“Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.”
does not sin,
The Greek indicates a universal negative in the phrase “does not sin.” No one with a divine nature can sin. The new nature is a perfect creation (Ep 2:24; Co 3:10) by God at the point of salvation.
PRINCIPLE:
The divine nature in the believer is incapable of sinning.
APPLICATION:
A child shares the nature of his parent. When a child begins to demonstrate certain characteristics of his parents, then it becomes manifest what his parents are like. We get our spiritual nature from God in its entirety.
At the point of salvation, we get a spiritual nature or divine nature. This nature is perfect. We cannot alter or lose it. We cannot lose the old nature or the new nature for that matter. We have the “seed” of God in us – eternal life. Once God gives us eternal life, it is unalterable – unforfeitable and inextinguishable.
The old nature can do nothing but sin; the new nature cannot sin. This makes for a titanic tug of war between these two natures. There is no peaceful coexistence between them. They cannot get along together because they are polar opposites.
Ro 7:18-19, 18 “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. 19 For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.”
Ga 5:17, “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.”
