What does "abide in him" mean in 1 John 3:6?

The One in whom is no sin has been manifested, and as a result He has taken away our sins, so that we may abide in Him and sin not. Verse 6 presents the contrast from an abstract point of view and must be read in connection with verse 4, so that "sins" has the special force of "practises lawlessness." The children of God are characterized by this: they abide in Him who has been manifested to take away our lawlessnesses, consequently as under His control they do not practise lawlessness. On the contrary, the one who does practise lawlessness has not seen nor known this blessed One.

(V. 6). Partaking of this nature, and abiding in Him, we shall not sin. To abide in Christ is to see Him by faith, know Him by experience, and walk under His influence. The one that sins has not seen Him, nor known Him. The Apostle thus contrasts the two natures: the old nature is lawless; the new nature cannot sin. The two natures co-exist in the believer; thus the Apostle can say in one passage, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves” (1 John 1:8) and, in this passage, “Whosoever sins has not seen Him, neither known Him.”

These blessings are among the possibilities of one who has entered upon deliverance. Their realization will depend upon the maintenance of an ungrieved Spirit (see Eph. 4:30), and of spiritual diligence or purpose of heart. This will at once be understood, at least in one aspect, by a reference to another scripture. The apostle John writes, "Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not" (1 John 3:6); power to overcome the temptation to sin, to gratify the flesh, is here plainly connected with abiding in Christ. What then is abiding in Christ? If we turn to the Lord's own illustration in John 15, the meaning is evident, "As the branch," He says, "cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me." Look now at the branch of the vine. First, it is absolutely dependent on the vine; and, secondly, it lives of the life of the vine. It is the vine's sap which, flowing out from the stem into the branch, produces the fruit. To abide in Christ is therefore to be in absolute dependence upon Christ (and without, or apart from, Him we can do nothing), and to be living of His life. This condition fulfilled, there will always be an ungrieved Spirit, and always power, and thus always victory over sin. It should also be said, that to be in constant dependence implies the activity of faith, and faith in exercise brings in God's power for our daily preservation. Jude teaches the precious truth that God is able to keep us from falling, but God does not always keep His people from stumbling; and the link between the display of His power and our preservation in His path is declared by Peter, when he says, "You, who are kept by the power of God through faith" (1 Peter 1:4-5). Faith then secures the interposition of an Omnipotent arm to uphold us against all the devices of the enemy, so that leaning on it, we may be victorious in every conflict, because He that has undertaken our cause is mightier than all our adversaries. Understanding this, we may adopt the language of the Psalmist, "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" Nay we have, in the confidence of faith, only to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.

Here then is the secret — it is abiding in Christ; and there are few who would not admit that sin could not be committed while abiding in Christ. We are therefore but shut up to Him; our very helplessness thus shuts us up to Him, and leads us to cry to Him that He would so keep us abiding in Him that we may not sin. But this is continual work; moment by moment there must be looking to Him. It is not one act; it is rather our life — our life of constant dependence upon Him and His power.

The sinner, then, sins, and in this merely shows in it his state and the moral root of his nature as a sinner, which is lawlessness. But the born one, the child of God, is in a different position. He knows that Christ was manifested to take away our sins and that in Him there was no sin. If one knows Him and abideth in Him, that one sinneth not. If the believer sins it is because he has lost sight of Christ and does not act in the new life imparted unto him. Another object usurps the place of Christ, and then acting in self-will he is readily exposed to the wiles of the devil using his old nature and the world to lead him astray. If a man lives habitually in sin, according to his old nature, he hath not seen Him nor known Him. A child of God may sin but he is no longer living in sin; if a professing believer lives constantly in sin it is the evidence that he has not known Him at all. There were such who tried to deceive them. Their teaching was evidently a denial of holiness, that there was no need of righteousness. But the demand is for righteousness, while those who practise sin, live habitually in it, are of the devil. No true believer lives thus, for he knows the One whose life he possesses was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil.

“Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen Him, neither known Him.” There is no middle ground here. John is emphatic in rejecting mere false profession. The very nature by which a believer abides in Christ is a nature that repudiates sin: therefore if one’s character is that which practices sin, he is an utter stranger to the blessed Lord. It is the proper character of a believer not to sin. The apostle of course does not here take into account the failings of a true believer, such as he does in ch.2:1, where the word is applicable to the true child of God, — “If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” This is the case of one overtaken by evil, and acting contrary to his character as born of God, and for whom restoration is immediately available. But in ch.3:6, “whosoever sinneth” refers to one unsaved, characterized by sinning.

Fifthly, we are reminded by the Apostle John, that "Whosoever abides in Him sins not" (1 John 3:6). From the preceding verses we learn what the Spirit of God means by sin, for we read, in v. 4, "sin is lawlessness". The essence of sin is doing one's own will without reference to God or man. The world around is increasingly marked by lawlessness — everyone doing that which is right in his own eyes. The result being that, in spite of civilization, education, and legislation, the world system is breaking up, and society, and nations are increasingly disintegrating. Wherever the spirit of lawlessness prevails, disintegration will follow, whether it be in the world or among the people of God. As believers we are ever in danger of being affected by the spirit of the world around. Thus it has come to pass that through lack of watchfulness the same principle of lawlessness, that is breaking up the world system, has wrought division and scattering among the people of God.

Another thing worthy of note in our epistle is that when we read of "abiding in Him," the "Him" refers sometimes to Christ and sometimes to God. For instance, in 1 John 2:6, 1 John 2:28, 1 John 3:6, the reference pretty clearly is to Christ. In 1 John 3:24, 1 John 4:13, 15, 16, it is to God. In 1 John 2:24, it is abiding "in the Son and in the Father." In 1 John 2:27, it would be difficult to say which is in view. The whole treatment of this matter here is surely intended to teach us how truly the Son is one with the Father, so that we cannot be in the Son without being in the Father, and we can only be in the Father by being in the Son. For that reason the Son comes first in 1 John 2:24.

We have before remarked how this word — variously translated as, abide, dwell, remain, continue — characterizes the epistle. In 1 John 2, from verse 6 onwards, we have four references to our abiding in Him. There is a fifth reference to this in 1 John 3:6, and a sixth in 1 John 3:24. But in this sixth reference the corresponding fact of His abiding in us is introduced: and we know that He does abide in us by the Spirit who is given to us.

1 John 3:9, p. 27. — The clue to this and other difficulties is to be found in the singularly abstract character of St. John's Epistles. Here, for instance, the believer is viewed according to the new nature which he possesses, in contrast with the world, which has none of it; but the same Apostle does not forget to say (in 1 John 1:8), "If we (i.e. the family of God) say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." And these two very different but equally true statements naturally flow out of the context, which contains each of them. In chap. 1 the great idea is the eternal life, which was with the Father; He, being the true light, teaches us that God is light, and, while calling and enabling us to walk in the light, discovers to us what we are in ourselves: hence the appropriateness of 1 John 1:8, et seq. In chap. 3 it is not so much this personal and absolutely perfect manifestation in Jesus, as its nature and spiritual features characterising God's children, and contrasted with the world; hence the suitability of 1 John 3:9, etc.