Whilst he thus shows the total contrariety between the children of God and the children of the devil, between him that doeth righteousness and him that sinneth, the Apostle says: "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." John here first certifies a matter of fact; he states a practical proposition, viz. that he who is born of God, -- as being born of God, -- sinneth not. The ground of this is stated in the declaration which follows, that in such the seed of God remaineth. The figure of seed, so often employed in the Scriptures, is usually taken from husbandry. Thus in the parables of our Lord, the word of God is compared to the seed, the soul to the ground in which the seed is scattered, the difference of susceptibility for receiving the word of God to varieties of soil. But this, obviously, is not the allusion here. It is not men represented as recipients of the seed, and deporting themselves variously in respect to its reception; it is the believer begotten from the seed. The allusion is manifestly to the seed in human generation, as in John i.13. The seed of God is the divine life derived from God and imparted through Christ, from which proceeds the new birth, regeneration, and which constitutes those to whom it is imparted children of God. Having by the reception of this divine life been born of God and become children of God, so long as the divine seed, the new divine life abides and continues operative in them penetrating their whole nature, they cannot but remain children of God and manifest themselves as such. Since now this seed from God stands as the exact opposite of the life which is kindred to that of the devil, to all which is sin; it is obvious that the children of God sin not, since this new life, the very thing which constitutes them children of God, excludes from itself all sin. Having stated this practical proposition, he proceeds to prove that it must of necessity be so, that it cannot be otherwise. Such an one cannot sin. It is in the nature of the case impossible that he should sin, because he is born of God; because this being born of God stands in direct contradiction with sin. Sin cannot proceed from it, can find no point of connection in it. As nothing Undivine, but only what is Divine, can proceed from the divine life, so from those who are born of God, as such, there can proceed no sin.