Excerpts:
"Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness and sin is lawlessness. And you know that He appeared in order to take away sins and in Him there is no sin. No one who abides in Him sins. No one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. Little children, let no one deceive you. The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. The one who practices sin is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose that He might destroy the works of the devil. No one who is born of God practices sin cause His seed abides in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious. Anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother." (1John 3:4-10)
Now just to go back and sort of rehearse again the theme here, I want to begin with an obvious axiomatic self-evident statement, and here it is, "Becoming a true Christian results in a life that is dramatically different from the former life." Simple enough? Let me say it again, "Becoming a true Christian results in a life that is dramatically different from the former life." It is new life. That simple statement, by the way, has been assaulted by many who say they believe the Bible. Such an assault is frankly amazing to me because it's so basic and so absolutely clear in the text we have just read. But the current assault and the assault that's been pretty much around for the last couple of decades in the evangelical world in America isn't by any means new. Assaulting the idea that true salvation results in transformation is an old assault.
There were those false teachers who came along espousing that they knew God, that they were the possessors of eternal life, even though their lives were characterized by patterns of unbroken sin. They wanted to say that salvation was just a change in status, not nature. It was a change in eternal destination, not desires.
But John is very clear that true believers are transformed in mind and they are transformed in emotion and they are transformed in will. And we've seen all that, that regeneration, conversion, salvation has such a dramatic effect that one has a new nature, a new disposition, new attitudes, new motives, new longings, new desires, new loves, new hates, new goals and new behavior. And we have been looking at this, seeing it all over the New Testament actually, 2 Corinthians 5:17, "If any man is in Christ he is a new creation, old things are passed away, new things have come." Romans 6:22, "Used to be the servants of sin but now you are the servants of righteousness." Ephesians 2:8 and 9, "Saved by grace through faith, not of works, but unto good works which God has before ordained that you should walk in them." You are His workmanship and the manifestation of the work that He has done is seen in good works." Ephesians 5 talks about, "The Lord washing us, cleansing us as His bride by the washing of water with the Word that He might present to Himself a church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing but rather holy and blameless."
A no-repentance gospel, a no-holiness gospel, a no-submission gospel, a no-transformation gospel is the devil's lie to give false security to damned people. So for the protection of the church from the false teaching agents of Satan, the New Testament is crystal clear on how you can determine whether one is a believer. And that is John's very specific purpose in writing so there's no mistaking the fact that true Christians are transformed people and their new life is very different than their former life.
And the way you test the claim, John gives two categories of tests: first, doctrinal tests and then behavioral tests. Test them on their view of Christ. We've seen that. Test them on their view of sin because if you don't have the right Christ and you don't understand your sin, you're not going to come to salvation. Right doctrine is important, essential.
But then conduct, you look at their lives and you look for two things. You look for submission to the Word of God, obedience to the Word of God, righteous patterns of behavior, and manifest love for the brethren, for God and even for the unconverted. The doctrinal tests then have to do with appropriate doctrines of sin, that is a sound anthropology, understanding the sinfulness of man, and a sound Christology, understanding the reality of who Jesus is and what He had done in His death and resurrection. Those are the doctrinal tests. If anybody errs in the doctrine of sin, if anybody says that they are not sinners, such as we saw in 1 John 1, they lie and they do not the truth. And the second is the doctrine of Christ. If anyone comes and does not acknowledge that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh," chapter 4 verse 2, "that is antichrist, not the truth by any means.
Then you come to the behavioral tests and those are two, as I just said. One is righteousness, obedience to the Law of God, submission to the will of God, the other is love. Love will become the theme if you go back to chapter 3, love will become the theme starting in verse 11. It's really introduced at the end of verse 10, "The one who does not love his brother," and that transitions into the subject of love which occupies the rest of the chapter. But we're in the first part of the chapter which gives the attention to this matter of righteousness. This is the test.
Notice chapter 3 verse 6, "No one who abides in Him sins." Verse 9, "No one who is born of God practices sin." And that defines what he meant in verse 6. No one sins...what do you mean no one sins ever? No, verse 9, "Practices sin." That is has an ongoing, unbroken pattern of sin. And then finally verse 10, "The children of God are manifest as those who do not practice sin. The children of the devil are those who do not practice righteousness."
So the simple principle is this. True believers have a pattern of righteousness in their life.
If you go to Ezekiel 36 you're going to find the very same kind of language. Ezekiel 36:25 to 27 says essentially the same thing. "Takes away the stony heart, gives you a heart of flesh, puts His Spirit in you, writes His Law in your heart. The old life is gone, the new life prevails. Sin has no more dominion, righteousness does." That's just basic.
Do Christians sin? Yes. Do Christians have to sin? No. We do sin, 1 John 1 verses 8 and 10, "If you say you don't sin, the truth isn't in you. If you say you haven't sinned, you make God a liar and His Word isn't in you." Yes we sin. Do we have to sin? No. Chapter 2 verses 1 and 2, "I'm writing to you these things that you may not sin." You don't have to sin. We do sin, we don't have to sin.
Thirdly, we don't habitually sin. That's what John is saying here. That relentless, unbroken pattern of iniquity is shattered. And those verses that I read to you, 6, 9, 10, indicate that we do not go on practicing habitually the patterns of sin that mark our former life.
And then John gives three absolutely complete arguments based on the Trinity.
So when God transforms a soul, defiance is replaced by compliance. Rebellion is replaced by submission. Lawlessness is replaced by obedience. Hate for God's Law is replaced by love for God's Law. And so the argument that we already studied, we're not going to go back over it again, is the simple argument that we cannot continue in an unbroken pattern of sin because we have a new relationship to the Law of God. We love it, we submit to it, we don't rebel against it, we don't despise it.
Secondly, continuing to review, sin is, first of all, incompatible with the believer because it is incompatible with the Law of God, and secondly, sin is incompatible with the believer because it is incompatible with the work of Christ. It's incompatible with the work of Christ.
First of all, we have a changed relationship to the Law of God. Therefore, we have a completely changed relationship to sin which is lawlessness. Secondly, we have a changed relationship to sin by the work of Christ, that's verses 5 through 8, which very clearly lay this out. Look at verse 5, "He appeared in order to take away sins." That's why He came. If He came to take away sins, to lift sins from your life and mine, then we couldn't possibly be the same sinners after He did His work. And that's why in verse 6 it says, "No one who abides in Him sins. And no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. And, little children, let no one deceive you. The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous, His death removed sin. His death joined us to Him and we died, as it were, and we are buried in our sin but we rose to walk in newness of life." And furthermore, verse 8 says, "The one who practices sin is of the devil, for the devil is sin from the beginning, but the Son of God appeared for this purpose that He might destroy the works of the devil. Salvation had an effect on your sinning. It had an effect on your life by joining you to Jesus Christ, the righteous one. And it even had an effect on your relationship to the devil. On your behalf it destroyed his works. So if we understand the work of Christ and how we relate to that work, and if we understand the Law of God and how we relate to that Law, then we understand that it's impossible to be a true Christian and have the same relationship to the Law of God that you had before you were saved. And that is one of rebellion and hatred. It's impossible to have the same relationship to sin you had before you came to Christ. He took away your sin, joined you to Him as the righteous one, and destroyed the works of the devil on your behalf.
Now finally, thirdly, and here completes the work of the Trinity that John draws on, sin is incompatible with the ministry of the Holy Spirit. It's incompatible with the Law of God, the Father. It's incompatible with the work of Christ the Son. And it's incompatible with the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the third member of the trinity.
And then referring again in verse 8, "The wind blows where it wishes, you hear the sound of it, don't know where it comes from or where it goes, so is everyone born of the Spirit." Three times born of the Spirit, born of the Spirit, born of the Spirit. So the new birth is the work of the Holy Spirit. So when we read then in verse 9 about being born of God, we're talking about God the Holy Spirit. He is the agent by which the new birth takes place. The work of the Father in bringing us under His Law, producing in us a different attitude toward the Law. The work of the Son in lifting sin away, joining us to His righteousness and destroying the sovereign dominance of Satan in our lives. And now the work of the Holy Spirit to produce life in us, all evidence the fact that we cannot continue to be the same kind of sinning people. The Holy Spirit operates in the new birth.
But let me just kind of give you a little bit of theological breath to grasp this. Regeneration in Jesus Christ, the planting of the seed in this new life that comes through the hearing and believing of the Word, this work of the Holy Spirit changes the disposition from lawless and godless and self-seeking as defined, for example, in Romans chapter 3 to one who loves the Law of God, is a servant of righteousness such as Romans chapter 6 and 7. Prior to your salvation you're dominated by wickedness. After your salvation you're dominated by righteousness.
There also is, how can I say this, to borrow a theological word, there is a monergism in this, there's a monergism in regeneration. That is to say infants do not reproduce themselves, they do not cooperate in their own production, or in their procreation or their birth, and neither do we. No one who is dead in trespasses and sins can contribute to his coming to life. It is God's Spirit alone quickening us. Theologians like to call it spiritual vivification. It is mysterious. It is the work of divine power. It is the mighty work of the Holy Spirit making us alive. And in Ephesians, for example, chapter 2 verse 1, it is said in unmistakable language, "You were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience." That's how you were. "But God being rich in mercy because of His great love in which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive." That's the monorgism of it. In other words, the energy comes from one source, and that is from God.
And again, going back to 1 Peter 1:23, the means that the Spirit of God uses to plant the seed is the living and abiding Word of God. There's no way to be saved except through the truth, except through the gospel, the Word of God. It is the Holy Spirit who does the work but the gospel is the means by which that work takes place. This seed planted in us is of a heavenly origin not an earthly one. And it is a permanent and eternal seed through the preaching of the Word of God.
And it is important, as we heard in the testimonies today, to examine yourself to see whether you be in the faith. And what you're looking for is not an event in the past, what you're looking for is a pattern in the present.
So two things are at stake here. One, your own soul is at stake so you need to understand whether you're a real Christian or not. Secondly, the church needs to be observant about this so that we deal with the people for their own sake and for the protection of the church. Anybody who preaches a gospel that says it's only a change in your status and not a change in your life is preaching the devil's message. We who know the truth are, I trust, faithful to proclaim the truth. And we have every right, don't we, out of love to call people into question who have a pattern of sin? We're not being loving if we don't. So examine your own heart. Look at the hearts of those around you. You that are parents, it's easy for you to cling to some childhood confession because you want so much your child to be saved. Don't foolishly cling to a childhood confession against the reality of the pattern that's obvious. And don't kid yourself with regard to your spouse, either, or anybody else. It may be the boldest thing you do but it's the kindest and most loving thing you do to confront those kinds of people, to point out the fact that whatever may be their claim and profession, there isn't any evidence that there's any new life. This we have responsibility to do before God and in the church.
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