NO SIN
At times when you read the Bible, and take it literally, what you read can seem confusing and even contradictory. For example, it states in 1 John:
Whoever abides in Him does not sin.
Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him.
(1 John 3:6)
Whoever has been born of God does not sin…
(1 John 3:9)
And yet, elsewhere in the Bible it states that:
There is none who does good,
No, not one.
(Psalm 53:3)
This phrase is repeated again in Romans 3:12. Even Paul, after his conversion and as he wrote in Romans, stated that:
…all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…
(Romans 3:23)
and he admitted that:
For the good that I will to do, I do not do;
but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.
(Romans 7:19)
So how does one correlate this with the statement that:
Whoever has been born of God does not sin…
and he cannot sin because he has been born of God.
(1 John 3:9)
No matter who we are or how close we seem to be to God, we all continue to sin either in thought, word, or deed. If Paul was of such a mind when he wrote the book of Romans, it indicates that even after accepting Christ we all still tend to sin in some way and most likely every day. Therefore, the statement that whoever has been born of God does not sin has to be understood in a way which is not strictly literal and may, in fact, refer to the two classes of sin recognized in the Jewish Temple.
So the priest shall make atonement for the person who sins unintentionally…
to make atonement for him; and it shall be forgiven him.
(Numbers 15:28)
But the person who does anything presumptuously…
that one brings reproach on the Lord,
and he shall be cut off from among his people.
(Numbers 15:30)
In other words, those unintentional sins committed from day to day by essentially all of us could be forgiven. However, those of a category considered premeditated or intentional could not. That is essentially what this passage in 1 John is about. No one is free from sin on a day to day basis but hopefully, if one is in Christ, the desire to willfully sin is essentially gone. Thus, that which we do against God is really unintentional and spontaneous and not premeditated. For:
all have sinned [and continue to do so]
and have fallen short of the glory of God
(Romans 3:23)
but
Whoever has been born of God does not [wilfully] sin…
[and therefore has no willful sin in him.]
(1 John 3:9)
There is a difference between not sinning, which we all do, and not sinning in a willful or premeditated way:
He who [is a lover of sin] is of the devil,
for the devil has sinned from the beginning.
(1 John 3:8)
He who practices righteousness is righteous…
(1 John 3:7)
…if our heart does not condemn us,
we have confidence toward God.
(1 John 3:21)
And that should give us something further to think about.
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