1 John 3:5Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Sin is not even fitting in you. For Christ appeared to destroy sin.

As He Himself had no share in sin, so for you, who have been united with Him and established by faith in Him, there remains no place for sinning.

This is what the words mean: "Everyone who abides in Him does not sin" (1 Jn 3:6).

It must also be known that sin is called a falling away from the good, while lawlessness is the violation of a positive law.

Both have one beginning: the one is a falling away from the good, and the other a transgression of a positive law.

Yet in essence both converge.

The sinner has deviated from the goal appointed according to nature and in nature. For the goal of human nature is to live according to reason, having driven irrationality far away.

Likewise the lawless man, rushing unrestrainedly toward evil, transgresses the law implanted in nature.

And in Him there is no sin, because He was not conceived from sin.

Let there be no sin in you, the Apostle says. Since Christ, being without any share in sin, came to destroy sin, you who abide in Him and are strengthened by faith in Him must no longer sin.

John the Baptist bears witness concerning the Lord, saying: "Behold the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world" (Jn 1:29).

The Lord was able to bear sins because in Him Himself there is no sin.

So many people in the world are regarded as perfect, but none of them was capable of bearing the sins of the world.

None preserved himself in the world from sin.

Therefore Pelagius should not be glorified, and let not his follower Julian exalt himself when he hears that everyone who hopes in the Lord is sanctified.

No one can free from sin. No law, even the holiest, good, and righteous law, can do so.

This belongs only to the One Who is without sin.

You know from the teaching of the Savior Himself and from the apostolic preaching that He, the Son of God, appeared on earth in human nature.

He did this in order to take our sins upon Himself, to destroy their guilt by His merits, and to deliver us from eternal condemnation and death.

We would inevitably have been subjected to these because of our sins.

He fulfilled this, for in Him there is no sin.

He alone, as all-holy and all-perfect, could grant us salvation by His merits.

Man, as guilty of sin, could never free himself from condemnation and eternal death.

The Apostle Peter teaches: "Christ suffered for us. He committed no sin. He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we, being delivered from sins, might live for righteousness.

By His wounds you were healed" (1 Pet 2:21, 22, 24).

From this it is clear how contrary sin is to Jesus Christ the Savior, how harmful it is to our salvation, and how destructive it is for man.

In the awareness of such sinfulness, man has one hope: God our Savior, Jesus Christ. For He alone, being sinless, appeared on earth in order to take our sins upon Himself and, by His righteousness, to justify us before the justice of the heavenly Father.

"And you know": from the teaching of our Savior Jesus Christ Himself, from the apostolic preaching, and from the very beginnings of Christian instruction.

He, that is, the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, appeared on earth in human nature at the end of days in order to take away our sins.

He took them upon Himself by offering before the judgment of God's righteousness a propitiatory sacrifice, not only for the sins of those who believe in Him and are chosen, but for the sins of the whole world.

See 1 Jn 1:2 and the note.

He did this in order to destroy by His death the guilt of all men for sin, and thereby deliver them from eternal condemnation and death by forgiving their sins.

See 1 Pet 2:24 and the note.

Having defined the foundation of life according to God, the Apostle turns to the thought of the opposite condition, the condition of sinfulness.

He shows that every sin is, to a greater or lesser degree, a conscious violation of the law and resistance to the work of salvation.

It was for this work that our sinless Savior came.

Therefore only one who does not know Jesus Christ and has no understanding of His work can sin.

A firm believer in Him cannot sin fully consciously and willingly, as the heretics sinned.

They asserted that Christians, as those freed from sin, were free to do everything. By this they seduced those who lacked a firm understanding of Christianity.