This is one of the most confusing questions about the Bible. When I first started to take the Christian life seriously, I wanted to know what God reveals about the Christian nature and its relationship with sin. I started reading the first letter of John one day and ran ac
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ross this statement: ”If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.” ( 1 John 1:8) I thought, “O,k.! There is the answer to my question about Christian sin. Christians can sin. In fact, if we say that we cannot sin, we are liars.
I continued reading through the book. Soon I arrived at chapter 3, where I read: “No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.” (1 John 3:6) I thought, “Wait a minute! I just read that Christians can sin, and now I’m reading that no person who sins “abides in” or even “knows” God! What is going on here?
Since that day I have learned that almost every Christian stumbles on this issue at some point. I have come back to it many times because I don’t like confusion and contradiction. I’ll briefly share my conclusions with you because you may be confused, as well.
The key to the mystery is to get an accurate understanding of the meanings of these two verses. I will discuss them below:
1 John 1:8. If you click on this link you will see a parallel view of several Bible translations of this verse. You will note that most of them use term like “have no sin” or “claim to be without sin.” For most translators the verse does not seem to be stating that Christians are sinful, but merely that they possess the capability to sin. This is not the same condition that is attributed to non-Christians, who are said to be not only sinful, but incapable of not sinning.
1 John 3:6. If you click on this link you will see a parallel view of several Bible translations of this verse. A glance at these translations will reveal that most translators use phrases like “does not keep on sinning” and “does not continue to sin” to describe the nature of the Christian. That is, the Christian does not commit the same sins over and over again despite knowing that they are wrong. Again, this is in juxtaposition with the non-Christian, who not only sins continuously, but cannot do otherwise.
I would contend that to “keep on sinning” implies “sinning with impunity.” In other words, to be able to say, “I know it is wrong but I’m going to keep doing it anyway,” or, in the case of a Christian, to be able to keep on sinning even with the knowledge of what it costs the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as well as other people. I think it is consistent with both of these verses to say that Christians can sin but cannot keep on sinning without being affected by it. These things are incompatible with the redeemed nature.
When we discuss Christian sin we cannot avoid the question of what constitutes the “Christian nature”? We have to ask what the Bible means when it states “…if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17) If you are like me, you would like to believe that God recreates Christians to be unable to sin. This, however, is not the case; at least while we are in this “corruptible” flesh. (I Corinthians 15:53, KJV) The “new things” brought about by our redemption are the things of the will. We have changed from a creature that is controlled by the will to sin into a creation that is capable of being controlled by the will to behave righteously. That is the process we call “sanctification.”
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