Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
He reasons from Christ's own entire separation from sin, that those in him must also be separate from it.
abideth in him--as the branch in the vine, by vital union living by His life.
sinneth not--In so far as he abides in Christ, so far is he free from all sin. The ideal of the Christian. The life of sin and the life of God mutually exclude one another, just as darkness and light. In matter of fact, believers do fall into sins (1 John 1:8-10; 1 John 2:1-2); but all such sins are alien from the life of God, and need Christ's cleansing blood, without application to which the life of God could not be maintained. He sinneth not so long as he abideth in Christ.
whosoever sinneth hath not seen him--Greek perfect, "has not seen, and does not see Him." Again the ideal of Christian intuition and knowledge is presented (Matthew 7:23). All sin as such is at variance with the notion of one regenerated. Not that "whosoever is betrayed into sins has never seen nor known God"; but in so far as sin exists, in that degree the spiritual intuition and knowledge of God do not exist in him.
neither--"not even." To see spiritually is a further step than to know; for by knowing we come to seeing by vivid realization and experimentally.
Other commentary entries containing this verse:
Ezekiel 18:30-32
Matthew 5:8
1 John 3:9
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