1 John 3:7-10 HCSB Little children, let no one deceive you! The one who does what is right is righteous, just as He is righteous. The one who commits sin is of the Devil, for the Devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God was revealed for this purpose: to destroy the Devil’s works. Everyone who has been born of God does not sin, because His seed remains in him; he is not able to sin, because he has been born of God. This is how God’s children —and the Devil’s children—are made evident.

Dear Fellowship of the Burning Heart:

The Bible never gives us the impression that we can live any way we choose and enjoy the benefits and blessings of salvation. In fact, to continue to live in rebellion to God and his Word is to reveal that we know nothing of that salvation.

THE NATURE OF SIN – Righteousness imputed and imparted produces right living. “Pretty is as pretty does,” my grandmother often said and it was repeated by my parents. How you live reveals what is in you. Those who continue in sin reveal the source of that behavior. It is not of God. It is of the devil, and they are children of the devil. Jesus called some of the religious leaders of his day children of the devil. “You are of your father, the devil. He was a liar from the beginning.” They are “of the devil” because they act like him. They follow his ways. We cannot play with sin, toy with sin, permit sin, excuse sin, or ignore sin. John makes it very clear: you are God’s children or the devil’s children and your life is the witness that reveals the truth about your family orientation.

THE NATURE OF CHRIST’S WORK – The purpose of his work can be summed up in the statement: he came to destroy the works of the Devil. He came because of sin, to pay for sin, to pardon and forgive sin, and to empower victory over sin. The most common deception that contemporary Christianity has embraced is the view that God’s grace permits, possibly even encourages, Christians to continue to sin without thought or concern. It’s covered, it’s taken care of, they say. “Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound?” Paul asks in Romans 6:1. He responds, “NO WAY!” (loose, but accurate translation). He further asks in Romans 6:15, “Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace?” Again, “NO WAY!”

THE NATURE OF GOD’S SEED – Someone I was reading said that many commentators are puzzled by the identification of this seed. Is it the Word of God, for James says that we are to “receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls” (James 1:21)? Peter tells believers that they “have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God” (1 Peter 1:23 ESV). Some think that this seed may refer to the Holy Spirit. The word “seed” is pregnant with theological meaning, woven throughout the Scriptures beginning in Genesis 3:15. There we find this prophecy:

 I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.

Throughout the Old Testament we see this term reappearing and it becomes obvious that this seed finds ultimate fulfilment in the Messiah. It may be that the term “seed” generally refers to what God has done to make us his children.

HE IS NOT ABLE TO SIN – Hiebert writes: “John insists that the believer’s inability to continue in the practice of sin is due to the fact that he has been born of God.… It is a moral incompatibility between the believer’s old and new nature” (Hiebert, Epistles of John, 148). It is important to realize that John is driving home the point that practicing sin and abiding in Christ are totally incompatible. Before we became Christians sinning was the “natural” activity of our lives. Now that we have been born again, it is “unnatural” behavior. We must not seek to minimize, soften, or undermine the force of these words. We must renew our commitment to forsake sin and follow the Savior.