Yin and Yang

Children, let no one deceive you. The person who acts in righteousness is righteous, just as he is righteous. Whoever sins belongs to the Devil, because the Devil has sinned from the beginning. Indeed, the Son of God was revealed to destroy the works of the Devil. No one who is begotten by God commits sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot sin because he is begotten by God. In this way, the children of God and the children of the Devil are made plain; no one who fails to act in righteousness belongs to God, nor anyone who does not love his brother. (1 John 3:7-10)

“John means that the man who is born of God cannot sin because he has the strength and guidance of the word of God within him.  The Christian is preserved from sin by the indwelling power of the word of God.  The word of God is like the seed of God which produces new life.”  This is the interpretation of William Barclay, the outstanding Scottish New Testament interpreter. I highly recommend all his books that delve deep into the entire New Testament.       

“No one who is begotten by God commits sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot sin because he is begotten by God.”  Well, we all sin even though we are begotten by God so how do we reconcile this dichotomy? Perhaps it is because we all have two parents – God and the Devil meaning we all have the capacity for good and evil.  In a way we are hybrids.  

John’s explanation is too simplistic and disregards human nature. Clearly, children of God and the children of the Devil are not always made plain except when we do not love our brother, as John concluded.  

When we recognize our own capacity for doing works of evil, we are far better prepared to fend off the Devil who is our opponent and prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8).  That beast lies within us all.  

The very popular Jordan Peterson has said: “Order and chaos are the yang and yin of the famous Taoist symbol: two serpents, head to tail. Order is the white, masculine serpent; Chaos, its black, feminine counterpart. The black dot in the white—and the white in the black—indicate the possibility of transformation: just when things seem secure, the unknown can loom, unexpectedly and large. Conversely, just when everything seems lost, new order can emerge from catastrophe and chaos.”  We all have the capacity to create order or chaos.  Each of us are two serpents, head to tail, battling for control of who we are and what we do.

Deacon David Pierce