In This the Children of God Are Manifest

2014-12-28

Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law. And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him. Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. (1 John 3:1-10)

This has been a passage of scripture that has left many, such as myself, befuddled. A cursory look might let the reader conclude that if you are a Christian, you do not sin... EVER! Previous verses state the contrary (1 John 1:8-2:1), so we must somehow learn what this is really saying, letting the clear passages of Scripture interpret the more difficult ones.

Before entering the discussion on this passage, we want to remember the context at large. In 1 John 2:26, John alludes to certain Gnostic heretics that have infiltrated the church. John also tells us that we have an anointing within us so that we will be able to discern who is of the truth, and who is from the fraudulent Gnostic crowd (2:27). In 2:28, the rapture should encourage us to persevere in the truth, and to continue to trust in Christ, so that we will not be ashamed when He comes. We are to trust in Him so that He will produce experiential righteousness within us.

Starting in 1 John 3:1, John pauses, stating, “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.” The idea here is that this love is so utterly foreign to anything observable in the universe. Jesus died for wicked enemies—the great exchange—and now our heavenly Father calls us the sons of God. Here, the context is not that of sons and being heirs, though we see that elsewhere (ex. Romans 8:14, Galatians 4:7). Here we are children, meaning His offspring, but also that we are not full grown. We will see how in 1 John 3:2. We are after His kind (cf. Genesis 1), and are connected to Him as our children are genetically connected to us.

Now being children of God, the world “knoweth us not.” Having been born again into the family of God, the world does not get it. For example, our values and our views are not the same as the world’s values and views. When we talk with people who are not Christians, we talk past each other, because we do not understand each others’ ways. We are foreigners and sojourners here in this world.

Being children, it is also not clear what we will be when we are fully grown (1 John 3:2). We know that we will be like Him, yet even the apostle John does not know the depths of what all that entails. Philippians 3 discusses this mystery similarly. The flesh will be gone and we will be with Jesus... these things in themselves is a beautiful thought.

If one has the hope of the rapture as discussed in 3:2, he “purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” The motivation comes from within from the anointing of the Holy Spirit (cf. 2:27). He is pure, and we are motivated to be pure because He is pure. This is a sobering thought: that we would be like Him and pure like Him. This is motivation to trust in Christ and depart from sin, which is contrary to the heretics that were preaching that sin in one’s life does not matter. Though we are pure in our position in Christ, we also are to be experientially pure. As we live by faith and by this hope of Christ’s appearing, the source of our life, Jesus Christ, will be apparent in our lives.

For 1 John 3:4-10, we now see two cycles of a discussion on sin and on Christ: We see the source and nature of sin (3:4, 3:8a), what Christ came to do (3:5, 3:8b), and what we can conclude from what Christ has done (3:6-7, 3:9-10).

In 3:4, we see that sin is “transgression of the law.” This phrase is rather curious, because there is no real reference to the Mosaic Law in this context. The idea here is just simply “lawlessness.” This means that as sinners we have rejected God and His law. Every time we sin, we reject God and make ourselves our own law and our own god. Every sin indicates lack of faith and doing things are own way.

Jesus, however, was “manifested to take away our sins” (3:5, see Matthew 1:21). He did not merely intend to declare us righteous, but also to make us righteous. He did more than to save us from the fires of Hell, the penalty of sin. He also came to free us from the power of sin. He came to take away sin from us, just as there is no sin in Him.

Here is where we get into the conclusion we can draw from our discussion on sin and on Jesus’ work: “Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him” (3:6). Now there is a limitation of language here that we need to address. Here, we are not talking about believers not sinning at all. The idea is that of continuing in sin. Moreover, the word “abideth,” though the same word as elsewhere, is not the conditional commandment as we see in the Upper Room discourse. This just means a regular believer. In other words, Christians will not continually sin. If someone just regularly sins with no conscience does not “know him.” They do not have the hope of the rapture in 3:2-3. They do not know that Christ came to take away our sins. Such a heretic (see Romans 3:8; 6:1) needs to be born again, and has a religion built upon the flesh.

Moreover, we read in 1 John 3:7: “Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.” Those who continually do righteous things are saved, not because of the works, but because Christ is their source of life. This segues into the next cycle and is an allusion to 1 John 2:29. It reminds us of Christ as our source of life, and how we can identify true believers from Gnostic heretics.

Now we begin the second cycle in 1 John 3:8. We first see more of the source of sin. Those who continually sin are from the devil, and the source of their sin is from the devil. Jesus rebukes the religious leaders of the day in John 8:44: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”

An interesting note is that “the devil sinneth from the beginning.” I believe that Satan literally did sin from the beginning, within the first 24 hours of the creation of the world. Consider Genesis 1:1-2: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:1-2). The words “without form, and void” indicate judgment had taken place, since the words are used together in passages of judgment (Isaiah 34:11, Jeremiah 4:23). Those who adhere to theistic evolution and the gap theory would probably indicate there was some pre-Adamic race. However, since the creation of the spirit world was not recorded in Genesis 1, the logical conclusion is that this is judgment on Satan and those who followed him. Also, the water being subdued by the Holy Spirit is also similar to Genesis 8:1, where a wind from God subdues the waters of the Noahic flood (the word for ‘spirit’ and for ‘wind’ is the same ). This postulate may not be entirely without problems, but 1 John 3:8 seems to affirm that Satan did really fall in the beginning.

In the second half of 3:8, we see that Christ came to destroy the devil’s works. This is not theoretical or even positional for the believer; Jesus came to really destroy those works. If He destroys Satan’s works, whose ways are left? Only the work of God remains, because everything that is not from God is from the devil.

Lastly, in 1 John 3:9, we can conclude: “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” If someone if born of God, he does not continually sin, because of this “seed.” What is this seed? First, it could be the Word of God. In 1 Peter 1:23, we read that we are “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.” We also could argue that this is the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 1:22). Either way, the source of our life is from God Himself, and this anointing will not allow us to perpetuate in sin; with rod and staff He will discipline us and guide us. John reminds us that we were born of Him, as we saw in 3:1.

First John 3:10 reads, “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.” This is the purpose statement for the discussion of the previous verses: you can tell who was legitimately born again, and who was not, by whether they continuously sin without conscience or whether they do not.

Now, I do want to be cautious when I say this. The tendency may be to go on a witch hunt, placing everyone’s works under a microscope to see if they are ‘really’ saved. There are times people are backslidden. The people we should really be wary of are those in teaching positions that teach living in the flesh does not matter. Today, these teachings are no longer called Gnostic, but your prosperity preachers and others who preach Christ as a means to fulfill personal desires do fall into this category.

From here, we see that the discussion switches to loving the brethren is a token sign of those who truly believe, but that is for another day.