“Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him.”
Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him
Those who see and know the Lord in fellowship do not produce sin. Sinning is not part and parcel of abiding in Him. Whenever we sin, we do not reflect fellowship with the Lord. This does not mean that the Christian is sinless (1:8,10; 2:1,2), but that sin is abnormal to the Christian life.
Ga 5:16-16, 16 “I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.”
Ro. 7:20, “Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.”
Notice that this does not say, “Whosoever commits a sin has not seen Him, nor known Him.” No one can possibly detect faith in someone else’s heart. None of us can sit in judgment on someone else.
PRINCIPLE:
Life in the Spirit excludes the life controlled by the believer.
APPLICATION:
Walking with God and living in sin are mutually exclusive. Spirituality is an absolute. As long as the Holy Spirit fills (controls) the Christian, he lives in the will of God and according to the character of God. If there is one sin in the life of a believer, the Holy Spirit no longer controls his life; he controls his life. Life under the control of the Holy Spirit excludes the life controlled by the believer.
Ga 2:19, “For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
Jesus is completely free from sin. This is an argument from the material cause of our salvation. Since Christ is perfectly pure and came to take away sins, anyone who genuinely believes in Him does not give himself to sin.
A child of God breaks fellowship with God when he sins. He then stays out of fellowship until he confesses that sin and allows the Holy Spirit to retake control of his life. During the time of his broken fellowship, his Lawyer, Jesus Christ, the righteous one, defense his case before the Father (2:1,2). Jesus represents all his affairs before the Father. The Father may have to discipline him to put the believer back into phase with Himself. If he is a true believer, he cannot sin with impunity.
Ro 6:-21, “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?”
