Pastor Billy Myron continues the study of 1 John, turning to chapter 3 and focusing on the opening ten verses. The passage addresses the relationship of sin to the Christian life, specifically the meaning of “doing sin” and what it means to be born of God or a child of God. The reading covers 1 John 2:28 through 3:11.
John reminds the readers that they are now children of God. This stands in contrast to their former condition described in Ephesians 2:1–7. They were dead in trespasses and sins, walked according to the age of this world and the ruler of the authority of the air, conducted themselves in the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath. God, rich in mercy, made them alive together with Christ, co-raised them, and co-seated them in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus so that in the ages to come He might display the exceeding riches of His grace.
Romans 8:14–19 confirms the same reality through the Holy Spirit. As many as are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. They have received the Spirit of son-placement (not merely general adoption, but the status and privilege of a son in the household), by which they cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with their spirit that they are children of God and therefore heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. Their future is certain because of what Christ has done, not because of their own behavior.
Being children of God is intended to affect conduct. Believers are to walk as children of light (Ephesians 5:8), shine as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation as children of God without rebuke (Philippians 2:14–15), and live as obedient children, no longer fashioning themselves according to former desires (1 Peter 1:14). First Peter 1:3–9 also ties the present standing as regenerated children to a living hope and an incorruptible inheritance kept by the power of God.
John connects this standing to a certain future. In 1 John 3:2 he states that now they are children of God and it does not yet appear what they shall be, but when He appears they will be like Him, for they will see Him as He is. Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself. Biblical hope resting on a promise of God is certainty, not mere possibility.
A direct link is drawn between righteousness and being born of God. First John 2:29 states that if one knows that He is righteous, one knows that everyone doing righteousness has been born of Him. The verb “doing” is the Greek poieō in the present tense, indicating continual practice rather than a single act. The perfect tense of “born” indicates an event in the past whose effects continue into the present. The same word poieō appears repeatedly in the section (2:29; 3:4, 7, 8, 9, 10), always in the present, describing characteristic practice.
The one practicing sin is practicing lawlessness; the one practicing righteousness is righteous even as He is righteous; the one practicing sin is of the devil; the one born of God is not practicing sin; the one not practicing righteousness is not of God. These statements identify the children of God and the children of the devil by ongoing pattern of life.
John has already established in chapter 1 that believers can and do sin. If anyone claims to have no sin or never to have sinned, he deceives himself or makes God a liar. If anyone sins (aorist tense, a single point in time), he has an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, who is the propitiation for sins. Chapter 3 therefore does not contradict chapter 1; it distinguishes occasional acts of sin from the continual practice of sin.
First John 3:9 explains why the one born of God does not practice sin: His seed abides in him, and he is not able to practice sin because he is born of God. God’s seed abiding in the believer makes indefinite continuance in sin impossible. The exact boundary remains with God as judge; John supplies no formula of permitted sin. The change produced by the new birth is not the removal of the capacity for carnality, but the addition of the capacity for spirituality.
That capacity is visible in the ongoing conflict between the flesh and the Spirit (Galatians 5:16–18). Walking by the Spirit means one will never complete a desire from the flesh. The flesh and the Spirit are contrary to each other. Romans 7:15–21 describes the same reality: the indwelling sin nature still produces what the believer does not want, yet the believer now possesses the Holy Spirit, something impossible before regeneration. The positive identifier remains: everyone who is practicing righteousness is born of Him.
