Continuing in 1 John chapter 3, the previous focus was verses 4–10 concerning sin. The passage does not teach that believers never sin. It distinguishes between one who continually practices sin and one who, once saved, has something working against that pattern. Present tenses describe ongoing, characteristic action. The one abiding in Him is not sinning. Whoever is sinning has not seen Him nor known Him, the perfect tense indicating a past event whose result does not continue into the present. The one doing righteousness is righteous even as He is righteous. The one doing sin is of the devil, for the devil sins from the beginning. The Son of God was manifested to destroy the works of the devil. Whoever is born of God does not commit sin, for His seed remains in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God. In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: whoever is not doing righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.
The structure of 1 John is cyclical. Topics are revisited and expanded. The focus moves to being born of God and regeneration, together with what is said about the world. Six occurrences of being born of God appear in 1 John. In 2:29, everyone doing righteousness is born of Him (the Father). In 3:9, everyone born of God is not doing sin because His seed abides in him and he is not able to sin because he has been born of God. In 4:7, everyone who is loving is born of God and knows God. In 5:1, whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. In 5:4, whatever is born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that overcomes the world—our faith. In 5:18, whoever is born of God is not sinning; he who is begotten of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him. These realities—righteousness, love, faith, and the inability to continue indefinitely in sin—come from God and are not self-generated.
In John 3, Jesus tells Nicodemus that unless one is born from above he cannot see the kingdom of God. Unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. This is a new concept for Israel. Titus 3:5 states that God saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior. The Father is the one who saved according to His mercy. First Peter 1:3 declares that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to His abundant mercy, has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. First Peter 1:23 states that believers have been born again, not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever. Second Peter 1:4 speaks of becoming partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. Regeneration is essential for entering the kingdom of God and produces these effects.
The message heard from the beginning is that we should love one another, not as Cain, who was of the wicked one and slew his brother. Cain killed Abel because his own works were evil and his brother’s were righteous. Marvel not if the world hates you. John 3:19–20 states that light has come into the world and men loved darkness rather than light because their works were evil. Everyone doing evil hates the light and does not come to the light lest his deeds be reproved. The world does not agree with God about right and wrong and does not desire to do so. Its standards change, yet the underlying opposition remains. Luke 11:47–51 records that the blood of all the prophets, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, shed from the foundation of the world, will be required of that generation. After Cain killed Abel, God sentenced him to wander, yet he founded a city, the opposite of wandering, and organized society began to coalesce around that. First John 5:19 states that the whole world reposes in the wicked one. A friend of the world constitutes himself an enemy of God. John 15:18–19 states that if the world hates you, know that it hated Him before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own, but because you are not of the world the world hates you.
Being born of God produces works, righteousness, and love that differ from those of the world. The world recognizes this difference. Believers are not to look exactly like the world or conform to it. The difference is purposeful because God provides what the world cannot provide.
