state.
The seeds of life are supplanted by the seeds of death when we commit sin.
No one is born of God when spiritual life has been destroyed by sin. No
man can be "sinning" and be a child of God. One who has been saved may be
overcome and commit sin, but when he does so he is not God's child. This
text does not teach the impossibility of committing sin after we are born
of God, but only the impossibility of committing sin and being a
Christian.

Chapter XII. The Course Of The World.

Unmistakably there exists a wide gulf of separation between the children
of God and the children of the world. Christ is the only avenue of escape
from the world. The wide, open door of salvation is the exit. He who would
return from the blissful shores of Christianity to the beggarly elements
of the world can do so only on the transporting barges of Satan. As a tree
is known by its fruits, so is a true follower of Christ. The fruit borne
by a Christian is directly opposite in its nature to the fruit borne by
the worldling. It is not the profession merely that produces the
separation, but it is the manner of life. The Son of God is the great
exemplar of Christianity. Just what true Christian principles did in him
will in the very nature of things do for all who possess like principles.
We are forced to the conclusion that the professed follower of Christ is
destitute of Christian principles when he delights himself in worldliness.
Jesus said of himself, "I am not of this world." John 8:23. He says of his
followers, "If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but
because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world,
therefore the world hateth you." John 15:19.

Paul bears testimony to his separation from the world by the grace of God.
In Eph. 2:2, 3 he speaks of the time when he lived among those who were
worldly. He says, "Wherein [in sin] in time past ye walked according to
the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air,
the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: among whom
also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh,
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind: and were by nature
the children of wrath, even as others." In the next two verses he
testifies to the effects of saving grace: "But God, who is rich in mercy,
for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins,
hath quickened us together