1John 3:4-6 Continuing to Sin?
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1John 3:4-6 Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
John is clear here that sin is associated with a certain behavior - namely lawlessness. And as Jesus appeared to take away our sins, those who live in him purifying themselves from sin. If a person does continue to sin, that indicates they had never come to know Christ. This is an indicator of whether one has been born of God.
But realize also that the sense in which John is speaking is that of overall lifestyle or the general characteristic of the person. He's using the Greek Present Tense here, which as I mentioned at the beginning of this study he uses in this sense. He's not speaking of what a person might do uncharacteristically from time to time. He's not speaking of sinless perfection here. Nonetheless, as we will see throughout this chapter, this characteristic is measurable. It is something which can be seen and determined to a relative degree.