1 John 3:8-9

1 John 3:8-9. He that doeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. To this end was the Son of God manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. This passage is, taken altogether, unparalleled in Scripture: as deep in its mystery as it is clear in its expression. As the doing of righteousness was in chap. 1 John 2:29 made the proof of a birth from God, so now the doing of sin, as the characteristic of the life, is made the evidence of an origination, though not a birth, from Satan. St. John here, as almost everywhere, reproduces the teaching of Christ in his own Gospel: ‘Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father it is your will to do' (John 8:44); where the same ‘of' is used. The following ‘begotten of God' renders it needless that he should mark the difference between the relation of the regenerate to God and the relation of sinners to the wicked one. Moreover, that difference is more than hinted at in the words ensuing, ‘The devil sinneth from the beginning,' which means that all sin had its origin in him, and that, as sin began with him, and came among men through his temptation, all who commit sin may be said to depend upon him and belong to his family, adopted into it, as it were, though not born again or from below. Wherever there is sin St. John regards it as a work of the devil, using human instruments: ‘He sinneth always and everywhere.' The relation to sin, and sin in its relation to him, ‘the Son of God' thus solemnly introduced as the antagonist of Satan was manifested ‘to destroy,' that is, to dissolve or do away or break up as an organized fabric or organizing principle. He came not ‘to destroy' the law of righteousness, but to fulfil it; He came to destroy the ‘law of sin,' the Satanic law. The accomplishment of both designs runs on in parallel lines: the former is accomplished in him that doeth righteousness; the latter in him who ceases ‘to do sin.' Nothing can be more express than the recognition of the personality of the devil; and nothing can be plainer than that the destruction of his works is strictly limited to the abolition of his power over man through the redemption of the cross, and of his power in man through the Spirit of regeneration. St. John keeps the words of Christ in view in every word he here writes. For the rest, he altogether abstains from allusion to the mystery of the origin of evil in Satan, as also from allusion to the final issues in relation to him: his organized works, as a system of anti-righteousness shall be dissolved for Christ cannot have appeared in vain and that is all that is said. In fact, this dark subject is introduced solely to impress the fact that they who are Christ's are by that very fact removed from the sphere and the system of sin.

1 John 3:9. Whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin; because his seed abideth in him: and he cannot sin because he is begotten of God. This third view of the contrariety between sin and the estate of regeneration somewhat changes the ground. The Divine Spirit comes in, here called the seed or principle of the Divine life in the soul. He has not been mentioned as yet in the Epistle; but in the second chapter He was the chrisma or unction upon believers; now, by analogy, He is the sperma or seed within them. The abiding of ‘the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus' within the spirit is perpetual freedom from ‘the law of sin and death' (Romans 8:3). This central word looks back to the former clause and forward to the latter. He who has in him the indwelling Spirit, ‘doeth not sin:' he abhors the remainder of it in his nature, he has renounced the works of Satan, he maintains his fellowship with Christ, and his life is governed by righteousness. He may grieve the Spirit, and may fall into sin, as the apostle himself says in chap. 1 John 2:1; but living in the Spirit, and walking in the Spirit, this he will not do: ‘he sinneth not,' and abstinence from the act of sin is his mark and his privilege. When it is added that ‘he cannot sin, we are to understand the word ‘cannot' as referring to the moral impossibility of a regenerate soul violating the principle or, as it were, instinct of his new life. The child of God can sin; but the act of sinning, so far as he is concerned, suspends his life; and, as we are told in chap. 1 John 5:16, life must be given to him again when he sins not unto death. The three usual methods of relieving the difficulty of the passage have a certain measure of truth in them as applied to the three clauses of this verse. The first certainly gives the Christian ideal, that a regenerate soul ‘sinneth not:' this, however, is the normal Christian state of one who lives in the Spirit, a realized ideal. The second allows us to say that the regenerate as regenerate sins not, though he may suffer sin: the possible antinomian abuse of this truth does not invalidate it. The only sin St. John considers possible to a pure Christian is the act which he mourns over as soon as committed, which he carries to his Advocate with the Father, and which, being forgiven and washed away, is not followed by the withdrawal of the living Seed, who still preserves in him his better self. The third lays them upon the perfect tenses, ‘He that has been and still is in a confirmed regenerate state cannot sin.' Undoubtedly an abiding and consummated regeneration tends to make sin more and more impossible; St. John's perfect regeneration, however, is not such as improving on or perfecting itself, but as the true Divine life of the Son consummating the preliminary spiritual movements that lead to it.