If you are a parent, you have almost certainly had this experience. Your child does something, or says something that is nearly identical to something you did or said as a child. A quirky habit, a way of holding a fork, a dislike for a certain food, trouble pronouncing a certain word, a remarkable ability or talent, a certain way of sitting or standing. What makes these moments remarkable is that usually they are things they did not actively learn from us, we did not teach them, or try to foster it, it just appears. And when we see them, we know exactly where they came from – from us.

In theology there is a name for this – traducianism, which is the belief that the soul of a human is transmitted through natural generation, along with the body. Your children are literally parts of you, and every parent has experienced this, just as every child, has in other senses, experienced this.

One of the sure signs of regeneration has to do with whose nature or character we possess and therefore imitate. If we have God’s nature in us, then like a child takes after the parent, there will be a habit, and an imitation of God’s nature. On the other hand, Jesus looked at the Pharisees and made this statement about family traits:

“You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do (Jn. 8:44)”

We are considering sure signs of regeneration, which are the marks that Scripture gives of what is a definite sign of having been born from above. Many, many things could be circumstantial evidence of being a Christian. We’ve already seen things such as being intellectually interested in Christianity, feeling personally assured that you are, being religiously involved, being included in a church, being in active ministry. These are things that should be true of a true Christian, but they are no sure sign of being a Christian.

But to find out what are the sure signs of life, we are looking for Scripture’s unequivocal statements regarding what is true of someone born of God. These statements are the equivalent of an ECG – checking if there is life. They are the equivalent of a DNA test, to see if the nature of God is present.

So once again, we turn to the book of 1 John, which is the ultimate book about signs of eternal life.

Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.

And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.

Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him.

Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.

He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.

Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.

In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother. (1 Jn. 3:4-10)

We can summarise this sign of life this way: a sure sign of regeneration is the habitual imitation of the implanted divine nature. We’ll return to explain what that means, but again, let’s eliminate some false flags, some signs which look like habitual imitation of God’s holy nature, but are not. Indeed, they are things which can be true of unbelievers.

Visible Morality Is No Sure Sign of Regeneration

The first is this: it is no sure sign of being born from above that you have visible morality. Visible, outward goodness and morality is not a sure sign of regeneration, because unbelievers are capable of being moral, and keeping certain standards. Remember what Jesus said of the Pharisees?

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence.

“Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.

“Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. (Matt. 23:25-28)”

Remember the rich young ruler who came to Jesus and asked what system of morality would earn him eternal life? Jesus told him to keep the commandments, and the young man said he had kept them all. He had visible external morality, but when Jesus told him to, out of love for God, part with his possessions and follow Christ, he could not. He did not have a new nature of love for God, of death to self, so he went away sorrowful, that his system of morals would not guarantee him entrance into Heaven. Visible morality is not the same as being born from above.

Niceness Is No Sure Sign of Regeneration

Let me take that further into a second false flag. It is no sure sign of regeneration that a person’s character or temperament is what we call ‘nice’. We live in a time when ‘niceness’ is really considered the supreme virtue. When we speak positively about another person, we don’t say things like people in other times said, “He is a noble man” or “She is a woman of honour” or “He is a man of courage and integrity” or “She is a woman of virtue”. No, we say – and it is thought of as the highest compliment – “He is such a nice guy”, or “she is just the nicest person.” By that, we mean someone is pleasant, courteous, even-tempered, considerate. He is amiable, likable, and his outward personality is easy to get along with. In our secular culture, this is basically holiness: being sweet, non-judgemental, someone who gets along with others and doesn’t upset the apple cart.

Now, let me say that Christians should be courteous, considerate, and pleasant overall. We should work on being considerate. We should seek peace, as long as it lies within us, and as long as the truth is not compromised. But niceness is not holiness. C.S. Lewis reminds us, “But we must not suppose that even if we succeeded in making everyone nice we should have saved their souls. A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world — and might even be more difficult to save. For mere improvement is not redemption, though redemption always improves people even here and now…God became man to turn creatures into sons: not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man.”

And sometimes we get the idea that niceness is a sure sign of being saved. But I want you to know some of the nicest people I know are unbelievers and happy to stay that way. And some of the people whom I think show the sure signs of regeneration are not nice people – they struggle with being nervous, or jumpy, or socially awkward, or suspicious, or irritable. They are the timid, lonely, passionate, unbalanced, sometimes even nasty. They fight against this because they are regenerate, but they are not at this time in their lives, nice, and maybe never will be until glorification.

Niceness, or the lack thereof is no sure sign of regeneration.

And let me sound C.S. Lewis’ warning if you are a nice person. “If you are a nice person – if virtue comes easily to you – beware! Much is expected from those to whom much is given. If you mistake for your own merits what are really God’s gifts to you through nature, and if you are contented with simply being nice, you are still a rebel: and all those gifts will only make your fall more terrible, your corruption more complicated, your bad example more disastrous. The Devil was an archangel once; his natural gifts were as far above yours as yours are above those of a chimpanzee.”

Guilt or Conviction Is No Sure Sign of Regeneration

Here is a third trait which is no sure sign of regeneration. It is no sure sign of regeneration that you feel guilt or conviction over sin. Some people think that if they experience any level of guilt or acknowledgement that something is wrong or sinful in their lives, that this is a sign that the Holy Spirit is within them. But that is not true. Look at what Jesus said,

“Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.

And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:

of sin, because they do not believe in Me;

of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more;

of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. (Jn. 16:7-11)”

Whom does Jesus say will the Holy Spirit convict? The world! He is convicting the world, and showing them their sin. And Jesus told us in the same book how sinful hearts respond to this conviction.

“And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.

For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.

But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.” (Jn. 3:19-21)

Scripture has many people who came under conviction, but were not converted. Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned” but he was not repentant, and in my view, not regenerate. Pharaoh admitted to Moses that he had sinned, but he was not regenerate. Judas agreed that he had sinned, but he was never regenerate. The Pharisees were convicted that certain parables were spoken about them, but they did not repent. Felix asked Paul to preach the Gospel to him, and the Bible says:

Now as he reasoned about righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and answered, “Go away for now; when I have a convenient time I will call for you.” (Acts 24:25)

Right now, world over, there are people heavily medicated on anti-depressants, sedative or psychiatric drugs, who do not have a brain problem, they are simply living under conviction and don’t know what to do with it. Their guilt is literally driving them crazy. Mental hospitals across the world would probably have a fraction of their patients if those people dealt with guilt and conviction of sin in their hearts. But feeling guilty, feeling convicted, is no sure sign of regeneration.

I remember some Gospel tracts that said the Gospel is A-B-C: Admit you are a sinner, Believe Jesus died on the Cross for you, Confess that He is your Saviour. An unbeliever can do those. He can admit he is a sinner, believe intellectually that Jesus did something for him on the cross, and then say this verbal incantation whereby he magically obtains Jesus’ work for himself. This trivialises the weight of sin, the meaning of conviction, the true Person and work of Christ, and the nature of confessing Him. It is no sure sign of regeneration that you feel conviction, and feel guilt, and want to escape your guilt. This is merely human.

Visible morality, niceness and having a conscience are no sure signs of regeneration. You can have all three and be unregenerate. So let us come back to our text in 1 John.

Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.

And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.

Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him.

Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.

He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.

Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.

In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother. (1 Jn. 3:4-10)

The sure sign of regeneration is the habitual imitation of God’s implanted nature. Now there are three concepts in that definition I want us to focus on: implanted nature, imitation, and habitual.

Implanted New Nature

First, truly born again people have an implanted new nature.

John shows us this with a simple two-step logical case. First, John shows us that God Himself is sinless.

And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.

Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.

Second, John shows that those with God’s nature in them have had that nature implanted in them.

Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.

If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him.

Notice the logic: God is sinless. So when God reproduces something of Himself in a human, that part of Himself is going to be like Him. God is sinless and righteous, so those with God’s nature within must have that likeness.

He even gives us the opposite case. If you are ‘of the devil’, then you act like the devil:

He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning.

Verse 10 puts the contrast between two kinds of spiritual seed in stark relief:

In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.

Now this is radically different from being moral, or being nice. Morality is starting on the outside, and trying to get it to stick. It takes certain rules, certain manners, certain attitudes, assumes them as one’s own, and then tries to make them habitual. And depending on the discipline of the person, they may or may not stick. But what John is speaking of is something altogether different. This is the infusion, the implantation of someone else’s nature.

When we talk about someone being good-natured, we mean he or she has a very pleasant personality, a kind disposition, and we mean it is who they are. Now back in the 1940 and 50s, a technique was developed called a frontal lobotomy, where neurosurgeons would go in and scrape away all kinds of connections to the anterior part of the frontal lobe of the brain. And supposedly, lobotomies turned nasty, vicious people into placid, calm people. And they had some results – a lot of people turned into very spaced-out individuals. But it didn’t take long to find out that there were vicious side-effects, including permanent incapacitation, and even death. People thought you could change someone’s nature by tampering with the brain.

But you can change someone’s nature if you implant a new one, and it steadily takes over.

God’s method is that He plants His nature in you, and now, through the indwelling Holy Spirit, you will now have an inside-out righteousness.

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;

for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. (Phil. 2:12-13)

If you are truly born again, then the desire for righteousness is not an external fear of man – you are not trying to please man, or fit into a group. Within, is the inward pressure. Within, the Holy Spirit is giving you His desires to please God. Within is the sense that God’s commandments are not burdensome. Within, is the sense that your life is now Christ’s life, so living for Him is what life is about.

“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. (Gal. 2:20)”

Do you have the inward desire to please God? Do you sense a war between desires, sensing the flesh wanting to please self, but the pressure of the Spirit from within creating in you desires to please God?

Imitation of God’s Nature

Second, the truly born again person imitates God’s nature.

Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.

He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.

He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked. (1 Jn. 2:3-6)

You have this internal new nature, but that new nature does not immediately and perfectly replicate God’s nature. Instead, it seems God prefers the slow process of growth, of development, of putting off old sinful ways and replacing them with new ones. Children inherit much from their parents, but they begin to be like their parents through conscious imitation. They pick up our accents, and our vocabulary. They pick up our attitudes, and even our mannerisms. They begin to imitate our likes and dislikes. They copy our tones of voice.

The righteousness of the born again person is not copying a list of impersonal rules or virtues. The born again person’s righteousness is personal – it’s becoming like a Person you are related to. It is imitating a Person you want to please.

Ask an unbeliever why he does certain things or avoids others, and you are sure to get answers about how it is practical to do one thing, dangerous to do another. The unbeliever thinks in terms of profit and loss to himself. But the born again believer thinks in terms of, “Is this pleasing to God? Will this honour my Saviour? Is this a true reflection of Him? Am I representing my Father properly when I do this? Will this shame my Lord?”

You can’t get unbelievers to see their sin in this light, because no new nature is within. Everything is seen in terms of profit or loss to self. They may even admit that an action is wrong according to the Bible. But they do not see it as disloyalty, as transgressing the desires of my Father. It’s not a personal righteousness based on pleasing a person. It’s purely pragmatic, for them.

Is holiness for you a matter of becoming like your Saviour? Do you desire to be like your Lord, so that love of His beauty is what compels you? It is not heavy, begrudging obedience, but the glory of God that you want to be like, and the longer you spend time with Him, the more you want to be like Him?

First, the believer has an implanted new nature – this is an inward desire to be holy. Second, that new nature desires to imitate a Person and please him.

Habitual Imitation of God’s Nature

Third, a truly born again person habitually imitates God’s nature. This is the mode of life for a Christian, the new normal, the trajectory of the life, the new kind of walk.

Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.

Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.

What does all this about not sinning mean? Well, it does not mean what certain groups have taken it to mean. Some people have taken these verses to teach that Christians reach a place where they no longer sin, where sinless perfection has been achieved, and now all they do is righteous. Now we know that that is not what John meant, because just a chapter earlier, he tells us that no Christian reaches this place.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. (1 Jn. 1:8-10)

John makes it clear that true believers never come to a place where they claim they have not sinned or do not sin. Rather, true believers confess their sins as they become aware of them. So John is not going to write this and then just a few verses later say, if you are a believer, you at some point stop sinning altogether.

So what does he mean? The verbs here for sin, commits sin and practice righteousness are present tense verbs. Present tense verbs can be translated in different ways though, with a difference in meaning. In other words, in the present tense, we can say, Fred is stealing, and we can also say Fred steals. If I say, Fred is stealing, I am referring to an act that is progressing as I speak. But if I say, Fred steals, I am referring to something more- Fred’s way of life.

So in the same way, the present tense here can mean: he is sinning, or he sins. He practises righteousness or he is practising righteousness. Clearly, because of what we read in chapter 1, John means sin or righteousness as a habit, as the mode of life, as what characterises you.

He means those born of God do not sin without pause. Those born of God do not sin and keep on sinning. Sinning is not the momentum of their lives, not the way they walk, not their mode of life.

When John says that a Christian cannot sin, he means that it is impossible for someone with the new nature to sin without pause, to sin and not confess, to sin as the way of life.

This is possible only to people who are slaves to sin, people whose righteousness are as filthy rags. For them, the sin is so repetitive, that the noun used to name the sin becomes a noun to name them.

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.

And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Cor. 6:9-11)

“But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” (Rev. 21:8)

And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. (1 Jn. 3:3)

Christians can lie, like Peter did, but they cannot be liars. Believers could murder and commit adultery, like David did, but they could not be murderers and adulterers. Instead, because people born of God have God’s nature in them, their mode of life is seeking to imitate their Father, and Saviour, and Comforter. Their habit of life is now striving to be more like the Saviour, and less like the world or the flesh or the Devil.

They are not sinless, but they are sinning less. They are not perfect, but they desire perfection. Sinning is the interruption of their fellowship with God. An unbeliever may interrupt his selfishness to do something kind. But a Christian is the opposite. His manner of life is seeking to be like Christ. Yes, he sins. He may sin often. He may feel that his sins vastly outnumber his obediences. But for the Christian, those sins are like the falls of a toddler learning to walk. However many times he falls, a Christian knows he is meant to walk – walk like Christ. So he keeps fighting his sin, he keeps confessing it, and striving to be like Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

He does not give up and decide that living in sin is the life for him. He might be flat on his face again and again, but like Peter, he says, Lord, to whom shall we go. So he confesses, and forsakes, and learns better ways of defeating sin and conquering old habits. He learns what he must do to better imitate Christ.

The unbeliever uses language like, “I know I’ve made mistakes.” or “Nobody’s perfect, and I’m sure I could have done better.” The merely moral man does not have an inward pressure to obey God. The merely moral man or nice person does not desire to imitate Christ out of love. The merely moral man does not see sin as an interruption, a fall to be confessed and forsaken.

The believer says, “I displeased my Saviour. I acted like my old family, and not like my new one. I grieved the One I love, and I want His forgiveness and cleansing.” There is hatred of sin, brokenness, and true humility. Because the believer habitually imitates the implanted divine nature.

One of the things we enjoy doing is looking at children and asking which parent the child most resembles. We ask, “Whom does he take after most?” That very same question can be asked spiritually. Who does he or she take after? If the life is filled with self-will, with habitual disobedience, with open and deliberate defiance of God, we know whom he takes after. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. If the life habitually seeks to imitate Christ, we have a positive sign for regeneration.