---
title: "Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible"
author: "Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Commentaries"
section: 885 of 927
url: https://scriptura.si/works/jamieson-fausset-brown-commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/885/
cite: "Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, section 885. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/jamieson-fausset-brown-commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/885/"
---

# Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

*Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown*

The Victorian standard commentary, critical and practical, from Genesis to Revelation.

## 885. 1 John · 5 of 9

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/jamieson-fausset-brown-commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/885/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/jamieson-fausset-brown-commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/885/#p-N

[¶0] 4. Sin is incompatible with birth from God ([1Jo 3:1-3]). John often sets forth the same truth negatively, which he had before set forth positively. He had shown, birth from God involves self-purification; he now shows where sin, that is, the want of self-purification, is, there is no birth from God.

[¶1] Whosoever--Greek, "Every one who."

[¶2] committeth sin--in contrast to [1Jo 3:3], "Every man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself"; and [1Jo 3:7], "He that doeth righteousness."

[¶3] transgresseth ... the law--Greek, "committeth transgression of law." God's law of purity; and so shows he has no such hope of being hereafter pure as God is pure, and, therefore, that he is not born of God.

[¶4] for--Greek, "and."

[¶5] sin is ... transgression of ... law--definition of sin in general. The Greek having the article to both, implies that they are convertible terms. The Greek "sin" (hamartia) is literally, "a missing of the mark." God's will being that mark to be ever aimed at. "By the law is the knowledge of sin." The crookedness of a line is shown by being brought into juxtaposition with a straight ruler.

[¶6] 5. Additional proof of the incompatibility of sin and sonship; the very object of Christ's manifestation in the flesh was to take away (by one act, and entirely, aorist) all sins, as the scapegoat did typically.

[¶7] and--another proof of the same.

[¶8] in him is no sin--not "was," but "is," as in [1Jo 3:7], "He is righteous," and [1Jo 3:3], "He is pure." Therefore we are to be so.

[¶9] 6. He reasons from Christ's own entire separation from sin, that those in him must also be separate from it.

[¶10] abideth in him--as the branch in the vine, by vital union living by His life.

[¶11] sinneth not--In so far as he abides in Christ, so far is he free from all sin. The ideal of the Christian. The life of sin and the life of God mutually exclude one another, just as darkness and light. In matter of fact, believers do fall into sins (1Jo 1:8-10; [2:1, 2]); but all such sins are alien from the life of God, and need Christ's cleansing blood, without application to which the life of God could not be maintained. He sinneth not so long as he abideth in Christ.

[¶12] whosoever sinneth hath not seen him--Greek perfect, "has not seen, and does not see Him." Again the ideal of Christian intuition and knowledge is presented ([Mt 7:23]). All sin as such is at variance with the notion of one regenerated. Not that "whosoever is betrayed into sins has never seen nor known God"; but in so far as sin exists, in that degree the spiritual intuition and knowledge of God do not exist in him.

[¶13] neither--"not even." To see spiritually is a further step than to know; for by knowing we come to seeing by vivid realization and experimentally.

[¶14] 7-8. The same truth stated, with the addition that he who sins is, so far as he sins, "of the devil."

[¶15] let no man deceive you--as Antinomians try to mislead men.

[¶16] righteousness--Greek, "the righteousness," namely, of Christ or God.

[¶17] he that doeth ... is righteous--Not his doing makes him righteous, but his being righteous (justified by the righteousness of God in Christ, [Ro 10:3-10]) makes him to do righteousness: an inversion common in familiar language, logical in reality, though not in form, as in [Lu 7:47]; [Joh 8:47]. Works do not justify, but the justified man works. We infer from his doing righteousness that he is already righteous (that is, has the true and only principle of doing righteousness, namely, faith), and is therefore born of God ([1Jo 3:9]); just as we might say, The tree that bears good fruit is a good tree, and has a living root; not that the fruit makes the tree and its root to be good, but it shows that they are so.

[¶18] he--Christ.

[¶19] 9. Whosoever is born of God--literally, "Everyone that is begotten of God."

[¶20] doth not commit sin--His higher nature, as one born or begotten of God, doth not sin. To be begotten of God and to sin, are states mutually excluding one another. In so far as one sins, he makes it doubtful whether he be born of God.

[¶21] his seed--the living word of God, made by the Holy Spirit the seed in us of a new life and the continual mean of sanctification.

[¶22] remaineth--abideth in him (compare Note, see on [1Jo 3:6]; [Joh 5:38]). This does not contradict [1Jo 1:8], ; the regenerate show the utter incompatibility of sin with regeneration, by cleansing away every sin into which they may be betrayed by the old nature, at once in the blood of Christ.

[¶23] cannot sin, because he is born of God--"because it is of God that he is born" (so the Greek order, as compared with the order of the same words in the beginning of the verse); not "because he was born of God" (the Greek is perfect tense, which is present in meaning, not aorist); it is not said, Because a man was once for all born of God he never afterwards can sin; but, Because he is born of God, the seed abiding now in Him, he cannot sin; so long as it energetically abides, sin can have no place. Compare [Ge 39:9], Joseph, "How CAN I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" The principle within me is at utter variance with it. The regenerate life is incompatible with sin, and gives the believer a hatred for sin in every shape, and an unceasing desire to resist it. "The child of God in this conflict receives indeed wounds daily, but never throws away his arms or makes peace with his deadly foe" [Luther]. The exceptional sins into which the regenerate are surprised, are owing to the new life principle being for a time suffered to lie dormant, and to the sword of the Spirit not being drawn instantly. Sin is ever active, but no longer reigns. The normal direction of the believer's energies is against sin; the law of God after the inward man is the ruling principle of his true self though the old nature, not yet fully deadened, rebels and sins. Contrast [1Jo 5:18] with [Joh 8:34]; compare [Psa 18:22], ; , ; , . The magnetic needle, the nature of which is always to point to the pole, is easily turned aside, but always reseeks the pole.

[¶24] 10. children of the devil--(See on [1Jo 3:8]; [Ac 13:10]). There is no middle class between the children of God and the children of the devil.

[¶25] doeth not righteousness--Contrast [1Jo 2:29].

[¶26] he that loveth not his brother--([1Jo 4:8]); a particular instance of that love which is the sum and fulfilment of all righteousness, and the token (not loud professions, or even seemingly good works) that distinguishes God's children from the devil's.

[¶27] 11. the message--"announcement," as of something good; not a mere command, as the law. The Gospel message of Him who loved us, announced by His servants, is, that we love the brethren; not here all mankind, but those who are our brethren in Christ, children of the same family of God, of whom we have been born anew.

[¶28] 12. who--not in the Greek.

[¶29] of that wicked one--Translate, "evil one," to accord with "Because his own works were evil." Compare [1Jo 3:8], "of the devil," in contrast to "of God," [1Jo 3:10].

[¶30] slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous--through envy and hatred of his brother's piety, owing to which God accepted Abel's, but rejected Cain's offering. Enmity from the first existed between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.

[¶31] 13. Marvel not--The marvel would be if the world loved you.

[¶32] the world--of whom Cain is the representative ([1Jo 3:12]).

[¶33] hate you--as Cain hated even his own brother, and that to the extent of murdering him. The world feels its bad works tacitly reproved by your good works.

[¶34] 14. We--emphatical; hated though we be by the world, we know what the world knows not.

[¶35] know--as an assured fact.

[¶36] passed--changed our state. [Col 1:13], "from the power of darkness ... translated into the kingdom of His dear Son."

[¶37] from death unto life--literally, "out of the death (which enthrals the unregenerate) into the life (of the regenerate)." A palpable coincidence of language and thought, the beloved disciple adopting his Lord's words.

[¶38] because we love the brethren--the ground, not of our passing over out of death into life, but of our knowing that we have so. Love, on our part, is the evidence of our justification and regeneration, not the cause of them. "Let each go to his own heart; if he find there love to the brethren, let him feel assured that he has passed from death unto life. Let him not mind that his glory is only hidden; when the Lord shall come, then shall he appear in glory. For he has vital energy, but it is still wintertime; the root has vigor, but the branches are as it were dry; within there is marrow which is vigorous, within are leaves, within fruits, but they must wait for summer" [Augustine].

[¶39] He that loveth not--Most of the oldest manuscripts omit "his brother," which makes the statement more general.

[¶40] abideth--still.

[¶41] in death--"in the (spiritual) death" (ending in eternal death) which is the state of all by nature. His want of love evidences that no saving change has passed over him.

[¶42] 15. hateth--equivalent to "loveth not" ([1Jo 3:14]); there is no medium between the two. "Love and hatred, like light and darkness, life and death, necessarily replace, as well as necessarily exclude, one another" [Alford].

[¶43] is a murderer--because indulging in that passion, which, if followed out to its natural consequences, would make him one. "Whereas, [1Jo 3:16] desires us to lay down our lives for the brethren; duels require one (awful to say!) to risk his own life, rather than not deprive another of life" [Bengel]. God regards the inward disposition as tantamount to the outward act which would flow from it. Whomsoever one hates, one wishes to be dead.

[¶44] hath--Such a one still "abideth in death." It is not his future state, but his present, which is referred to. He who hates (that is, loveth not) his brother ([1Jo 3:14]), cannot in this his present state have eternal life abiding in him.