Sinless Life

A. B. Simpson was an author, hymn writer, conference speaker, evangelist to the urban masses of New York City, and a missionary statesman.  He founded The Christian and Missionary Alliance and Nyack College.

The following is from his book The Christ Life:

"The key to this whole mystery is supplied by two verses in this Epistle. 'He that abideth in him sinneth not' (1 John 3:6). Here is the secret of holiness, not our holiness, but His.

"There is no account made here of our perfection, but it is only as we cling to Him and draw our life each moment from Him that we are kept from sin. It is the Indwelling Life.

"Again, 'Whosoever is born of God sinneth not, but he that was begotten of God keepeth him, and that wicked one toucheth him not' (1 John 5: 18). Here again the same truth is expressed in a different way.

"The only Begotten Son of God dwelling in us keeps us from the power of sin and the assaults of Satan; and although the devil often strikes, yet we are like the little insect with the pane of glass between it and the bird of prey, and 'that wicked one toucheth us not.'

"There is one more passage which belongs to this connection. 'He that hath the Son of God hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.'  Here it is our union with the Person of the Lord Jesus that constitutes the source of our spiritual life. The secret, therefore, which Paul had found, 'Christ in you the Hope of glory,' is the secret also of the disciple who leaned yet closer on the Master’s breast.

"God grant that it may be the secret of our life, too, and that we may know in all His fullness the Life Eternal, the Life Manifested, the Life Crucified, the Resurrection Life, and the Life Indwelling, through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom be glory for ever and ever, Amen."