The book of 1 John is a battleground book regarding the issue of good works and sin. I remember in Bible college listening to a student debate with a professor about what 1 John teaches about whether or not a Christian can commit sin. Here is how the debate went (I am quoting this debate verbatim):
Student: 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 (1 John 3:9).
Professor: If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us (1 John 1:10).
Student: 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 (1 John 3:9).
Professor: If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us (1 John 1:10).
Student: 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 (1 John 3:9)
Professor: If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us (1 John 1:10)
Obviously, the professor (it was Dr. John Hart, by the way) then said something about how these verses cannot contradict, and so we would need to understand both in light of the other and the overall message of 1 John as a whole.
This is exactly right.
One of the keys to understanding the book of 1 John is to understand the word “abide” or “remain.”
“Abide” is the first word I look at in my Gospel Dictionary Online course and here is a brief summary of how a few of the texts from 1 John can be understood when we properly define the word “Abide.”
The word “Abide”
The word abide means to remain, continue, or to dwell. It can refer to living in a house or dwelling place, or to following the rules of a particular game or contest.
The Greek word for abide is menō (3531) and just like its English translation, menō means to abide, remain, stay, continue, or dwell. It does not mean “to have, own, or possess.”
1 John 2:6
He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.
The first use of the word abide is in 1 John 2:6. In speaking of our life as a follower of Jesus, John writes that the one “who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.”
John is stating the truth that if we are abiding, or remaining, in fellowship with Jesus, then we will follow Jesus wherever He leads so that we will live and love like Jesus. There is nothing here about how to know that you have eternal life, but there is much truth here about how to know whether or not you are truly following Jesus in discipleship.
So it is extremely inaccurate to translate this verse as we find it in the NIV: “Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.” The implication is that if you want to have eternal life in Jesus, you need to walk as Jesus did. But this verse is not about whether or not we eternal life, for that life is a free gift of God to anyone who simply believes in Jesus for it.
Instead, 1 John 2:6 is about how to follow Jesus in our earthly lives. John says that if we are following Jesus, our lives will look like Jesus. John is not saying that if we do not walk as Jesus did then this means we do not actually have eternal life. If we do not walk as Jesus did, then we cannot claim to be His follower, and therefore, we will not have fellowship with God or with one another.
1 John 2:17
And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.
A similar understanding can be drawn from 1 John 2:17.
Again, the NIV unhelpfully makes the reader think that doing the will of God is a requirement for eternal life (“the man who does the will of God lives forever”). But John is not writing about living forever, but about abiding forever.
If you want to remain in fellowship with God, then you must do what God says. You can be a member of the family of God without being in fellowship with God. Just as the Prodigal Son did not have fellowship with his father while he was in the far country (Luke 15:11-32) yet continued to be a son the entire time, so also, those who are children of God will stay a member of His family even when they stray into sin and rebellion, but they will not abide or remain in fellowship with God when they are away from Him.
John says that if we want to remain forever in fellowship with God, then we must do God’s will. John goes on to say that this is not only how we remain in fellowship with God, but also how we abide or remain in fellowship with each other (1 John 2:19).
1 John 3:14-15
We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
Astute readers may object to the explanation above that a few passages in 1 John do talk about eternal life. First John 3:14-15 is one of those.
Once again, however, the NIV translation is most unhelpful when it completely removes the word abide in its translation of 1 John 3:15. It reads “… you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.” From this verse, some people teach that a murderer can never be forgiven or go to heaven. John disagrees, as do Moses, King David, and the Apostle Paul (for they were all murderers).
John put the word abide in this statement for a reason and we must not take it out.
When a person murders, John says, it is because they were not abiding or remaining within the reality of eternal life, that is, in the reality of their life with Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ would never lead one of His followers to hate or murder someone else.
So if a Christian lives in hate toward someone else (as frequently happens) or even ends up murdering someone (as occasionally happens), it is not because they are following Jesus, but because they have failed to follow Him. Jesus does not lead us toward hate and murder, but toward love and light.
That this is what John means is clearly indicated by the following context, especially in 1 John 3:17 where John writes that when the love of God abides in us and we are living in light of God’s love, we will help our brothers in need rather than hate them (Once again, the NIV unhelpfully deleted the word abide from 3:17).
John is not saying that if you hate your brother, you do not have eternal life. He is saying that if you hate your brother, you are not abiding in eternal life. In other words, when you hate others, it is not the eternal life you have from God that is leading you to do so, but is instead because you are following the principle of death which comes from this world.
So what about 1 John 3:9?
Well, it does contain the word “abide.” It talks about God’s seed “abiding” or “remaining” in the one who is born of God. Based on what you learned above, can you understand what John means? Feel free to offer your input in the comment section below, or join us in the Discipleship Area of RedeemingGod.com to learn more about this passage.
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You’ve highlighted an important point about scripture: There is no way to understand what it means unless you can understand what it meant to the people who wrote it. Unless you can understand vernacular Greek, Hebrew, and (possibly) Aramaic of the eras in which the texts were written, you are a hostage to the interpretations placed upon the translated texts by their translators. Your complaints about the NIV’s interpretation is a case in point.
Yes, I have always fought against this idea, because I think the Bible should be accessible to all, and I suppose that about 90% of it is, but you are right that some deep study, training, and knowledge is needed for that last 10% or so.
It’s not accessible.
I’m tired of showing passages where god murders babies and christians tell me I took it out of context. Like there’s a context for murdering babies.
Of course there is a context: 1)Babies go straight to be with the Lord and won’t even remember this life in the age to come. 2)It isn’t murder when God takes any life, just as it isn’t theft when you crank your own car and drive it. Every life belongs to Him . 3)If God had entire people’s killed because of sin, doesn’t that demonstrate the seriousness of sin and how bad it truly is? It is so bad He sent His only Son to die a horrible death for sin so that many might inherit eternal life. God , unchanging and holy, must punish sin. He can’t just wave a hand at it. If He could, He would not have sent His Son to die.
Helpful. Thanks.
I found a well-worn paperback copy of Tyndale’s The One Year Bible at a thrift shop earlier this year.. I keep it in the “private reading room” where I can work my way through it daily. It’s either the New English translation or the Living Bible so it’s easy to read quickly, which makes it more likely that I’ll read it daily. 🙂 By being able to read them quickly, it’s easier to get the sense of the story. In the New Testament readings, I occasionally see verses translated in ways that I believe are wrong and when I go to the same passage in other translations, they are translated differently. This confirms my belief that we must question with boldness whenever we see scripture used to support legislation that Yehoshua would probably not advocate.
Can these verses relate to charizomai forgiveness – a done deal, as opposed to aphesis “forgiveness” (better translated “release”) which we choose to accept?
We are already forgiven (charizomai) – nothing can abrogate that fact.
But when we do not abide – walk after the flesh, not being who Jesus has made us – then we choose to sever our relationship with Him. However, He never leaves nor forsakes us.
“John put the word abide in this statement for a reason and we must take it out.” I believe you meant to insert the word “NOT” in the second phrase of this sentence, eh? …to read “we must NOT take it out”. I think most of your readers figured out what you really meant… from the context of the rest of your “passage”/epistle, eh?
Funny that you might have left out an important word, while noting that the NIV translators also did! 😉
Oops! Great catch! Wow. So funny, as you say.
Hi Jeremy! Thanks for such a great post. I am struggling with one verse though. What do you make of 1 John 4:15 which says “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” This to me seems to be the Gospel in a nutshell in 1 John. However, I noticed again that this verse has the word “abide” in it. If “abide” in this verse means to have eternal life by faith forever, how can we take “abide” in 1 John 3:15 to be conditional on fellowship? We know for a fact that faith = salvation forever. So could we not apply that same logic to 1 John 3:15 and say that someone who hates their brother/sister does not have eternal life?
1 John 1:6 says if we say we have fellowship with him yet are walking in darkness we lie and do not the truth. If you are habitually sinning as a Christian, yet claiming you are OK with Jesus, you are lying and not doing truth. V7 means you can walk righteous. V8 means what V6 means yet it progresses to a worse state. Now you it isnt just that you are not walking with Him as you think you are but now you are actively saying what you are doing “is not sin” -in other words- “it wont send me to hell”. Now you have gone from not doing truth (V6) to the truth is not in you(V8) and you have gone from lying (V6) to deceiving yourself (V8). Now notice another progression to V10. In V10 “I have not sinned” is in the perfect tense not the present tense as in V8. Also, in V8 it says the truth is not in you whereas in V10 it says the word is not in you. Also, V8 says you deceive yourself where V10 says you call God a liar. Notice the progression here. V8 is describing a Christian who is habitually sinning yet claiming he is still saved. This person has lost truth and is heading out of God (the journey out of God started in V6). V10 the “I have not sinned” is in the perfect tense which means the V8 person has arrived at a complete state of being lost just like before he got born again. How do I know this? Because in V8 he is presently habitually sinning as a Christian claiming he is ok with God. In V10 this same person’s heart, by the deception of the habitual sin he thought was ok, has gone back in time so to speak to a lost state because if habitually sinning is ok for him now (V8 present tense), as a Christian, then why get born again to begin with? If sin is ok now then it was ok before I got saved so why get saved. Thus in his heart he has gone back (perfect tense=completed action in the past with present results) to the lost state of being spiritually dead. This person has lost the truth(V8) to the degree he is no longer deceiving himself (V8) but is now calling God a liar (whose word says He sent Jesus to free you from sin (V10) and it says the word is not him(V10). V1 speaks of the word of life. When V10 states that the word is no longer in you it means the the born again, new nature, sower sows the word, Gospel salvation -life -is no longer in you. One goes from V6 to V8 by not walking in V7 righteousness. One gets from V8 to V10 by not doing the genuine repentance of V9. If you are between V6 and V10 by not doing V7 and V9 you can repent and come back to God. He will wipe away the sin. If you think you may be V10 just call on Jesus to forgive you and make you born again again and He will (He loves you). Now go and sin no more. You can walk righteous and if you do happen to sin you can confess and repent.
The danger of a habitually sinning Christian is first that he will be deceived back into spiritual death in his heart while still claiming He belongs to Jesus and going to heaven. From this position you can still repent if you do not die first. But another danger is found in chapter 5. in V16 John says there is a sin unto death that he says “you dont pray for”. This means that some people so harden themselves in sin after becoming a Christian that there is nothing in them that wants to come back to God. Not even prayer by the whole body of Christ could bring them back. It isnt that God would not take them back -He would. It is that the person has become reprobate and there is nothing in them that wants to come back.
Am I saying you have to be perfect to go to heaven -no. Am I saying I know when someone goes back to spiritual death while habitual sinning -no. You are like a person who has stepped of the Empire State building -you may not be dead yet but you have a date with a sidewalk. Gal 5, 1 Cor 6, Eph 5 all say habitual sinners don’t make heaven (and these books are written TO Christians). Repent and walk righteous -God will help you. Find a good church and read the word every day!