EasyEnglish Bible 2018
1 John 3:4
4If a person continues to do wrong things, he is choosing not to obey God's rules. Sin is when we do not obey God's rules.
1 John 3:4 in other versions
- King James Version (KJV)Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.
- New International Version (NIV)Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.
- English Standard Version (ESV)Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.
- New King James Version (NKJV)Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.
Context of 1 John 3:4
2My friends, we are already children of God. We do not yet know clearly what we will become. But we do know this: when Christ returns to this world, we will become like him. We will be like him because we will see him as he really is. 3Christ is completely good. So all of us who hope to see him then must keep ourselves clean from sin. If a person continues to do wrong things, he is choosing not to obey God's rules. Sin is when we do not obey God's rules. 5You know that Jesus came into the world so that he might take away our sins. He himself is completely clean from sin. 6Anyone who lives together with Christ does not continue to do wrong things. If anyone continues to do wrong things, that person has not understood who Christ is. He does not know Christ.
Read all of 1 John 31 John 3:4 word by word
Πᾶς ὁ ποιῶν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν καὶ τὴν ἀνομίαν ποιεῖ, καὶ ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐστὶν ἡ ἀνομία.Read the interlinear
Words taken from the KJV.
Cross-references for 1 John 3:4
- 1 John 3:8People who continue to do wrong things show that they belong to the Devil. The Devil has always been doing wrong things from the beginning. This is why the Son of God came to the world. He came to destroy everything that the Devil has done.
- 1 Kings 8:47Then your people may think about the bad things that they have done. While they are prisoners in their enemy's country, they may be sorry about their sins. They may pray to you and ask you to forgive them. They may say, “We have turned away from God and we have done wicked things.”
- 1 Chronicles 10:13Saul died because he turned away from the Lord. He did not obey the Lord's commands. He even tried to get advice from the spirits of dead people.
- 2 Corinthians 12:21I am afraid that I may be very sad when I come back to you. My God may cause me to feel ashamed about you. Some of you may still be doing bad and disgusting things. You may be having sex with people that you are not married to, or in other wrong ways. Those are the bad things that many of you did at one time. If you have not turned away from those bad things, that will make me weep.
- James 5:15If they pray in that way and they trust that God will answer them, the sick person will become well again. The Lord will cause him to become well. And God will forgive him if he has done any wrong things.
- Numbers 15:31That person thought that the Lord's command was not important. He has not obeyed God's rules. So you must make that person completely separate from the people. He is a guilty person.’
- 1 Samuel 15:24Then Saul said to Samuel, ‘It is true, I have done a bad thing. I did not obey the Lord's command. I did not do what you told me to do. I was afraid of the army. I agreed to do what they wanted.
- 2 Chronicles 24:20Then God's Spirit came to Jehoiada's son Zechariah with power. Zechariah stood in front of the people and he said, ‘This is what God says: “You are not obeying the Lord's commands. So nothing will go well for you. You have turned away from the Lord, so now he has turned away from you!” ’
- Isaiah 53:8They spoke lies to accuse him in court. Then they led him away to kill him. And nobody at that time said that it was wrong. His life in this world quickly came to an end. And it was the sins of our own people that caused him to die.
- Daniel 9:11All the people of Israel have turned away from your laws. We have refused to obey you. Your servant Moses gave us your laws. He warned us about your punishments. Now you have punished us in the way that he said. We have turned away from you.
- Romans 3:20God's Law shows people clearly that they have done wrong things. Nobody can become right with God because they obey that Law.
- Romans 4:15The rules in Moses' Law say that God will punish people who do not obey those rules. But without any rules, there is nothing for people to obey.
- James 2:9But if you are kind to some people and you are not kind to others, then you are doing a bad thing. God's Law shows that you are wrong.
- 1 John 5:17Any wrong thing that a person does is sin. But not all sins cause death.
- Romans 7:7So someone might say, ‘God's Law must be bad.’ No! Certainly, it is not bad! Without that law, I would not have known what sin really is. One rule says, ‘You must not want to take things for yourself that belong to other people.’ Without that command, I would not have known that it is wrong to want other people's things.
Commentaries on 1 John 3:4
- Adam Clarke Bible Commentary · v. 4Sin is the transgression of the law - The spirit of the law as well as of the Gospel is, that "we should love God with all our powers, and our neighbor as ourselves." All disobedience is contrary to love; therefore sin is the transgression of the law, whether the act refers immediately to God or to our neighbor.Read the comment
- Barnes’ Notes on the Bible · v. 4Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law - The law of God given to man as a rule of life. The object of the apostle here is to excite them to holiness, and to deter them from committing sin, perhaps in view of the fact stated in 1 John 3:3, that everyone who has the hope of heaven will aim to be holy like the Saviour. To confirm this, he shows them that, as a matter of fact, those who are born of God do lead lives of obedience, 1 John 3:5-10…Read the comment
- Matthew Henry Concise Commentary · v. 3-10Verses 3-10 The sons of God know that their Lord is of purer eyes than to allow any thing unholy and impure to dwell with him. It is the hope of hypocrites, not of the sons of God, that makes allowance for gratifying impure desires and lusts. May we be followers of him as his dear children, thus show our sense of his unspeakable mercy, and express that obedient, grateful, humble mind which becomes us. Sin is the rejecting the Divine law. In him, that is…Read the comment
- Tyndale Open Study Notes · v. 4-10This section explains what it means to live a pure life (3:3). Being part of God's spiritual family requires living a pure life. A life full of sin shows that someone is not truly God's child. Sin is not suitable for the new nature that comes from spiritual birth. John encourages Christians to do what is right to show they are united to Christ and his righteousness. Children of God do not make a practice of sinning. However, this is different from the…Read the comment
- Jamieson–Fausset–Brown Commentary · v. 44. Sin is incompatible with birth from God (1Jo 3:1-3). John often sets forth the same truth negatively, which he had before set forth positively. He had shown, birth from God involves self-purification; he now shows where sin, that is, the want of self-purification, is, there is no birth from God. Whosoever--Greek, "Every one who." committeth sin--in contrast to 1Jo 3:3, "Every man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself"; and 1Jo 3:7, "He that…Read the comment
Topics related to 1 John 3:4
In the dictionaries
Commentaries on 1 John 3
- Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
- Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
- Matthew Henry Concise Commentary
- Tyndale Open Study Notes
- Jamieson–Fausset–Brown Commentary
- Calvin’s Commentaries
- John Wesley’s Notes
- Illustrated New Testament
- Burkitt’s Expository Notes
- Darby Translation Notes
- Family Bible Notes
- Geneva Bible Translation Notes
- Kingcomments
- Luther’s Commentary on Selected Bible Passages
- Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary
- Matthew Henry’s Modern English Commentary
- The People’s New Testament
- Robertson’s Word Pictures
- Scofield Reference Notes, 1917 Edition
- Original Douay–Rheims Annotations
- Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary
- EGW Writings
EasyEnglish Bible 2018 — Copyright © MissionAssist 2018
Commentaries