1 John 5:16-18

Sin that does not lead to death

Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament, 28th Edition Chapter 5

*16 Ἐάν τις ἴδῃ τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ ἁμαρτάνοντα ἁμαρτίαν μὴ πρὸς θάνατον,* αἰτήσει καὶ δώσει αὐτῷ ζωήν, ⸂τοῖς ἁμαρτάνουσιν⸃ μὴ πρὸς θάνατον.* ἔστιν ἁμαρτία πρὸς θάνατον· οὐ περὶ ἐκείνης λέγω ἵνα ἐρωτήσῃ. 17 πᾶσα ἀδικία ἁμαρτία ἐστίν,* καὶ ἔστιν ἁμαρτία ⸀οὐ πρὸς θάνατον.

18 Οἴδαμεν ὅτι πᾶς ὁ γεγεννημένος ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ οὐχ* ἁμαρτάνει,* ἀλλʼ ⸂ὁ γεννηθεὶς ἐκ⸃ τοῦ θεοῦ τηρεῖ ⸀ἑαυτὸν καὶ ὁ πονηρὸς οὐχ ἅπτεται αὐτοῦ.*

English Standard Version Chapter 5

16 If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life—to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that. 17 All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.

18 We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him.

The New International Version Chapter 5

16 If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that you should pray about that. 17 All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death.

18 We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the One who was born of God keeps them safe, and the evil one cannot harm them.

OPENING REMARKS

Read from verse 13. Verses 16-18 are a continuation of the themes found in 13-17; assurance, confidence in prayer.

There’s no getting around the fact that these couple of verses aren’t the easiest to understand. There about as many varying views on the meaning as there are commentaries that address these verses!

Those who claim these verses are simple and easy to understand betray their own naievety; there are several workable understandings of these verses and many more understandings that are erroneous.

I believe that scripture is the word of God, I believe it is God breathed 2 Tim 3:16 - All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

Therefore the Bible is consistent within itself. It does not refute itself. Though there may seem to be contradictions or discrepancies in certain places on closer inspection these seeming contradictions turn out not to be; The time of Jesus’s crucifixion.

John is dividing sin into two camps; those that do not lead to death and those that do. That would at first glance seem to be a contradiction with the rest of the witness of scripture and in particular Romans 6:23 - For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. That all sin leads to death.

It is the job of the preacher, the pastor and the theologian to do the work exegetically to get to the bare meaning of the text of scripture. To get beyond our cultural, traditional lenses and lay hold of what the original authors were actually saying.

Often texts like these have been both the source of great revelation to the church and sadly also great heresy. For example, this verse is a proof text for the false Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory. The idea that there were two types of sin; venial (which could be atoned for through observance of the sacraments) and mortal (which could result in you losing your salvation, or at best land you in purgatory until you had been purified).

Whatever John is saying hear he cannot be contradicting something he has said elsewhere in this same letter.

Before I get to the application we need to do some exegetical ground work.

If anyone sees His brother...

This text is addressing Christians, or at least Christians as far as it is possible to know. Therefore the sinning mentioned in this passage is sin committed by Christians, it is not addressing sin committed by non-believers outside the church.

Therefore those who want to make the ‘sin that leads to death’ simply refer to any sin which an unbeliever commits go wrong at this point. Whatever the sin that leads to death refers to, it is a sin which a ‘brother or sister’ or at least one who appears to be a brother or sister in Christ commits.

Sinning a sin...

The type of sin is also identified in verse 16; it is consistent and evident.

Sinning a sin (present participle)

Sees a brother sinning a sin. This isn’t a one off, low key slip up. This is a sin which is evident to your Christian friends, they can see it’s destructive pattern active in your life.

Not to death...

What is meant by ‘sin which does not lead to death’? And what kind of death is meant here? Is the apostle referring here to the physical death of the body or spiritual death? Whichever type of death he means here must also be meant by the reverse phrase ‘there is sin that leads to death’. He cannot mean physical death at one point in the verse and then mean something entirely different later in the same sentence. He can’t mean physical death/spiritual life either. That would seem a stretch.

This is the great divide amoungst commentators; those who believe he is referring to a physical death that arises from sin and those that believe he is referring to a spiritual death.

If he’s referring to physical death then how are we to know which sins lead to physical death? If it’s spiritual sin then does this mean that after all that John has said in this letter to give assurance of salvation that it is possible for a believer to commit certain sins which will cause them to lose their salvation? What about John 6:37-39 - All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

There are some issues of difficulty with each view, but at least two of these positions are workable from the text.

I’ll give you a summary of each and then give you my thoughts.

View 1

Jewish definition of sins to death/not to death

There were certain severe sins in the Old Testament that were punishable by death, and some Jewish teachers would refer to these sins as ‘sins to death’ and other sins which were not punishable by death as ‘sins not to death.’

Proponents of this view believe that John is using this Jewish distinction here to refer to these two types of sin. And that one should pray for deliverance for a brother or sister so long as it wasn’t a sin like murder, incest or the like.

It would seem unlikely however that John would introduce this concept without any prior context concerning the law.

View 2

God’s chastening which leads to death in certain situations

Certain commentators including John MacArthur and FF Bruce believe that the sin which leads to death may refer to sin which is so heinous and persistent in the life of a believer that it leads to God taking that individuals life, a bit like in the case of Ananias and Saphira.

Parallel passages for this view would be 1 Cor 11:27-32 - Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

Heb 12:6 - For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.”

There are a number of occasions in scripture where God chastises His people for sin by sending sickness upon them ( Numbers 21 ) and even death. This includes the NT in the case of those in Corinth and Ananias and Saphira. The Greek word for died in 1st Corinthians is actually ‘fallen asleep’, only believers fall asleep, so though they were judged for their sin at the Lords supper even to physical death, their spiritual life in Christ was clearly secure.

What is clear is that there are some sicknesses, weaknesses and even death amongst Christians which are a direct result of sin. In fact in some, I believe rare cases, weakness, sickness and even death are actually God’s chastisement for sin. This is not to say that every ailment is a result of sin. Paul says to Timothy ‘take a little wine for your stomach and your frequent ailments.

On this view when John says ‘I do not say that you should pray for that’, he is actually saying ‘don’t pray for the dead.’ Since the only way you could know if a sin was ‘to death’ is if the person in question had actually died.

I think this explanation, though technically plausible, doesn’t fit well with the context.

View 3

A warning against apostasy

This is the majority view held by Calvin, RC Sproul, Alford and others. This view holds that the terms death and life in these verses refer to spiritual death and spiritual life.

This view is says that ‘sin which does not lead to death’ is actually the only kind of sin that a believer can do. Since all their sin is atoned for at the cross the wages of sin which is death no longer applies to them!

So if a Christian can only sin a sin which doesn’t lead to death then what does John mean by there is sin which leads to death? A parallel passage here would be Hebrews 6:4-9 - For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned. Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation.

That the sin that leads to death is one that produces spiritual death is the view of those who believe that the “sin that leads to death” refers to the sin of apostasy (unbelief in the gospel), upon which a true believer would lose his salvation, i.e., spiritually suffer death. Similarly, it could refer to a sin of apostasy that reveals that a professing Christian was never really a Christian at all (2:19). The second option—apostasy that only false professors of faith commit—best fits the teaching of this epistle. RC Sproul

This view has in my humble opinion the best explanatory power and scope, and it fits the context of John’s letter better than the rest. Since his definition of life in 1 John 5:12 - Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. Unaquivically defines life as possession of Christ; what is sin that leads to death? That which issues in one losing Christ; renouncing Him and denying the Gospel.

So what?

Now we’ve done the hard work of understanding John’s language here, let’s move on to the application.

John follows up verses 13-15 concerning confidence in prayer with a specific example in verse 16; prayer for our Christian brothers and sisters, that they might be delivered out of sin. This is what we call intercessory prayer; praying on behalf of another.

We should pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ, and pray for them specifically not generically. This isn’t talking about a general prayer ‘oh Lord I pray for all my brothers and sisters in Christ, it’s talking about prayer for specific named individuals. We are to pray on behalf of one another by name.

The prayer for the sinning brother here is by one who has ‘seen’ his sin. Therefore, we are specifically to pray not just for individuals whom we know of, but Christians who we know personally. That is, we, in this church ought to be lifting up one another in prayer individually and regularly.

Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament based on Semantic Domains 33.163 αἰτέω; παραιτέομαι

33.163 αἰτέω; παραιτέομαιa: to ask for with urgency, even to the point of demanding—‘to ask for, to demand, to plead for.’

This isn’t a passive mentioning of certain names in prayer but an empassioned pleading with urgency.

He will give him life...

In response to our prayers John says that He will give them life. Most translations, ESV, NIV, NASB translate this as God will give him life, though in the Greek the one doing the action of giving life isn’t specifically named. It’s just ‘he will ask and he will give him life.’ Either way the life given is a direct result of prayer and therefore it’s God who grants life. But also, I think it shows the necessity and power of intercessory prayer.

In a very real sense, when you pray on behalf of a brother or sister in this church you are giving them LIFE!

What is meant by life? Well, judging by what John says in verse 12 it has to do with fellowship with Christ. The implication being that persistent and unrepented sin, though it doesn’t ultimately separate a true believer from Christ, it can effect the intimacy of their relationship with Him for a time.

Our prayer for them results in God’s action for them; that they might be granted repentance; 2 Tim 2:25 - correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth,

And we can be confident of this accoring to verse 15.

So often in our troubles we totally look past prayer as a possible solution. When we encounter weakness and failure within ourselves, we’re wont to hide it from our Christian brothers and sisters and instead look for a practical solution elsewhere. Yet according to this text it’s prayer that delivers us!

Oh if we could be braver with one another, let our guards down so that we could see one another truly we’d be able to pray for one another knowing one another’s struggles with weakness, temptation and sin. I’m not saying we should all hang our dirty laundry out for everyone to see, but rather that as the Lord leads we ought to confide in one another, that we ought to be brave in telling our friends and prayer partners what we need prayer for.

CONCLUSION

Of all we have seen in this passage we have seen these amazing truths;

That even though we still sin as Christians that sin is now not unto death. How great is the grace and goodness of God that He has forgiven us of our sins both before we became a Christian and after we are saved. To those outside of relationship with Jesus ALL SIN IS UNTO DEATH! Not simply physical death, though that is true, but eternal spiritual death. Without Christ sin leads to eternal, death and punishment in hell. Either you sins are paid for by Christs death or by your own. Which will it be?

We have seen that there is such a thing as a sin which leads to death even for a brother. Though John makes plain that anyone who commits this sin of apostasy was never truly a Christian in the first place in 1 John 2:19 - They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.

Finally we have seen the great efficacy of intercessory prayer on behalf of our brothers and sisters in Christ to set them free from habitual sins that they have gotten stuck in.

Let’s pray.