Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin. Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him. Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God. In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother. For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother’s righteous (1 John 3:1-12).
John marvels at the love God the Father shows to those who believe in Christ. We are called children of God. We have been born again, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.[1] We are sons of God by an incorruptible seed through the word of God, which abides forever.[2] We have been united to Christ in His death and resurrection by our baptism.[3] We are clothed with Him, so that when God the Father looks upon us He sees His Son.[4] We are His adopted sons in Jesus Christ. Consequently, because of our status in the family of God as adopted sons, we no longer belong to the world. Just as the world did not know Christ, though he was in the world, and the world was made through Him, the world no longer knows, or recognizes us.[5] Unless, of course, we conform ourselves to the world, rather than to Christ.
John tells us in his epistle that he who practices righteousness is righteous, and he who sins is of the Devil. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother. He who has been born of God cannot sin. This, then, must certainly be proof that we have not truly been made to be sons, for we continue to sin. If we have done so much as become angry with our brother, we have murdered him, and we are told elsewhere by John that no murderer has eternal life. So what is John telling us? Do we have no hope?
John describes here the same situation Paul describes in his letters. Paul writes in Galatians, “For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.”[6] You, adopted son of God, have a war raging inside you between flesh and spirit. Do not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. There is a great difference between a man who struggles with committing sin while practicing repentance, and one who practices sin. The first sins and repents; He rejects what he was and struggles to act like the man he now is in Christ, in spite of his inclinations to the former. The second says that he cannot change because he is who he is. He scoffs at calls to repentance because he says there is nothing for him to be sorry for; we must accept him the way he is. Thank God that though we sin daily, Christ continues to forgive. He is the propitiation for our sin, and empowers us to walk in the Spirit, and not to fulfill the lust of the flesh.[7] He makes us to practice righteousness, and gives us eternal life.
[1] John 1:13
[2] 1 Peter 1:23
[3] Romans 6:3-5
[4] Galatians 3:27
[5] John 1:10
[6] Galatians 5:17
[7] Galatians 5:16
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