God’s Seed & the Devil’s Schemes | 1 John 3:7-8

ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church · Carlos Montijo

March 9, 2025

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Lord's Day: March 9, 2025  Preacher: <a class="speaker" href="https://www.thorncrowncovenant.church/sermons/preacher/p/19307/carlos-montijo" rel="p-19307">Carlos Montijo</a>  Series: <a id="series-10" class="series" href="https://www.thorncrowncovenant.church/sermons/series/first-john">First John</a>  Topic: <a href="https://www.thorncrowncovenant.church/sermons/topic/spiritual-warfare">Spiritual Warfare</a>  Scripture: 1 John 3:7–8, 2 Timothy 2:15, Galatians 3:11, Habakkuk 2:4, John 8:44, Genesis 3:4–7, 1 John 4:3, Acts 10:34–43, Romans 16:19–20 <h4>I.  Biblical commentators often disagree on how to outline this chapter, and most of this letter, because the letter has no linear progression/flow </h4> <ul> <li>The New Testament manuscripts generally do not contain punctuation or paragraphs</li> <li>Try to read them yourself and make sense of them, even if you know Greek!<a href="#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a></li> </ul> <h4>II.  The best way to understand the flow of John’s first letter: to note the recurring patterns, themes, categories and contrasts that he emphasizes </h4> 7 Little children, let no one deceive you. The one who does righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. 8 The one who does sin is of the devil, because the devil sins from the beginning. The Son of God was manifested for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. 9 Everyone who has been born of God does not sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God. 10 By this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifested: everyone who does not do righteousness is not of God, as well as the one who does not love his brother. 11 For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another; 12 not as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous. 1 John 3:7–12 <ul> <li>Continues to draw out the recurring contrasts of sin and righteousness, holiness and unrighteousness, law and gospel, love and disobedience, God and the devil, God’s Seed and Purpose and the Devil’s Seed and Schemes</li> <li>This passage, and this entire letter, makes constant use of the Analogies of Scripture/Faith—because the New Testament in general (later writings) makes use of all the earlier Old Testament writings, as well as contemporary NT writings</li> <li>Progressive Revelation: later revelation cumulatively explains and accounts for earlier revelation</li> </ul> <h4>III.  1 John 3:8: The Devil, His Schemes, His Children </h4> <ul> <li>We do not become righteous by doing righteous things, which is both impossible and backwards, confusion of law and gospel</li> </ul> <h4>IV.  The Devil himself has his own anointing and incarnation </h4> <ul> <li>The Devil’s anointing stems all the way back to “Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste Brought Death into the World, and all our woe, With loss of Eden” (John Milton, Paradise Lost)</li> <li>It is a false anointing of lies and disobedience, sin and shame/guilt.</li> <li>The Antichrist is the Devil’s false incarnation of Christ, the false head of the church</li> <li>As our confession says (2LBCF 26.4): “The Lord Jesus Christ is the head of the church. In him is vested, by the appointment of the Father in a supreme and sovereign manner, all authority for the calling, institution, order and government of the church.1 The Pope of Rome cannot in any sense be the head of the church, but he is the antichrist, that 'man of lawlessness', and 'son of destruction', who exalts himself in the church against Christ and all that is called God, whom the Lord shall destroy with the brightness of his coming.”2 (1) Col 1:18; Eph 4:11-16; 1:20-23; 5:23-32; 1Co 12:27-28; Joh 17:1-3; Mat 28:18-20; Act 5:31; Joh 10:14-16; (2) 2Th 2:2-9</li> <li>The “many antichrists that have appeared” are the devil’s children</li> <li>Every “spirit of Antichrist” that does not confess Jesus is not from God (1 John 4:3)—it is a false Holy Spirit, unholy spirit</li> </ul> <h4>IV.  How then shall we deal with this sinning, imposturous, copycat devil who tempts us to sin? Have no fear—Jesus Christ the Righteous is here! </h4> <ul> <li>The end of verse 8 points us to gospel-saturated promises of glorious victory and encouragement that overcomes the world, the flesh, the devil: “The Son of God was manifested [incarnated, ἐφανερώθη ephanerōthē] for this purpose, to destroy [“to loose,” λύσῃ lusē] [all] the [false] works of the devil”</li> <li>“If now we dare to be pleasantly pictorial, we may imagine that the devil has tied us into knots, and Christ has come to untie them. Still pictorial, we can say that we are bound by sin and that Christ strikes off our fetters. Of course, Christ had a complex of purposes, but this one affects us most directly.”<a href="#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">[2]</a></li> <li>The God of peace gives us true peace, external/objective peace, not a false hope that is merely internal/subjective, not based on reality, but based on God’s promises and providence</li> </ul> We meet on Sundays for worship at 10:00am: <ul> <li><a href="https://www.thorncrowncovenant.church/">ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church</a> 4712 Montana Ave El Paso, Texas 79903</li> </ul> Contact us at: <ul> <li>web: <a href="https://www.thorncrowncovenant.church/">ThornCrownCovenant.Church</a> call/text: (915) 843-8088 email: <a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a></li> </ul> Scripture quotations taken from the (LSB®) Legacy Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2021 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Managed in partnership with Three Sixteen Publishing Inc. <a href="http://lsbible.org/">LSBible.org</a> and <a href="http://316publishing.com/">316publishing.com</a> <a href="#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> ‘Manuscripts - CSNTM’, Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts <https://manuscripts.csntm.org/> [accessed 9 March 2025]. <a href="#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2">[2]</a> Gordon H. Clark, First John: A Commentary, Trinity Paper, No. 2, 2nd ed. (The Trinity Foundation, 1992), p. 99 <https://www.trinitylectures.org/first-john-p-85.html>.

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God’s Seed &amp; the Devil’s Schemes | 1 John 3:7-8

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God’s Seed & the Devil’s Schemes | 1 John 3:7-8