"IF YE WILL INQUIRE, INQUIRE YE."
By Editor
This Inquirers' Department is conducted for the purpose of helping those who are studying the Bible. The answers are oftentimes only suggestive. They are never to be considered infallible, only as they agree with the infallible Word. The writer who may answer them does not consider that his opinion is infallible. He will simply give the best that he has, and plead with the inquirer to search the Word. Such questions only will be answered as, to the editors, seem to minister to the good of the readers and to the mission of the paper. We can not answer repeatedly in the same volume questions upon the same scripture. The name and address must accompany question, not for publication, but as an evidence of good faith, and that answer may be made by letter if deemed advisable. No letters are answered which do not contain the name of the writer. It is well always to enclose stamp for reply. Will you please explain 1 John 3:9? When does this birth take place? Can a person lose it? And if he lose it, can he have it again? H. A. C. We quote the scripture from the American Revised Version: "Whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin, because His seed abideth in him: and he can not sin, because he is begotten of God." One reading the context will see very clearly that the apostle is contrasting two different characters and two different sources of character: the one of the devil; the other of God, and making the doing of God's will his business. The apostle is not speaking of detailed deeds, but of essential character. The one is as he is because he is born of the flesh and is led and controlled by the devil. The other is as he is because a new life has come into his being, a new power has taken possession of him. The living Word of God has been received. The old life has been given up, and the new seed has taken root and is dominating his life. We have no desire to shade down the meaning of the apostle. "Born" would be better as in the Revised Version, "begotten." The full birth of the child of God is not completed till he shall come forth in the resurrection; but he is begotten here by the Word. That change takes place at conversion, when the man yields himself to God and receives the righteousness and life of Jesus Christ. The "can not sin" does not express a physical inability to sin, but it expresses the strength of the purpose in the soul. We read in Shakespeare an expression, "Look you, what I will not, that I can not do." We have the same thought phrased in these words in Luke 14:20: "Another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I can not come." Not that it was a physical impossibility for him to come, but he had no desire to come. He did not will to come. He preferred his wife to the invitation to the marriage feast. So it is in regard to the converted child of God. He does not practice sin. That is not his object, his purpose. We would not understand the text to mean that he can not fail. He may not see all things clearly. Alford remarks that one's having been born is in danger of becoming a mere fact of the past instead of a fact in the present. The apostle does not say that he was born of God, but is. It is the present life with which he deals. Alford tells us that almost all the expositors understand, "because he is born of God," and "because His seed remaineth in him," in the sense of, "in so far as he is born of God he can not sin." It seems as tho this very thought must be understood as expressed in the text, because there are many souls that truly enter Christ's service and truly persevere unto the end, yet who fail; fail through ignorance of understanding God's will; fail in not knowing their own weakness and His strength in certain particulars; fail to know how to apply His grace to the particular sin; yet God counts them His children all the way because it is in their heart to do His will, and if they sin they show that they are His children by the godly sorrow which is wrought in them. Luther has expressed it as saying that a child of God in this conflict receives indeed wounds daily, but never throws away his arms or makes peace with his deadly foe. Sin is in the flesh; and if the flesh be allowed its way, sin will remain in the flesh. It is sinful flesh that man possesses. Its tendency is to corruption, ever downward. The difference between the begotten child of God and the child of the flesh and of the world is that in the latter sin is dominant, a controlling element or power. In the former the Spirit of Christ is dominant. Sin is compelled to take the place of prisoner. But God gives His life, His Spirit; and the child of faith by that Spirit crucifies or puts to death daily and constantly the deeds of the flesh. Rom. 8:12. "If one shall lose his living connection with God, can he gain it again?" It seems to us that the whole tendency of the Scripture teaches that he may. Take Jeremiah 2 and 3 for instance, in which God tells Israel that they had departed from Him as a wife departs from her husband, willingly, wickedly, sinning against Him; and yet read the plea that the Lord makes: "Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings." Take the parable of the prodigal son, the son who left his father's house and spent all his living with the wicked and the dissolute. Yet when he came to himself he returned and was welcomed and clothed with the best robe. God would have the living seed abide in the hearts of His children so that they may be kept from sin. He writes His wonderful Word of life that we may not sin. "These things write I unto you, that ye sin not," or as rendered by some, "that ye may not sin," that is, be kept from sin, have within you that power which will enable you to overcome sin. But He continues, "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." He will forgive the sin, restore the standing, and count us still His children. It is the abiding life which God desires. Read in connection with it the first seven verses of John 15.