A Normal Christian Is Free From Sin
But a more serious objection to this method of explaining these difficult verses in First John is that it contradicts the very point that the Apostle is making. If close attention is paid to the conclusion of First John 3:9 it should guard from these errors: “Whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin, because his seed abideth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is begotten of God.”
That seed which is born of God is, as Dr. A. J. Ramsey has pointed out, the Child of God himself, not a seed in him. While he abides he cannot sin. (As Moffatt also translates: “The offspring of God remain in Him.”) The whole argument of the Epistle of John, and particularly of this portion, is that a normal Christian is one who is free from sin. The Apostle does not mean to say that a child of God does not “deliberately” sin, or that he does not “continue in sin” as the rule of his life, or that he does not let the inward impulses of sin express themselves: he means that the Christian, while he abides in Christ, where he belongs, does not sin. He is God’s new creation, and walks in the light having fellowship with God. For “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).