”If any should see the brother of him sinning sin not toward death, he will ask and He will give to him life, to the [ones] sinning not toward death. There is sin toward death. Not about that one I am saying in order that he should ask. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin not toward death.”
-Oh boy. This short letter is full of teaching which is difficult to understand, and here we have a doozie. Sin toward death. What is that, exactly? Are we talking physical death, or spiritual death (i.e. loss of salvation - is this brother-in-Christ no longer a brother?), or eternal death (lake of fire/second death)? And what is the life God gives to the ones NOT sinning sin toward death? This would of course have correspond to whatever death results from the sin toward death. But if the sin is not toward death, why would the brother need life? There is also a question of whether John is referring to a saved brother in Christ, or perhaps merely to a neighbor in the general sense of the brotherhood of humanity.
-Not surprisingly, there are many suggestions as to what might be this “sin-toward-death”. So-called mortal sin. There is even an ancient (albeit non-Scriptural) list of seven of them - the “seven deadly sins”: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth. All of these happen to be forgivable, and none would appear to result in direct loss of life (note - forgivable by no means implies permissable). Some suggest John has in mind sin against the Holy Spirit (i.e. the unpardonable sin referred to in Mark 3.29, Matthew 12.31-32)(this sin is typically assigned to and reserved for unbelievers, who are resisting the convicting activity of God’s Spirit in the soul, and who will ultimately in rejecting the truth about God will keep Him and His gift of eternal life thru Jesus at arm’s distance all the way to the grave and into eternity - the one thing which God can’t forgive)(which adopting this view would then require one to make the “brother” mentioned here to be an unbeliever - which is not at all how John uses the term in the rest of the letter). Or perhaps it is some great and enormous sin (such as murder or idolatry), a sin which which was punishable by death in the law of Moses. Possibly some spiritual sin which brought about the untimely death of the offender (as in the case of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5.1-10 and the abuse of the Lord’s Supper in 1Corinthians 11.30), or perhaps some capital crime committed against the state for which there was no hope of reprieve.
-Here’s truth - ALL sin leads toward eternal death - if unforgiven (Romans 6.23). John here says there is sin NOT toward death, so he can’t be talking about eternal death.
-Let’s revisit this question - if the sin in mind is NOT toward death, why would the offender need prayer for life? Seems like the one sinning toward death is the one who stands in need of life, and of prayer toward that end. And why would John say we don’t need to pray for someone?
-One easy way out is to allow that John actually IS refering to a brotherhood-of-man brother, one who doesn’t have spiritual life, one who still has the possibility of being forgiven and receiving eternal life. Such a brother, one who ostensibly is not sinning (blaspheming/resisting) against the Holy Spirit, is someone for whom we can indeed and should intercede. We can pray for them and ask God to open their hearts to repent and believe in Jesus so that they can indeed be forgiven and receive eternal life. The language vis a vis praying here is future indicative, by the way. Future fact. Bankable promise from God. John says “he WILL ask” and “He WILL give” life. Now the text does not say “God will give”, but of course we understand that only God can give life. And so there is potentially a strengthened admonition here to pray for unbelievers, tied to an amazing promise. Problem is, it requires a different use of brother. And it requires us to say that all of this sin short of Holy Spirit blasphemy is not unto death, which it technically is.
-One thing we do have here is an immediate application of the truth about asking, that God hears us when we ask according to what He wants. And He clearly wants us to be praying for people who are struggling with sin and disobedience and unbelief.
-What we may have here is the corporate side of 1John 1.9. There John tells the reader that if we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. He uses the same phrase here in v. 17. All unrighteousness is sin. We understand that a believing brother doesn’t technically NEED to be forgiven or cleansed per se. Nor does he NEED life (eternal), inasmuch as he already has it. So what John could be talking about here is an experiential assurance of life and forgiveness for a truly saved brother. OR, we could be looking at the playing out of a process of entering into eternal life for someone who is associating themselves with the family of God. They are aligning themselves with God’s children - but the process of salvation is playing out in their life. They are in our assembly, and are showing signs of following Jesus, which means we love them and lay our life down for them, but there is this possibility that the faith they appear to be demonstrating could fizzle before the finish (which could be true for any one of us - Hebrews 3.12 warns us to be careful that we don’t find ourselves with what is an unbelieving heart). In which case it would have been faulty from the first. But so we can be praying for members of our assembly, knowing that just because they assemble with us that they may not have truly trusted in Christ yet, knowing that all unrighteousness is sin and that all of it can be forgiven (unless what they are doing ultimately is resisting the Holy Spirit, i.e. sin unto death)(and note that John doesn’t say NOT to pray for those). We can pray for this person with the utmost confidence that God wants them to repent and enter in to eternal life. In this latter instance, we put “brother” in quotes. In the case of the former, we put “give life” in quotes, since a truly saved brother while he may struggle with sin for a season already has life and forgiveness - he just needs to experience that reality in a deeper way. So which do you think it is - experiential assurance of life and forgiveness for a truly saved brother, or actual repentance for an unsaved attender of our assembly? Either explanation works, even in light of the following section. Next verse...
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