Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 John · About this commentary
His Seed Remains in Him
1 John 3:9-10
9 Whoever is born of God doesn’t commit sin, because his seed remains in him, and he can’t sin, because he is born of God. · WEB
The hardest sentence in the letter says the one born of God cannot sin, and the reason given is the only thing that makes it readable.
Verse 9 states it twice, and the second time it is stronger. Whoever is born of God does not practice sin — and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God. Taken as a claim about behavior it contradicts the first chapter directly 1 John 1:8 1 John 1:10, and the letter shows no sign of having lost track of what it said.
The reason in the middle is what governs the sentence: because his seed remains in him. The image is generative. Something has been planted that carries its own nature, and what the verse describes is that nature's incapacity rather than the believer's.
So the letter is speaking about what a person is now made of, not about a record without failures. A newborn cannot behave contrary to its parentage in the sense that its parentage is not in question; that is the register here. And the verbs are continuous throughout, describing a settled practice rather than particular acts — which is how both halves of the letter stand together without either being reduced.
Verse 10 then converts it into the test the passage was building toward, and the test is double. In this the children of God are revealed, and the children of the devil — and the revealing runs on two tests: not doing righteousness, and not loving one's brother. The second arrives without warning, and it is the letter's constant move. Every doctrinal division it draws ends up cashed out in how people treat each other 1 John 4:20.
held with reason What this mark means