Tool Alpha
The Contradiction Desk
Claimed Bible contradictions, stated the way they circulate, each with one diagnosis and the evidence for it: the Hebrew, the Greek, the manuscripts.
Whosoever is born of God cannot sin
1 John 1:8 says anyone who claims to have no sin deceives himself. 1 John 3:9 says whoever is born of God cannot sin. The Greek verbs are present tense, and many versions read keep on sinning.
1 John 3:9, in every translation this tool compares.
The real question: does John say Christians never sin, or something else? She doesn't smoke, and she had a cigarette at the wedding. Is that a lie, or a statement about a habit?
1 John 3:9 in the King James says whoever is born of God doth not commit sin and cannot sin. 1 John 1:8 says that if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves. The same short letter says both.
Bible Hub's interlinear page parses the verbs in 3:9 as present tense: poiei, does, and hamartanein, to sin, a present infinitive after cannot. The CSB's own textual notes offer Or not practice sin and Or to keep on sinning at 3:9, and Or not keep on sinning at 3:6. Bible Hub's parallel page shows the split: the ESV reads cannot keep on sinning, the NIV cannot go on sinning, the NLT can't keep on sinning; the King James, NKJV, NASB of 1995 and NRSV read cannot sin. The diagnosis is that the English cannot sin states an absolute that the Greek tense may not.
Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
The Skeptic's Annotated Bible lists the passages under "Do Christians sin?": yes, everyone is a sinner, at 1 Kings 8:46, Ecclesiastes 7:20, Romans 3:23 and 1 John 1:8 and 10; no, Christians are sinless, at 1 John 3:6, 3:9 and 5:18 and 3 John 11. At full strength: John's wording in chapter 3 is as absolute as language gets, cannot, and he wrote it two chapters after saying the opposite.
The ESV Study Bible says genuine Christians have been so transformed that they cannot live in a pattern of continual sin, though they are never completely free from sin in this life, citing 1:8-10. MacArthur reads 3:6 as habitual, constant sinning. The CSB Study Bible says John knew Christians sin (2:1) and had in mind flagrant sin by false believers whose confession was false.
The tense argument is contested as a diagnosis. The NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible says a number of scholars stress the tense to mean continuous sin, while others read John as describing what is possible or as answering false teachers' claims, and it adds that with or without the tense John may simply mean characteristic behavior. It also calls the two sides of John's letter a paradox. So the translation split explains why cannot sin sounds absolute in English. Whether the Greek present by itself means habitual is not settled by the sources here.
Not a claim that John excuses sin. Every reading above has John insisting that the born of God do not live in it.
- Bible Hub, 1 John 3:9 interlinear, https://biblehub.com/interlinear/1_john/3-9.htm
- Bible Hub, 1 John 3:9 parallel versions, https://biblehub.com/1_john/3-9.htm
- CSB Study Bible, textual notes on 1 John 3:6 and 3:9, notes on 3:6 and 3:9-10
- ESV Study Bible, notes on 1 John 3:6-7 and 3:9-10
- The MacArthur Study Bible (ESV), notes on 1 John 3:6 and 3:9
- NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible, note on 1 John 3:6
- The Skeptic's Annotated Bible, Do Christians sin?, https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/sin.html
- King James Version, 1 John 1:8 and 3:9
