What does it mean that His seed remains in him (1 John 3:9)?

Verse 9 emphasizes what has just been said in verses 6 and 7, putting it in a still more emphatic way. No one that has been begotten of God practises lawlessness, and this for a very fundamental reason. The Divine seed remains in him, and hence as begotten of God he cannot sin. Here are dogmatic statements of great strength. No qualifying statements are allowed to enter and modify their positive force. Consequently they have presented a great deal of difficulty to a great many minds.

Two things help to clear up these difficulties. The first is a simple understanding of the force of abstract statements. When we speak abstractly we purposely eliminate in our minds and utterances all qualifying considerations, in order that we may more clearly set forth the essential nature of the thing of which we speak. To take the simplest of illustrations: we say, cork floats, alcohol intoxicates, fire burns. Thereby we state the essential character or nature of these things, without committing ourselves to the consideration of what may look like contradictions in practice. The old lady in yonder cottage, for instance, might say that on this cold and windy day she only wished that her fire did burn. We all know that this unfortunate abnormality, occurring at certain times, does not alter the truth of the abstract statement — fire burns.

From the passage in Peter, with its statement as to our being born of incorruptible seed, we pass on naturally to 1 John, where we read, "Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin; for His seed remains in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God" (1 John 3:9). This verse gives us perhaps the fullest development of the whole matter. No mention is made of the agent employed, the Word of God. Nor is the Spirit of God, who acts in the work, mentioned. The emphasis is concentrated upon God Himself as the Source of all. As born of God, His seed remains in us; it is irrevocable. And we partake of His sinless nature. The born again one cannot sin, just because he is born of God.

In so speaking John views us abstractly, according to the essential character of the new nature which is ours. He is entitled to do so, inasmuch as when God has completed His work concerning us we shall be this not merely abstractly but absolutely. The last trace of the Adamic nature will be gone when our very bodies are glorified. Elsewhere John views us practically, and insists that we have sin in us, and that we do sin: — see, 1 John 1:8 - 2:2. This practical view of things is very necessary of course; but so also is the abstract view, which we have before us. It is most important that we should know the sinlessness of the nature that is ours as born of God.

On the other hand, he who is born of God does not practise sin. The reason is evident; he is made a partaker of the nature of God; he derives his life from Him. This principle of divine life is in him. The seed of God remains in him; he cannot sin, because he is born of God. This new nature had not in it the principle of sin, so as to commit it. How could it be that the divine nature should sin?

To take up again the former figure of the seed, used by both the Lord and the apostle, the seed is the incorruptible Word which gives form and character to the life - manifestation; but the life itself must be in the germ, or it cannot be manifested. So the word of the Lord embodies and manifests the new life we receive, but the energy of the life communicated by the Spirit works by the Word, and there is "growth" - the development of a new nature, which is characterized by its blessed and holy attributes.

Thus Scripture speaks of "the ingrafted Word" (Jas. 1: 21); and the apostle John, similarly connecting the new nature with the Word, says, "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for His seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God" (1 Jn. 3: 9). This is Peter's "incorruptible seed" of "the Word of God," but the life communicated by the Spirit, as already said, causes it to germinate; and, being "everlasting life," His seed remains.

The apostle avoids saying that the flesh sins (vers. 4-9); he will not have dualism. It is no doubt the flesh, but I. John looks at the man simply as christian, without the modification produced in the result by the presence of the flesh. It is the character of the thing which occupies him. He says, "he cannot sin" (not, he ought not to sin). He speaks of the new man, not in taking account of the old, but as being the true "I." If I sin, it is entirely my fault; for the temptation is never beyond what we are able to bear. "The seed of God" (ver. 9) is the life of Christ in us, the new nature.

This is strongly answered in verse 9: “Whosoever is begotten of God doth not practice sin, because His seed abideth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is begotten of God” (Numerical Bible). It should be perfectly clear that the apostle speaks here strictly of the nature that is born of God. New birth provides a nature that is incapable of sin. The seed of the Word of God has been planted permanently in the soul, and that seed can only produce according to its character of spotless purity. The believer therefore cannot practice sin: if he does at any time sin, this is an act foreign to his proper nature, the product of the flesh, which remains in him, though he is “not in the flesh” (Romans 8:9). There is a remedy for this, as we have seen in our epistle (ch.2:1), but no excuse whatever, for the least sin is contrary to our proper nature as born of God. Our verse does not then teach anything like perfection in the flesh, but it does teach perfection in the seed of the Word of God and its results in the newborn soul.

Change there is as the result of it, — real, moral, permanent. "Born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever" (1 Peter 1:23). "Whosoever is born of God does not practice sin, for His seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." (1 John 3:9.) This is not stated of a special class among Christians, as it is often applied — a class who have attained a perfection which others have not, but of all that are born of God. And it announces as clearly as can be the permanence of the change which new birth produces. It is impossible for the child of God to go back into the condition from whence he has been delivered. His seed remaineth in him. The life which he has received is "eternal life."

Thus we see why, in the one born of God, His seed remaineth. There is no condition here as Dr. Steele would have it, nor do we "see at a glance," or see at all, in the Greek, as he declares, the conditions of continuance or perseverance, where the Lord says, "He that heareth My words, and believeth … hath everlasting life." The Greek, if we are to be precise, simply says, "He that is hearing and believing hath." It is not, therefore, that "if these conditions are fulfilled, the new life inspired by the first act of evangelical faith becomes everlasting" (p. 132.) It is not so said, nor does this give the true meaning of everlasting life at all. "This is the commonsense view," perhaps, — the loose, careless view, as these words so often mean. The truth of eternal life is gone, or rather, never was in the author's mind. New birth, there is none. Moral suasion by the Holy Ghost upon the natural man, this is all the divine work in it.

To take up again the former figure of the seed, used by both the Lord and the apostle, the seed is the incorruptible Word which gives form and character to the life-manifestation; but the life itself must be in the germ, or it cannot be manifested. So the word of the Lord embodies and manifests the new life we receive, but the energy of the life communicated by the Spirit works by the Word, and there is "growth" — the development of a new nature, which is characterized by its blessed and holy attributes.

Thus Scripture speaks of "the ingrafted Word" (James 1:21); and the apostle John, similarly connecting the new nature with the Word, says, "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for His seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God" John 3:9). This is Peter's "incorruptible seed" of "the Word of God," but the life communicated by the Spirit, as already said, causes it to germinate; and, being "everlasting life," His seed remains.

The "nature" of the seed determines the form of life. The new nature, God's gift, is not a mixed or partially good thing. It is in itself perfect (though capable of and needing development), without mixture of evil from the very first. In the man in whom it is implanted, evil indeed exists, as thorns and thistles in the field in which wheat is sown: these things being not the imperfection of the wheat in any wise, though hindrances to the crop they are. The character of the seed we have just seen, where the apostle says that the child of God "doth not commit (or rather "practise") sin; for His seed remaineth in him." The new life, if obscured by the evil, is untouched by it, and in essential, — nay, victorious opposition to sin. It will vindicate its character in one born of God, and manifest him as born of God; and where we do not see this result, we cannot recognize as a Christian the person in whom it fails, although granting the possibility of seed being in the ground that has not yet come to the surface. But "faith" — the first principle of the new nature — "worketh by love;" and "faith, if it have not works, is dead, being alone:" "as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God" (Gal. 5:6; James 2:17; Rom. 8:14).

The apostle would have the saints well assured of this. They were not to allow themselves to be deceived by the pretensions of men. Those who practised righteousness were righteous, even as He is righteous, because they derived from Him. The thing that was true in Him was true in them. They were born of Him, and everything produces after its kind. Those who practised sin were of the devil. The apostle goes right back to the source. Adam brought sin into the world, but he was not the originator of sin; the devil was. He sinned from the outset of sin. He was the first sinner. Hence, John does not stop at Adam, in tracing the genealogy of those who rejected the light of God, he goes back to the very beginning. But the Son of God was manifested that He might undo the works of the devil, and the manifestation of the Son of God has brought a new generation into existence who can be spoken of as begotten of God, and such do not practice sin, for his seed remains in him, and such cannot sin, because they have been begotten of God.

This, of course, is looking at the believer abstractly as “born of God,” and not as in his mixed and complex condition with sin in him, and liable, if not watchful, to failure. He is viewed here simply as born, or begotten of God, excluding for the moment from the thought, that as long as we are down here, the flesh and sin are in us, and that we need to be constantly on the alert lest these evil principles be set in motion. We need to reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God in Christ, or we may soon find out to our sorrow that we are quite capable of sinning. But here, as I have said, we are viewed abstractly as begotten of God; and considered in this light only, we can easily understand the statement, “he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”