Commentary on 1 John 3:1-7

Week 2 (6/30/2024): 1 John 3:1-7

This week’s reading continues two themes from the first week: the relationship that believers have to God and the way that sin impacts that relationship. The author develops both themes by highlighting a difficulty that the believers face: They have become children of God and yet they live in an in-between place. Their lives have changed forever, but they do not yet see God’s true glory (3:2). The author’s contrasting statements on sin (3:3-3:7) need to be read in light of this difficulty. These verses should not be read as advocating for the thesis that “real Christians don’t sin.” The author’s claim that the believers will be like God “when he is revealed,” contains the implicit observation that they are not yet like God (3:2), and his future promise of seeing God “as he is” conditions the statement that “no one who sins has seen him” (3:6). These verses should be read as part of the author’s strategy to encourage the fellowship to realize the harmful nature of sin and to resist it. By pointing to the future hope of seeing and knowing God, the author hopes to orient his readers towards God’s ways of being in order to move them away from impurity and lawlessness (3:3-3:4).