EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/5/2025 8:41 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-5 “The Christian’s Incompatibility
with Sin”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
1 John 3:4-10
Message of the verses: “4 Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness;
and sin is lawlessness. 5 You know that He appeared in order to take away sins;
and in Him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins
has seen Him or knows Him. 7 Little children, make sure no one deceives you;
the one who practices
righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous; 8 the one who practices sin is of the
devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for
this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. 9 No one who is born of God practices sin, because
His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. 10 By
this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who
does not practice
righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.”
The last view that we looked at was that the apostle’s
statement applying only to willful deliberate sin by believers. Now as I begin this SD I want to say that the
historic Roman Catholic position is similar to this view, in that it also
arbitrarily divides sin into two categories.
MacArthur writes “Catholicism differentiates between venial sins (less
serious ones) and mortal sins) those that result in eternal damnation). According to Rome, those who commit mortal
sins forfeit the grace of justification and are no longer abiding in
Christ. Such a classification for sins,
however, is completely foreign to the New Testament.”
We have looked at several different interpretations of
this passage, a true understanding of John’s meaning is not difficult to
apprehend. So what is the true
definition of this section from John’s first letter chapter three and verses
four through ten. MacArthur writes “The
correct view of John’s reference here to believers’ not sinning derives from an
accurate understanding of the Greek tenses.
In this passage the verbs related to sin are all in the present tense,
indicationg continuous, habitual action.
In other words, John is not referring to occasional acts of sin, but to
establish and continual patterns of sinful behavior. Believers will sometimes sin (Rom. 7:14-25)—even
willfully—but they will not and cannot sin habitually, persistently, and as a
way of life (cf. Rom. 6:4-14; Gal. 5:24; Eph. 2:10).” I think it best to look at Romans 6:4-14
which is the first reference given.
4 Therefore we have been buried with Him
through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through
the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we
have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall
also be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our
old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be
done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; 7 for he who has
died is freed from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we
shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the
dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. 10 For the
death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He
lives to God. 11 Even so
consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal
body so that you obey its lusts, 13 and do not go on presenting the members of
your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present
yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as
instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not
under law but under grace.”
I will not give the next quotation from John
MacArthur’s commentary but I will not quote all of the verses that he adds to
this quotation. “When the Holy Spirit
draws sinners to God, regenerates them, and grants them eternal life through
faith in Jesus Christ, they are recreated to obey the Word, follow Christ,
reject the temptations of the world, and display the fruits of righteousness in
their lives. That is nothing more than
foundational new covenant truth.”
Now
we have come to the end of looking at these verses in an introduction and I
usually quote the last paragraph from MacArthur’s commentary in order to
preview where we will be going, which to me is important. “The continuing aim of this epistle is to set forth tests by which a
person’s claim to salvation can be verified or rejected. In chapter one, John refutes the claim of the
false teachers to have advanced beyond any struggle with sin (8-10). He goes on in chapter two to make it clear
that no matter what anyone might claim to believe, if he does not obey Christ’s
commands (2:3) and live righteously)e. g. demonstrate love [2:9-10]), he is not
a believer. In this passage, the apostle
John reinforces the tests of faith he has already established. In so doing he further refutes the false
teachers who minimized or denied the significance of sin. He gives three reasons that the Trinitarian
Christians do not habitually practice sin; sin is incompatible with the law of
God, it is incompatible with the work of Christ, and it is incompatible with
the ministry of the Holy Spirit.”
In tomorrow evenings SD, Lord willing we
will look at “Sin is Incompatible with the Law of God.”
1/5/2025 9:16 PM
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