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From: 1 John 3:7-10
A Child of God Does Not Sin
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Commentary:
6-9. This passage acts as a preface to v. 10, where the Apostle spells out the
criteria for distinguishing the children of God from the children of the devil — the
practice of Christian virtues and the keeping of the commandments of God, es-
pecially that of brotherly love.
To understand correctly what St John is saying here, it is useful to remember his
controversy with the false teachers (the Gnostics): these were trying to deceive
the faithful (v. 7) and claimed to have a special knowledge of God (gnosis),which
put them above good and evil, so that what the Church regarded as sin they saw
as morally indifferent and as incapable of undermining the union with God they
claimed they had.
To identify these heretics, the Apostle has recourse to words of our Lord: “the
tree is known by its fruit” (Mt 12:33). Thus, the genuine Christian is recognized
by deeds of righteousness (v. 7), that is, by keeping the commandments of God
and leading a holy life. And the qualities essential to the Christian life are incom-
patible with sin; these qualities are—divine filiation (”he is born of God”: v. 9), inti-
mate union with Christ (”who abides in him”: v. 6), and sanctifying grace, toge-
ther with the infused virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit (this seems to be
what the expression “God’s nature abides in him” means: v. 9). Thus it is under-
standable that “No one who abides in him (Christ) sins” (v. 6).
In fact, as long as “God’s nature abides in him...he cannot sin” (v. 9). Clearly St
John does not mean that a Christian is incapable of sinning; at the start of the
letter he said, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves” (1:8). What he
wants to make quite clear is that no one can justify his own sin by the device of
claiming to be a child of God: the righteousness of the children of God reflects
itself in their actions, whereas “he who commits sin is of the devil” (v. 8), for sin
cuts one off from God and means one has submitted to the slavery of the devil.
The ancient heresy has grown up again, in a way, in our own time: there are
those who claim that union with God is not broken by transgression of com-
mandments, even in grave matter, provided one does not withdraw one’s “fun-
damental option” for God. Against this error, the Magisterium of the Church re-
minds us that “care must be taken not to reduce mortal sin to an act of ‘funda-
mental option’ — as is commonly said today — against God, intending thereby
an explicit and formal contempt for God or neighbor. For mortal sin exists also
when a person knowingly and willingly, for whatever reason chooses something
gravely disordered. In fact, such a choice already includes contempt for the di-
vine law, a rejection of God’s love for humanity and the whole of creation: the
person turns away from God and loses charity” (”Reconciliatio et Paenitentia”,
17).
10. “Children of the devil”: this is a common Semitic way of speaking, meaning
“the devil’s supporters”. In St John’s writings we find references to “children of
the devil” (cf. Jn 8:44; Acts 13:10) and to people who are “of the devil” (v. 8),
and Judas is even called a “devil” (Jn 6:70); but he never uses an expression like
“born of the devil”. Therefore, the expressions “children of the devil” and “children
of God” cannot be put on the same plane.
Also, “children of God” refers here primarily to the moral dimension of Christian
life, as a description (the opposite of “the children of the devil”) of those whose
actions show they are on God’s side. However, being children of God has a radi-
cally different meaning from being children of the devil, because it derives from
something transcendental—God’s causing the Christian to partake of his own di-
vine nature through the life of grace (cf. 1 Jn 3:1-2 and notes on same).
The criteria for distinguishing the two groups mentioned are: the practice of righ-
teousness, that is, striving for holiness and fighting against sin, reviewed in the
previous section (vv. 3-9), and the practice of brotherly love, as we shall see in
the next section (vv. 11-24).
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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.
Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.