First John: 1 John 3:7a-John Commands the Recipients of First John to Continue Not Being Deceived By the False Teachers Lesson # 108

1 John 3:7 Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. (ESV)

“Little children, let no one deceive you” is composed of the following: (1) vocative neuter plural form of the noun paidion (παιδίον), “little children” (2) nominative masculine singular form of the adjective mēdeis (μηδείς), “no one” (3) third person singular present active imperative form of the verb planaō (πλανάω), “let deceive” (4) accusative second person plural form of the personal pronoun su (σύ), “you.”

The apostle John is employing the figure of asyndeton to emphasize the solemn nature of the prohibition which begins verse 7.

The noun paidion pertains to a person of any age for whom there is a special relationship of endearment and association.

John employs this word to address the entire Christian community in the Roman province of Asia who had remained faithful to his apostolic teaching.

He uses the word as a term of endearment for his spiritual children in the Christian community and indicates the care and nurture he has for them.

The emphatic adjective mēdeis means “absolutely no one” since the word functions as a substantive and is expressing in emphatic terms a negative reference to the proto-Gnostic teachers, whom John describes as “antichrists” in 1 John 2:18 and as non-believers in 1 John 2:19.

It emphatically negates any idea of these false teachers deceiving the recipients of First John who were believers residing in the Roman province of Asia in the last decade of the first century A.D.

The third person singular present active imperative form of the verb planaō means, “to deceive” and is employed with the accusative second person plural form of the personal pronoun su, “you” as its direct object.

The dative second person plural form of the personal pronoun su means “any of you” since the word is used of the recipients of First John as a corporate unit and is used in a distributive sense emphasizing no exceptions.

The imperative mood of the verb planaō is used in a prohibition which forbids an action and is a negative command.

Thus, the imperative mood of the verb is forbidding absolutely anyone among the false teachers to cause any one of the recipients of First John to be allowed to deceive them.

The present tense of this verb is a gnomic present used to describe something that it is true any time rather than a universal statement that is true all the time.

This type of present is used with a generic subject which is the case here in 1 John 3:7.

Therefore, the gnomic present of this verb indicates that John is forbidding anyone among the false teachers “at any time” to cause any one of the recipients of this epistle to deceive them.

Therefore, the present imperative form of the verb planaō has the force of a general precept and makes no comment about whether the action is going on or not.

Therefore, it indicates that John is saying absolutely no one among the false teachers must be allowed at any time to cause any one of the recipients of this epistle to be deceived.

1 John 3:7 Children, continue to make it your habit of permitting absolutely no one at any time to cause any one of you to be deceived. The person who at any time does practice that which is truly righteousness is righteous just as He Himself is righteous. (My translation)

The apostle John solemnly issues the recipients of First John a command which required that they must continue to make it their habit of permitting absolutely no one at any time to cause any of them to be deceived.

Of course, when he is speaking of being deceived, he is alluding to the false teachers who taught an incipient form of Gnosticism.

John describes them as “antichrists” in 1 John 2:18 and as non-believers in 1 John 2:19.

1 John 3:7 is the second time that the apostle John has warned explicitly the recipients of First John about these false teachers attempting to deceive them with their false doctrine.

The first was in 1 John 2:26.

As was the case in 1 John 2:26, John in 1 John 3:7 identifies the intent of these antichrists, namely that they were attempting to deceive the recipients of this epistle.

Based upon the prologue in 1 John 1:1-3, as well as John’s teaching in 1 John 2:18-25 and 1 John 4:1-6, this deception took the form of rejecting John’s apostolic teaching that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ and thus the Son of God.

These false teachers were attempting to cause the recipients of this epistle to go astray from John’s apostolic teaching concerning the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

Specifically, they were attempting to cause them to not believe John’s apostolic teaching that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ and thus the Son of God.

Now, 1 John 3:7 would also imply that these antichrists did not practice God’s righteousness in their lives since in this verse John is associating the prohibition forbidding the recipients of this epistle from being deceived by these antichrists with the practice of righteousness.

These antichrists were children of the devil because they did not practice God’s righteousness in their lives.

They practiced sin (cf. 1 John 3:6).

In fact, here in 1 John 3:7, John is identifying another characteristic that distinguishes the child of God from the children of the devil who never practice God’s righteousness in their lives.

Now, we must clarify some things.

Children of the devil can perform righteous actions but they are never empowered or motivated by the Spirit’s teaching in the Word of God.

Their empowerment and motivation comes from their indwelling Adamic sin nature and Satan’s cosmic system.

The child of God has the capacity to perform divine righteousness which is the performance of righteous actions and words which are motivated and empowered by the Spirit’s teaching in the Word of God.

The non-believer does not have the capacity to perform divine righteousness because they are not indwelt by the Spirit as the child of God is.

The Spirit inspired John’s apostolic teaching while on the other hand, the devil inspired the teaching of the antichrists.

The child of God can recognize this because they are indwelt by the Spirit.

The antichrists manifested the fact that they were children of the devil rather than children of God by the fact that they rejected John’s Spirit inspired apostolic teaching.

The recipients of this epistle were practicing divine righteousness because they obeyed John’s teaching while on other hand the antichrists were not practicing righteousness because they had rejected his teaching.

In 1 John 3:7, the apostle John is not saying that the recipients of this epistle were being deceived by these antichrists when he wrote this epistle since if you recall, he affirms in 1 John 2:12-14 that the recipients of this epistle were remaining faithful to his apostolic teaching.

Consequently, they had not fallen victim to the deception of these antichrists.

Also notice in 1 John 2:26 he says that these antichrists were “attempting” to deceive the recipients of this epistle and not that they have already deceived them.

This false teaching the apostle John was seeking to protect the recipients of this epistle from, were propagating an “incipient” form of Gnosticism since Gnosticism was not a full blown threat to orthodox Christianity in the mid to late part of the first century as it did become in the middle of the second century.

These “antichrists” denied the following: (1) that Jesus Christ was the Son of God (2:22, 5:1, 5) (2) that the Son of God had become a human being (4:2) (3) the authority to Jesus’ commands (2:4) (4) their own possession of an old sin nature (1:8, 10) (5) salvation through the work of Christ on the Cross (2:2) (6) the mandate for believers to love one another (2:9), (7) righteous conduct through obedience to the command to love one another as a requirement of fellowship with God (1:6; 2:29; 3:6, 10) (8) the responsibility to live as Jesus had lived during His First Advent (2:4, 6; 3:7) (9) the nature of the company of believers as a community of fellowship with the Father, the Son and with one another (1:3, 2:11) (10) the authority of John as the proclaimer of the message that had originated from God in eternity past (1:5) (11) that the members of the church who did not follow the false teachers were in the truth (2:20-21).

John’s assertion in 1 John 3:7 regarding the practice of righteousness along with the warning about these antichrists and his statement in 1 John 3:6 regarding the practice of sin would indicate that not only did these false teachers deny Jesus Christ was a human being but they also lived unrighteous lives.