Since "all have sinned" and sin is condemning, we receive Christ's righteousness in receiving Him. We aren't saved by being sinless, but receive mercy and grace. I'm 66 and have yet to meet a sinless person other than Christ Himself. Sin life's in the nature of the flesh, but we receive a 2nd nature in Christ. There is no battle with the flesh until we're born again. Do you imagine that sinners with hardened conscience care about anything but their pleasures? Or that they feel guilt over them?
John actually makes 2 contradictory statements in 1 John that we try to reconcile:
Your quote, 1 John 3:4 and 9.
But this follows after :
"
8If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us
our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us."
1 John 1:8-10
These two passages in the same epistle are clearly direct logical contradictions.
Perhaps the reconciliation between the two passages is a matter of reckoning or accounting, as the rest of the New Testament Epistles by Paul teach. In spiritual terms Christians (the born again) are reckoned or accounted as sinless because the Spirit of Christ, or "seed" of the logos is in them, not perfected, not fully matured, but growing and moving toward that perfect image which is our Lord.
This is actually expressed in the very same chapter:
"
2Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
3And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure." 1 John 3:2-3
For 2000 years professing Christians have been discussing our liberty in Christ in terms of what we can get away with, like children testing the limits imposed by their parents.
Scripture teaches very plainly that God is pleased by our obedience and not by our rebellion:
22So Samuel said:
“Has the Lord
as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
As in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
And to heed than the fat of rams.
23For rebellion
is as the sin of witchcraft,
And stubbornness
is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,
He also has rejected you from
being king.”
1 Samuel 15:22-23
So, God wants our loving obedience, but scripture also plainly teaches our deliverance from the kingdom of darkness, the dominion of the Spirit of this age:
"
1And you
He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins,
2in which you once walked according to the
[a]course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience,
3among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others."
Ephesians 2:1-3
"
13He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed
us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,
14in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins."
Colossians 1:13-14
That this is dependent upon enduring faith is expressed in the same chapter:
"
21And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled
22in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight—
23if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister."
Colossians 1:21-23
Once more, the carnal mind concerns itself with our own preservation, our salvation, our liberty in Christ, the acceptable limits of our behavior, but the Spirit of Christ serves Christ and glorifies the Father through Him.
1 John 3:3 isn't a commandment, but a description of the heart of a child of God. Love aims to please the object of love. Self love pleases self and this is our natural state, but a love for God is expresses itself in obedience to Him:
"
15“If you love Me, keep My commandments.
16And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—
17the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.
18I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you."
John 14:15-18
Here Jesus expressed two fundamental truths to Christianity. The first that obedience is an expression of love. The second and more significant is the gift of His Spirit as a sign of adoption.
Paul repeated this plainly in his letter to the Roman church:
"
14For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
15For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”
16The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
17and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with
Him, that we may also be glorified together."
Romans 8:14-17
To summarize, Christians are not characterized by behavior so much as by faith, but love leads to purity as a process through both obedience and discipline.
