If you’re a child of God, you’re not going to make a separate peace with sin. You’re going to keep fighting sin because the truth of the gospel remains in you.
Wes
Welcome to the Two Journeys Bible Study podcast. This is Episode 5 in our 1, 2, and 3 John Bible Study Podcast entitled True Children of God Purify Themselves from All Sin, where we’ll discuss 1 John 3:1-10.
I’m Wes Treadway and I’m here with Pastor Andy Davis. Andy, what are we going to see in these verses that we’re looking at today?
Andy
Well, first of all, I want to say 1 John 3:1-3 is just one of the great passages on how we should be thinking about the Second Coming and what will happen when we see him. It’s just such a beautiful statement. We will be like him. We’ll see him as he is. It fills us with such hope.
Then John really lays it on Christians, saying fundamentally, you want to know if you’re a Christian or not, how are you living? There’s not much different than when he says, “Walk in the light as God is in the light. If you claim to know him and yet walk in darkness, you lie.” He’s going back to that. Here in this section that we’re studying today is if you are living in sin, you’re not a Christian.
if you genuinely hope to spend eternity with God in heaven, you will purify yourself as he is pure.
Fundamentally it comes down to how you live. It comes down to the actual works of your life. He’s fundamentally telling you if you genuinely hope to spend eternity with God in heaven, you will purify yourself as he is pure. You’ll purify yourself from all lawlessness, from all sin and you’ll walk in righteousness.
It really does make a difference whether you live in sin or live in righteousness or holiness. We’re going to have in this section to deal with a rather stark statement in verse 6, depending on how we translate it. No one who lives in him continues to sin or whatever, but the Greek doesn’t say that.
It says, “No one who lives in him sins, simply sins. In him there is no sin fundamentally. No one who sins has either seen or known him.” I know your translation says, continues or keeps on sinning, but that’s not what the Greek says. We have to deal with that simple statement of a fundamental purity of life that is part of the Christian life.
Wes
Well, let me go ahead and read verses 1-10 in 1 John 3.
See what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.
Everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.
Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God.
By this, it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.
Andy, why is our adoption as children of God so astonishing? How does the language of verse 1 demonstrate this?
Andy
Yeah, I remember singing the song, I think in the KJV, “Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God.” It’s just behold how amazing, truly amazing it is. I think J.I. Packer in his great book, Knowing God called our adoption as children of God, the most surprising aspect of the gospel is that we should actually be adopted as the children of God. It’s stunning.
Why? Because we are God’s enemies. We were rebels. We hated God, we’re opposed to Him. He didn’t have to adopt us into his family. He could have just redeemed us, saved us, and made us his slaves. In some sense, we are Christ’s bondservants or slaves. In one sense that’s true, but he went so far beyond that, and that is to make us a member of his family.
It is really quite remarkable, and we should never stop meditating on and giving thanks to God for the gift of our adoption. It’s a big theme. You know how it says in Romans that he put the spirit of adoption or sonship in us by which we cry, Abba Father. It’s a beautiful truth that we’ve been adopted as children of God.
Wes
What does John mean when he says the reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him?
Andy
Well, it’s an amazing statement. First of all, we aren’t what we appear to be. We are made new creations if we’re Christians. If anyone is in Christ, he’s a new creation. That new creation soul within us doesn’t make us physically evidently different than we were before. We’re not physically different. We don’t now shine with a glow, et cetera.
We just look the way we always did. Therefore, we do not appear to be what we really are, and we certainly don’t appear to be what we will be. Jesus said in Matthew 13:43, “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” We will be radiant and glorious then. Right now, we look very ordinary. We look exactly as we did before.
I think Saul of Tarsus, the day after he was converted, looked about the same as the day before. I know three days he was blind, but before the process, after the process, he looked physically the same. We do not appear to be what we really are. Jesus didn’t either. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him, Isaiah 53 said.
If you look at him, you’re not going to see anything unusual. Jesus said, “I’ve shown you many great works from the Father; for which of these are you stoning me?” Well, we’re not stoning you for any of these, his enemies said, “But for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God” (John 10:32-33). That’s the doctrine of the incarnation.
What does mere man mean? You look like everybody else. The world didn’t know him. It didn’t know who he was fundamentally, and neither in the same way does it know us. The reason the world doesn’t know us is it didn’t know him. Now, by the way, actually from time to time, I think about this verse, when I go to the airport, and I have to submit to the TSA screening.
The reason they do that is they don’t know who I am. And not who I am like in the world, I mean who I am as a child of God. I am no threat to the plane. I am not tempted at all by hijacking. It’s not something I am tempted to. I have no inner pulling at all to blow up a plane, et cetera.
I submit to the screening for this very reason here. They don’t know me, and they didn’t know Jesus either. It’s reasonable for them to do this. I appear just like anybody else. I think that’s funny. Fundamentally, we are far more glorious than we appear to be.
Wes
In some ways this might remind us of the language of Romans 8 that talks about the children of God being revealed. There’s a time coming when it will no longer be that we’re not able to be seen for what we are, which is where we’re headed with some of the language even in this passage. That connection there I think helps us understand that right now we look like ourselves and one day we’ll look radically different than we do.
Andy
I think also people just don’t understand what is true about us if we’re Christians. It says later in 1 John 5:4, “What is it that overcomes the world but our faith.” Our faith in Christ makes us as Romans 8 calls us more than conquerors through Christ. We have achieved the greatest victory that can possibly be achieved in this world when we come to faith in Christ. That’s really quite remarkable.
Wes
What does verse 2 teach us about our future in heaven, and who is the he that will appear at that time?
Andy
We are now children of God and what we will be has not yet been made known. There are aspects to our future life as Christians that is not revealed to us yet. That may connect to 1 Corinthians 2:9 where it says, “Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, neither is it entered the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him.”
A lot of the future is hidden from us. We know some things, but what we will be fully has not yet been made known. The full dimensions of our glorification or our full conformity to Christ has yet not yet been fully revealed. We can imagine what it means to be fully conformed to Christ. What we can imagine, how the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father looks like, but we can’t fully understand all of its dimensions and details.
Therefore, he says, “We are now children of God.” The full manifestation of all of that has not yet been made known. But we do know that when he appears, meaning I think that’s the second coming of Christ. The reason is in the previous chapter 2:28 it says, “And now dear children continuing in him so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming,” that’s the second coming of Christ.
It’s the same thing just a few verses later. We know at the second coming of Christ we shall be like him. That’s conformed to the image of his Son in Romans 8:29. That’s glorification in Romans 8:30. That’s what it means to be glorified, to be conformed to Christ. We will be like him. The reason given is that we’re going to see him as he is. It’s what mystics have called the beatific vision.
We will see the resurrected, glorified Christ and be instantaneously perfected.
We will see the resurrected, glorified Christ and be instantaneously perfected. That’s the moment that the Lord will complete our salvation by glorifying us. I believe if you put 1 Thessalonians 4, the second coming, the rapture, “the dead in Christ will rise, and in a flash, and the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet” in 1 Corinthians 15:52, it’s all happening at that moment.
The moment of the second coming is the moment of the rapture is the moment of the resurrection, is the moment of our glorification. It’s all happening at that moment.
Wes
How does verse 3 then connect to verse 2? How does this instruct our lives here and now?
Andy
How it instructs our lives here and now, first and foremost is we have this hope in him. What is hope? Hope is a feeling or a sense in the heart that the future is bright based on the promises of God. We’ve got this vigorous confidence that the future is really bright, and we ourselves are going to be really bright. We’re going to shine like the sun.
We’re going to be conformed to Christ, so that’s hope. We’re like, “We’re looking forward to that.” The future’s really, really good for us and we are going to be perfected. All of our efforts at sanctification will be successful. Therefore, we should purify ourselves as he is pure. Everyone who has a hope of our own perfection, our own glorification gets busy and gets toward that.
Now in sanctification, sanctification tends toward the final work of glorification. They’re not radically different things. As a matter of fact, I find it interesting that Paul skips sanctification entirely when he says those he justified, he also glorified. To some degree we could argue that present sanctification and future glorification are actually one and the same work.
It just goes into the quantum level at the second coming of Christ. It’s the same work of a gradual progress by which we become more and more like Christ. Presently right now, we will purify ourselves of anything that will not be part of our heavenly life, that’s sin. All thought sins, all heart sins, all life habit sins we’re going to get rid of those things. That’s what it means to purify ourselves as he is pure.
Keep in mind also it says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). He’s purifying us, and we ought to purify ourselves. That’s that joint effort that is sanctification. He is purifying us by convicting us and by teaching us the truth and by working in us.
Then we’re purifying ourselves by getting rid of everything that contaminates, as it said in 2 Corinthians 7, anything that defiles the soul, any violation of the conscience, get rid of it, put it to death, mortify sin, put sin to death by the Spirit. I think that’s Romans 8:13 as we mortify the deeds of the flesh, we’re going to grow in holiness, so that’s what we should do.
That’s frankly one of the two journeys; it’s the journey of holiness. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself as he is pure. By the way, isn’t that beautiful? Jesus has no darkness in him at all. Nothing but purity, nothing but holiness, and we want to be like him.
Wes
I think this is such a sweet foretaste and a way in which our future eternal life can be manifest now. That idea of being pure as he is pure, or holy as he is holy, though we can’t see him and be finally conformed to his image. Right now, we can see Jesus in the pages of scripture. We can by the Spirit put on these Christ-like characteristics.
By his power, we can be being conformed to His image in anticipation of that day when that will be finally completed, which is really a sweet foretaste of what we’re looking forward to.
Andy
So good.
Wes
What’s the significance of John’s statement that all sin is a breaking of the law and lawlessness? How should this affect our daily lives and even the way we preach the gospel to lost people?
Andy
Well, I think first of all, we need to be very clear that the law is an important part of a holy Christian life. We are not justified by works of the law, that is true. In other words, you can’t be forgiven by works of the law. What does that mean? The way I looked at it years ago was in terms of legalism. And legalism in salvation, especially in justification, is that you cannot use present and future obedience to the law to pay for past disobedience to the law.
In other words, any good work you could do now is obedience. God told you to do it, you do it. Well, there’s no extra credit for that. If yesterday you disobeyed, what are you going to do? There’s nothing you can do. There’s no doing, there’s no work. Instead, you believe in Christ and you’re forgiven.
People then think, “Okay, then the law has no part of the healthy Christian life.” That is completely false. Instead, it says, “In order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit,” Romans 8:4. In other words, the Holy Spirit brings us back to the law and says, “Now I will help you to obey this.”
The simplest way to look at the law is the two great commandments. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Are those still relevant for the Christian life? They are. The Holy Spirit then fulfills them. It’s like, “All right, can you give me more details?”
“Well, let me ask you a question. Are you a married man?” “Well, actually I am.” “Well, I’m going to give you some law. Love your wife as Christ loved the church.” “Is that law?” “You better believe that’s a law.” It’s a subset of the second great commandment. Martin Luther said, “Who’s your nearest neighbor but your wife, right? She’s right there so love her.”
It’s more details. Then he gives you in Ephesians 5 yet more specific details and laying down your life for your wife and all that. There are other laws. “Let no debt remain outstanding except the continuing debt to love one another” (Romans 13:8). Is that a law? I mean, how many commandments and prohibitions and strictures are there in the New Testament? In the epistles, there are tons.
Fundamentally, the laws of God in both the Old Testament and New Testament. Especially the moral laws of the Old Testament that are still binding on us, and the laws of the New Testament that are in the epistles and in the gospels and all that. “You’ll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8).
Fundamentally, all sin is a violation of God’s law. It is lawlessness.
I’m supposed to be a witness? Yes. Is that a law? Yes. I’m telling you what to do. All of that defines a good life. Sin therefore is a breaking of one of God’s laws. It is a violation by doing what he has prohibited us from doing or not doing what he has commanded us to do. Fundamentally, all sin is a violation of God’s law. It is lawlessness.
For us, we should say, “I want to be fully obedient to you.” It is the obedience that comes from faith. This is an upholding of the law of God. All sin is lawlessness.
Wes
How does the life and ministry of Christ then relate to our lawlessness as we see it in verse 5?
Andy
Jesus appeared, his incarnation, he entered the earth to take away our sins. Again, I want to see that in light of the full work of justification, sanctification, and glorification.
He took away sin’s penalty. I think that the P’s help here.
He took away sin’s power, which is its authority to command us. We’re no longer slaves to sin.
He is going to progressively take away sin’s practice through sanctification.
Then in the end he’s going to take away sin’s very presence by glorification.
That’s the P’s, sin’s penalty, sin’s power, sin’s practice and sin’s presence. He came to take away sin. If we’re going to say he’s going to take away sin’s penalty, but he’s not going to take away sin’s, power, sin’s practice, that’s not what’s going on.
John’s saying, “No, no, it’s bigger than that. He came as an enemy to sin. He’s taking away sin. In Him there is no sin. He is pure and holy.” As he said earlier in this same chapter.
Wes
Now verses 6 and 9 seem as we said, to teach a sort of Christian perfection. In other words, if you’re truly a Christian, you will not sin. How should we address this issue of perfectionism? How might one John 1:7 help us here?
Andy
Well, Wes, would you be willing to read the KJV in verse 6? It does a good job of simply getting across the Greek.
Wes
This is the King James version, verse 6 in 1 John 3. It says, “Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not. Whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.”
Andy
Now update the language, just get rid of the eths.
Wes
Whoever abides in him sins not or doesn’t sin. Whoever sins has not seen him nor knows him.
Andy
You see the problem?
Wes
Yeah.
Andy
That’s an accurate translation. I remember the first time I was in intermediate Greek, and we had to translate 1 John and I was like, “Whoa.”
Wes
I must be missing something.
Andy
It seems to teach perfectionism and you’re like, “Man.” First of all, what I want to do is let it have its full impact. John is writing to us saying sin should be seen by you to be an aberration, abnormal, and a hateful thing. He is full on, “You should not sin.” He’s basically roughing us up before we sin.
I think it goes back to chapter 2 and verse 1, “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin.” He’s trying to get in your business here and say, “In him, there is no sin. If you sin, you’re not in him.” He’s trying to do that. Now, the reason I had KJV read was or for you to read KJV, is that most of the translators give us some help here like the ESV does and the NIV does, it uses continuation language. What does it say in ESV?
Wes
Yeah, ESV says, “No one who abides in him keeps on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.”
Andy
Frankly, that doesn’t solve the problem because do you keep on sinning? I do. We’ve come full circle and here we are still. This is how I want to deal with it. I want to say, first of all, we should have an ever-increasing horror and hatred of, an even shocked reaction to sin. It should not feel normal to us.
Now, the Bible, I think does get rough with us before we sin and is very tender and gentle with us after we sin. It’s hard to do both of that in one sermon. It’s like, “No, it’s not okay. Sin’s just not okay. Sin is evil and it’s devastating.” If you have sinned as he does in chapter 2:1, if anyone does sin, we have an advocate.
We have the ability to be forgiven. I think what I want in verse 6 and also in verse 9, 1 John 3:6 and 3:9, is to let it work us over and say, you should be ever increasingly saying with Paul in Romans 6:1-2, “Should I go on sinning that grace may abound? May it never be!” Well, how adamantly should I say that more than you do?
Absolutely not, stronger than that. Well, I’m not going to yell into the microphone, but should I go on sinning? Are you out of your mind? No. Fundamentally, just because you’re going to be forgiven and, in the end, glorified, don’t do it. Let it have its full work. That’s what he’s doing here.
He’s saying, “Look at your lifestyle. If you’re just frankly immersed in sin, and if you’ve got an adulterous relationship literally going on and you’re claiming to be a Christian, you ought to look at that and say, ‘I’m just walking in sin and I’m okay with sin.'” Well, then you ought to look at whether you’re a Christian or not. I think that’s what verse six is saying.
For those who are like, “Yes, I understand what you’re saying, and I am a Christian, I know I’m a Christian, but I do continue to sin, it’s still part of my life. That’s what Romans 7:15 is all about, “The very thing I hate I do and the good things I want to do, I don’t do. I find this law at work when I want to do good, evil is right there with me.” It’s just in my grill. I can’t escape it.
What do I do? It’s like I’m devastated by verse 6. I’m like, am I not a Christian? You’re telling me I’m not a Christian? All right, what I want to say is first and foremost, if you are a Christian, and if I asked you, what is the greatest grief in your life, and you wouldn’t necessarily be schooled or trained in how to answer.
If I handed you this answer and say, “Could this be it? Your own sinfulness, the fact that you keep on sinning, right in Jesus’s face, though He has loved you and died for you, would you say that’s your greatest grief in life?” You’re like, “Well, since you put it that way, I’d have to say it is.” Well then, you’re a Christian. You mourn over your sin; you hunger and thirst to be freed from it. You hate it. You fit into it.
Then you’re like, “All right, then what do I do with this verse?” It’s like, well, first of all, John can’t be teaching perfectionism because he wouldn’t write 1 John 2:1, I write this thing to you so you will not sin, but if anyone does sin, well according to this, then you’re not a Christian. He didn’t say that. He said, “You have an advocate.”
You can sin and have an advocate. We saw also in 1 John 1:7, you can walk in the light as he is in the light and still need an ongoing cleansing from sin. And so that proves it’s not perfection, but there should be a horror, a holy horror of sin with yourself. I think that’s what Paul means when he says, “I beat my body and make it my slave” (1 Corinthians 9:27).
I don’t take it lightly. When I see sin in me, I really don’t. I’m going to fight my sin the rest of my life. Again, I think we go to an analogy from history. We look at Winston Churchill, if you know anything about him and his commitment against Hitler and against Nazism. After the blitz or midway through the blitz as Hitler’s Bewegungskrieg is reducing London to rubble.
He’s walking the streets after every attack, Churchill is, and he’s seeing the bodies of his fellow British subjects pulled out of the rubble. You were to ask him, “If Hitler came to make a deal with you and he could have a portion of England, but the war would be over, what would you do? What would he say?”
“Absolutely not. We’ll fight them in the seas and oceans. We’ll fight them in the landing grounds. We’ll fight until the last Englishman is,” we’re not ever going to surrender to this guy, ever. Well, that would be a small portion of the attitude we should have about sin.
Wes
Verses 7-10 help further expound on this lifestyle of a truly born-again people. What’s John’s main idea in verses 7-10?
Andy
He’s just explaining more of the same thing, don’t let anyone lie to you. Here you have, remember we’ve talked about false teachers in two categories. You got your legalism false teachers and your license false teachers. Okay, well this is more like the license false teachers.
They’re telling you it doesn’t matter what you do with your body. It doesn’t matter what you do with your sex life. That’s really between you and your conscience or yourself or your lifestyle or whatever. It’s no one’s business. Frankly, it’s not relevant even to your Christian life. Let’s say that’s completely not true.
Even worse, God wants you to be happy, he wants you to have pleasure, he wants you all of this stuff. He says, “Don’t let anyone lead you astray.” That’d be false teachers. He who does what is right is righteous. It matters how you live. Fundamentally, we believe Judgment Day will be all about works.
We will not be justified by works, but we will most certainly be judged or evaluated or assessed by our works, that is what Romans 2 says. If you do what is right, you are righteous. It is not on the basis of doing what is right that you are righteous, because we’re imperfect and sinners. He’s talking about a lifestyle. If you’re walking in a lifestyle of righteousness, then you are in a right relationship with God.
Wes
It’s this amazing picture of behavior proving identity or demonstrating one’s identity. What does verse 8 teach us about Christ’s ministry in the world and the works of the devil?
Andy
Basically, it seems to me the Bible says it’s very black and white. It is binary 0-1, you’re alive or you’re dead, you’re in or you’re out. You are dead in your transgressions and sins, or you are resurrected to new life and all right. You are either a child of God or you’re a child of the devil and that’s what he’s saying here.
If you are doing sinful, wicked things and you’re walking in the darkness and all that, you are a child of the devil. You’re of the devil. The devil is the original sinner. I mean, he’s the first sinner. He’s who brought evil into the universe. The reason that Jesus came into the world was to destroy the devil’s work.
This is very clearly taught also in the Book of Hebrews that Jesus came to destroy him, “Who held the power of death that is the devil and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Hebrews 2:14-15), that’s us. Jesus killed or destroyed the devil by his death on the cross.
Now I would say more inflicted a mortal wound on the devil in his dark kingdom. It’s been a long, very slow death for the devil, 2,000 years but he’s going to die. The reason the Son of God came was to destroy the devil’s work, and the devil’s work was to get us to sin.
Wes
How do verses 9 and 10 summarize some of what’s been said here, and what final thoughts do you have for us on this passage?
Andy
If you’re born of God, you’re a child of God, you’re not going to be walking in sin or living in sin. First of all, I would just say happily tolerating sin that’s just not the mentality of a child of God. We’re at war with it, that’s it. We hate it. We’re fighting it.
If you’re a child of God, if you’re born of God, you’re not going to make a separate peace with sin. You’re going to keep fighting sin because God’s seed remains in him, that means the truth of the gospel. Fundamentally, the truth of Christ crucified and resurrected remains in you, the seed of the gospel.
You can’t go on sinning, you can’t continually sin because we’ve been born of God, that’s what it means. We hate sin and we want it out. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are. Fundamentally, anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God. Then he brings up this theme of loving the brother, which we’ll develop more fully later.
Fundamentally, in summary, how you live matters. Look at how you live. Look at your lifestyle. Are you living the life of a whitewashed tomb that looks good on a Sunday, but you’re corrupt and evil at other times? Is there a genuine heart work that God has done in you?
Wes
Well, this has been Episode 5 in our 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John Bible Study podcast. We want to invite you to join us next time for Episode 6 entitled Love one Another Sacrificially, where we’ll discuss 1 John 3:11-24. Thank you for listening to the Two Journeys podcast. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
Wes
Welcome to the Two Journeys Bible Study podcast. This is Episode 5 in our 1, 2, and 3 John Bible Study Podcast entitled True Children of God Purify Themselves from All Sin, where we’ll discuss 1 John 3:1-10.
I’m Wes Treadway and I’m here with Pastor Andy Davis. Andy, what are we going to see in these verses that we’re looking at today?
Andy
Well, first of all, I want to say 1 John 3:1-3 is just one of the great passages on how we should be thinking about the Second Coming and what will happen when we see him. It’s just such a beautiful statement. We will be like him. We’ll see him as he is. It fills us with such hope.
Then John really lays it on Christians, saying fundamentally, you want to know if you’re a Christian or not, how are you living? There’s not much different than when he says, “Walk in the light as God is in the light. If you claim to know him and yet walk in darkness, you lie.” He’s going back to that. Here in this section that we’re studying today is if you are living in sin, you’re not a Christian.
if you genuinely hope to spend eternity with God in heaven, you will purify yourself as he is pure.
Fundamentally it comes down to how you live. It comes down to the actual works of your life. He’s fundamentally telling you if you genuinely hope to spend eternity with God in heaven, you will purify yourself as he is pure. You’ll purify yourself from all lawlessness, from all sin and you’ll walk in righteousness.
It really does make a difference whether you live in sin or live in righteousness or holiness. We’re going to have in this section to deal with a rather stark statement in verse 6, depending on how we translate it. No one who lives in him continues to sin or whatever, but the Greek doesn’t say that.
It says, “No one who lives in him sins, simply sins. In him there is no sin fundamentally. No one who sins has either seen or known him.” I know your translation says, continues or keeps on sinning, but that’s not what the Greek says. We have to deal with that simple statement of a fundamental purity of life that is part of the Christian life.
Wes
Well, let me go ahead and read verses 1-10 in 1 John 3.
See what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.
Everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.
Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God.
By this, it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.
Andy, why is our adoption as children of God so astonishing? How does the language of verse 1 demonstrate this?
Andy
Yeah, I remember singing the song, I think in the KJV, “Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God.” It’s just behold how amazing, truly amazing it is. I think J.I. Packer in his great book, Knowing God called our adoption as children of God, the most surprising aspect of the gospel is that we should actually be adopted as the children of God. It’s stunning.
Why? Because we are God’s enemies. We were rebels. We hated God, we’re opposed to Him. He didn’t have to adopt us into his family. He could have just redeemed us, saved us, and made us his slaves. In some sense, we are Christ’s bondservants or slaves. In one sense that’s true, but he went so far beyond that, and that is to make us a member of his family.
It is really quite remarkable, and we should never stop meditating on and giving thanks to God for the gift of our adoption. It’s a big theme. You know how it says in Romans that he put the spirit of adoption or sonship in us by which we cry, Abba Father. It’s a beautiful truth that we’ve been adopted as children of God.
Wes
What does John mean when he says the reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him?
Andy
Well, it’s an amazing statement. First of all, we aren’t what we appear to be. We are made new creations if we’re Christians. If anyone is in Christ, he’s a new creation. That new creation soul within us doesn’t make us physically evidently different than we were before. We’re not physically different. We don’t now shine with a glow, et cetera.
We just look the way we always did. Therefore, we do not appear to be what we really are, and we certainly don’t appear to be what we will be. Jesus said in Matthew 13:43, “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” We will be radiant and glorious then. Right now, we look very ordinary. We look exactly as we did before.
I think Saul of Tarsus, the day after he was converted, looked about the same as the day before. I know three days he was blind, but before the process, after the process, he looked physically the same. We do not appear to be what we really are. Jesus didn’t either. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him, Isaiah 53 said.
If you look at him, you’re not going to see anything unusual. Jesus said, “I’ve shown you many great works from the Father; for which of these are you stoning me?” Well, we’re not stoning you for any of these, his enemies said, “But for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God” (John 10:32-33). That’s the doctrine of the incarnation.
What does mere man mean? You look like everybody else. The world didn’t know him. It didn’t know who he was fundamentally, and neither in the same way does it know us. The reason the world doesn’t know us is it didn’t know him. Now, by the way, actually from time to time, I think about this verse, when I go to the airport, and I have to submit to the TSA screening.
The reason they do that is they don’t know who I am. And not who I am like in the world, I mean who I am as a child of God. I am no threat to the plane. I am not tempted at all by hijacking. It’s not something I am tempted to. I have no inner pulling at all to blow up a plane, et cetera.
I submit to the screening for this very reason here. They don’t know me, and they didn’t know Jesus either. It’s reasonable for them to do this. I appear just like anybody else. I think that’s funny. Fundamentally, we are far more glorious than we appear to be.
Wes
In some ways this might remind us of the language of Romans 8 that talks about the children of God being revealed. There’s a time coming when it will no longer be that we’re not able to be seen for what we are, which is where we’re headed with some of the language even in this passage. That connection there I think helps us understand that right now we look like ourselves and one day we’ll look radically different than we do.
Andy
I think also people just don’t understand what is true about us if we’re Christians. It says later in 1 John 5:4, “What is it that overcomes the world but our faith.” Our faith in Christ makes us as Romans 8 calls us more than conquerors through Christ. We have achieved the greatest victory that can possibly be achieved in this world when we come to faith in Christ. That’s really quite remarkable.
Wes
What does verse 2 teach us about our future in heaven, and who is the he that will appear at that time?
Andy
We are now children of God and what we will be has not yet been made known. There are aspects to our future life as Christians that is not revealed to us yet. That may connect to 1 Corinthians 2:9 where it says, “Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, neither is it entered the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him.”
A lot of the future is hidden from us. We know some things, but what we will be fully has not yet been made known. The full dimensions of our glorification or our full conformity to Christ has yet not yet been fully revealed. We can imagine what it means to be fully conformed to Christ. What we can imagine, how the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father looks like, but we can’t fully understand all of its dimensions and details.
Therefore, he says, “We are now children of God.” The full manifestation of all of that has not yet been made known. But we do know that when he appears, meaning I think that’s the second coming of Christ. The reason is in the previous chapter 2:28 it says, “And now dear children continuing in him so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming,” that’s the second coming of Christ.
It’s the same thing just a few verses later. We know at the second coming of Christ we shall be like him. That’s conformed to the image of his Son in Romans 8:29. That’s glorification in Romans 8:30. That’s what it means to be glorified, to be conformed to Christ. We will be like him. The reason given is that we’re going to see him as he is. It’s what mystics have called the beatific vision.
We will see the resurrected, glorified Christ and be instantaneously perfected.
We will see the resurrected, glorified Christ and be instantaneously perfected. That’s the moment that the Lord will complete our salvation by glorifying us. I believe if you put 1 Thessalonians 4, the second coming, the rapture, “the dead in Christ will rise, and in a flash, and the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet” in 1 Corinthians 15:52, it’s all happening at that moment.
The moment of the second coming is the moment of the rapture is the moment of the resurrection, is the moment of our glorification. It’s all happening at that moment.
Wes
How does verse 3 then connect to verse 2? How does this instruct our lives here and now?
Andy
How it instructs our lives here and now, first and foremost is we have this hope in him. What is hope? Hope is a feeling or a sense in the heart that the future is bright based on the promises of God. We’ve got this vigorous confidence that the future is really bright, and we ourselves are going to be really bright. We’re going to shine like the sun.
We’re going to be conformed to Christ, so that’s hope. We’re like, “We’re looking forward to that.” The future’s really, really good for us and we are going to be perfected. All of our efforts at sanctification will be successful. Therefore, we should purify ourselves as he is pure. Everyone who has a hope of our own perfection, our own glorification gets busy and gets toward that.
Now in sanctification, sanctification tends toward the final work of glorification. They’re not radically different things. As a matter of fact, I find it interesting that Paul skips sanctification entirely when he says those he justified, he also glorified. To some degree we could argue that present sanctification and future glorification are actually one and the same work.
It just goes into the quantum level at the second coming of Christ. It’s the same work of a gradual progress by which we become more and more like Christ. Presently right now, we will purify ourselves of anything that will not be part of our heavenly life, that’s sin. All thought sins, all heart sins, all life habit sins we’re going to get rid of those things. That’s what it means to purify ourselves as he is pure.
Keep in mind also it says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). He’s purifying us, and we ought to purify ourselves. That’s that joint effort that is sanctification. He is purifying us by convicting us and by teaching us the truth and by working in us.
Then we’re purifying ourselves by getting rid of everything that contaminates, as it said in 2 Corinthians 7, anything that defiles the soul, any violation of the conscience, get rid of it, put it to death, mortify sin, put sin to death by the Spirit. I think that’s Romans 8:13 as we mortify the deeds of the flesh, we’re going to grow in holiness, so that’s what we should do.
That’s frankly one of the two journeys; it’s the journey of holiness. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself as he is pure. By the way, isn’t that beautiful? Jesus has no darkness in him at all. Nothing but purity, nothing but holiness, and we want to be like him.
Wes
I think this is such a sweet foretaste and a way in which our future eternal life can be manifest now. That idea of being pure as he is pure, or holy as he is holy, though we can’t see him and be finally conformed to his image. Right now, we can see Jesus in the pages of scripture. We can by the Spirit put on these Christ-like characteristics.
By his power, we can be being conformed to His image in anticipation of that day when that will be finally completed, which is really a sweet foretaste of what we’re looking forward to.
Andy
So good.
Wes
What’s the significance of John’s statement that all sin is a breaking of the law and lawlessness? How should this affect our daily lives and even the way we preach the gospel to lost people?
Andy
Well, I think first of all, we need to be very clear that the law is an important part of a holy Christian life. We are not justified by works of the law, that is true. In other words, you can’t be forgiven by works of the law. What does that mean? The way I looked at it years ago was in terms of legalism. And legalism in salvation, especially in justification, is that you cannot use present and future obedience to the law to pay for past disobedience to the law.
In other words, any good work you could do now is obedience. God told you to do it, you do it. Well, there’s no extra credit for that. If yesterday you disobeyed, what are you going to do? There’s nothing you can do. There’s no doing, there’s no work. Instead, you believe in Christ and you’re forgiven.
People then think, “Okay, then the law has no part of the healthy Christian life.” That is completely false. Instead, it says, “In order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit,” Romans 8:4. In other words, the Holy Spirit brings us back to the law and says, “Now I will help you to obey this.”
The simplest way to look at the law is the two great commandments. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Are those still relevant for the Christian life? They are. The Holy Spirit then fulfills them. It’s like, “All right, can you give me more details?”
“Well, let me ask you a question. Are you a married man?” “Well, actually I am.” “Well, I’m going to give you some law. Love your wife as Christ loved the church.” “Is that law?” “You better believe that’s a law.” It’s a subset of the second great commandment. Martin Luther said, “Who’s your nearest neighbor but your wife, right? She’s right there so love her.”
It’s more details. Then he gives you in Ephesians 5 yet more specific details and laying down your life for your wife and all that. There are other laws. “Let no debt remain outstanding except the continuing debt to love one another” (Romans 13:8). Is that a law? I mean, how many commandments and prohibitions and strictures are there in the New Testament? In the epistles, there are tons.
Fundamentally, the laws of God in both the Old Testament and New Testament. Especially the moral laws of the Old Testament that are still binding on us, and the laws of the New Testament that are in the epistles and in the gospels and all that. “You’ll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8).
Fundamentally, all sin is a violation of God’s law. It is lawlessness.
I’m supposed to be a witness? Yes. Is that a law? Yes. I’m telling you what to do. All of that defines a good life. Sin therefore is a breaking of one of God’s laws. It is a violation by doing what he has prohibited us from doing or not doing what he has commanded us to do. Fundamentally, all sin is a violation of God’s law. It is lawlessness.
For us, we should say, “I want to be fully obedient to you.” It is the obedience that comes from faith. This is an upholding of the law of God. All sin is lawlessness.
Wes
How does the life and ministry of Christ then relate to our lawlessness as we see it in verse 5?
Andy
Jesus appeared, his incarnation, he entered the earth to take away our sins. Again, I want to see that in light of the full work of justification, sanctification, and glorification.
He took away sin’s penalty. I think that the P’s help here.
He took away sin’s power, which is its authority to command us. We’re no longer slaves to sin.
He is going to progressively take away sin’s practice through sanctification.
Then in the end he’s going to take away sin’s very presence by glorification.
That’s the P’s, sin’s penalty, sin’s power, sin’s practice and sin’s presence. He came to take away sin. If we’re going to say he’s going to take away sin’s penalty, but he’s not going to take away sin’s, power, sin’s practice, that’s not what’s going on.
John’s saying, “No, no, it’s bigger than that. He came as an enemy to sin. He’s taking away sin. In Him there is no sin. He is pure and holy.” As he said earlier in this same chapter.
Wes
Now verses 6 and 9 seem as we said, to teach a sort of Christian perfection. In other words, if you’re truly a Christian, you will not sin. How should we address this issue of perfectionism? How might one John 1:7 help us here?
Andy
Well, Wes, would you be willing to read the KJV in verse 6? It does a good job of simply getting across the Greek.
Wes
This is the King James version, verse 6 in 1 John 3. It says, “Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not. Whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.”
Andy
Now update the language, just get rid of the eths.
Wes
Whoever abides in him sins not or doesn’t sin. Whoever sins has not seen him nor knows him.
Andy
You see the problem?
Wes
Yeah.
Andy
That’s an accurate translation. I remember the first time I was in intermediate Greek, and we had to translate 1 John and I was like, “Whoa.”
Wes
I must be missing something.
Andy
It seems to teach perfectionism and you’re like, “Man.” First of all, what I want to do is let it have its full impact. John is writing to us saying sin should be seen by you to be an aberration, abnormal, and a hateful thing. He is full on, “You should not sin.” He’s basically roughing us up before we sin.
I think it goes back to chapter 2 and verse 1, “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin.” He’s trying to get in your business here and say, “In him, there is no sin. If you sin, you’re not in him.” He’s trying to do that. Now, the reason I had KJV read was or for you to read KJV, is that most of the translators give us some help here like the ESV does and the NIV does, it uses continuation language. What does it say in ESV?
Wes
Yeah, ESV says, “No one who abides in him keeps on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.”
Andy
Frankly, that doesn’t solve the problem because do you keep on sinning? I do. We’ve come full circle and here we are still. This is how I want to deal with it. I want to say, first of all, we should have an ever-increasing horror and hatred of, an even shocked reaction to sin. It should not feel normal to us.
Now, the Bible, I think does get rough with us before we sin and is very tender and gentle with us after we sin. It’s hard to do both of that in one sermon. It’s like, “No, it’s not okay. Sin’s just not okay. Sin is evil and it’s devastating.” If you have sinned as he does in chapter 2:1, if anyone does sin, we have an advocate.
We have the ability to be forgiven. I think what I want in verse 6 and also in verse 9, 1 John 3:6 and 3:9, is to let it work us over and say, you should be ever increasingly saying with Paul in Romans 6:1-2, “Should I go on sinning that grace may abound? May it never be!” Well, how adamantly should I say that more than you do?
Absolutely not, stronger than that. Well, I’m not going to yell into the microphone, but should I go on sinning? Are you out of your mind? No. Fundamentally, just because you’re going to be forgiven and, in the end, glorified, don’t do it. Let it have its full work. That’s what he’s doing here.
He’s saying, “Look at your lifestyle. If you’re just frankly immersed in sin, and if you’ve got an adulterous relationship literally going on and you’re claiming to be a Christian, you ought to look at that and say, ‘I’m just walking in sin and I’m okay with sin.'” Well, then you ought to look at whether you’re a Christian or not. I think that’s what verse six is saying.
For those who are like, “Yes, I understand what you’re saying, and I am a Christian, I know I’m a Christian, but I do continue to sin, it’s still part of my life. That’s what Romans 7:15 is all about, “The very thing I hate I do and the good things I want to do, I don’t do. I find this law at work when I want to do good, evil is right there with me.” It’s just in my grill. I can’t escape it.
What do I do? It’s like I’m devastated by verse 6. I’m like, am I not a Christian? You’re telling me I’m not a Christian? All right, what I want to say is first and foremost, if you are a Christian, and if I asked you, what is the greatest grief in your life, and you wouldn’t necessarily be schooled or trained in how to answer.
If I handed you this answer and say, “Could this be it? Your own sinfulness, the fact that you keep on sinning, right in Jesus’s face, though He has loved you and died for you, would you say that’s your greatest grief in life?” You’re like, “Well, since you put it that way, I’d have to say it is.” Well then, you’re a Christian. You mourn over your sin; you hunger and thirst to be freed from it. You hate it. You fit into it.
Then you’re like, “All right, then what do I do with this verse?” It’s like, well, first of all, John can’t be teaching perfectionism because he wouldn’t write 1 John 2:1, I write this thing to you so you will not sin, but if anyone does sin, well according to this, then you’re not a Christian. He didn’t say that. He said, “You have an advocate.”
You can sin and have an advocate. We saw also in 1 John 1:7, you can walk in the light as he is in the light and still need an ongoing cleansing from sin. And so that proves it’s not perfection, but there should be a horror, a holy horror of sin with yourself. I think that’s what Paul means when he says, “I beat my body and make it my slave” (1 Corinthians 9:27).
I don’t take it lightly. When I see sin in me, I really don’t. I’m going to fight my sin the rest of my life. Again, I think we go to an analogy from history. We look at Winston Churchill, if you know anything about him and his commitment against Hitler and against Nazism. After the blitz or midway through the blitz as Hitler’s Bewegungskrieg is reducing London to rubble.
He’s walking the streets after every attack, Churchill is, and he’s seeing the bodies of his fellow British subjects pulled out of the rubble. You were to ask him, “If Hitler came to make a deal with you and he could have a portion of England, but the war would be over, what would you do? What would he say?”
“Absolutely not. We’ll fight them in the seas and oceans. We’ll fight them in the landing grounds. We’ll fight until the last Englishman is,” we’re not ever going to surrender to this guy, ever. Well, that would be a small portion of the attitude we should have about sin.
Wes
Verses 7-10 help further expound on this lifestyle of a truly born-again people. What’s John’s main idea in verses 7-10?
Andy
He’s just explaining more of the same thing, don’t let anyone lie to you. Here you have, remember we’ve talked about false teachers in two categories. You got your legalism false teachers and your license false teachers. Okay, well this is more like the license false teachers.
They’re telling you it doesn’t matter what you do with your body. It doesn’t matter what you do with your sex life. That’s really between you and your conscience or yourself or your lifestyle or whatever. It’s no one’s business. Frankly, it’s not relevant even to your Christian life. Let’s say that’s completely not true.
Even worse, God wants you to be happy, he wants you to have pleasure, he wants you all of this stuff. He says, “Don’t let anyone lead you astray.” That’d be false teachers. He who does what is right is righteous. It matters how you live. Fundamentally, we believe Judgment Day will be all about works.
We will not be justified by works, but we will most certainly be judged or evaluated or assessed by our works, that is what Romans 2 says. If you do what is right, you are righteous. It is not on the basis of doing what is right that you are righteous, because we’re imperfect and sinners. He’s talking about a lifestyle. If you’re walking in a lifestyle of righteousness, then you are in a right relationship with God.
Wes
It’s this amazing picture of behavior proving identity or demonstrating one’s identity. What does verse 8 teach us about Christ’s ministry in the world and the works of the devil?
Andy
Basically, it seems to me the Bible says it’s very black and white. It is binary 0-1, you’re alive or you’re dead, you’re in or you’re out. You are dead in your transgressions and sins, or you are resurrected to new life and all right. You are either a child of God or you’re a child of the devil and that’s what he’s saying here.
If you are doing sinful, wicked things and you’re walking in the darkness and all that, you are a child of the devil. You’re of the devil. The devil is the original sinner. I mean, he’s the first sinner. He’s who brought evil into the universe. The reason that Jesus came into the world was to destroy the devil’s work.
This is very clearly taught also in the Book of Hebrews that Jesus came to destroy him, “Who held the power of death that is the devil and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Hebrews 2:14-15), that’s us. Jesus killed or destroyed the devil by his death on the cross.
Now I would say more inflicted a mortal wound on the devil in his dark kingdom. It’s been a long, very slow death for the devil, 2,000 years but he’s going to die. The reason the Son of God came was to destroy the devil’s work, and the devil’s work was to get us to sin.
Wes
How do verses 9 and 10 summarize some of what’s been said here, and what final thoughts do you have for us on this passage?
Andy
If you’re born of God, you’re a child of God, you’re not going to be walking in sin or living in sin. First of all, I would just say happily tolerating sin that’s just not the mentality of a child of God. We’re at war with it, that’s it. We hate it. We’re fighting it.
If you’re a child of God, if you’re born of God, you’re not going to make a separate peace with sin. You’re going to keep fighting sin because God’s seed remains in him, that means the truth of the gospel. Fundamentally, the truth of Christ crucified and resurrected remains in you, the seed of the gospel.
You can’t go on sinning, you can’t continually sin because we’ve been born of God, that’s what it means. We hate sin and we want it out. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are. Fundamentally, anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God. Then he brings up this theme of loving the brother, which we’ll develop more fully later.
Fundamentally, in summary, how you live matters. Look at how you live. Look at your lifestyle. Are you living the life of a whitewashed tomb that looks good on a Sunday, but you’re corrupt and evil at other times? Is there a genuine heart work that God has done in you?
Wes
Well, this has been Episode 5 in our 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John Bible Study podcast. We want to invite you to join us next time for Episode 6 entitled Love one Another Sacrificially, where we’ll discuss 1 John 3:11-24. Thank you for listening to the Two Journeys podcast. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
