to make or do (in a very wide application · verb — present active participle, nominative singular masculine
sin
ἁμαρτίανhamartian
G266
a sin (properly abstract) · noun — accusative singular feminine
transgresseth
ποιεῖ,poiei
G4160
to make or do (in a very wide application · verb — present active indicative, 3rd person singular
also
καὶkai
G2532
and · conjunction
law
ἀνομίανanomian
G458
illegality · noun — accusative singular feminine
for
καὶkai
G2532
and · conjunction
sin
ἁμαρτίαhamartia
G266
a sin (properly abstract) · noun — nominative singular feminine
is
ἐστίestí
G2076
he (she or it) is
law
ἀνομία.anomia
G458
illegality · noun — nominative singular feminine
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
1 John 5:17 All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death.
Romans 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
Romans 4:15 Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.
Numbers 15:31 Because he hath despised the word of the LORD, and hath broken his commandment, that soul shall utterly be cut off; his iniquity shall be up…
2 Corinthians 12:21 And lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and that I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented…
1 John 3:8-9 He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he mi…
Daniel 9:11 Yea, all Israel have transgressed thy law, even by departing, that they might not obey thy voice; therefore the curse is poured upon us, and…
Romans 7:7-13 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had s…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 1 John 3:4-10
The apostle, having alleged the believer's obligation to purity from his hope of heaven, and of communion with Christ in glory at the day of his appearance, now proceeds to fill his own mouth and the believer's mind with multiplied arguments against sin, and all communion with the impure unfruitful works of darkness. And so he reasons and argues,
I. From the nature of sin and the intrinsic evil of it. It is a contrariety to the divine law: Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also (or even) the law (or, whosoever committeth sin even committeth enormity, or aberration from law, or from the law); for sin is the transgression of the law, or is lawlessness, Jo1 3:4. Sin is the destitution or p…
Sin is incompatible with birth from God (Jo1 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 Jo1 3:3, "Every man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself"; and Jo1 3:7, "He that doeth righteousness."
transgresseth . . . the law--Greek, "committeth transgression of law." God's law of purity; and so shows he has no such hope of being hereafter pure as God is pure, and, therefore, that he is not born of God.
for--Gree…
Sin 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.
John Gill on 1 John 3:4
Whosoever committeth sin,.... This, in connection with what follows, is true of any sin, great or small, but here designs a course of sinning, a wilful, obstinate, persisting in sin:
transgresseth also the law; not of man, unless the law of men is founded on, and agrees with the law of God, for sometimes to transgress the laws of men is no sin, and to obey them would be criminal; but the law of God, and that not the ceremonial law, which was now abolished, and therefore to neglect it, or go contrary to it, was not sinful; but the moral law, and every precept of it, which regards love to God or to our neighbour, and which may be transgressed in thought, word, and deed; and he that committeth…
The Church Fathers
John says that sin and iniquity are the same thing, though there were heretics who denied this. According to some of them, iniquity was a crime deliberately committed, but sin was a fact of nature and therefore not a crime.
"Every one that doeth sin, doeth also iniquity." Let no man say, Sin is one thing, iniquity another: let no man say, I am a sinful man, but not a doer of iniquity. For, "Every one that doeth sin, doeth also iniquity. Sin is iniquity."
Everyone who commits sin also commits iniquity, and sin is a transgression of the law. Confirmed in the previous discourse about righteousness from the good of righteous, now also takes on demonstration from the opposites and those things that happen to them, and says: "Everyone who sins." Saying something like this: You who have been adopted, do righteousness, nor present yourselves idle in this. For just as in sin it is not he who has done or will do it, that one is called a transgressor or a sinner, but he who clings to evil and is its operator: so too the righteous one is not called he who accomplishes nothing, or the lazy one, but the diligent. It should be noted, however, that sin (αμαρτία) is indeed a fall from that which is good; iniquity (ἀνομία), on the other hand, is a transgression against the established law. And both of these have their origin: namely, sin is an erosion from that which is good; whereas iniquity is to commit an offense against the established law. They agree among themselves and are concerned with the same thing. For he who sins strays from the goal that is according to nature and in nature itself: for the goal of human nature is to live according to reason, so that it is far removed from foolishness. Similarly, he who acts unjustly transgresses the law given in nature, affected by greed. Therefore, the disciple of the Lord rightly transformed both into the same.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Sin — Is “any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God” (1 John 3:4; Rom. 4:15), in the inward state and habit of the soul, as well as in the outward conduct of the life, whether by…
Law Of God, The · Sin is a transgression of — Sin is a transgression of
Sin · Is the transgression of the law — Is the transgression of the law
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
1 John 3:4-6
4. Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.
4. Quicunque facit peccatum, etiam iniquitatem facit; et peccatum est iniquitas.
5. And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin.
5. Porro nostis quod ille apparuit ut peccata nostra tolleret; et peccatum in eo non est.
6. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.
6. Quisquis in eo manet, non peccat; quisquis peccat, non vidit eum, nec novit eum.
4 Whosoever committeth, or doeth, sin. The Apostle has already shown how ungrateful we must be to God, if we make but little account of the honor of…
This section discusses what it means to live a pure life (3:3). Being born into God’s family demands purification; a life of sin—a continual lack of purity—is evidence that someone is not really God’s child. Sin is incompatible with the new nature derived from the new birth. John wants believers to do what is right and thus demonstrate that they are joined to Christ and his righteousness. Those who are children of God do not make a practice of sinning, but this differs from the sort of “sinlessness” that the false teachers claimed (see 1:5-10 and corresponding study notes).
