“Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him. … Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” 1 John 3:6, 9
When a person is born of God in the sense brought to view in the passages which you quote, it can be properly said of him that he cannot sin in the same sense in which it is said that God cannot lie; i. e., it is morally impossible for him to do so. With this explanation, the text can be easily comprehended by allowing the apostle to be understood as employing the word sin “with reference to a deliberate and continued indulgence in the same. It is in this sense that Doddridge and Macknight have regarded the passage, as will be seen from the following citations: “Doth not practice sin ” (Doddridge); “Doth not work sin” (Macknight). The apostle does not mean to say that he who is born of God can never sin under any circumstances, but that it is morally impossible for a person while sustaining that relationship to God to live habitually in the commission of sin. To take any other view would be to deny that anyone had as yet experienced the new birth. Should it be replied that no one has yet been born again, and will not be until the resurrection, and should it be insisted that Christians are only begotten in this life, and are to be born of God in the world to come, we reply that in the New Version the original term for “born” is translated “begotten” wherever it is used in verse 9.
[excerpted from an old Bible magazine]
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