In today's study John is going to tell us how we will know whether those around us belong to the Lord or not. His words should challenge us to examine our own hearts as well. If our behavior doesn't line up with who we say we are in Christ, this problem needs to be addressed.
"Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that He appeared so that He might take away our sins. And in Him is no sin." (1 John 3:4-5) I think we may have gotten so used to the word "sin" that sometimes we forget that the definition of sin is "lawlessness". We don't tend to think of ourselves as lawless, do we? We think we are upstanding citizens. But even by the world's standards this isn't true. How many of us have broken traffic laws? Have you ever driven above the speed limit? Have you ever failed to come to a complete stop at a stop sign? Have you ever rushed to get through a traffic light before it turns red only to have it turn red while you're going under it? Even by the world's standards we're lawbreakers. How much more are we lawbreakers by God's standards? The Lord Jesus pointed out that keeping the letter of the law isn't enough, for even when we don't literally break the law, we often figuratively break it in our hearts. To back up His statement, He equated lustful thoughts with the act of adultery. (Matthew 5:27-28) Even if the person didn't physically commit the act of adultery, he was committing it in his heart, and therefore he was a lawbreaker.
Because our carnal nature tends to lead us into lawlessness, Christ came to take away our sins. No one else could perform this act of mercy for us. It had to be someone who was sinless and, as John says in verse 5 above, Christ was sinless. Because He was sinless, we who belong to Him shouldn't live in lawlessness. This is why John makes his next remark, and we are going to take a little time to discuss what he means when he tells us not to sin anymore. "No one who lives in Him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen Him or known Him." (1 John 3:6)
Of course John knows that we are still going to make mistakes from time to time after coming to know Christ as Savior. John was a human being just like us and he made mistakes himself. What he's saying is that a person who has made Christ the Lord of his life should display the evidence of a transformed life. Let's make up an example to illustrate John's point. Let's say we have a neighbor down the street who has been living in all sorts of dishonesty and immorality. Then one day he tells us he's accepted Christ as his Savior. That's good news, right? But then we don't see any change in our neighbor's behavior. He goes straight back to doing all the same things he's always done. He's able to live comfortably in the same old lawlessness he's always lived in. This tells us something is wrong with his conversion story. Either he lied about it or he had some sort of emotional experience that led him to think he had given his life to Christ, but once the emotion wore off so did any inclination to know and serve the Lord. This is what John means when he says "no one who lives in Him keeps on sinning". If our lives are no different after coming to Christ than they were before, we need to examine our hearts to see whether we really accepted Christ in the first place. If we are just as comfortable living in sin as we ever were, then clearly we have made no effort to know the Lord so that we can honor Him with our lives.
In John's day, and also in our own day, there were false teachers who were teaching a watered down version of the gospel. These teachers didn't place much emphasis on holy living. Some of them (the Gnostics for example) had the attitude that nothing a person did in his body really mattered as long as his spirit was redeemed. But we are made of both flesh and spirit, and the state of our spirit is revealed by the things we do in the body, and we can't separate one from the other. John issues a warning about listening to anyone who downplays the seriousness of sin. "Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as He is righteous. The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work." (1 John 3:7-8)
If you are in Christ, and if you are trying to honor Him with your life, then Christ is destroying the devil's work through you. The devil wanted to have you. He thought he did have you. But then Christ transformed you from the inside out and destroyed the devil's wicked plans for you. Not only did Christ dash Satan's hopes for consigning you to an eternity separated from God, but through you Christ can be displayed to others, and they may give their hearts to Him and escape the snares of the devil.
We who are in Christ should be in the habit of examining our hearts daily to see whether we've allowed ourselves to become too comfortable with a particular wrong attitude or wrong action. Although I don't think a real Christian can wallow cozily with sin in the way he or she did before coming to Christ, it is possible to become a bit blind to our own faults. We are quick to notice the bad behavior of others, but sometimes when we observe bad behavior in ourselves we give ourselves a pass. John is going to tell us not to do that. If we have become comfortable with something we're doing wrong, we need to repent and draw closer to the Lord. We need to hand that particular thing over to Him so He can help us with it. "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) He's saying, "The one who belongs to the Lord will be bothered by sins he commits. He may toss and turn at night. He may feel uncomfortable when praying or when reading the Bible. He may feel unsettled and sad because of the distance he's placed between himself and the Lord by not repenting of something he knows he's done wrong."
Christians aren't perfect. I don't think even unbelievers expect us to be perfect. But they do expect us to be honest. When we mess up, we need to confess it to the Lord and we need to confess it to anyone we sinned against. They may or may not accept our apology, but they can't help respecting the effort we've made to make things right. At least they'll know that we aren't just "talking the talk" of being a Christian. John tells us that the evidence that someone is "walking the walk" is that they want to be right with God and with their fellow man. "This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God's child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister." (1 John 3:10)
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