Whoever remains in him doesn't sin. Whoever sins hasn't seen him, neither knows him.
"John is thus saying that (translating the Gr. literally) ’everyone who lives in him (Jesus) does not sin’; and by this he means that an intimate and ongoing relationship with Christ (ho en auto menon, ’the one who lives in him,’ using the present tense) precludes the practice of sin . . ." [Note: Smalley, pp. 158-59. Cf. John 15:5.] 