Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 John · About this commentary
Sin Is Lawlessness
1 John 3:4-6
4 Everyone who sins also commits lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. · WEB
The letter defines sin by its relation to law, and it does so at the moment it is answering people who thought themselves beyond both.
Verse 4 is a definition, and it is stated twice in one verse for emphasis: everyone who practices sin practices lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. The Greek word for lawlessness falls twice here, which is the whole of its use in this letter.
The definition is not neutral. It could have been framed as failure, or as missing a mark, or as damage to a relationship, and Scripture elsewhere frames it all three ways. Here it is framed as a relation to law, and the setting explains why: the letter is answering people who claimed to know God while disregarding his commandments 1 John 2:4 and who claimed to have no sin at all 1 John 1:8. Against a spirituality that had detached itself from anything measurable, the letter supplies a measure.
Verse 5 gives the two reasons the definition cannot be softened. He was revealed to take away sins, and in him is no sin. If sin were a lesser thing, the first would be an overreaction; if he tolerated it, the second could not stand.
Verse 6 then states the consequence in the letter's characteristic flat form: whoever remains in him does not sin. The tense is continuous throughout the passage — a practice, a settled direction — which is what keeps it from contradicting the first chapter's insistence that anyone claiming sinlessness is deceived 1 John 1:8. The letter holds both, and it will hold them again 1 John 3:9.
settled What this mark means