"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" (1 John 3:9). Mark carefully in the first place, this is not some advanced attainment of just a few believers who have "faith for it," but it takes in the whole newborn race—"whosoever is born of God."

But, remarks another, this statement seems to be a thorough contradiction to all that I either experience in myself or see in others! A servant of God often used the following illustration to explain—the well-known practice of grafting an apple tree upon a crab tree stock. The head of the crab tree is first cut off; then a small portion of an apple tree is carefully inserted, or "grafted in." Now let us go to the orchard where the tree is planted and inquire more about it of the gardener.

"What kind of tree is this?" we ask.

"An apple tree," he replies.

"Why don't you say that it is partly a crab tree and partly an apple tree?"

"Because we gardeners never think of it like that. It was once a crab tree in the wood, now it is an apple tree in the orchard. It is really the same individual tree; but when we cut off its head, its history as a crab tree came to an end; and when the new graft first showed signs of life, its new history as an apple tree from that day commenced."

"But doesn't this apple tree still bear crab apples?"

"No! and what is more, it cannot. It is just as impossible for the apple tree to bear crab apples as it was impossible for the crab tree to bring forth apples."

"But do you mean to say then, that there is nothing whatever of the 'crab' nature about this tree?"

"No! But I do say that there is nothing of the 'crab' that has not been condemned as such, and if it should show signs of life by sending up shoots from the old stock, I at once cut it off."

Let us now apply this figure. The wild crab tree represents a man in his natural state, before he is born of God. At his second birth a new nature, like the apple tree graft, is produced in him by the Spirit and the Word.

Now the apostle John, in his epistles, generally speaks of things in a very abstract way. Just as the gardener insisted that the tree was only an "apple tree," so John in the passage referred to looks at the believer only in connection with the new nature—the divine nature he possesses as born of God. Therefore, just as it is impossible for an apple tree to bear crabs, and that because it is an apple tree, so it is equally impossible for the one who is born of God (looked at simply as such) to commit sin. "His seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." How could a divine nature sin?

But while John speaks of the divine nature in this absolute, abstract way, he does not, on the other hand, ignore the existence of the sinful nature in the believer. See 1 John 1:8,9; 2:1. The apostle Paul shows us that though there are actually two distinct natures in the believer, yet because God has condemned sin in the flesh in the person of His own Son upon the cross, we are as believers privileged to reckon that our old "crab tree" standing has, once for all, come to an end before Him (Romans 8:9).

—George Cutting