Mark of Righteous Living: 1 John 3:4-10

1 John 3:4–10 “Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and 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 sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. 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. 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.”

Let us Pray

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As we finish up our expositional study of 1 John this morning we see that 1 John 3:4-6 addresses the themes of righteousness, love, faith, and truth again, but this time sets before in terms of contrasts: righteousness and sin (3:4-10), love and hate (3:11-18), faith and doubt (3:19-24), and truth and error (4:1-6). John’s goal throughout this section is to sharpen the distinction between true and false believers by showing how their lives differ. The teachers of Gnostics who had infiltrated the early Christian church spoke with eloquence and passion, but their lives failed to show true marks of grace, righteousness, love, faith, and truth.

This them was introduced in 1 John 1:6 “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” In other words, if we say that we are Christian people but do not live by the standards of God’s Word, then our lives lie to us. We live, and the truth is not in us.

1. The Seriousness of Sin

John reminds us, first, of the seriousness of sin. He highlights two things.

The Nature of Sin

1 John 3:4 “Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.”

First, he addresses the nature of sin. Some people define sin as something that spoils our lives. That is true; when we step outside of God’s ways, we should not be surprised if sin spoils things. But the Bible teaches us that sin is much deeper than that. The New Testament uses at least four words to describe sin:

Hamartia. This word means missing the mark or falling short of the target. An archer takes a bow and arrow and aims at a target, but somehow the arrows keep going awry and he misses his mark. Likewise, we fall short of that mark which is the goal of God’s chief end of man, namely, to glorify God. By nature, every one of us us misses the target, as Paul stresses in:

Romans 3:9 “What then? Are we better than they? Not at all; for we have already charged that both Jews and Greeks are all under sin;”

Romans 5:12 “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—”

2. Adikia is usually translated unrighteousness, or sometimes iniquity.

Luke 16:9 ““And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by means of the wealth of unrighteousness, so that when it fails, they will receive you into the eternal dwellings.”

The word brings up the image of a straight or level edge. A bricklayer set up bricks in a row, occasionally placing a level on the bricks to make sure they are straight. In a similar way, God’s perfect righteousness offers us a straight edge to man for how he should live. When our lives are measured against God’s straight edge, they do not square up. They are not on the level.

3. Paraptomah means an offense or fault, or something done outside the bounds God has set for our conduct. God has a road for man to travel. Travel regulations include white lines, double yellow lines, and various road signs. We keep violating those road signs. We regard God’s road as too narrow or too restrictive so we try other, broader roads, which lie alongside God’s road. Jesus describe the way we should travel in Matthew.

Matthew 7:14 ““For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

Jesus warns us about forsaking the right way:

Matthew 7:13 ““Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.”

Worldly people prefer the broad road rather than the narrow one.

4. Anomia means transgression of law, lawlessness, or literally having ‘no law’. John uses this word in 1 John 3:4 “Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.” As King and Ruler of creation, God has given us laws to live by, which are summarized in the Ten Commandments. We have rebelled against those laws, but not merely by going astray. Sin is more than being a prodigal who has wandered from his father’s house. We deliberately rebel, not only against divine laws, but against the divine Lawgiver. Instead of submitting to God’s rule and authority, we want to be a law unto ourselves. Sin is man’s refusal to submit his mind, heart, and will to the authority of God. He does not want anyone other than himself to be lord of his life. Sin is anti-God; it is treason against the Most High.

It strikes out against God’s holiness and glory; in fact, it flies in the face of every attribute of God. As John Bunyan said, ‘Sin is the daring of God’s justice, the jeering of his patience, the slighting of his power, the contempt of his love.’

The Origin of Sin

Second, John addresses the origin of sin.

1 John 3:8 “the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.”

What a radical statement that is. Though we might wonder if the apostle is being extreme, we must realize this is not just John’s perspective; it is God’s perspective on sin.

Jesus once said to certain religious leaders of his day, John 8:44a “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father.” The leaders recoiled from the accusation as darkness recoils from the burning light of the sun. Sin originates in hell. Its intent is to blind people to the God who made them and to the Saviour who came to redeem them. Every time we numb ourselves to sin or are tempted to trivialize and excuse it, we must remember, ‘Sin is of the devil.’

If you are a Christian, one of the evidences of your Christian faith is your attitude to sin. Sins that you once considered trivial now plunge like arrows into your heart. Language that you once used freely now makes you think. ‘That language ill befits someone who claims to be a child of the holy God of heaven!’ John reminds us of these things because we will never seek a remedy until we are persuaded in our minds and hearts how seriously ill we are. God’s concern is not simply to make us feel bad and guilty about ourselves. He wants to bring us to the end of ourselves so that we cry out, ‘What must I do to be saved?’

Do you notice that righteousness and sin are opposites? John makes that plain in verses 6 and 7:

1 John 3:6–7 “No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous;”

2. The Twofold Purpose of Christ’s Incarnation

John explains the purpose of Christ’s incarnation in terms of two contrasts.

‘To Take Away Our Sins’

1 John 3:5 “You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin.”

That confirms the angel’s message to Joseph. Matthew 1:21 ““She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”

God sent his sinless Son to earth to satisfy divine justice through Christ’s obedience—his active obedience in fulfilling the law and his passive obedience in paying the price of sin submissively. He did so to satisfy the claims of divine justice against believers and so that believers can be separated from the sin that has become such a major part of us. Christ takes that sin away. Psalm 103:12 “As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.”

Because of the spotless Lamb of God, who paid for our sins in his own body on the accursed tree at Golgotha, God delights to cast our sins behind him into the sea of eternal forgetfulness. Because Christ died in our place, our sin will never be remembered against us or visited upon us. What wonderful salvation! What magnificient blessing!

Consider the lengths to which God is willing to go to deal with sin—the very thing that would keep you from communion with God and from heaven.

Isaiah 59:2 “But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.”

Revelation 21:8 ““But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.””

Jesus is God’s remedy for sin—could anything be more important than that? Is not this the good news that each of us yearns to know? However much we evade the issue, there are times when human frailty presses upon us, and we know that the one thing that really matters is that when we leave this life, we leave it as forgiven, reconciled, heaven-bound sinners. All that matters then, is how God views us, not how the world views us.

‘To Destroy the Devil’s Work’

1 John 3:8 “the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.”

Jesus came not only to take away our sins but also to destroy the lord of sin and the kingdom of evil he has laboured to build.

The devil is no fantasy. He is real. On the cross Christ invaded the territory of darkness to destroy its power. Of course, the devil is still present, and he still roars loudly, but he is a broken, defeated power. His doom is sealed.

On the cross Christ crushed the head and broke the back of Satan. That is why 1 John 4:4 says “You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.” Through salvation we are taken out of the dominion of Satan into the kingdom of the Son of God.

Christ came to this world to destroy sin and establish righteousness; he himself is the contrast betwen righteousness and sin. John says at the end of verse 5: ‘in Him there is no sin.” Christ is pure righteousness. He will bring that contrast into believers’ lives also, though imperfectly now, perfectly hereafter. Christ’s victory over Satan bears astonishing fruits in the lives of those who are born again as his righteousness gains the victory over sinful depravity.

3. The Fruit of the New Birth

1 John 3:9 “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.”

John is not saying that Christians never sin. That would contradict 1 John 1:8 “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.” What John is saying is that if God has broken into your life and you now live in Christ by faith, you will not go on living as you once lived. God’s ‘seed of regeneration’ remains in you so you cannot go on sinning. John uses the image of a seed to show that what God plants in the human heart will surely produce a new life, a new disposition, and a new will. You may still sin, but sin will be contrary to the ben of your new life. You will not be content to continue in sin.

This interpretation of verse 9 makes sense because of three reasons:

John’s use of the present progressive tense.

He literally says: ‘No one who continues to live in sin has seen or known God; no one who is born of God will go on living in sin because God’s seed—the seed of the new birth, a seed that is perfect—remains in him.’

John is writing against the Gnostics who claimed the great spiritual insights while living immorally.

Though these false teachers made great claims, their lives betrayed them. They reasoned that a person could be righteous without having to practise righteousness, so John emphasizes that anyone who has been born of God will not be content to go on living in sin.

2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”

Christians still sin, sometimes grievously, but when they sin, it brings sorrow beyond words to their heart. It cuts them to the quick. It brings them to their knees. They say, ‘How could I—so love and forgiven, so precious to God who gave his Son for me—have said that sinful word, or done that sinful act, or indulged that sinful thought?’

Since there is a whole new direction to the lives of those who are born again, the question becomes: How can I now live to please him who gave his Son for my sin? Those who are born again want their lives to be a seamless tapestry of obedience out of gratitude for what God has done for them in Christ Jesus.

John uses contrasts to make a point.

He sets truths forth in a combination of thesis and antithesis. Unlike Paul, who presents the theis and the antithesis, then works out the synthesis of the two (examples in Romans 6 and 7), John lets the reader work out the synthesis. For example, in John 1:11 “He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.” In John 1:12 “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.” Is John contradicting himself? No, he is setting up a contrast. He does not mean to say in verse 11 that every single Jew rejected Jesus. Obviously that is not true, or Jesus would not have had Jewish disciples and apostles. But in general the Jews rejected Jesus. In verse 12, John goes on to speak about those who did receive Jesus.

Here is how John wants us to work out the synthesis in 1 John 3:9. John is not saying that believers have no sin. Rather, he is saying that sin no longer is the bent of their life. Moreover, the new seed within believers cannot sin. Consequently, even though believers still sin due to the remnants of their old nature, they do not live under the dominion of sin. Sin is no longer satisfying to them. Sin has lost its lustre. They no longer want to live in it.

Yet, as Luther said, ‘They are righteous, yet sinners.’ The power of remaining or indwelling sin brings believers into holy warfare, as Paul describes in Romans 7. They must never excuse that pollution. They do not trivialize sin, like the world does; they cannot live untroubled by it. They know that continuing in sin would oppose the whole purpose of Christ’s coming to take away sin. To continue in sin is to fight on the wrong side of the cosmic battle against sin.

What is the bent of your life? Do you go on committing sin in comfort and ease? Or do you yearn toward righteousness in Christ? Do you wish with all your heart that all sin was dead in you? Here is the ultimate test that John offers: Do we find our live in Christ’s righteousness, and out of his righteousness to righteousness, or do we find our life in sin, and out of the devil’s and our own unrighteousness continue committing sin? Are we refusing to surrender our entire lives—including our thought lives—to God?

1 John 3:10 “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.”

There are two kinds of people in the world. John says: the children of God and the children of the devil. Both are known by how they live. You know who the children of God are because they do what is right. Their lives show they love Christ and obey God. They are increasingly becoming like Christ. Through Christ’s righteousness, believers become righteous and obedient from within, then bring forth fruits of righteousness in thoughts, words, and actions.

People serve only two kind of rulers, divine or diabolical. The world sees all kinds of perspectives in between, but only God’s perspective is significant, for the perspectives of the world will fade into oblivion. The only opinion that will stand to the end is that of the eternal, uncreated Triune God. In other words, one of the sins in which the Christian must not go on living is the sin of hatred—hating God by despising his laws, or hating his brethren by withholding from them his compassion.

In CLOSING: Ask yourself: Am I convicted of the heinous nature of all sin, including my own? Have I learned to rest by faith in Christ’s righteousness, which opposes sin? Am I persuaded of the incompatibility of continuing in sin while living as a Christian? Today is the day of salvation, don’t wait any longer to be reconciled to God. The gospel calls us to repent of our sins and believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Let us Pray