The New Testament letters, for the most part, were written to address threats—to help believers stay true to the faith and not succumb to persecution or fall away. But 1 John is a bit different in that it was written a few decades later, as he was the only one of Jesus’ followers didn’t die an untimely and premature death. The persecution had ebbed and wasn’t the issue it was a few decades earlier. So while his letter was written to address a threat, it was a bit of a different threat. The threat didn’t lie in people renouncing their faith because of hostility. The threat lie in people becoming complacent or trying to improve the faith—fine tune it a bit or bring it into alignment with current philosophy and thinking at the expense of orthodoxy and truth.
If anything was going to undermine the faith of John’s audience, it was the fact they were second or third generation believers who’d settled into the routine of Christian living … who were removed from the exciting events of the church’s founding … people who might be tempted to treat their faith in a more casual fashion because the thrill had diminished. They were people who, as John sized them up, might be seduced by teaching which, under the guise of trying to make the faith more intellectually respectable, really served to sabotage it.
So … John wrote. Even though up in years, he’d never lost the fervor of his devotion to Christ. His personal memories of Jesus’ earthly ministry sustained him and kept his passion white hot. He wrote words of warning … words of encouragement … words of rebuke and assurance. Even though the text gives us no clue as to who his intended audience was—1 John has no opening address or closing greeting like we find in Paul’s letters—you can’t help but see, from the tone of his letter, his love and concern for the people he’s writing to. He often refers to them as “dear children”. And those who’d mishandle the gospel and teach truths that would lead people astray are labeled as “antichrists”, “liars”, and “children of the devil”. John has no tolerance for those who’d distort or misrepresent Jesus’ teaching. He hates anything that would cripple or injure the legacy left by his Lord.
But when John comes to the end of the letter—after sounding the various warnings and issuing a call to stay true to the lifestyle and substance of what Jesus taught—he highlights in the last few verses a series of “triumphant certainties” … truths that are not merely intellectual convictions, but blessings and benefits he believes are open and available to every person who confesses faith in Jesus. He points out three life-shaping tenets he holds to be the right and privilege of every believer, and they each begin with the words, “We know …”.
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. We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. (1 John 5:18-20, NIV)
In this series of posts, I want us consider these statements and see what exactly John is saying is available to us as followers of Jesus … what we can know and what can be part and parcel of our lives. The first one is found in v. 18 which says:
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.
I don’t know about you, but those “not continuing to sin” words trip me up a bit. For there’s a sense when that isn’t my Christian experience at all. I still struggle with sin. Even after more than fifty years of walking with Jesus, the Holy Spirit still points out areas of my life where I’m falling short and need to come under His lordship. I don’t always obey Him as readily as I should. My prayer life has peaks and valleys. I’m not always the husband or father I want to be. I look at those words about “not continuing to sin” and I say, “Hey, that hasn’t been my experience”. When Jesus came into my life, he didn’t put me on one of those moving walkways like you find in airports to where you can move forward and make your way through the terminal by just standing there and not putting forth any effort. Maybe it’s one of the paradoxes of the Christian faith, but it seems to me that the more like God I long to be, the more aware of how unlike Him—of how profoundly sinful—I really am.
And while I’m aware of God’s ongoing, abiding presence that shelters me and keeps me safe, I can’t say that I’m spiritually impregnable to where Satan has never been able to harm me. He has! I’ve taken some hard hits, and I’ve got the regrets and scars to prove it.
So—what is John talking about when he says those who’ve been born of God not continuing to sin … that Satan won’t be able to touch them? The place to begin in answering that question is by asking another one: What is John getting at when he talks about people who are “born of God?” There’s an encounter early in Jesus’ ministry—John 3—and an exchange he had with a man named Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a higher-up in the Jewish religious hierarchy—a Pharisee—a man who, all his life, had believed salvation was a matter of upholding the traditions and having the right pedigree. But when he came to quiz Jesus as to His beliefs about how a person could be in right standing with God, Jesus answered him by saying, “No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again” (John 3:3, NIV).
This answer puzzled Nicodemus. He was confused and unclear as to what Jesus meant. But in that answer, Jesus set forth something that differentiates Christianity from every other belief system—namely, the concept of regeneration ... rebirth ... a life-transforming experience which makes someone a child of God in a way they weren’t previously. To a man locked into an understanding of righteousness based on what he did or didn’t do, Jesus said salvation wasn’t a matter of doing the right things or having the right heritage but, rather, a matter of opening yourself up to God’s presence and letting Him step into your life and radically re-orient and transform the essence of who you are. Nicodemus had gone through life thinking salvation was expressed by your outward behavior, but Jesus shared with him that salvation was, fundamentally, an inside job—something that took place inside of you and consequently sculpted and shaped your life on the outside.
Also, in the initial verses of his gospel, John is like the composer of a symphony. If you’ve ever listened to a symphony, you know that quite often the piece begins with a simple statement of the theme or melody that will be developed, expanded, and embellished throughout. That’s more or less how John begins his gospel: In these first few verses, he pulls together some of the main threads and points of Jesus’ teaching that will punctuate his account of Jesus’ life and significance. And he says in v. 12, “Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” Becoming a child of God—the logical consequence of our being born—is mediated and received on the basis of faith.
And in this verse we’re focused on at the end of his first epistle, he says the person who has expressed this faith—who has received this new life from God and undergone this radical internal re-working of their life—"does not continue to sin”. Again—that has not been my experience. I can’t claim that, once Jesus entered my life, I became spiritually invincible … that I’ve never faltered or had to come back and ask for forgiveness about things. So the question is, “How do we reconcile this statement about the person being born of God not continuing to sin with our collective life experience?” Perhaps the best way to do it is to revisit the analogy Jesus used—the analogy of birth. Jesus likened the internal transformation that takes place in a person’s life to being born.
When you and I came into this world, we came with all the possibilities and potential that are part of our lives right now. Every talent, ability, and aptitude was present at the time of our birth. Now those talents weren’t developed—they hadn’t been nurtured or refined in any way. But they were there. And it was through living that they emerged—we learned to walk, talk, write, and dress ourselves … we learned to read, play guitar, fix things, and do whatever it is we do. Now, this process wasn’t without its share of mistakes and failings. We didn’t learn to walk w/out falling down and scraping our knee or bumping our head a time or two along the way. But the fact of the matter is, as we went through life, we systematically learned these skills to where, today, we’ve hopefully mastered them—or at least we’ve made enough progress to where there’s a measure of competence and we don’t make the same mistakes over and over again.
By the same token, there’s a sense in which this same process applies to the new life God plants in us at the time of our conversion. Growth has to take place and, in the growth process, there will be slip-ups. There are going to be occasions when we fall into old habit patterns and this new life doesn’t express itself as completely as we’d like. In many ways, the Christian life is a working out of that which Christ has worked in ... the systematic dissemination of this kernel of godliness in ever deeper and ever more transforming ways. Even though the general direction of the growth curve is up, there are going to be peaks and valleys along the way.
So, what exactly is John saying with these words about the person who is born of God not continuing to sin? 1 John 3:9 says, “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them.” In this verse, he uses that same “not continuing to sin” language. But in 1 John 5:16—just a couple of verses before the one we’re looking at today—John says, “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.”. As I think about these verses side-by-side, I wonder why would John imply that part of our responsibility as participants in the Body of Christ is to come around and support those that slip up and sin if sin is not supposed to be a part of the life of the person who’s born of God? Why would he say in one place, “If anyone sees a brother in a sin ...”, and in another, “Whoever is born of God does not sin”? Those two statements seem totally incongruous. It’s as if he’s talking out of both sides of his mouth.
Here’s what I believe John is getting at: Being born of God does not mean we’ll never, ever sin. Being born of God does not cause temptation to lose its force to where we’re no longer capable of sin. Spiritual birth doesn’t eradicate our free will and the fact we can make wrong or destructive choices. Being born of God means there is now a power within us—a life-principle is now a part of our life—that is sinless. And as we allow it to exert ever-increasing influence over us—as we cooperate with it and permit it to move through our life and have sway over our being—we’ll find that it increasingly shapes and transforms us in ways to where we bear an ever-increasing resemblance to the One who placed it there.
The thing John declares to be victorious and sinless is not us but, rather, this power God places within us at the time of our spiritual rebirth. For He places within us the sinless substance of His Son Jesus. And as we co-operate with this power and allow it to shape, inform, and infuse our lives, we discover an increasing ability to defeat the temptations and enticements that come our way and would trip us up.
The Church of the Nazarene is a holiness church ... which means, simply, we believe God’s grace—from the moment we avail ourselves to it and welcome it into our life—is constantly about the process of transforming us. It’s always at work shaping, crafting, and forging in us a likeness to Jesus. But we also believe that, at some point, we move from a relationship with God fueled by self-driven motives to a relationship fueled by gratitude and love.
When you and I first came to God we did so, primarily, on the basis of what we wanted Him to do for us. We wanted him to remove our guilt, forgive our sin, deliver us from hell and qualify us for heaven. We wanted God to correct something that had gone wrong and wipe the slate clean. We wanted Him to do something about our past. But as we matured in Christ and became more aware of His love for us, we found a corresponding love growing in our heart for Him. And with time a change took place in our thinking. Our focus was not so much on fixing and remedying our past as it was on recognizing the remarkable work He’s done and, on that basis, yielding ourselves up and entrusting Him with our future.
And this process is to continue for as long as we live. The life to which God calls us is not some stable state; it’s dynamic and ever-changing. God’s grace is meant to continue working in us for as long as we live. There’s no cutoff point or line of demarcation we cross to where we can put our vehicle on cruise control. We never arrive until our days on this planet are over. There is no limit to the extent to which our being can be penetrated by the presence God has placed within us. There are always new issues to address, new challenges to confront, and new matters to face up to.
So, this continuing sensation of sin—this ongoing awareness of how profoundly unlike God we are—isn’t an indication that God’s grace has failed and isn’t doing what it’s supposed to do. It’s not a signal there’s something faulty or defective about us or our connection with God. I contend the exact opposite. It’s a clear sign that His grace is at work—confronting, exposing, and uprooting sin—progressively pointing out and purging anything in us that is unlike God and forging in us the character of His Son Jesus.
That’s what, it seems to me, John is saying here. As we go through life and, at every opportunity, open ourselves up to God, there’s a sense in which the tendency and proneness to sin is progressively removed from our life. That’s not to say we can’t sin or won’t sin. But it is to say we need not sin. And it’s also to say that on those occasions when we do slip up—or when God points out to us some area of our life that’s not in keeping with His best for us—we won’t continue down that path. We acknowledge it, repent of it, and move forward. We don’t repeat our failures or find ourselves trapped in a snare to where we repeatedly sin. As we yield up those areas and dimensions of ourselves to God, He does a work in us that enables us to chart a new course. And as we walk in faith and obedience, the one who’s living in us will keep us in such a way to where Satan won’t be able to victimize us. John himself said as much 1 John 1:7: “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”
Here’s the certainty: If we live by faith and walk in obedience, we will break the sinning habit. We may lose a battle or two along the way. We may slip up and fall short from time to time. But as Jesus continues to be at work in our lives, He will see to it that we don’t lose the war! For we are living in alliance with the One who subdued and conquered sin, and he has placed his sin-defeating power within us.