The Lord is awe-inspiring, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him in 1 John 3:5-6,
“You know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.”
John tells us here that Jesus Christ came to take away our sins. Jesus said in Luke 19:10, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” As such he became the “sacrifice of atonement” we read of in Romans 3:25, 1 John 2:2, 1 John 4:10 and other places. So we see that Jesus Christ takes away the penalty of our sins. This is how I understand John the Baptist’s exclamation, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
But clearly in this passage John is recognizing more than a judicial pardon for our sins, the removal of the condemnation we stood under as members of a lost and fallen race. John says none of us who have embraced Jesus Christ in faith keep on sinning! To make sure he is understood he gets more specific, “No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.”
John here is not saying we lack the ability to sin, that we have somehow lost our own free will to sin. In the previous chapter he recognizes this, “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.” 1 John 2:1. What would the point be for Jesus Christ advocating for believers before the Father if the potential for occasion didn’t arise? When John says, “No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him” he is speaking of living a lifestyle of sin. We are no longer dominated by our sin nature. As Paul says, “Thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.” Romans 6:17-18. Now as a “new creation” we are freed to live differently, no longer enslaved to our sin natures, set free to live our lives in the Spirit.
Here is my theme of worship for today: God set me free to live a new kind of life here in this world today as a believer. As I am reminded of what the old life was, dominated by my sin nature, things like “hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy” Galatians 5:20-21, and as I see what life in the Holy Spirit is that I have been set free to experience, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control”, Galatians 5:22-23, how can I not worship my Lord who has made this possible?
Spiritual transformation, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” 2 Corinthians 5:17, is a wonderful thing that our loving Lord brings about in each of our lives when we turn to him!
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your theme of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We’d love to hear from you!
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