When Do Believers Not Sin?; 1 John 5:18b–21

The confession of Chalcedon

“Following the holy Fathers, we unanimously teach and confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, composed of rational soul and body; consubstantial with the Father as to his divinity and consubstantial with us as to his humanity; "like us in all things but sin." He was begotten from the Father before all ages as to his divinity and in these last days, for us and for our salvation, was born as to his humanity of the virgin Mary, … “

We confess that one and the same Christ, Lord, and only-begotten Son, is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division, or separation. The distinction between natures was never abolished by their union, but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person (prosopon) and one hypostasis.”

This is really an underlying issue in 1 John, that if you don’t have this Christ as the focus of your attention in the spiritual life then you don’t have a real spiritual life, because it is this Jesus who is fully God and fully man who sets the precedent for the Christian life.

1 John 5:18 ^NASB “We know that no one who is born of God sins…” We have to understand what John says and means by certain terms, so we have to look back to a couple of key verses. In 1 John 3:6 John says almost the same thing: “No one who abides in Him sins.” There are those who try to evade the clear meaning of this passage by translating it “whoever abides and doesn’t continue in sin.” But that is not what John is saying. He says that whoever abides in Him doesn’t sin. That brings up a different problem: What does it mean to abide? We have to remember that there are some who believe that to abide means to believe and whoever is a believer abides. But abide is not equivalent to believe; it has to do with our ongoing relationship with Christ, not our entry into salvation. Paul says that if we are walking in the light, walking by means of the Spirit, we can’t sin; and that is no different from what John says in 1 John 3:6. Then the second part of the verse, “…no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.” The Bible doesn’t use the phrase “knowing Jesus” as an equivalent to salvation. Philip is saved in John 14 but he doesn’t know Jesus. So this isn’t talking about awareness of the gospel, understanding the gospel, accepting the gospel; it is talking about moving beyond simple salvation to spiritual adulthood where a believer really knows and understands what the Bible teaches about Jesus Christ. So here John is saying that whoever sins has never seen Him nor knows Him. In other words, when the believer is sinning he is not acting as if he knows Him. He is not abiding; abiding equals fellowship. When we are out of fellowship we are acting as if we don’t have any information about Jesus and we don’t know how to apply the spiritual skills which He pioneered. When we sin we are not living in light of that relationship with Jesus. When we are out of fellowship there is no relationship; we are saved but there is no ongoing rapport with Jesus.

1 John 3:8 ^NASB “the one who practices [does] sin is of the devil.” The words “of the devil” is simply a genitive of diabolos [diaboloj], and it is so typical to think that it means not saved. Remember that John has just said that we can sin as a believer and it just means we are not abiding. So when we sin we are not abiding but we are acting like a child of the devil, we are being influenced by the Satanic world-system. [9] “No one who is born of God practices [does] sin…” That is the phrase as in 1 John 5:18. Notice the parallel. In verse 6 the person who abides doesn’t sin, in verse 9 the person who is born of God doesn’t sin. That must mean that in John’s thinking at this point he is equating abiding with being born of God. He is not using the term “being born of God” as a simple term for salvation but for somebody who has been saved and is living in light of that new birth.

In verse 6 the person who abides doesn’t sin “because His seed abides in him.” Notice in verse 6 the person who abides doesn’t sin; in verse 9 the person born of God does not sin “because His seed abides in him.” This takes us right back to the concept of abiding and fellowship. “…and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” This can’t be talking about being a believer. It must be talking about the person who is regenerate and what that regenerate nature is capable of. There is this new nature created in the individual at salvation and that new nature can’t sin. If we are abiding in Christ it is that new nature that is operational, and it can’t sin. But as soon as we decide to walk according to the flesh then that new nature is shut down and we sin. So John is reminding these believers that that which is born of God, their new nature as a believer, doesn’t sin. He is not saying they can’t sin, that they don’t get out of fellowship, but he is saying that in their new nature they don’t sin.

1 John 5:18 ^NASB “We know that no one who is born of God sins; but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him.” Here we have an interpretational problem. The debate is, what does it mean that the one who is born of God keeps himself. Where we see “but He who was born of God keeps him” there is a textual problem. In the KJV and NKJV it is “keeps himself” where as most of the modern translations has “keeps him.” It should be “keeps himself.” Many scholars will argue on the basis of context and on the basis of two or three Greek MSS that “he who has been born of God,” because it shifts from a perfect tense to an aorist tense, is no longer referring to the believer but is referring to Jesus Christ. They would interpret that as “whoever is born of God doesn’t sin” but Jesus Christ keeps the believer. That is a true doctrine, e.g. John 17:12; 1 Peter 1:5; Jude 24; Revelation 3:10. But the question is: Is that what this passage is saying? The preferable view is that he who has been born of God keeps himself. He keeps himself in fellowship, he keeps himself walking in the light, he keeps himself walking by the Holy Spirit because he continues to exercise positive volition.

Then we have the last clause: “and the evil one does not touch him.” Notice that there are three clauses in this verse. The first clause: “We know that no one who is born of God sins.” The second clause: “but he who was born of God keeps himself.” Those two clauses are linked by a contracting conjunction “but.” Then there is a third statement: “and the evil one does not touch him.” That is connected to the first two clauses by the word “and” which is a coordinating conjunction. The first two contrasted clauses are talking about one thing; the last clause, “and the evil one does not touch him,” is a second and independent idea equal in weight to the idea of the first two clauses. The second idea is that the evil/wicked one does not touch the believer. It is not saying the evil one does not touch the believer who is in fellowship, it is saying the evil one does not touch the believer. The word translated “touch” is hapto [a(ptw] which literally means to touch, as in 1 Corinthians 7:1, but here it has a different context. It is the same as Jesus touching the leper, touching the blind man, and healing them. The word in and of itself is not a word that indicates anything more than simple contact but context indicates what the contact is. The context here related to the evil one, i.e. Satan, indicates harm. In other words, the evil one is not allowed on the basis of this verse to touch or do harm to the believer. That is a strong argument for why Christians cannot be demon possessed.

So what this is saying is that on the one hand whoever is born of God doesn’t sin because he is born of God and has this new nature; he keeps himself. And because he has been born of God and has this new nature Satan can’t touch him. So there is an emphasis here on the eternal security of the believer and of the fact that there is only so much that Satan can do in terms of the angelic conflict in his assault on believers.

With the introduction of Satan at the end of v. 18 it is a natural development to go into what John will remind them of in the next verse: “We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in {the power of} the evil one.” The whole world lies under the control of the evil one, and this brings in the whole concept of the cosmic system and worldliness which is a major theme in 1 John. E.g. 1 John 2:15 ^NASB “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” Remember that it is only in spiritual adulthood that we have a mature love for God the Father. What John is saying here in addressing the “young men” is that as a part of spiritual adolescence the issue when it comes to advancing from spiritual adolescence to spiritual adulthood is learning to get rid of human viewpoint and pagan thought, not being attracted to cosmic thinking. That is a subtle form of idolatry. The last verse says: “Little children, guard yourselves from idols.” When has John spoken of idolatry in this entire epistle? He hasn’t. So what is he talking about? The word “idol” when it is used in the New Testament never refers to a metal, earthen or clay figure like there is in the Old Testament. In the New Testament idolatry is associated with mental images of God that are false, or substituting something in the place of the worship of God. It is more abstract than in the Old Testament. In Colossians Paul says that covetousness is idolatry because it is putting money ahead of the priority of worshipping God and applying doctrine. So what happens in cosmic thinking is that some other element in the creation, whether it has to do with a value system, our own false understanding of God, whether we are worshipping a false understanding of who Jesus Christ is (the issue with the false teachers in 1 John), or whether it has to do with taking any element of cosmic thinking and elevating it to a position of priority, that is idolatry. When we operate on human viewpoint standards and priorities, that is idolatry; it is supplanting God and biblical priorities and divine viewpoint with human viewpoint and pagan systems of thinking, pagan priorities, and that is idolatry.

John says in v. 19 that we are of God, and not simply because we are saved. Remember the contrast here is between the believer who is operating as a believer in his nature and the believer who is operating like a child of the devil. We know that we are of God in terms of our new nature and in contrast the world is under the evil one, i.e. Satan is the author of the cosmic system. So the believer who is abiding in Christ, the believer who is walking in the light, cannot be operating on principles of worldliness.