Holy Wit – Bible Study
#7 Children of God
(Walking in the Light: Studies Through 1 John – 1 John 2:28–3:10)
Scripture Reading (NKJV):
1 John 2:28 And now, little children, abide in Him, that when He appears, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.
1 John 2:29 If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him.
1 John 3:1 Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore, the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.
1 John 3:2 Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
1 John 3:3 And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.
1 John 3:4 Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.
1 John 3:5 And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.
1 John 3:6 Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him.
1 John 3:7 Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.
1 John 3:8 He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
1 John 3:9 Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.
1 John 3:10 In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.
1 John 2:28–3:10 (NKJV):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+2%3A28-3%3A10&version=NKJV
________________________________________
1. Abide in Him Until He Appears
John begins this section by returning to the command that closed the previous one: “abide in Him.” Abiding is not a vague spiritual feeling or a momentary experience. In the setting of 1 John, it means continuing in the apostolic truth about Christ, remaining in fellowship with Him, and refusing the deception of those who deny the Son. The Christian life is sustained by the same Christ in whom it began. John also places this perseverance under the light of Christ’s appearing. The return of Christ is not an ornament attached to Christian doctrine; it gives urgency and direction to Christian living. Those who remain in Christ may face His coming with confidence rather than shame. This confidence is not self-confidence built upon a flawless record. It rests upon Christ our Advocate and is confirmed by a life that continues in Him. A profession of faith that abandons Christ cannot provide biblical assurance. John therefore joins perseverance, assurance, and the second coming: the believer keeps abiding because Christ will appear, and because fellowship with Him makes that appearing a hope rather than a terror.
1 John 2:28 (NKJV):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+2%3A28&version=NKJV
John 15:4–5 (NKJV):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+15%3A4-5&version=NKJV
________________________________________
2. Born of Him: Righteousness as Fruit, Not Root
John’s reasoning in verse 29 is carefully ordered. He does not say that people become children of God by performing enough righteous deeds. He says that the practice of righteousness reveals that a person “is born of Him.” The new birth is the source; righteous conduct is its fruit. This protects the gospel from two opposite errors. Legalism treats obedience as the price of acceptance with God. Lawlessness treats grace as permission to remain unchanged. John allows neither. The righteousness of Christ is the believer’s only ground of acceptance, yet the Christ who justifies also transforms. Justification and sanctification must be distinguished, but they must never be separated. Good works do not create new life, but new life creates good works. John speaks of “practicing” righteousness because he is describing the settled direction of a life, not claiming that Christians reach sinless perfection. The question is not whether a believer ever sins; John has already said that believers must confess their sins. The question is whether righteousness has become the governing allegiance of the life. Obedience is not the purchase price of sonship. It is family resemblance.
1 John 2:29 (NKJV):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+2%3A29&version=NKJV
Ephesians 2:8–10 (NKJV):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+2%3A8-10&version=NKJV
________________________________________
3. “What Manner of Love”: Children Now, Glory Yet to Come
John does not merely tell believers that God loves them. He calls them to stop and consider what kind of love this is: the Father has bestowed a love that makes rebels His children. This status is not earned, imagined, or merely honorary. “Now we are children of God.” What Paul commonly describes as adoption, John often describes as being born of God. Both truths declare that salvation brings believers into a real filial relationship with the Father. The world does not recognise this identity because it did not recognise Christ. Rejection by the world is therefore not proof that God has abandoned His people; it may reflect the same spiritual blindness that rejected the Son. Yet Christian identity contains both an “already” and a “not yet.” Believers are truly God’s children now, while the fullness of what they shall be has not yet been revealed. At Christ’s appearing, they will be like Him because they will see Him as He is. John is not teaching that creatures become divine in essence. He is speaking of glorification: complete conformity to Christ in holiness, freedom from sin, and life suited to His presence. The Father’s love gives both a present name and a future destiny.
1 John 3:1–2 (NKJV):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+3%3A1-2&version=NKJV
Romans 8:15–17, 29–30 (NKJV):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+8%3A15-17%2C29-30&version=NKJV
________________________________________
4. Purifying Hope
The hope of seeing Christ is not meant to produce speculation without obedience. “Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” Biblical hope is not uncertain wishing. It is confident expectation grounded in God’s promise. Because believers know where salvation is going, they begin to live now in a manner consistent with that destination. The future likeness to Christ exerts a sanctifying pressure upon the present. John’s wording also shows that sanctification involves real Christian effort. The believer purifies himself, yet he does so only because God has made him His child, given him hope, and is transforming him. Grace does not remove human responsibility; it creates and empowers it. This purification includes confession of sin, the rejection of corrupt desires, obedience to God’s Word, and a deliberate refusal to make peace with what Christ came to remove. The standard is not the surrounding culture, nor comparison with other Christians, but Christ Himself: “just as He is pure.” John gives no support to perfectionism, but neither does he leave room for comfortable stagnation. The person who expects to see the pure Christ must desire purity now.
1 John 3:3 (NKJV):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+3%3A3&version=NKJV
Titus 2:11–14 (NKJV):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Titus+2%3A11-14&version=NKJV
________________________________________
5. Sin, Lawlessness, and the Mission of the Son
John now defines sin with a severity that modern thought often avoids: “sin is lawlessness.” Sin is more than weakness, poor judgment, or emotional brokenness. Those things may accompany it, but at its heart sin is resistance to the authority of God. His law reveals His holy character and rightful rule; to sin is to act as though the creature may dismiss the Creator’s command. Against this lawlessness John sets the sinless Son. Christ was manifested “to take away our sins,” and “in Him there is no sin.” Only the sinless One could bear the sins of others, and His saving purpose cannot be separated from the destruction of sin’s rule. John therefore says that the one who abides in Christ “does not sin” and that the one who sins has neither seen nor known Him. Read alone, those words might appear to teach that a Christian never commits a sin. But John has already denied sinless claims and instructed believers to confess their sins, resting in Christ their Advocate. His concern here is the continuing practice and dominion of sin. A believer may fall into sin, but cannot settle into it as an accepted way of life. Christ did not come merely to reduce sin’s consequences while leaving its authority untouched. He came to take sins away and to destroy the works of the devil.
1 John 3:4–8 (NKJV):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+3%3A4-8&version=NKJV
1 John 1:8–2:2 (NKJV):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+1%3A8-2%3A2&version=NKJV
________________________________________
6. God’s Seed and the Two Families
Verse 9 presses the doctrine of regeneration to its moral conclusion. Whoever has been born of God does not continue in sin because God’s “seed” remains in him. John does not fully explain the image here, but its force is plain: the new birth is not a religious costume placed over an unchanged nature. God gives an enduring principle of spiritual life. The statement that the believer “cannot sin” does not mean a physical inability to commit an individual sinful act; John’s own earlier teaching rules that out. It means that the person born of God cannot live under sin as an unbroken, unrepentant, defining pattern. New birth creates a holy contradiction between the believer and the sin that still remains. John then speaks with startling clarity of two families: the children of God and the children of the devil. This is moral and spiritual lineage, not physical descent, and it does not make the devil a rival god. He is a creature and a rebel. Yet his children bear his resemblance through lawlessness, while God’s children increasingly bear the Father’s resemblance through righteousness and love. There is no morally empty Christian identity in this passage. Claims, labels, experiences, and religious language are tested by a life that practises righteousness and loves the brethren. John does not ask whether a person has achieved perfection. He asks whose character the person’s life increasingly displays.
1 John 3:9–10 (NKJV):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+3%3A9-10&version=NKJV
John 8:42–44 (NKJV):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+8%3A42-44&version=NKJV
________________________________________
Reflection Questions
1. How does abiding in Christ produce confidence concerning His appearing (1 John 2:28)?
2. Why must the practice of righteousness be understood as evidence of the new birth rather than the cause of it (1 John 2:29)?
3. What does it mean to be a child of God now, and what remains future about that identity (1 John 3:1–2)?
4. In what practical ways should the hope of seeing Christ purify a believer’s present life (1 John 3:3)?
5. How do 1 John 1:8–2:2 help us understand the statements that the person born of God “does not sin” and “cannot sin” (1 John 3:6, 9)?
________________________________________
Prayer Points
1. Thank the Father for the love by which He has made believers His children.
2. Ask for grace to abide in Christ and to await His appearing with confidence.
3. Pray that the hope of seeing Christ will produce deeper purity and obedience.
4. Ask God to expose settled patterns of sin and to strengthen righteousness and love for fellow believers.
________________________________________
For further study (NKJV):
John 1:12–13
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+1%3A12-13&version=NKJV
Romans 6:1–14
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+6%3A1-14&version=NKJV
2 Corinthians 3:18
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Corinthians+3%3A18&version=NKJV
________________________________________
#HolyWitBibleStudy #GordonMcGinnis #WalkingInTheLight #1John2_28To3_10 Holy Wit – Bible Study
#7 Children of God
(Walking in the Light: Studies Through 1 John – 1 John 2:28–3:10)
Scripture Reading (NKJV):
1 John 2:28 And now, little children, abide in Him, that when He appears, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.
1 John 2:29 If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him.
1 John 3:1 Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore, the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.
1 John 3:2 Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
1 John 3:3 And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.
1 John 3:4 Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.
1 John 3:5 And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.
1 John 3:6 Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him.
1 John 3:7 Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.
1 John 3:8 He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
1 John 3:9 Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.
1 John 3:10 In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.
1 John 2:28–3:10 (NKJV):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+2%3A28-3%3A10&version=NKJV
________________________________________
1. Abide in Him Until He Appears
John begins this section by returning to the command that closed the previous one: “abide in Him.” Abiding is not a vague spiritual feeling or a momentary experience. In the setting of 1 John, it means continuing in the apostolic truth about Christ, remaining in fellowship with Him, and refusing the deception of those who deny the Son. The Christian life is sustained by the same Christ in whom it began. John also places this perseverance under the light of Christ’s appearing. The return of Christ is not an ornament attached to Christian doctrine; it gives urgency and direction to Christian living. Those who remain in Christ may face His coming with confidence rather than shame. This confidence is not self-confidence built upon a flawless record. It rests upon Christ our Advocate and is confirmed by a life that continues in Him. A profession of faith that abandons Christ cannot provide biblical assurance. John therefore joins perseverance, assurance, and the second coming: the believer keeps abiding because Christ will appear, and because fellowship with Him makes that appearing a hope rather than a terror.
1 John 2:28 (NKJV):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+2%3A28&version=NKJV
John 15:4–5 (NKJV):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+15%3A4-5&version=NKJV
________________________________________
2. Born of Him: Righteousness as Fruit, Not Root
John’s reasoning in verse 29 is carefully ordered. He does not say that people become children of God by performing enough righteous deeds. He says that the practice of righteousness reveals that a person “is born of Him.” The new birth is the source; righteous conduct is its fruit. This protects the gospel from two opposite errors. Legalism treats obedience as the price of acceptance with God. Lawlessness treats grace as permission to remain unchanged. John allows neither. The righteousness of Christ is the believer’s only ground of acceptance, yet the Christ who justifies also transforms. Justification and sanctification must be distinguished, but they must never be separated. Good works do not create new life, but new life creates good works. John speaks of “practicing” righteousness because he is describing the settled direction of a life, not claiming that Christians reach sinless perfection. The question is not whether a believer ever sins; John has already said that believers must confess their sins. The question is whether righteousness has become the governing allegiance of the life. Obedience is not the purchase price of sonship. It is family resemblance.
1 John 2:29 (NKJV):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+2%3A29&version=NKJV
Ephesians 2:8–10 (NKJV):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+2%3A8-10&version=NKJV
________________________________________
3. “What Manner of Love”: Children Now, Glory Yet to Come
John does not merely tell believers that God loves them. He calls them to stop and consider what kind of love this is: the Father has bestowed a love that makes rebels His children. This status is not earned, imagined, or merely honorary. “Now we are children of God.” What Paul commonly describes as adoption, John often describes as being born of God. Both truths declare that salvation brings believers into a real filial relationship with the Father. The world does not recognise this identity because it did not recognise Christ. Rejection by the world is therefore not proof that God has abandoned His people; it may reflect the same spiritual blindness that rejected the Son. Yet Christian identity contains both an “already” and a “not yet.” Believers are truly God’s children now, while the fullness of what they shall be has not yet been revealed. At Christ’s appearing, they will be like Him because they will see Him as He is. John is not teaching that creatures become divine in essence. He is speaking of glorification: complete conformity to Christ in holiness, freedom from sin, and life suited to His presence. The Father’s love gives both a present name and a future destiny.
1 John 3:1–2 (NKJV):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+3%3A1-2&version=NKJV
Romans 8:15–17, 29–30 (NKJV):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+8%3A15-17%2C29-30&version=NKJV
________________________________________
4. Purifying Hope
The hope of seeing Christ is not meant to produce speculation without obedience. “Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” Biblical hope is not uncertain wishing. It is confident expectation grounded in God’s promise. Because believers know where salvation is going, they begin to live now in a manner consistent with that destination. The future likeness to Christ exerts a sanctifying pressure upon the present. John’s wording also shows that sanctification involves real Christian effort. The believer purifies himself, yet he does so only because God has made him His child, given him hope, and is transforming him. Grace does not remove human responsibility; it creates and empowers it. This purification includes confession of sin, the rejection of corrupt desires, obedience to God’s Word, and a deliberate refusal to make peace with what Christ came to remove. The standard is not the surrounding culture, nor comparison with other Christians, but Christ Himself: “just as He is pure.” John gives no support to perfectionism, but neither does he leave room for comfortable stagnation. The person who expects to see the pure Christ must desire purity now.
1 John 3:3 (NKJV):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+3%3A3&version=NKJV
Titus 2:11–14 (NKJV):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Titus+2%3A11-14&version=NKJV
________________________________________
5. Sin, Lawlessness, and the Mission of the Son
John now defines sin with a severity that modern thought often avoids: “sin is lawlessness.” Sin is more than weakness, poor judgment, or emotional brokenness. Those things may accompany it, but at its heart sin is resistance to the authority of God. His law reveals His holy character and rightful rule; to sin is to act as though the creature may dismiss the Creator’s command. Against this lawlessness John sets the sinless Son. Christ was manifested “to take away our sins,” and “in Him there is no sin.” Only the sinless One could bear the sins of others, and His saving purpose cannot be separated from the destruction of sin’s rule. John therefore says that the one who abides in Christ “does not sin” and that the one who sins has neither seen nor known Him. Read alone, those words might appear to teach that a Christian never commits a sin. But John has already denied sinless claims and instructed believers to confess their sins, resting in Christ their Advocate. His concern here is the continuing practice and dominion of sin. A believer may fall into sin, but cannot settle into it as an accepted way of life. Christ did not come merely to reduce sin’s consequences while leaving its authority untouched. He came to take sins away and to destroy the works of the devil.
1 John 3:4–8 (NKJV):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+3%3A4-8&version=NKJV
1 John 1:8–2:2 (NKJV):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+1%3A8-2%3A2&version=NKJV
________________________________________
6. God’s Seed and the Two Families
Verse 9 presses the doctrine of regeneration to its moral conclusion. Whoever has been born of God does not continue in sin because God’s “seed” remains in him. John does not fully explain the image here, but its force is plain: the new birth is not a religious costume placed over an unchanged nature. God gives an enduring principle of spiritual life. The statement that the believer “cannot sin” does not mean a physical inability to commit an individual sinful act; John’s own earlier teaching rules that out. It means that the person born of God cannot live under sin as an unbroken, unrepentant, defining pattern. New birth creates a holy contradiction between the believer and the sin that still remains. John then speaks with startling clarity of two families: the children of God and the children of the devil. This is moral and spiritual lineage, not physical descent, and it does not make the devil a rival god. He is a creature and a rebel. Yet his children bear his resemblance through lawlessness, while God’s children increasingly bear the Father’s resemblance through righteousness and love. There is no morally empty Christian identity in this passage. Claims, labels, experiences, and religious language are tested by a life that practises righteousness and loves the brethren. John does not ask whether a person has achieved perfection. He asks whose character the person’s life increasingly displays.
1 John 3:9–10 (NKJV):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+3%3A9-10&version=NKJV
John 8:42–44 (NKJV):
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+8%3A42-44&version=NKJV
________________________________________
Reflection Questions
1. How does abiding in Christ produce confidence concerning His appearing (1 John 2:28)?
2. Why must the practice of righteousness be understood as evidence of the new birth rather than the cause of it (1 John 2:29)?
3. What does it mean to be a child of God now, and what remains future about that identity (1 John 3:1–2)?
4. In what practical ways should the hope of seeing Christ purify a believer’s present life (1 John 3:3)?
5. How do 1 John 1:8–2:2 help us understand the statements that the person born of God “does not sin” and “cannot sin” (1 John 3:6, 9)?
________________________________________
Prayer Points
1. Thank the Father for the love by which He has made believers His children.
2. Ask for grace to abide in Christ and to await His appearing with confidence.
3. Pray that the hope of seeing Christ will produce deeper purity and obedience.
4. Ask God to expose settled patterns of sin and to strengthen righteousness and love for fellow believers.
________________________________________
For further study (NKJV):
John 1:12–13
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+1%3A12-13&version=NKJV
Romans 6:1–14
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+6%3A1-14&version=NKJV
2 Corinthians 3:18
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Corinthians+3%3A18&version=NKJV
________________________________________
#HolyWitBibleStudy #GordonMcGinnis #WalkingInTheLight #1John2_28To3_10