As he concludes his discussion of the Christian's spiritual life, John returns once more to the question of sin and the Kingdom. The apostle affirms that the fullness of life in the Kingdom is bound up with the person of Jesus Christ. The heavenly Father bears witness to the life whose fullness the Son—the Messiah—has brought into the world...
As he concludes his discussion of the Christian's spiritual life, John returns once more to the question of sin and the Kingdom. The apostle affirms that the fullness of life in the Kingdom is bound up with the person of Jesus Christ. The heavenly Father bears witness to the life whose fullness the Son—the Messiah—has brought into the world. And God's breath speaks of that same life, reminding everyone it touches of it. What is at issue here is not a religious reality but a spiritual one, existing before and above every religion. Anyone who seeks God after Christ's coming into the world and the beginning of the Kingdom's history inevitably comes into contact with the Kingdom and will sooner or later meet Christ—provided, of course, that they do not turn aside from the path but follow it to the end.
John speaks here of Christianity not as a new religion with a new doctrine, but as a new life whose reality is as objective as any other reality, independent of what a person believes or what opinions they hold. Whether this new reality will have a bearing on the life of a particular person, however, depends on that person.
No one forces anyone into the Kingdom; for a time, its presence in the world can be ignored altogether. But if a person does choose the Christian path, the question of sin becomes unavoidable. John, meanwhile, speaks of sins that lead to death and sins that do not. These words of the apostle have even given rise, in the history of the Church, to a whole range of theories about mortal sins: which sins should be regarded as such and which should not.
Yet in the context of all that John has said about sin and righteousness, it is not difficult to see that sin leading to death is conscious and voluntary sin, sin of which a person does not repent because they choose it deliberately, knowing what they are doing. The point is not that this deliberate choice makes the sin more grievous, but that by choosing it the person identifies with the sin and becomes one with it.
God could, of course, separate a person from their sin even in this case, but such a separation would then violate that person's free will: it would mean that they had chosen one thing, while God was imposing something else on them against their wishes. Thus a person who consciously chooses sin, if they consistently confirm that choice time after time and repent of nothing, eventually finds themselves outside the Kingdom: there is, after all, no place for sin in the Kingdom. And therefore no place there for someone who cannot conceive of themselves without their sin.
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5:21 Keep yourselves from idols - From all worship of false gods, from all worship of images or of any creature, and from every inward idol; from loving, desiring, fearing anything more than God. Seek all help and defence from evil, all happiness in the true God alone.