Hi John,<\/p>\n
This morning I was reading in 1 John 3.\u00a0 The first several verses reminded me of your message last night, especially verse 1: (KJV)<\/span><\/p>\n 1 Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.<\/span><\/p>\n 2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.<\/span><\/p>\n 3 And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n As you pointed out, we have been blessed with so much it is hard to take in.\u00a0 The \u201cmanner of love the Father has bestowed on us\u201d is beyond what one could have imagined.\u00a0 I love what Jesus has created for each one of us.\u00a0 It is no small thing!<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0I have a question about verse 9.\u00a0 What does it mean that \u201c…he cannot sin\u201d? \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 9 Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n I looked at some other versions and almost all of them, including yours, translated it as \u201ccannot sin\u201d. (The ESV translated it as \u201ccannot keep on sinning\u2026\u201d.) I know when we are born again with God\u2019s kind of life, we do not have the desire or nature to sin, and when we stay full of the Spirit, we do not sin.\u00a0 However, if we do not stay full of the Spirit we can sin even though \u201cGod\u2019s seed remains in us\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n I appreciate your clarification.<\/span><\/p>\n Thanks,<\/span><\/p>\n Tom<\/span><\/p>\n ============<\/span><\/p>\n Hi, Tom.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n If you will notice, in my translation, somewhat like the ESV, I have, “cannot practice sin”. \u00a0John is referring to the new nature a born-again person has. \u00a0He certainly knew that someone who has been born again can, as Peter said, “return to his vomit” and transgress again the commandments of God.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n I think that in saying, “His seed abideth in him”, John was referring to someone being full of the Spirit, not just receiving it. \u00a0And as you acknowledged, a person who stays full of the Spirit cannot sin.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n So, you and John agree!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Pastor John<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hi John, This morning I was reading in 1 John 3.\u00a0 The first several verses reminded me of your message last night, especially verse 1: (KJV) 1 Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-qa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4574"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4574\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}