1 John 5:16
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What is the sin that leads to death, about which he should not pray?
1 John 5: 16 If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin which does not lead to death, he will ask, and He will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death. There is sin leading to death. I do not say that he should pray about that. 17 All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin not leading to death.
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We know from Rom. 6:23 that “the wages of sin is death.” So, all sin leads to death. But in this context, John was referring to Christians. In the context of the entire epistle, John was warning against Gnosticism which taught that the human Jesus and the divine Son of God were not the same being, one human and the other divine, that the divine Son (which the Gnostics labeled “Christ”) came down from heaven in the form of a dove and merely indwelled the human Jesus temporarily, leaving Him on the cross. (Other forms of Gnosticism used various explanations so that Jesus was nothing more than a human being). Referring to these John said, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.” (1 Jn. 2:19 NKJ)
Elsewhere he referred to these Gnostics as having “the spirit of antichrist.” (cf. 1 John 2:18,22; 1 John 4:3; 2 John 1:7)
The bottom line is that John’s entire letter is a warning against Christians being seduced away from the Apostolic Faith into apostasy, especially that of the Gnostics. Denial of the testimony that God gave of His Son results in permanent death — apostasy (1 Jn. 5:10-12).
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