Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - 1 John 3:4 - 3:4
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Sin is incompatible with birth from God (1Jo 3:1-3). John often sets forth the same truth negatively, which he had before set forth positively. He had shown, birth from God involves self-purification; he now shows where sin, that is, the want of self-purification, is, there is no birth from God.
Whosoever - Greek, “Every one who.”
committeth sin - in contrast to 1Jo 3:3, “Every man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself”; and 1Jo 3:7, “He that doeth righteousness.”
transgresseth ... the law - Greek, “committeth transgression of law.” God’s law of purity; and so shows he has no such hope of being hereafter pure as God is pure, and, therefore, that he is not born of God.
for - Greek, “and.”
sin is ... transgression of ... law - definition of sin in general. The Greek having the article to both, implies that they are convertible terms. The Greek “sin” (hamartia) is literally, “a missing of the mark.” God’s will being that mark to be ever aimed at. “By the law is the knowledge of sin.” The crookedness of a line is shown by being brought into juxtaposition with a straight ruler.