Grace, the Forbidden Gospel - Online Christian Library

apostle John for being born again is to “practice righteousness” or “practice truth” or “walk in the light” (we will
deal with “walking in the light” a little later).
If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him.
(1 John 2:29 NKJV)
We know for a fact that every believer on the planet messes up from time to time. It’s clear therefore that the
above verse can’t be referring to our behavior, because this would imply that anybody who makes a mistake
is not born of God.
In contrast, when John talks about those who “commit sin” or who “practice lawlessness” or “walk in
darkness” he is referring to the unsaved. This principle stays consistent throughout all 3 of John’s epistles.
Predominantly however these verses have been read through a legalistic point of view, causing much
perplexity in the body of Christ.
Committing Sin or Lawlessness
Another shining example is 1 John 3:4-9:
Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. And you know that He was
manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin. (1 John 3:4-5 NKJV)
Once again John is referring to the unsaved here. Whenever the New Testament refers to those who
“commit sin” or “practice lawlessness” it does not have the same meaning as under the Old Testament when
people were still judged according to the law. The only sin in the New Testament is not believing in Jesus, as
we also saw previously when we talked about “The Unforgivable Sin”.
Verse 5 (above) depicts God’s answer to mankind’s problem of sin - He took our sin away and placed us in
Christ where we now are completely forgiven and seen as though we’ve never even committed a single sin!
Read verse 5 again in this context. Is the light beginning to go on yet that John is not talking about our
behavior in this epistle?
Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him. (1 John 3:6
NKJV)
This verse mentions another “buzz” concept, namely to “abide” in Him. It’s really very simple to prove that
this also refers to being saved and not to our own efforts to maintain a good standing with God. Simply do
searches for the word “abide(s)” on any Bible software program and study the results.
This verse further says that whoever sins “has not seen God or does not know God”, which implies not
having a relationship with Him. Many (if not all) sincere Christians who have had an intimate relationship with
God for decades still make mistakes every day of their lives despite their best efforts. If this verse meant that
they are disqualified from their relationship with God if they sin even once (because it doesn’t say “sin a
hundred times” or “sin four times per day”), this would amount to no one on the entire planet being able to
maintain a stable relationship with God. Clearly therefore this is not the context of this verse. Let’s look at the
subsequent three verses:
7 Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness [which means to be saved] is
righteous, just as He [God] is righteous. 8 He who sins [an unbeliever] is of the devil, for the devil has
sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the
works of the devil. 9 Whoever has been born of God [a believer] does not sin, for His [God’s] seed
remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God. (1 John 3:7-9 NKJV,
annotations added)
The key here is verse 9. How is it possible that a believer cannot sin if we’re all too aware of how many
mistakes we make? Simply because John is not talking about our behavior! He is still using the same
terminology to differentiate between being saved or not. Read verses 7 - 9 again and let it sink in. In verse 8,
if John meant that anybody who commits an act of sin is of the devil, it would imply that all Christians are of
the devil. Clearly this is not what he meant.
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