1 John 3: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

John tells his readers that the Father's love has made them children of God, and that what they will be has not yet been shown, except that they will be like Christ when he appears. He then contrasts those who practice sin, who belong to the devil, with those born of God, who practice righteousness and love other believers. He points to Cain as the opposite example and to Jesus laying down his life as the measure of love, urging love in action rather than words. He closes by saying that a heart at peace gives confidence before God, and that God's command is to believe in his Son Jesus Christ and to love one another.

Claim by Claim

1. 3:1
   • The Father has given us love of a remarkable kind.
   • The purpose of that love is that we should be called children of God.
   • The world does not know us.
   • The world does not know us because it did not know him.
2. 3:2
   • The writer addresses the readers as beloved.
   • We are now children of God.
   • What we shall be has not yet been made visible.
   • We know that when he appears we shall be like him.
   • We shall be like him because we shall see him as he is.
3. 3:3
   • Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself.
   • He is pure.
4. 3:4
   • Everyone who commits sin also commits lawlessness.
   • Sin is lawlessness.
5. 3:5
   • You know that he was made visible in order to take away our sins.
   • There is no sin in him.
6. 3:6
   • Everyone who remains in him does not sin.
   • Everyone who sins has not seen him.
   • Everyone who sins has not known him.
7. 3:7
   • The writer addresses the readers as little children.
   • The writer commands that no one deceive them.
   • The one who does righteousness is righteous.
   • He is righteous.
8. 3:8
   • The one who commits sin is of the devil.
   • The devil sins from the beginning.
   • The Son of God was made visible for this purpose: to undo the works of the devil.
9. 3:9
   • Everyone who has been born of God does not commit sin.
   • He does not commit sin because his seed remains in him, and the text does not specify whether the seed is God's or the one born of God's.
   • He cannot sin.
   • He cannot sin because he has been born of God.
10. 3:10
    • By this the children of God and the children of the devil are made evident.
    • Everyone who does not do righteousness is not of God.
    • The one who does not love his brother is not of God.
11. 3:11
    • This is the message you heard from the beginning.
    • The message is that we should love one another.
12. 3:12
    • We are not to be like Cain.
    • Cain was of the evil one.
    • Cain slaughtered his brother.
    • The question is asked why Cain slaughtered him.
    • Cain slaughtered him because Cain's own works were evil.
    • Cain's brother's works were righteous.
13. 3:13
    • The writer addresses the readers as brothers.
    • The writer commands them not to marvel if the world hates them.
14. 3:14
    • We know that we have crossed over from death into life.
    • We know it because we love the brothers.
    • The one who does not love remains in death.
15. 3:15
    • Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer.
    • You know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.
16. 3:16
    • By this we have known the love of God: he laid down his life for us.
    • We are obligated to lay down our lives for the brothers.
17. 3:17
    • The case is put of someone who has the world's goods.
    • The case is put of that person seeing his brother in need.
    • The case is put of that person shutting off his inward compassion from him.
    • The question is asked how the love of God remains in such a person.
18. 3:18
    • The writer addresses the readers as little children.
    • We are not to love in word.
    • We are not to love with the tongue.
    • We are to love in deed and in truth.
19. 3:19
    • By this we know that we are of the truth.
    • By this we shall reassure our hearts before him.
20. 3:20
    • The condition is put that our heart condemns us.
    • God is greater than our heart.
    • God knows all things.
21. 3:21
    • The writer addresses the readers as beloved.
    • The condition is put that our heart does not condemn us.
    • In that case we have confidence toward God.
22. 3:22
    • Whatever we ask we receive from him.
    • We receive it because we keep his commandments.
    • We receive it because we do the things pleasing in his sight.
23. 3:23
    • This is his commandment.
    • The commandment is that we believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ.
    • The commandment is that we love one another.
    • He gave us commandment to do so.
24. 3:24
    • The one who keeps his commandments remains in him.
    • He remains in the one who keeps his commandments.
    • By this we know that he remains in us.
    • We know it by the Spirit he has given us.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

3:1

"The world" in this letter does not mean the planet or its people in general, but human society as it is organized without reference to God. It is a way of speaking about an outlook, not a place. Where the King James says "the sons of God," the Greek word is the one for children, not sons. Throughout this letter the writer reserves "son" for Jesus and calls believers "children." Most early Greek manuscripts add a short clause here, "and we are," after "that we should be called the sons of God." The King James follows manuscripts that lack it, which is why the rendering beside you does not have it.

3:2

"It doth not yet appear" does not mean the matter is unclear; the verb means to be made visible or brought out into the open. The point is that the future state has not yet been disclosed. The Greek of "when he shall appear" is genuinely ambiguous: the verb has no stated subject, so it can mean "when he appears" or "when it appears," that is, when what we will be is finally revealed. Translators have to choose; the Greek does not.

3:3

The verb behind "purifieth himself" was ordinarily used of the ritual preparation that made a worshiper fit to enter the temple, washing and abstaining beforehand. Here it is applied to conduct rather than ceremony.

3:4

"Transgresseth also the law" and "the transgression of the law" both render a single Greek noun meaning lawlessness. The sentence is closer to "sin is lawlessness" than to a statement about breaking a particular written rule.

3:5

"Manifested" means was made visible, brought into the open. The same word runs through this chapter at verses 2, 5, 8 and 10, covering both Jesus appearing on earth and things being shown up for what they are.

3:6

"Abideth" in 1611 English means stays or remains, not endures or tolerates. The Greek verbs for sinning here are in a tense that describes ongoing or habitual action rather than a single act. That is why the rendering says "keeps on sinning" where the King James says "sinneth." The distinction matters, because a few verses earlier the same letter says that anyone claiming to have no sin at all is deceiving himself.

3:7

"Little children" is a term of affection an older teacher used for the adult members of his congregation. It says nothing about their age.

3:8

"Is of the devil" means originates from or belongs to, the way one might say a person is of a certain family. "The devil" translates a Greek word meaning slanderer or accuser. "Sinneth from the beginning" uses the same tense of continuing action: the sense is that the devil has been sinning all along, from the start.

3:9

"His seed remaineth in him" is one of the most disputed sentences in the letter. The Greek word is the ordinary one for a sown seed or for offspring, and the pronouns are ambiguous, so the phrase can mean God's own life or word planted in the person, or the offspring God has produced. The Greek does not settle which.

3:10

"Brother" in this letter normally means a fellow member of the Christian community rather than a blood relative. Greek used the masculine form for a mixed group, which is why some renderings say "brothers and sisters."

3:11

"From the beginning" means from the very first time they heard about Jesus.

3:12

Cain is the figure in Genesis 4 who killed his brother Abel after Abel's offering was accepted and his own was not. A first century reader would have caught the reference at once. "That wicked one" is literally "the evil one," a standing title for the devil in this letter.

3:13

"Marvel not" means do not be astonished, not do not admire.

3:14

"Passed from death unto life" is a word picture, not about dying. Death here means being cut off from God, and life means being close to him.

3:15

The word the King James renders "murderer" is a compound meaning man-killer. It is a rare word, used elsewhere in these writings of the devil himself, so calling a hater a murderer places him in pointed company.

3:16

The words "of God" in "the love of God" are not in the Greek, which says simply "by this we have known love." The King James translators supplied them to fill out the sense. The Greek subject of "laid down his life" is a pronoun meaning "that one," which this writer uses to refer to Jesus. "Lay down his life" is the same expression used in John's gospel for a shepherd giving up his life for the sheep. It means to surrender life deliberately, not merely to risk it.

3:17

"This world's good" translates a word meaning livelihood or means of living: property, income, the resources one lives on, not luxury. "Bowels of compassion" sounds odd now, but the Greek word means the inner organs, which ancient writers treated as the seat of the strongest feelings, much as English speakers now say "heart." To shut them up is to close oneself off from pity.

3:18

"Neither in tongue" means with talk. The tongue often stands for the words a person says.

3:19

The Greek of verses 19 and 20 is notoriously hard to construe, and translations differ widely. "Assure our hearts" can mean to reassure or quiet the heart, or to convince and persuade it, and the word joining verse 19 to verse 20 can be read as "that" or as "because." The rendering beside you picks one of several defensible readings.

3:20

"Heart" here carries the sense of conscience, the faculty that passes judgment on oneself. Because the connecting words are ambiguous, the clause "God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things" has been read in two opposite directions since antiquity: as comfort, meaning God's knowledge goes beyond our self-accusation, or as warning, meaning God knows more against us than we know ourselves. The Greek supports either.

3:21

"Confidence" translates a word that originally described a citizen's right to speak freely and openly in public assembly. It carries the idea of frankness and freedom of speech, not just an inward feeling of assurance.

3:22

"In his sight" means when God looks at it. So this means doing what God likes to see.

3:23

"Believe on the name" uses "name" in the common ancient sense of the person himself, everything he is and is known to be. The verb means to trust and give allegiance to, not merely to accept a fact as true.

3:24

"Dwelleth in him, and he in him" repeats the verb translated "abideth" elsewhere in the chapter, meaning stays or remains. Greek pronouns do not distinguish the two parties any more clearly than the English does, so the mutual phrasing is deliberately reciprocal. This is the first mention of the Spirit in the letter, and it is offered as the evidence by which the readers can tell that the relationship is real.