“Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.”
Whoever commits sin
John continues his thought of cleansing from sin in the believer. Now he turns to the believer out of fellowship: the carnal believer.
Sin is incompatible with spiritual birth (1 Jn 3:1-3). It is contrary to our regenerated nature. Sin opposes the purity of the previous verse.
PRINCIPLE:
We must not take sin lightly, because at its heart it is rebellion against God.
APPLICATION:
Sin is incompatible with our regeneration. It is not befitting of a member of the family of God. It is incompatible with God’s will.
A believer in fellowship wants to do God’s will, not his own. When filled with the Spirit, he produces God’s character and lives according to God’s norms.
A carnal believer wants to please the Lord by operation of bootstraps. He thinks that pseudo-spirituality will please God. He believes that asceticism, emotionalism, or ecstatic experience pleases the Lord. This is spirituality by works and not by the power of the Spirit. When he allows the sin capacity to control him, he does nothing but sin and lawlessness.
