetus for doing either of those things comes out of our nature. And what John tells us in the second part of vs 8 is that Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. That is, He came to destroy the effects of the sin nature. Vs 8b, “The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.”
Now how did Jesus accomplish destroying the works of the devil? By giving us a new nature. By faith in what Christ accomplished through His substitutionary death on the cross, we are born again, that is born of God, born of the Spirit, and as a new creation we now have a new nature. We have Christ’s nature. We are given His righteousness in exchange for our sins. We now have a righteous nature. The sinful nature, our flesh, is crucified with Christ and we now live by the Spirit, in the righteousness of Christ.
John states that principle in vs9, “No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” Now this statement “he cannot sin” is one of those that can really cause theologians to go into conniptions and false teachers to have a field day. So let’s break it down one phrase at a time and work through it.
“No one who is born of God practices sin…” We’ve really already dealt with this one. It’s basically a restatement of vs 10. The key to proper interpretation is “practice.” And we explained what it means to practice. It doesn’t mean, however, that we that are born of God can never sin. Because John says in 1John 1:8, 10 “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. ... 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.” So in every way possible, John makes it clear that you can sin, and you have sinned. The difference of course is that as a child of God you will not practice, continually, habitually, deliberately practice sin. But that old nature is not completely done away with, because you are still in the flesh. So it’s possible for a child of God to sin, but it’s not possible for a child of God to continually practice sin.
Then John answers the question, why? Why don’t we practice sin anymore? That’s answered in the next phrase; “because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” When the Bible speaks of the seed of Abraham, it is talking about the child of Abraham, the descendants of Abraham. The seed of Abraham is his DNA, it’s his reproductive life which is passed on to his son, or his child. And that child that is born is of Abraham, in that he has the genes of Abraham, the DNA of Abraham, the characteristics of Abraham. He is a man in the likeness of Abraham.
So in keeping with that analogy, when we are born of God we receive His seed, and that produces in us a new life, a new nature, new characteristics of our Father. I would suggest that the seed is righteousness. There are two verses that I think, while not directly speaking to this principle, do illustrate the connection between the seed and righteousness. The first is in 2Cor. 9:10 “Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.” And then James 3:18 “And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”
And I think that the context here in 1John indicates that the seed is righteousness, because there are only two options given here, sin and righteousness. And as I quoted while ago from 2 Cor. 5:21, God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” We are made the righteousness of God. The seed then that we are given by God is righteousness, which makes us righteous. And John says that is why we cannot sin, because we are righteous. We are like our Father in our new nature. Our righteous nature cannot sin. Our sinful nature can and will sin. The distinction is which nature we are living in. Whether or not we are walking in the spirit or walking according to the flesh.
Paul speaks of this war within his body between the spirit and the flesh in Romans 7:21 “I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.” So if we practice righteousness and walk in the Spirit then we will not, we cannot sin, and thus fulfill the lusts of the flesh.
Now we are working our way through this section backwards, if you haven’t been paying attention. As I said I think it’s helpful to our understanding to work from the greater to the lessor, or from the big picture to the details. And so in vs 7 we get some more detail of how this principle works. John says in vs7, “Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.” Now just imagine if you will that we have a giant chalkboard behind me, and at the top of the blackboard we have the headings for two columns. The column on the right has the heading SIN, and the column on the right has the heading RIGHTEOUSNESS. And what we are doing is detailing the characteristics of each of those headings.
John says concerning righteousness, that don’t be deceived, the one who practice righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. First of all, notice the warning; don’t be deceived. This is the primary purpose of John’s writing, as I told you before. The deceivers in the church are trying to give people a false gospel, a gospel that on the one hand doesn’t want to acknowledge sin, or wants to condone sin, or explain away sin, and in accordance with the devil’s strategy wants to keep people enslaved in sin, so they don’t preach repentance from sin, or that you can be cleansed from sin. John says don’t be deceived. There is sin, it is inviting, it’s pleasurable for a season, it’s alluring to the eyes, but it brings forth death and it’s of the devil. So don’t be deceived.
And secondly John restates the principle, that the one who practice righteousness is righteous, but then adds a very important caveat. Because God is righteous. If we are born of God then our new nature is righteousness. We have Christ’s righteousness imputed unto us, we have the seed of righteousness that changes our DNA, that changes our heart, our desires, so that we are righteous, we do the works of righteousness. That’s what Paul was saying in Eph. 2:10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” We are made a new creation to be able to do the works of righteousness.
Next, John contrasts righteousness to sin. And going backwards in our text, John states that sin cannot be the characteristic of a child of God. Vs6 “No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.” This is another statement that causes theologian’s heads to explode. But let’s break it down and try to understand it in context with all that John has said. “No one who abides in Him sins.” The key to this statement is the word “abides.” What does to “abide” mean? It means to follow Him, to walk closely with Him, to listen to Him, to talk to Him, to have fellowship with Him.
To abide is to have what Revelation 3:20 talks about when Jesus says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.” He’s talking about fellowship, obedience, walking in the Spirit and not according to the flesh. So John is saying here in vs 6 that if you have fellowship with God you cannot sin, you will not sin. The key to avoiding sin is to abide with Him. To have fellowship with Him. To abide in His word. To walk according to the leading of the Spirit. To be in constant communication with God. I have yet to fall into sin when I am in prayer. It’s only when I forget to pray, or don’t want to pray that I find myself falling into sin. It’s only when I neglect the reading of the word of God that I find myself straying from righteousness. So abiding in Him is the key to knowing Him. If you truly know Him, if you are in intimate fellowship with God, then you will not sin.
And then in vs 5, John says that’s the purpose that Christ came, to take away sin. Vs5 “You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin.” This is almost an identical statement that John made in vs 8b: “The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.” So to take away sins, and to destroy the works of the devil, are one and the same. Christ came to live a sinless life, to live a righteous life, and as the righteous One, to offer Himself as a substitute sacrifice for sinners, to take away the sins of the world.
Back in chapter 2 vs 2, we saw that John said, “and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for [those of] the whole world.” Now remember, those of you who were here, what we said propitiation meant? It means satisfaction. Jesus is the satisfaction for our sins. and the sins of the world. What exactly did He satisfy? He satisfied the wrath of God against sin. He satisfied the penalty for sins which is death. He satisfied the justice of God, the righteousness of God, the holiness of God.
Christ amply, sufficiently paid the price of our sins, so that we might be made righteous. He appeared in order to take away sins, both the penalty, and the power of sin, which destroys the works of the devil. The devil is a defeated enemy. He was defeated at the cross and resurrection when Jesus triumphed over sin and hell. Sin no longer has control over those who believe in Christ. Sin no longer can condemn those who have trusted in Him as their Savior. The devil’s power has been broken by the cross. The very instrument of Satan’s plan to destroy the gospel, became the means by which he was broken. We saw a good illustration of that in our study in Esther last week on Wednesday night. Evil Haman was hung on the very gallows that he had planned to execute Mordecai upon. God did the same thing in destroying the works of Satan through the cross, the very instrument Satan planned to use to kill Jesus.
So Christ having done away with the power of sin, that makes it possible for the practice of righteousness, which John has said is the evidence of a child of God. And in like manner, the practice of sin is the evidence of a child of the devil. And that last principle is stated in vs 4, “Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.”
This sounds like what John has already stated numerous times. But there is a nuance here which he wants to emphasize and bring out. And I think it’s important. Notice that he says he who practices sin, (we have discussed that aspect already) but then he adds, he also practices lawlessness. Now what does he mean by that?
Well, lawlessness, is someone without the law. It’s a disregard of the law. It’s rebellion against God’s law. It doesn’t mean just breaking one of the 10 commandments, but complete disregard of the law of God, which encompasses all of the scriptures. In short, lawlessness is rebellion against God. It’s saying there is no absolute truth, no authority in heaven. You know, we are living today in a lawless age, aren’t we? The things that are going on lately in our society are beyond the pale. People are advocating, condoning, championing the grossest immorality as something that should be celebrated. And not just immorality, but there is a widespread lawlessness and rebellion against authority that pervades our society today that I think is unequaled since the time when Christ first appeared during the Roman Empire. And actually, I’m convinced that the days we are living in are worse.
There is quickly growing an attitude of hatred towards God, towards righteousness, towards good. Men call evil good and good evil. I believe that when you consider the nature of sin, then you will conclude that the fundamental essence of sin is unbelief. The reason we are lawless, the reason we are rebellious, the reason we do not respond to the word of God is that we do not believe the word of God. We do not believe it is the word of God.
Jesus said concerning the Holy Spirit, in John 16:8-9 "And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me.” So the essence of sin is unbelief, and because they do not believe the word of God, unbelief causes lawlessness, which is rebellion against God, and an unwillingness to submit to what the word of God says, which is God’s law.
Well, I believe the contrast is clear, everyone who practices sin is not of God, and he who practices righteousness is born of God. The evidence of whether one is born of God or not is a life that looks like the life of Christ, which is righteousness. Those that practice sin do not know God. By this we may know whether the preachers and teachers and priests and prophets are of God or of the devil. Jesus said by their fruit you shall know them.
But there is also another important point being taught here, and that is that if you are going to have the life which God gives, if you are going to be righteous, then you have to be born of God. And the only way to be born again is through faith in what Christ as your substitute and Savior did for you through His death and resurrection. The question is whether or not you have been born again. Have you received by faith the forgiveness for your sins, and the righteousness of Jesus Christ applied to your account? That righteousness is a gift of God to those who believe in Jesus Christ. I hope that no one leaves here today without receiving that gift of salvation. You can be born again in the spirit today, right now, by trusting in Jesus Christ as your Savior. I urge you to receive Him today.
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