John has
already dropped a theological bomb on our collective senses in the first three
verses of chapter 3 by pointing us to the incredible bewildering enormity of
the Father’s love for us. Now beginning
in verse 4 he switches into the second movement of this three part harmony of
seeing with spiritual sight; that we are cleansed by Christ.
But before
John discusses what Christ has done he clarifies the nature of the enemy the
Lord came to earth to defeat; sin. Verse
4 gives us the picture: Everyone who
practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. Everyone is an excellent translation. The Greek word “pas” has both an individual
(each, every, or all) and a collective (some of all types) definition. But the context here in verse 4 makes it
clear that it is the individual sense of “pas” that John is using. It would be ludicrous to assert that only
some of the people who are guilty of sin are also guilty of lawlessness. John ensures that we understand that by
clarifying that sin is literally equal or the same as lawlessness. If sin is the equivalent of lawlessness then
it is entirely accurate to state that when sin occurs lawlessness also occurs
in equal measure. Therefore, anyone who
practices sin is practicing lawlessness.
I’d like to
camp on the word lawlessness for just a minute.
A dictionary definition of it is probably immediately obvious to us: the
quality or state of being unrestrained by law; disorder. But what does lawlessness mean beyond this
lexical definition? To get at this I
would like to lead with a correlating question: what is law? The word law comes from the root word
lay. So a law is that which is laid,
set, or fixed. It is an absolute. In the context of a nation state laws are
rules prescribed by the state for the regulation of the actions of its
citizens.
But if we
move beyond that realm to the sphere of universal laws set forth by God from
the point of creation we realize something else. Namely, that God’s laws exist to provide an
explanation of the intended function of something. God designed the law of gravity because He
intended that planetary bodies be capable of holding objects on their surface
so as to prevent them from drifting off into space. If gravity on earth were to be somehow
disrupted then our planet would not be functioning as intended. Similarly, God set forth a law or a rule that
mankind would be image bearers designed to show forth His glory alongside of
and ultimately in a more superior way to the rest of creation. Granted, we don’t normally think of the
creation of man as being tied to a law.
But in terms of a law being a fixed statute or rule it is no less a law
than the 2nd law of thermodynamics or the 1st law of
motion.
Now then, we
have already seen that the quality or state of being lawless indicates an
absence of law. That is fairly
obvious. But when we take that principle
and apply it to our subject in 1st John 3, of God’s laws and their understood
implication of natural function and intended design then a relevant correlating
truth emerges. Lawlessness indicates a
malfunction or a corruption of something’s natural function and intended
design. So in effect, what John is
giving us here in verse 4 is a view of sin as being not just rebellion, not
just evil, but an actual and tangible distortion of reality. Sin is far more deadly and insidious than
just a breaking of the rules. It is a
corrupting pestilence that twists and perverts and undermines the natural
fabric of the created universe.
With that in
mind, let’s move back and look at the word translated “practices”, as in
“everyone who practices sin”. The
Greek is “poieo” and it means to make or to do.
It has both the idea of producing or being the cause of something as
well as rightly executing a course of action well. Consider the following ways it is used from
the gospel of John. Chapter 2 verse 5
reads: His mother said to the servants,
“Whatever He says to you, do it.”
Mary wanted the servants to carry out Jesus’s instructions exactly,
efficiently, and quickly. On the other
hand, in verse 15 of the same chapter we find that: He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple. Christ, with His own hands, with skill and
determination, and with awareness of His actions, methodically invested the
time and effort into making a whip out of the materials at hand. He literally produced a scourge that did not
previously exist before He came along that day.
What does
this tell us about the pattern of behavior exhibited by those John is
describing? It narrates a chilling
tale. We are to understand that these
people are careful and deliberate in their sinning. They have full awareness and understanding of
what they are doing and they do it anyhow.
They produce through their own efforts acts of sin that did not
previously exist in the world. They are
thorough and deliberate in their pattern of lawless behavior that twists and
corrupts and distorts the intended function of their own bodies as well as the
envisioned design of the created order they come into contact with. This is the very face of evil, plastered
across the faces and trailing in the wake of those in rebellion against
God. Ruined lives, failed relationships,
miserable existences, and ultimately a bleak death and a lonely,
terror-stricken eternity are the results of the pattern of behavior John is
describing for us.
It is
against this backdrop of horror that the Lord Jesus appeared as John relates in
verse 5: You know that He appeared in
order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin. “You know” is in the perfect tense. This means it came into being in the past but
has continuing effects and results that persist into the present and
beyond. We have known prior to reading
John’s letter that Christ appeared to defeat death and destroy sin’s hold over
humanity. And that knowledge continues
to have tangible implications in our lives even to this present hour. If the incarnation of Jesus Christ for the
purpose of reversing the corruption and decay of God’s creation is not a
prominent center-piece of your life on a daily basis, then John wants you to
take his reminder to heart and be transformed anew again and again as you move
forward.
As we
process the truth of Christ’s mission on earth there is a critical element we
need to understand in order to more fully appreciate what He accomplished. When John says that He appeared in order to
“take away” sins, there is a very specific idea he has in mind. The Greek word “airo”, translated here as
“take away” does not simply mean to do away with as I think the English phrase
take away conveys. To “airo” something
is to raise it up, to elevate it into the air, and then to bear away what has
been lifted. It is to take upon one’s
self a burden and then carry it. Turning
once again to John’s gospel, notice how he uses the same word in John 5:8-9: Jesus said to him, “Get up, pick up
your pallet and walk.” Immediately the
man became well, and picked up his pallet and began to walk. The pallet of this man was a burden he had to
physically lift up and carry away. Jesus
did not offer to do it for him. The
bearing of this burden served as a visual indicator of his healing that would
have been obvious to anyone seeing him who knew that he had been previously lame.
Conversely,
in John 10:24 we read: The Jews then
gathered around Him, and were saying to Him, “How long will You keep us
in suspense?” The meaning of the
unbelieving Jews was that Christ was responsible for forcibly preventing them
from understanding. They felt that He was
actively opposing their illumination by keeping His identity a secret.
So when we
go back to 1st John 3:5 and read that Jesus appeared in order to
“take away” sins we need to realign our thinking. John does not mean that Jesus did battle with
sin, gave it a resounding smack down, and sent it packing back to its corner of
the cosmos. Christ literally picked it
up bodily with His own two hands, loaded the burden onto His shoulders, and
proceeded to haul it away from us physically while weighted down with the mass
of all the corruption, pestilence, and decay that is implicit in the nature of
sin and lawlessness.
“But how can
this be?” an astute reader of John’s letter might ask. Remember back in chapter 1 verse 8 and
10? John plainly told us that we
continue to exist in both a state of sinfulness and are guilty of ongoing acts
of sin. Not only that but he went so far
as to say that we are bald faced liars if we claim such. And to add insult to injury he told us that
we even make God out to be a liar with such false claims. So how can John now turn around and state
that Jesus took away our sin?
Remember
exactly what John is describing in this passage. He is talking about a glorying in sin. It is a willing and intentional production of
sin that is in view here. It is an
unrepentant and arrogant desecration of the natural order of God’s
creation. Such a pattern of behavior
does not at all describe a Christian. If
it does describe you then you are not an authentic Christian. It’s as simple as that.
Finally,
notice the phrase at the end of the verse: and in Him there is no sin. If we think logically about what John said
just before this, we might come to the conclusion that since Jesus carried off
our sin that it remains with Him still.
John wants to be sure we do not make this mistake of logic. And so he adds to the image being painted in
our mind’s eye. After taking away our
sin into the far reaches of spiritual reality, Christ did not stop there. He removed the sin from us, took it out of
the equation, and then He proceeded to eradicate it from existence. It remains with Him no more resulting in His
continued state of sinless perfection.
This is
exactly what makes verse 6 true: No one
who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. Christ has physically carted away the sins of
a person who has been brought into fellowship with Him, has regenerated them
into new spiritual life, and has sent them a helper of no less importance than
His own Spirit to be with them continually.
How can such a person, after having been united with the Godhead in this
personal and intimate manner, engage in the practice and pattern of behavior
described in verse 4? It is unthinkable
and utterly impossible. By the same
token then, one who does engage in the persistent, intentional, and personal
sin of verse 4 cannot possibly see Christ or know Him precisely because He has
not born the burden of their sin away from them and destroyed it.
There is yet
a further point to be seen here. And
it’s a doozy. John says that those who
sin can neither see Christ nor know Him.
John is covering the whole range of possibilities relating to
understanding with these two words.
Physical sight is in view as is mental vision. And layered on top of this perception is
understanding or comprehension. Now, if
unbelievers are incapable of this then the implication for believers is that they
are in the reverse condition. Believers
can both see Christ and know Him intimately.
But here is
my question. What exactly is it that
redeemed people are seeing? Jesus does
not reside physically on earth at the present time. His life is a matter of recorded history
removed from us by two millennia of chronological separation. My answer is that what we “see” when we
behold the Christ is His works. Consider
John 14:10: Do you not believe that I am
in the Father, and the Father is in Me?
The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the
Father abiding in Me does His works.
It is the works that Jesus did that remain as a lasting testament to who
He is. It is these that enable us to
know and understand Him when they are viewed through the lens of the indwelling
Spirit of God. So we could say quite
accurately that Christ’s works reveal who He is.
Perhaps you
already see where I am going with this.
But in case you don’t here it is.
Just as the works of Jesus display for all to see His attributes and His
nature, so do ours. Jesus said it
Himself in Matthew 7:20-21: So then, you
will know them by their fruits. Not
everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he
who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. If you are laboring under the foolish notion
that because you are saved by grace through faith and not works (Eph. 2:8-9) it
doesn’t matter how you live, then you need to give heed to this. The conduct and manner in which a professing
Christian lives, while not qualifying them for salvation, is critically
important as a visible evidence of their salvation.
And this is
not a grudging or joyless discipline of life where you mercilessly divest
yourself of all the “fun” you could be having in order to live a life that is
glorifying to God. No, when you are
truly born again and you begin to grasp the enormity of what God has done for
you through the cleansing of Christ, there is only one appropriate response;
heartfelt gratitude. I cannot state it
any better than King David in Psalm 28:7: The
Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him, and I am helped;
therefore my heart exults, and with my song I shall thank Him. Your heart should leap inside your chest when
you consider the providence and grace of God.
Your life should overflow with good works not out of obligation but out
of gratitude. This is why John has
written the first ten verses of this chapter.
He is eager for you to gain a new appreciation and vision for the glory
of God in both our rebirth in Him and our purification in Christ.
With that we
come to the final movement of this three part harmony and spiritual eye
examination. John is going to build upon
what he has already covered as he presents us with an image of our enemy. Verse 7 begins the journey with a warning and
a restatement of verse 6: Little
children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is
righteous, just as He is righteous. The
first thing to note is John’s admonition against deception. He uses a word, “planao”, that means to be
led astray or wander. There is a solid
biblical metaphor of sheep that is very appropriate to consider at this point.
In Matthew
18:12-14 Jesus uses an example of wandering sheep to display the fervor with
which God goes after the lost of this world.
The sheep in His illustration has wandered away from the herd. Think about that. Did anyone force the sheep to leave? Did a rival sheep turn a sign upside down so
it pointed the other way, as in old cartoon comedies? Of course not. This wayward sheep, under its own power and
initiative, with full (albeit limited) understanding of what it was doing,
decided to walk away from the safety and security of the herd and the
shepherd. It is without question the
sheep’s own fault that it is now lost.
Applying the
same idea to Israel in Hebrews 3:10 God says: “Therefore I was angry with this generation, and said, ‘They always go
astray in their heart, and they did not know My ways’.” You had better believe the rebellious
Israelites knew exactly what they were doing when they rejected the God of
their salvation in Egypt.
John says to
us not to be like the stupid sheep or the stubborn Israelites. He just got done telling us in chapter 2
verse 27 that we have an anointing of the Holy Spirit which enables us to know
the truth instinctively. So he
reiterates here to not be blind to the obvious.
The practice of righteousness is synonymous with the state of being
righteous. If an animal looks and smells
like a pig it is probably a pig. And if
a flower looks and smells like a rose it is probably a rose.
This is in
stark contrast to the evildoer mentioned in verse 4. John uses the same word, “poieo”, translated
here as practice, to describe the righteous.
The wicked person produces sin and lawlessness. In the same manner the righteous person
produces righteousness. It springs forth
out of them. They delight in doing
right. It is their joy to have an opportunity
to honor their God by copying His character qualities. They do not see the performance of right
actions that demonstrate holiness as a burden.
Rather, they see such a lifestyle as a profound privilege and honor.
Not yet
content to leave the point alone, John proceeds into verse 8 where he once
again gives us a portrait of the sinner.
But this time he ups the ante and adds an additional nuance to the
image: the one who practices sin is of
the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. We have already seen that the one who
practices sin also practices lawlessness.
John has also told us that this person cannot abide in Christ and thus
they neither perceive nor understand Him.
Now is added the final and perhaps most damning layer of
condemnation. The practitioner of sin
issues forth from the devil himself.
The
particularly interesting point here is the word that we translate into devil in
English. In Greek it is “diabolos”. It is an adjective rather than a noun and it
means literally “prone to slander or accusing falsely”. We know that the devil is a liar. Jesus described him this way to the Jews in John
8:44: You are of your father the devil,
and you want to do the desires of your father.
He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth
because there is no truth in him.
Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a
liar and the father of lies.
But the
devil’s crime is far worse than just lying.
To slander someone is to tell these lies about them, or even to accuse
them of committing crimes they are innocent of.
This begs the question; who does he slander? The Bible answers back: none other than God
Himself. First he slandered God to
Himself by desiring to raise his throne above that of Gods, thus implying that
he was more worthy of rule than God was (Isaiah 14:13). Then he slandered God to Eve by blatantly
calling into question God’s integrity (Genesis 3:4-5). Finally, he slandered God right to His own
face by telling Him that the kingdoms of the world were his to dispense and not
Gods (Matthew 4:8-9). As John has
stated, the devil has sinning from the beginning. He is guilty of defamation of character on a
global scale that transcends recorded human history.
As an aside,
it occurs to me that Satan is quite literally insane. He is disconnected and detached from
reality. He must be crazy to have actually
thought that he could successfully tempt God Himself with such lies.
So, the very
name that the Bible gives him is actually not even a proper name. It is a descriptor, painting a picture for us
of what he does. The implication then
for those who practice sin, being of him, is that they are guilty of the same
crime. Remember that sin is a
distortion, a perversion, a corruption of the natural design that God
implemented at creation. Thus the one
who sins is a liar on a primal and profound level. Even without words their works proclaim the
message of falsehood that they glory in along with their father the devil.
Even worse
for this bunch is the fact that they stand in direct opposition to Christ. In other words, they are on the wrong side in
the fight. Verse 8 continues: The Son of God appeared for this purpose,
to destroy the works of the devil.
The works of the devil are the lies and the distortions of God and what
He has made. Thus it logically follows
that, as we learned in verse 5, God was manifested to the world in Christ for
the purpose of removing sin from the elect.
So because this sin is literally the handiwork of Satan it is his house
of cards that was destroyed by the resurrection.
Continuing
the theme of contrasts John supplies us with verse 9 to once again turn our
attention back from the darkness of sin to the light of God: No one who is born of God practices sin,
because His seed abides in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. Having already looked at verse 6 this new
angle on the same issue should not be a great leap for us. So why did John feel the need to restate
almost the same idea again in a different way?
I think he realized that our frail minds would tend to downplay or
marginalize the truth of our exalted position in Christ. Our probable pattern of behavior is to doubt
as Thomas did, to fear as Peter did, and to be arrogant as John himself
was. Although as has been stated,
through Christ we have been freed from the practice or systematic production of
sin we are still vulnerable to bouts of sin.
John knows
this and he wants to catch our attention and fix our hope not on ourselves but
on God. It is God who prevents us from
continuing in the practice of sin that John has been talking about in this
passage. It is only because of our
adoption into His family that we are capable of resisting the ever present
allure of the slander of the devil. A
human child shares biological traits with their father due to his seed, his
DNA, and his genetics being what they are made of. So it is with those who are spiritually born
of God. It is God’s “blood” that now
flows through our veins. It is God’s
“DNA” that was used as the blueprint to construct our own. It is God’s “family tree” that we have
inherited. Of course we cannot continue
in the practice of sin.
In fact, if
a Christian were to claim that they remain in the practice of sin as John
presents it here, consider that they are really saying. They are in effect implying that God’s own
seed is full of the corruption of the devil.
This is in no way shape or form something a true child of God should
believe. It is an unrighteous defamation
of God’s own character reminiscent of the devil. And such unrighteousness is the ultimate
litmus test of which army you are a soldier of, which team you are playing for,
and which family you are in. John closes
with verse 10: By this the children of
God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness
is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.
This is
somewhat of a repeat of verse 7. As we
have seen, righteous deeds demonstrate righteous character. Conversely, unrighteous deeds demonstrate
unrighteous character. So the commission
or omission of righteousness is critically important for making assessments of
who is born of God and who is born of the devil. Therefore we need to be sure we are clear on
what righteousness looks like.
Defining it
is fairly easy. Righteousness is simply
doing what is right. It is the visible
evidence of holiness. Holiness is the
state of being pure, unique, or set apart in emulation of God’s own character. Therefore righteousness is the doing of
actions that are pure, unique, or set apart just as God’s actions are. But what does that actually look like on a
daily and practical level?
John
provides us with the answer right here in verse 10. If the one who does not practice
righteousness does not love then it stands to reason that the one who does
practice righteousness also loves. John
just couldn’t resist going back to his favorite topic could he? He has been pounding the need for love
throughout chapter 2. And he is carrying
that strong tradition right on into chapter 3.
It is love that is the visible evidence of our righteousness and it is
the absence of love that is the visible evidence of our unrighteousness.
Love is so
critically important in the life of a Christian that it absolutely cannot be
overstated. It is the basis of all evangelism,
in that the evangelist both loves God and wants to accomplish His purposes and
also loves people and wants to see their souls saved and reconciled to
God. Love is the basis of strong
marriages, in that the husband and wife who are joined to each other must
reciprocate sacrificial behavior toward each other. In so doing they both provide for each
other’s needs without ever selfishly focusing on their own and they build a
foundation of trust and intimacy that can weather the fiercest storms encountered. Love is the basis of strong churches, in that
the brothers and sisters in Christ who gather together follow the example of
their head, Christ, in putting the needs of others before their own. In this way the attacks of Satan against the
church are immediately reflected back in his face because there is no soil for
them to take root in.
Let me be
perfectly clear as John is clear. If you
do not love then you are not righteous, you are not born of God, and you are
not a Christian.
With this
opening passage of chapter 3 John has given us a glimpse into the reality that
we live in. He has opened the eyes of
our heart and given us sight beyond sight.
He has affirmed for us that we are born of God and will be transformed
when we can see Him clearly. He has
warned us of the great danger of corruption and perversion of our natural
functions that is bound up in the lawlessness of sin. He has reminded us of the great and mighty
cleansing work of Christ in bearing away from us the burden of this terrible
sin. And he has pointed out the need for
righteousness as the proof of who is in God and who is not, who stands opposed
to Satan and who does not. The question
that I think looms large in the air for us at this point is the following. Are you a slanderer like the devil? Is your very life standing as a resounding
testament to your false accusations against the character of God Almighty?
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