Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him.... He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning.... Whoever is born of God does not sin.
Surely I'm not the only one who's heard the speech. "You are no Christian. You sin. You should work harder to get your life in order. You should quit sinning. If only you could be as sanctified as I am. I really don't think you're a Christian. You should commit your life to God, and make Him lord of your life."
Pastor pointed out in Bible class this week that the verse in chapter 3 cannot mean what these pharisees claim it means. After all, look back at chapter 1: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
The Sunday epistles recently (in 3-yr series) have been from Romans. Recently we heard, To will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. The good that I will to do, that I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. If anybody at church hadn't already memorized that section, I suspect they must have memorized it by now, after hearing it expounded upon so often in the sermons of recent weeks.
Interestingly, besides the third chapter of his first epistle, there is another place where John talks about children of the devil as differentiated from the children of God. It's near the end of John 8, the gospel for Judica. Jesus tells the pharisees, "You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do."
The desires of your father you want to do.
The children of the devil want to do his bidding. The Christian doesn't want to but nevertheless continues to fall into sin (a la Romans 7). There's something comforting there....
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