"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)
Dr Steiner's meaning:
This verse is not moral.
It is ontological.
It is not talking about your behavior.
It is talking about your being.
Because the human being is not one thing.
There is a lower nature:
drives, impulses, habits, reactions.
And there is a higher nature:
the true “I” that can unite with the Christ impulse.
These are not the same.
So when the text says:
“He cannot sin”
It does not mean:
you, as you are now, are incapable of error.
It means:
There is a part of you that, once awakened,
cannot act against truth.
Why?
Because it is no longer acting out of desire, fear, or instinct;
but out of alignment with spiritual reality itself.
But here is the tension:
You are not fully that yet.
Your lower nature can still fall.
Your habits can still dominate.
Your impulses can still mislead you.
And yet;
your true being remains untouched.
This is what is meant by:
“his seed remaineth in him”
A real spiritual principle,
implanted within the human soul.
A force that does not sin
because it cannot.
So the contradiction disappears:
You can act wrongly,
but what you truly are, in essence,
does not participate in that error.
This verse is not describing humanity as it is.
It is describing humanity as it is becoming.
A future state:
Where the human being is so transformed,
so united with the divine,
that truth is no longer something he must follow;
but something he is.
What would your life look like if you lived from your highest nature?