Expositor's Bible Commentary Commentary 1 John 3

The phrase “born of him [God]” (2:29) leads the author to marvel at the wonder of God’s redemptive activity. See how great the gift of his love really is! Why, he has identified us as being his very own children! And this is exactly what we have become through his acts. Clearly the author means to encourage his readers by reminding them of the lavishness of God’s grace and love— qualities that are missing from his opponents’ lives. They fail to recognize God’s love and feel no obligation to express it. But apart from love, there would have been no children of God.

Because believers are children of God, John warns them that the world is unable to recognize them or relate to them. That should not surprise them because neither did the world recognize God. The failure of the world to know God is one of the basic themes of the gospel of John (5:37; 7:28; 16:3). Those who belong to the world live in darkness. They cannot come to the light but must inevitably hate it.

The author wants his readers to know that approval by the world is to be feared, not desired. To be hated by the world may be unpleasant, but ultimately it should reassure the members of the community of faith that they are loved by God, which is far more important than the world’s hatred.

Though they are now God’s children, the unveiling of their identity or the complete revelation of their nature still lies in the future (probably only at the last time). John does not encourage speculation in these matters. His concern is to reiterate the “tradition” from which the promise comes. He (Jesus) will appear. We will see him as he truly is; his full glory will be revealed (cf. Jn 17:1, 5, 24). And we will become like him. That the author is once more presenting the teaching shared in the church “from the beginning” seems clear from its similarity to Paul’s teaching in Ro 8:29; 1 Corinthians 15:49; 2 Corinthians 3:18; Colossians 3:4.

All who have their hope in Jesus—i.e., their hope of being like him (3:2) when he appears (2:28)—will also be committed to keeping themselves from sin. They will put away every defilement; they will aim to be like him in purity and righteousness. Once more we have the pattern of the incarnate Jesus being held up as an example to believers (cf. 2:6; 3:7, 16; 4:17). Those who claim likeness to him must be conformed to his earthly life, even as they wait for his coming. To live in sin or disobedience to his commands is to abandon any hope in him. It is the pure in heart who will see God (cf. Matthew 5:8).

Here John uses two words to describe sin: “sin” (GK 281) and “lawlessness” (GK 490). In both OT and NT, these two words are used frequently as synonyms (cf. Pss 32:1; 51:3; Romans 4:7; Hebrews 10:17). In John’s community, however, they were used apparently with different meanings. The former word was used to describe transgression of the law, the breaking of God’s commandments. The latter defined sin as rebellion against God and was connected with Satan’s rebellion against God (cf. Matthew 7:22; 24:11–13; 2 Corinthians 6:14–16; 2 Thessalonians 2:1–12). Apparently the false teachers and John agreed that “lawlessness” was incompatible with being born of God. What they did not agree on was that sin, defined as transgression of the moral law, was “lawlessness.” Indeed, as those “born of God” they claimed themselves “morally” to be without sin or guilt. Either they believed that they were by nature incapable of violating the law or that sinful deeds done in the flesh were of no concern to God.

John decries such thinking. That his opponents hate their brothers (2:11) shows that their claim to sinlessness is a lie, and their failure to love stems from their lawlessness. Lawlessness, in turn, shows that they do not belong to God but to the devil (3:10). They are part of the evil soon to be revealed (2:18).

In this verse John turns again to the teaching received “from the beginning” and raises two additional arguments against sin as a principle of life. (1) Not only is sin lawlessness (v.4), but Jesus appeared in history in order to remove it (cf. Jn 1:29; Hebrews 9:26). (2) Jesus himself lived a sinless life (cf. 2:1; 3:3; 2 Corinthians 5:21). In this latter statement the author probably is looking in two directions. Because Jesus was sinless, the devil had no hold on him (cf. John 14:30), so that

Jesus was able to destroy the works of the devil (3:8). In addition, Jesus’ sinlessness reveals the kind of lifestyle required for those who abide in him. John uses the present tense to emphasize that sinlessness is characteristic of Jesus’ eternal nature. He was sinless in his preexistence, in his life in the flesh, and in his eternal position as Son.