Practice righteousness vs. practice sin

1 John 3:4 Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. In today’s verse, the apostle John contrasts the practice of the children of God with those who are antichrist. In previous verses he warned his readers not to be fooled by the gnostics who had once been in the assembly, but had left. He said they loved the world and the things in the world. They didn’t believe Jesus was God in the flesh nor that He had physically risen from the dead. Because they believed that the material world was evil, they didn’t believe they could do anything good in their bodies and all that mattered was that they had obtained a spiritual knowledge that Christ was in all and through all. Their ideas produced bad fruit—they practiced sin. They didn’t have the life of Jesus, therefore everything they did was sin. Let me recall to our minds the image of the painter who fixes his attention to the subject. The characteristics of the subject determined what was “right” about his portrait. In a sense, the image of the subject was the law of his actions. As long as he practiced the law of the portrait, he accomplished his goal. But the moment the artist decides to ignore the model and paint what he likes, at that moment he sins against the model and destroys the portrait. Everyone who practices sin, ignores the image of the model, Jesus Christ. To practice sin is to practice lawlessness because sin is lawlessness. Sin is doing that which falls short of the glory of God revealed in Jesus Christ. Paul wrote to the Galatians (5:14) and the Romans (13:9) that the entire law could be summed up in love. So we could easily come to this conclusion. The one who practices righteousness, practices loving with Jesus. The one who practices sin, practices doing what he feels like doing. Everyone who practices doing what they feel like doing practices sin, and that’s not love. Our lives as God’s children are a direct contrast to those who are children of the devil and the world. In living to love with Jesus, we fulfill the law and practice righteousness by His presence and power for the glory of God.