Bible Synapse
Do those born of God still sin?
Hard question · Salvation and the Christian life · raised by 4 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
Solomon’s prayer: ‘there is no man that sinneth not’.
If they sin against thee, (for there is no man that sinneth not,) and thou be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captives unto the land of the enemy, far or near;
There is not a just man on earth who does good and never sins.
For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.
If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves; if we confess, God forgives; if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
Whoever abides in Christ does not sin; whoever is born of God does not commit sin and cannot 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.
Whoever is born of God does not sin; he keeps himself, and the evil one does not touch him.
We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not.
The objection
Solomon says “there is no man that sinneth not”, and John writes that if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves. But the same letter of John says “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin”, and even that he “cannot sin”. Do believers sin or not?
The answer
John holds both statements together in one short letter, a few paragraphs apart, so he cannot mean them to contradict each other. In 1:8-2:1 he says that believers do sin and must confess it: “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father”. In 3:6-9 he describes the settled direction of a life. The Greek verbs there are in the present tense, which in this context speaks of ongoing, habitual action: the one born of God does not make a practice of sin and cannot go on sinning. The Berean Standard Bible translates it so: “Anyone born of God refuses to practice sin, because God’s seed abides in him; he cannot go on sinning”. The reason John gives is new birth: God’s ‘seed’, his life planted in the believer, makes a life given over to sin impossible.
The context shows what John is opposing. Some in the churches claimed to know God while living in sin and hating their brothers, and John says plainly that such conduct shows whose children they are (3:7-10). So Solomon and John agree that everyone sins. John adds that those born of God do not go on living in sin, and that when they do sin they confess it and are forgiven through Christ.
Other answers Christians give
The new nature
Some older interpreters read 3:9 of the new nature: what is born of God in the believer does not sin, although the believer still struggles with the old nature (compare Romans 7:14-25).
A particular sin
Others note that John defines the sin in view as lawlessness (3:4) and ties it to hatred of the brethren (3:10-15): the deliberate rebellion of the false teachers, not every failing.
Christian perfection
John Wesley and the Methodist tradition taught that believers may be freed in this life from wilful, known sin, while still needing Christ’s forgiveness for unintended faults.
Still open
Scholars agree that John is not teaching sinless perfection, but they debate how much weight the present tense can bear, since John also uses present-tense forms for a believer’s occasional sin (5:16).
From the classic commentators
This passage must either mean that they who are born of God, that is, who are true Christians, do not sin habitually and characteristically, or that everyone who is a true Christian is absolutely perfect, and never commits any sin.Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible: 1 John 3, at Bible Hub
Sources
- Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible: 1 John 3, at Bible Hub
- John Gill, Exposition of the Bible: 1 John 3, at Bible Hub
- Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary: 1 John 3, at Bible Hub