See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
The very first piece of 1 John 3 is designed to bring us to an understanding of God’s love. This love is not a performance-based love. The NIV describes it as love that is “lavished” on us. Lavish is a great word, because lavishing means a tremendous, overwhelming one-sided love. God loves us more than we can comprehend.
Second, he calls us “Children of God” 2 Corinthians 6:18, Hebrews 2:11, and Romans 8:16 all show us more about how we are adopted into a new family when we believe in Christ. The idea is this: If we are truly children of God, part of this new family, then the likeness to our father and love for others should show up in our lives.
Third: John compares this to the worldly viewpoint. He says the world doesn’t recognize us, we are strangers to this world. Why? Because the world does not know Him. The world has its own value system, and broadly speaking, that world viewpoint is in opposition to God. The world refuses the accountability of an authentic relationship with Christ.
Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
Although we understand our present standing (life) our future is clouded. No one really knows what Heaven is like. But we do know one thing: Heaven is where Jesus is. The promise is this: we will be like him (Romans 8:29). This doesn’t mean we will be gods, but we will achieve God’s purpose: for us to be like Christ. Our character and nature will be like Christ. We will attain an unrestricted presence with the Lord.
3 All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
Knowing that our future destiny is with Christ gives us a new perspective on this life. It purifies our living. It helps solidify our hope by changing our behavior.
4 Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. 5 But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. 6 No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
John begins to describe the problem of sin. He starts by comparing it to breaking the law. Those who break the law reap a price for it. Just as breaking the law is rebellion against the rules, sin is rebellion to God and his divine law. It creates a barrier to our relationship with him. In other words, our fellowship is affected. Jesus appeared so he could take away the sins that so easily affect the relationship. He took the penalty. He is the advocate. He takes away the power of sin. In other words, he breaks the power of the sin in our life so we can conquer it. But this power is only stripped when we come to an authentic relationship with Him. This is His work in us.
6 No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
This is a difficult verse to understand. It seems like it implies that if we are truly in union with Jesus then we will not sin anymore. However, even as Christians, sin continues to trip us up. A bad reading of this verse may cause us to think that John is preaching an unattainable perfection. But that is not the case.
The verb John uses for “Keeps on sinning” refers to living a lifestyle of habitual sin. As John has already discussed in 1:6, “If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.” The darkness John refers to in verse 6 is exactly the same: habitual sin.
John hits on this topic a number of times in this book, which tells us of its importance. If a Christian is living in habitual sin, then the claim to fellowship (relationship) is not valid. It’s like saying, “I’m a Christian, a follower of Christ, but I don’t have to really follow” (1 John 2:4). It is incompatible to our fellowship.
A lifestyle of habitual sin demonstrates that we do not know him. These manifest in habits that we practice throughout our lives. A habit is something that is often done, practiced, and has become automatic over time. There are three types of habits: Good (beneficial), bad (non-beneficial), and spiritually- neutral.
When we come to the realization that we have bad habits that need to leave our life, how do we do it? It has to start with submission. We have to understand we can’t do it alone. First we have to give ourselves over to Christ, the one who has power to break sin
There is a penalty to pay for giving ourselves over to a lifestyle of sin. It is found in a James1:13-15:
13 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
Here James describes the very nature of how sin operates. First, we are dragged away by our own evil desires. We are enticed, meaning we give that thought room to grow in our minds. We plot it, plan it, give it a life. Next, in verse 14, we see a birthing metaphor. This is where sin comes into action. It goes from the mind to action. And verse 15 tells us the rest. Sin, when its full-grown, gives birth to death. This is the lifestyle part. If we give it room to breathe, it will grow in us. It’s like watering a plant. If we continue to water it, it will continue to grow. And sin grows in us. It takes on a life of its own, perhaps to the point where sin is indistinguishable from you as person. When it becomes lifestyle, our spiritual death is imminent, unless we are able to see it for what it is and starve it. Stop watering it. Let it wither in a corner and die.
7 Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.
Doing what’s right displays your fellowship with God. It is a matter of the heart. Righteousness (doing what is right) in Christ (by His law) will reflect in our life. If your heart is filled with hate and anger, it will show in your actions, correct? Same with a heart filled with love. It will show in how you conduct your life.
8 The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. 9 No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. 10 This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.
John puts it bluntly: people settled into habitual sin are not born of God. It doesn’t mean that a Christian can’t fall into habitual sin. What it does refer to is someone that is resigned to habitual sin. The simple fact is that we can’t be in both camps (Matthew 6:24). This also eludes to Revelation 3:20, when Christ talks to the Church at Laodicea. He calls them lukewarm. The idea is that we can’t simply sit on the fence with our faith. We have to take a stand one way or the other. Jesus came to break the influence of the devil in our lives. If we put our faith there, then there is hope in breaking habitual sin.
Born of God refers to the rebirth to follow Jesus in faith. When we are reborn, we become a new creation. The old nature dies and a new one begins. That means we are to step forward in faith into this new life, as a new creation, and end our hold on the former life. When we begin to do that, the influence of the old life, although it will fight, will eventually dissipate.
The nature of sin and our new and old life is much like smoking. Do you remember the first time you tried a cigarette? You probably didn’t like it. But perhaps you picked up another cigarette, then another. Why did you do it? Maybe to fit in, maybe to look cool or feel grown up. But you did it, and kept doing it, even though your body protested. But you allowed smoking into your life. At some point, your body quit resisting and began to accepted it. And eventually, your body began to crave it. Desire it. Need it.
This is how sin operates in our life. When we make room for it, train ourselves in it, allow it to live inside us, then we give it a place to live and grow. Like smoking, it can become an essential part of us, so much so that the two are indistinguishable.
Maybe you smoke for 30 years. It becomes a large part of your life. But you end up going to the doctor and the doctor takes an X-ray of your lungs. The news isn’t good. He says, “I’m sorry, but your lungs are completely filled with tar. You will die soon if you continue to smoke. But, if you stop now, you can add 10 years onto your life.
What will you do at that point? Will you listen to the doctor or call him a quack? There is a choice here. If you disregard the doctor and continue smoking, you will most assuredly become sicker and die. But if you quit right then, take the doctor’s advice and step into a new way of thinking, a new life, there is a great benefit. It will be hard. There will be days where you think you have it beat, and other days you can’t go ten minutes without a cigarette. It will be a roller coaster for months, even years. But when you stay with it, and look back over your shoulder, you will see that progress is made over time, enduring through the process. After all, smoking wasn’t thrust upon you overnight. You practiced how to smoke. You resisted your body and your mind to do it. You allowed it to overtake you.
Sounds like habitual sin, right? When we come to a realization about how deadly habitual sin is, we have to get rid of it. Just like it was a process to give it room in our life, it is also a process to get it out. You see, when the doctor came in and told you about your lungs, and you made the choice to fight the habit, did the tar immediately leave your lungs? No. The residue of smoking is still there, just as the smear of your life of sin still remains even after you accept Christ. The sin is forgiven, but there is a human toll to it, a work we have to do in our physical life in order to get healthy. We have to starve the sin out, kill it at the source, give it no air to breathe.
This fight is not about being perfect. It’s about battling for the relationship.
11 For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. 13 Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15 Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.
John has a multi-faced message in these verses. First, he says that we need to follow the message we first heard. This is the message of the apostles that preached Jesus’ commands: to love God with our entire being and love others as ourself.
He supports this message by relating the story of Cain and Abel. Cain’s sacrifice to God, way back in Genesis, was insincere. You’ll recall that Abel sacrificed his first fruits to God while Cain gave God a grain offering. His brother’s offering was righteous, his was not. This resulted in jealously and eventually murder.
Next, John switches to the world view. He says that those who love have passed from death to life, meaning we are different from the world. The difference is love. If you don’t love, you remain in death (darkness). If you do not love, therefore, you are like Cain. And if you do not love, eternal life does not reside in you.
16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
Jesus is the model for this love. To be like Christ, we need to have the same sacrificial attitude of love that he showed us. Furthermore, this is not a passive love. Our love must be active.
19 This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: 20 If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24 The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
How do we know we belong to Christ? First, we can’t operate on feelings (20); we have to operate in faith (21). When we come to God fully, the promise made is that we can ask for and receive anything (James 5:16, James 4:3). In the accompanying verses from James, we have to understand how this works. First, the relationship has to be built on authenticity. We have to be half of the relationship, not just in it when it is convenient. If we want our prayers to be powerful and effective (James 5:16), then we have to be righteous. We have to do what is right. That means following God’s Law with passion. Secondly, our motives must be pure (James 4:3). If we are praying for our own security, safety, peace of mind, then are we really praying earnestly? When we align ourselves with God, we align ourselves with what he desires. If we live with eager relationship, then God is eager to give us what we want, because what we want is in alignment with God’s Will. This is not earning. It’s understanding God’s grace.