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The testimony is this, that God gave to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has the life. He who doesn’t have God’s Son doesn’t have the life.
These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.
1 John 5:11-13 sits inside this longer paragraph.
Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. Whoever loves the Father also loves the child who is born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments. For this is loving God, that we keep his commandments. His commandments are not grievous. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world: your faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is he who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and the blood. It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three who testify: the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and the three agree as one. If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is God’s testimony which he has testified concerning his Son. He who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. He who doesn’t believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning his Son. The testimony is this, that God gave to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has the life. He who doesn’t have God’s Son doesn’t have the life.
These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.
The testimony is this, that God gave to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
He who has the Son has the life. He who doesn’t have God’s Son doesn’t have the life.
These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.
And this ys that recorde how that god hath geven vnto vs eternall lyfe and this lyfe is in his sonne.
He that hath the sonne hath lyfe: and he that hath not the sonne of god hath not lyfe.
These thynges have I written vnto you that beleve on the name of the sonne of God that ye maye knowe howe that ye have eternall lyfe and that ye maye beleve on the name of the sonne of god.
And this is that record, to wit, that God hath giuen vnto vs eternall life, and this life is in that his Sonne.
He that hath that Sonne, hath that life: and he that hath not that Sonne of God, hath not that life.
These things haue I written vnto you, that beleeue in the Name of that Sonne of God, that ye may knowe that ye haue eternall life, and that ye may beleeue in the Name of that Sonne of God.
63 distinct cross-references across this passage (66 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv11–13 11 That God hath given us eternal life Having…
11 That God hath given us eternal life Having now set forth the benefit, he invites us to believe. It is, indeed, a reverence due to God, immediately to receive, as beyond controversy, whatever he declares to us. But since he freely offers life to us, our ingratitude will be intolerable, except with prompt faith we receive a doctrine so sweet and so lovely. And, doubtless, the words of the Apostle are intended to shew, that we ought, not only reverently to obey the gospel, lest we should affront God; but, that we ought to love it, because it brings to us eternal life. We hence also learn what is especially to be sought in the gospel, even the free gift of salvation; for that God there exhorts us to repentance and fear, ought not to be separated from the grace of Christ.
But the Apostle, that he might keep us together in Christ, again repeats that life is found in him; as though he had said, that no other way of obtaining life has been appointed for us by God the Father. And the Apostle, indeed, briefly includes here three things: that we are all given up to death until God in his gratuitous favor restores us to life; for he plainly declares that life is a gift from God: and hence also it follows that we are destitute of it, and that it cannot be acquired by merits; secondly, he teaches us that this life is conferred on us by the gospel, because there the goodness and the paternal love of God is made known to us; lastly, he says that we cannot otherwise become partakers of this life than by believing in Christ.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv11, 13 Now at length he showeth what this testimony is,…
Now at length he showeth what this testimony is, that is confirmed with so many witnesses: to wit, that life or everlasting felicity, is the mere, and only gift of God, which is in the Son, and proceedeth from him unto us, which by faith are joined with him, so that without him life is nowhere to be found.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv11–13 11 And this is the record, that God hath…
11 And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.
Ver. 11. That God hath given to us, &c.] How plain is the Holy Scripture in things needful to salvation! These God hath written for us, as it were, with the beam of the sun, that none may plead difficulty. But we are, most of us, of the Athenian strain, of whom Cicero says the proverb went, Athenienses scire quae recta sunt, sed facere nolle, that they knew what was right, but had no mind to make use of it. (Cic. de Senect.)
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv11–13 His testimony, that this is his Son and the…
His testimony, that this is his Son and the Christ, imports so much, that eternal life is in him, as the source and fountain of it; so that he gives it to us in no other way than in and by him.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv11, 13 As if our apostle had said, "The sum of…
As if our apostle had said, "The sum of God’s testimony recorded in the gospel is this, concerning his Son Jesus Christ, namely, that God for his sake has made a free deed of gift, of pardon and salvation to the world, assuring them of grace here, and eternal life hereafter, upon condition of their believing acceptance, that is, of faith and obedience; and accordingly he that thus has Christ, he that accepts the merit of his blood, and submits to the authority of his law, hath eternal life, that is, he has an undoubted right unto it, and assurance of it, yea, he has it already initally, and in the first fruits; but he that, either by unbelief or disobedience, refuses Christ, shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.
Learn hence, 1. That eternal life is the gift of God.
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2. That this gift of eternal life is laid up for us in his Son.
3. That upon our having or not having union with and interest in the Son, depends our having or not having eternal life. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son, &c.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv11–13 And this is the record,.... The sum and substance…
And this is the record,.... The sum and substance of it, with respect to the person of Christ, and the security of salvation in him, who is the true God, and eternal life:
that God hath given to us eternal life; which is a life of glory and happiness hereafter; in the present state is unseen, but will in the world to come be a life of vision, free from all the sorrows and imperfections of this; and will be of the utmost perfection and pleasure, and for ever. This is a pure free grace gift of God the Father, proceeding from his sovereigns good will and pleasure, and which he gives to all his chosen ones, for they are ordained unto eternal life; to as many as he has given to his Son; to all that are redeemed by his blood, and are brought to believe in him: to these he gave it in his Son before the world began; and to the same in time he gives the right unto it, the meetness for it, and the pledge and earnest of it; and will hereafter give them the thing itself, the whole of it, to be possessed and enjoyed by them in person, to all eternity.
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And this life is in his Son: not only the purpose and promise of it, but that itself; Christ asked it of his Father in the covenant of peace, and he gave it to him, that he might have it in himself for all his people; and here it is safe and secure, it is hid with Christ in God, it is bound up in the bundle of life with him; and because he lives, this life will never be lost, or they come short of it.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv11–13 And this is the sum of that testimony, that…
And this is the sum of that testimony, that God hath given us a title to, and the real beginning of, eternal life; and that this is purchased by, and treasured up in, his Son, who has all the springs and the fulness of it in himself, to communicate to his body, the church, first in grace and then in glory.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv11–13 Verse 11. This is the record] The great truth…
Verse 11. This is the record] The great truth to which the Spirit, the water, and the blood bear testimony. God hath given us eternal life-a right to endless glory, and a meetness for it. And this life is in his Son; it comes by and through him; he is its author and its purchaser; it is only in and through HIM. No other scheme of salvation can be effectual; God has provided none other, and in such a case a man's invention must be vain.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv11, 13 1Jn 5:11-12. And this is the record — Η…
1Jn 5:11-12. And this is the record — Η μαρτυρια, the testimony; the sum of God’s testimony concerning his Son, and salvation through him:
this is the thing testified by the six witnesses — the three in heaven, and the three on earth; that God hath given to us — Hath sincerely and freely offered to mankind in general, and hath actually conferred on true believers in particular; eternal life — Namely, a title to it, in their justification and adoption, Tit 3:7; Rom 8:17; a meetness for it, in their new creation or sanctification, Col 1:12; 2Co 5:17; Eph 4:22; Eph 4:24; and a foretaste or earnest of it, by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in their hearts, Eph 1:14; giving them to enjoy communion with the Father and the Son, 1Jn 1:3; and through that, as it were, to sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, and have their conversation in heaven, Eph 2:6; Php 3:20. And this life is in his Son — Whose doctrine hath revealed it; whose merits have procured it; whose Spirit hath imparted the beginning of it; and whose example will conduct us to the complete possession of it. In other words, by whom it is purchased, and in whom it is treasured up; so that he has all the springs, and the fulness of it, in himself, to communicate to his body, the church, first in grace and then in glory. “Though the apostle, in what goes before, has spoken particularly of the three in heaven, and of the three on earth, who bear witness continually, he deferred mentioning, till now, what it is they are witnessing; that by introducing it last of all, and after so much preparation, it might make the stronger impression on the minds of his readers.” He that hath the Son — That hath the saving knowledge of him communicated by the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, Eph 1:17; Mat 11:27; that hath living faith in him, working by love, Gal 2:20; Gal 5:6; and hereby hath a real interest in him, as a wife hath in her husband, Rom 7:4; and vital union with him, such as a branch hath with the tree in which it grows, Joh 15:4; or such as a member of the human body has with the head thereof, 1Co 12:27; Rom 12:5; and who, in consequence of that interest in him, and union with him, hath a conformity to him; hath in him the mind that was in Christ, and walks as he walked, Php 2:5; or he, to whom Christ is made of God wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption; see on 1Co 1:30; such a one in these respects having the Son, hath life — Hath spiritual life here, and is entitled to, made in a degree meet for, and has an earnest of, eternal life hereafter. But he that hath not the Son of God — Hath not that interest in his merits, that union with him through the Spirit, that conformity, more or less, to his image: he, whom Christ has not enlightened as his wisdom, justified as his righteousness, renewed as his sanctification; whatever he may profess, whatever orthodoxy of sentiment, regularity of conduct, or form of godliness; hath not life — Hath neither spiritual life here, being still alienated from the life of God, Eph 4:18; nor is in the way to eternal life hereafter. He hath no part or lot therein.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv11–13 And this is the record - This is the…
And this is the record - This is the sum, or the amount, of the testimony (μαρτυρία marturia) which God has given respecting him.
That God hath given to us eternal life - Has provided, through the Saviour, the means of obtaining eternal life. See the notes at Joh 5:24; Joh 17:2-3.
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And this life is in his Son - Is treasured up in him, or is to be obtained through him. See the Joh 1:4; Joh 11:25; Joh 14:6 notes; Col 3:3 note.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v13 13These things have I written1 unto you that believe…
IV. THE CONCLUSION
1Jn_5:13-21
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13These things have I written1 unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe2 on the name of the Son of God. 14And this is the confidence that we have in him3, that, if we ask any thing4 according to his will, he heareth us: 15And if we know that he hear5 us, whatsoever we ask6, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of7 him. 16If any man see his brother sin a sin8 which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it9. 17All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not10 unto death. 18We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten11 19of God keepeth himself, and that12 wicked one toucheth him not. And we know 20that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness13. And14 we know that the Son of God is come and hath given us an understanding15, that we may know16 him that is true17; and we are in him that is true17, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life18. 21Little children, keep yourselves19 from idols. Amen20.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The Conclusion. 1Jn_5:13. These things wrote I.—Ταῦτα ἔγραψα, like ταῦτα ἔγραψα 1Jn_2:26, might be referred to the verses immediately preceding, if the words annexed permitted such a construction:
That ye may know, that ye have eternal life, ye that believe in the name of the Son of God.—Quite similar to the closing verse of the Gospel, Joh_20:31. The purpose of the writing ἵνα εἰδῆτε ὅτι ζωὴν ἔχετε αἰώνιον corresponds with the χαρά at the beginning of the Epistle, which χαρά was to be filled by the testimony of the eye and ear-witnesses of the λόγος τῆς ζωῆς; hence ταῦτα ἔγραψα answers to ταῦτα γράφομεν 1Jn_1:4 (Bengel), the certainty of the possession of eternal life being the ground and strength of the joy, which John has, and to which he adverts. The words τοῖς πιστεύουσιν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῡ υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ, annexed to ὑμῖν, primarily refer back to 1Jn_3:23. but find their last resting-place in the κοινωνία ἡ ἡμετέρα μετὰ τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ μετὰ τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ, 1Jn_1:3. Hence ταῦτα must be referred neither to 1Jn_5:8-12 (Huther), nor to 1Jn_5:1-12 (S. Schmid), but to the whole Epistle (Luther, Bengel, Lücke, Düsterdieck and al.), though the inducement to the choice of this expression lies in verses immediately preceding, and preparing the concluding portion of the Epistle, and there still follow several verses which constitute that concluding portion. Noteworthy is the difference between the closing verse of the Gospel, Joh_20:31, which adverts to the future believing and obtaining eternal life of the readers, while our passage asserts their present belief and possession of eternal life. [Alford sees here with Düsterdieck something like an anticipatory close of the Epistle. Huther maintains, that this verse still belongs to the second main part of the Epistle beginning with 1Jn_3:23, on the ground that ζωὴν αἰώνιον goes back to the verses immediately preceding, and that πιστεύειν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ, refers back to 3:28.—M.].
The confidence that prayer is heard. 1Jn_5:14-15.
1Jn_5:14. And this is the confidence which we have towards Him.—Καὶ connects with what goes before, i.e., it connects παῤῥησία ἣν ἔχομεν with ζωὴν ἔχετε αἰώνιον. This confidence consists in this:—
That if we ask any thing according to His will, He heareth us.—It is consequently the confidence in God, which has the intercourse of prayer with Him; this confidence rests on the ζωὴ αἰώνιος, springs from it, points back to it, and reacts also on it, strengthening and confirming it. Cf. 1Jn_3:21-22.—Πρὸς αὐτὸν and to τὸ θέλημα αὐτοῦ must be referred to God the Father, because the idea of possessing the ζωὴ αἰώνιος involves the idea of the Divine Sonship, and the παῤῥησία is connected with both. While ἐὰν τι leaves the object of the prayer quite general and indefinite, κατὰ τὸ θέλημα limits it, so that it is a conditio æquissima, latissime patens (Bengel), as we may see from the fourth and seventh petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, in connection with the others. (Cf. Doctrinal and Ethical No. 1.)—Ἀκούει ἡμῶν denotes an attentive, sympathetic hearing, while ἡμᾶς would signify a mere hearing.—This is an undoubted fact:
1Jn_5:15. And if we know that He heareth us whatsoever we may ask.—Hence ἐὰν with the Indicative οἶδαμεν. Winer, p. 310, sq.—Ὅ ἐὰν αἰτώμεθα denotes the general character of the object of prayer. It follows that:
We know that we have the petitions which we have asked from Him.—” Ἔχομεν, emphatic, placed first. By the side of ἀκούει ἡμῶν, we must distinguish ̓́χομεν τἀ αἰτήματα (Lorinus: res petitæ), although the two belong together; God hearing our prayers and our having go hand-in-hand. The additional clause: ἃ ᾐτήκαμεν ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ indicates that the having is the consequence of prayer preceding it, so that the having in point of time does not coincide with the prayer, as does the believer’s prayer with God’s hearing; but our having is secured; ἔχομεν is not=λαμβάνομεν (Lachmann and al.), nor must it be construed like a Future (Grotius: statim exaudit, at non statim dat).—Ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ, as in Mat_20:20, belongs to ᾐτήκαμεν, not to ἔχομεν; παρ’ αὐτοῦ, as in Act_3:2, (see Appar. Crit., No. 7,), could not, at any rate, denote prayers as deposits made with God, as Ebrard maintains.
Intercession for a brother sinning not unto death. 1Jn_5:16-17.
1Jn_5:16. If any one see his brother commit a sin, not unto death.—Here is supposed a specific case, in which the confident petition becomes an intercession for the purpose of keeping an erring brother,—after the example of Christ (1Jn_2:1; cf. Luk_22:31-32; Joh_17:9; Heb_7:25),—with his Saviour and salvation, in fellowship with the Redeemer and in the participation of eternal life. Additur casus omnium maximus; ut possis orare etiam pro altero in re gravissima (Bengel). Ἐάν τις ἴδῃ supposes an objective possibility; it is not said that some one does see, but it may be, the event will show it; consequently: If any one should see it. Winer, p. 306, sq. The reference is to an event which may be seen, to a fact susceptible of observation, as in 1Jn_3:17.—Τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ, denotes a member of the Christian Church, and τις requires to be taken in the same sense. The reference is consequently to intimate converse, and to what happens and becomes manifest there. This the Apostle brings out emphatically in the participial form: ἁμαρτάτοντα ἁμαρτίαν: the sinning brother stands, as it were, before our eyes. Here we have μὴ πρὸς θάνατον, not as in 1Jn_5:17 : οὐ πρὸς θάνατον, because the reference is to the subjective judgment of the observer, not to an objectively valid principle, not to the establishment of a dogmatically real idea. Winer, p. 496.—Ἀδελφὸς is therefore not=proximus quicunque (Calov); non-christians are excluded (against Ebrard), although the reference may not be exactly to “a regenerate person” (Düsterdieck).
He shall ask and give him life.—The Future αἰτήσει denotes that the intercession may be confidently expected, since καὶ δώσει neither warrants us to construe the Future, in the decisive language of the legislation of the Old and New Testament (Mat_5:21; Mat_5:27, etc.,) as an Imperative, nor gives an occasion to assume a purely ethical possibility, as Luk_22:49 : κύριε, εἰ πατάξομεν; Rom_10:14 : πῶς οὖν ἐπικαλέσονται; shall we smite? how shall they, how can they call? See Winer, pp. 294, 295, 331. Hence it is not=licebit petere (S. Schmidt). The subject is the intercession, τις, not the Church (Neander), or the saints (Meyer). The same subject, αἰτῶν, belongs also to δώσει; it is neither=dabitur (variation of the Vulgate, approved by Bede and others), nor to be derived from the idea of prayer, αἰτούμενος, rogatus Deus (Beza, Bengel, Lücke, Winer, p. 553, and al.). [The Æthiopic version brings out the right meaning: rogans vivificabit; i.e. the asker shall be instrumental in bestowing life on the erring brother for whom he intercedes.—M.]. The grammatical requirements of our passage are fully borne out by the cycle of thoughts current in the New Testament (Act_3:6; Jam_5:15; Jam_5:20). John here simply contemplates the result as a fact, without adverting to the instrumentality, its ways and stages within the brother’s heart, which was the object of intercession; repentance and faith, moreover, are not excluded, and the interceding brother is not viewed as the Saviour, or the representative of the Redcemer. Neither may we think of an admonitio et correptio fraterna (Mat_18:15; S. Schmid), nor of the proper demeanour of the asker towards his erring brother, as the result of his intercessory prayer (Rickli). The final effect of intercession is ζωὴ (αἰώνιος), which is weakened and disturbed by every sin [Alford; This bestowal of life by intercessory prayer, is not to be minutely inquired into, whether it is to be accompanied with “correptio fraterna,”—whether it consists in the giving to the sinner a repentant heart (Grotius, al.), but taken, as put by the Apostle, in all its simplicity and breadth. Life, viz.: the restoration of that Divine life from which by any act of sin he was indeed in peril, and indeed in process of falling, but this sin was not an actual fall.—M.].
To them that sin not unto death.—The Plural τοῖς ἁμαρτάνουσι belongs to αὐτῷ, which generaliter positum est (Erasmus); the Plural takes the supposed case from the sphere of singularity; τις has collective force. See Winer, p. 553. It is forced and ungrammatical to refer αὐτῷ to him that asks, understanding θεὸς as the subject, and taking τοῖς ἁμαρτάνουσι as Dativ. commodi: “God will give him life for the persons sinning,” as Bornemann (Biblische Studien der Sächs. Geistlichen I. p. 71,) does.—Μὴ πρὸς θάνατον qualifies ἀμαρτάνειν ἁμαρτίαν, or ἁμαρτάνειν, and has consequently adverbial force. θάνατος, only, if taken in the sense of spiritual death, corresponds with the context, viz., with the παῤῥησία of prayer being heard on the ground of our possession of the ζωὴ αἰώνιος, for ζωή in the intercession on behalf of the erring brother, and the preposition πρὸς, as denoting the aim towards which something is directed (Winer, p. 423), require us to think of a sinning, which in the conviction of the person interceding, must not terminate in θάνατος, the emptying of all ζωὴ αἰώνιος, and accordingly must not absolutely annul fellowship with Christ, faith in Him. This is brought out more clearly in the next clause.
There is a sin unto death.—Thus the Apostle circumscribes the domain of sinning not unto death: it is not infinite. This is directed against any possible laxity in the judgment of the Church on the sins of believers. Πρὸς θάνατον has the same meaning here, as in the preceding clause. The reference is accordingly to a specific sin, to a simple act perceptible (ἴδῃ) in the brother, within the limits of Christian fellowship (τὸν ἀδελφον αὐτοῦ), not to a particular, outwardly marked category of sins, but to a sinning, and committing of sin, which renders it clear to the careful observer, that the fellowship of faith with Christ, the fountain of eternal life, has been cut off, that consequently the ethical life-form appears to be inwardly decayed and dying, that the moral status of that brother shows itself to be in a state of hopeless dissolution, so that it is of no avail to pray for such an one, and that therefore intercession is not proper. Hence it is wrong to transfer to this passage the Old Testament idea of חֵטְא לָמוּת, ἁμαρτία θανατηφόρος (Num_18:22), and to refer to capital crimes, e.g. idolatry, adultery, murder, incest, which are punishable with death under the secular or Mosaic law (Morus, al.), or to the sins ecclesiastically punishable with excommunication, as if intercession had to conform to the secular code of punishment; nor is the reference to sinning unto the end of man’s earthly existence (Bede and al.), in which connection de Lyra rightly observes: “Qui sit peccator non ad mortem, sciri non potest nisi per divinam revelationem;” πρὸς θάνατον cannot be rendered “usque ad mortem.” Nor is the reference to the physically sick, Jam_5:14 (Steinhofer); nor to definite, gross crimes, peccatum gravissimum, quod vix remittitur (Ambrose), moechia port baptismum commissa (Tertullian), peccatum invidentiæ (Bede). Nor is here any description of a condition, “Talis animæ status, in quo fides et amor et spes, in summa, vita nova exstincta est; si quis sciens volensque mortem amplectitur, non ex illecebris carnis, sed ex amore peccati, sub ratione peccati; repudium gratiæ proæreticum.” (Bengel). Augustine thought first of invidentiæ faces post agnitionem Dei, and added afterwards: si in hac perversitate finierit vitam, and then: fidem deserere usque ad mortem. Lastly the reference is neither to a purely inward act, like obduracy (Ebrard), apostasy (de Wette, Lücke), nor to sin, perceptible in the walk of men, like the anti-christian denial expressed in words (Düsterdieck), nor to the sin against the Holy Ghost (Calvin, Sander and al.). The reference is simply to sinning, from which it may be perceived either, that no inward absolute severance from the faith and denial of Christ may or can be assumed, or that the latter is either recognizable of highly probable. To the latter case apply the words:
Concerning that I do not say that he shall pray.—The simple negation is, that the the Apostle says (οὐ—λέγω), that prayer should be made for him who sins unto death. He only makes prominent the circumstance that he confines himself to saying that intercession should be made for the person not sinning unto death. Hence those commentators are right, who do not see here a prohibition (Socinus, Grotius, Neander, Lücke, Huther and al.). But it is certainly not said that we ought, or only are permitted, to pray for him (Neander). It is important to note the difference of the words employed by the Apostle, for whereas before he made use of the word αἰτήσει, he now uses ἐρωτήσῃ: ἐρωτᾷν is=rogare, and implies equality on the part of the asker with him from whom the favour is sought; Jesus designates His praying by that term (Joh_14:16; Joh_16:26; Joh_17:9; Joh_17:15; Joh_17:20); on the other hand αἰτεῖν is=petere, and implies inferiority (Düsterdieck), while Bengel regards αἰτεῖν as species humilior under the genus ἐρωτᾷν. This word ἐρωτᾷν denotes the confident petition of the child, praying inquiringly and expecting the gift. Hence, due regard being had to the force of the term employed, we may discover here the sanction of intercession for a brother sinning unto death, yet without any assurance of success or that the intercession will prevail. But since the Apostle advocates this very παῤῥησία and Deus non vult, ut pii frustra orent (Bengel), it is probably locutio morata et attica for a prohibition. Deu_3:26. This is also suggested by ἵva; in the present instance he does not wish to excite and promote the purpose of praying. (Cf. Doctrinal and Ethical No. 4).
1Jn_5:17. All unrighteousness is sin.—The subject πᾶσα ἀδικία reminds us of the predicate ἡ ἀνομία 1Jn_3:4. Ἀνομία is in contradiction with the objectively given law of God, ἀδικία is the contradiction and negation of the δικαιοσύνη and is concerned with the subjective disposition, though it be wrought from above and subject to the law. And this harmonizes with the fact that we are concerned with the moral status of the sinner in this sinning unto death, and sinning not unto death. John manifestly desires to guard against any ἀδικία being too lightly dealt with, being not considered as ἁμαρτία, though it be μὴ πρὸς τὸν θάνατον. The Roman Catholics, therefore, have no warrant for determining from the sin itself, whether it is peccatum mortale or veniale.
And there is a sin not unto death.—Καὶ simply connects the sequel; it is not=et quidem, and the sense: quodlibet nefas est peccatum non ad mortem (Bengel); Bengel’s clause: ‘sed ne quisquam id levius interpretetur, præmittit: est peccatum’ is only a moral reaction against the perversion of the Johannean thought: all unrighteousness is sin. The sequel, because of the intercession recommended, is added by way of emphasis. Οὐ πρὸς θάνατον implies the objectively real fact, the actual occurrence of such sin; it defines ἁμαρτία, not ἔστιν, as Luther supposes.
[There are one or two questions, in connection with this section, which require to be treated somewhat more fully. First, 1Jn_5:17, involves a prohibition, or what is equivalent to it. But this has been denied by many commentators. “Ora si velis, sed sub dubio impetrandi” (Corn, a Lapide); Neander supposes that the offering of prayer is permitted, though the obtaining of it will be difficult, and arbitrarily imagines the prayer in question to be the collective prayer of the Church, and that one who sins πρὸς θάνατον should not be included in the common prayer of the Church, lest he might be confirmed in his sin; Huther finds in οὐ λέγω not more than a denial of the Apostle that the case of one sinning unto death came within the purview of his command. Lyra qualifies the prohibition, though “non est orandum pro damnatis,” yet we may pray, “ut minus peccaret, et per consequens minus damnaretur in inferno.”—Calvin recognizes the prohibition, but limits it to extreme cases, adding: “Sed quia rarissime hoc accidit, et Deus, immensas gratiæ suæ divitias commendans, nos suo exemplo misericordes esse jubet: non temere in quemquam ferendum est mortis æternæ judicium, potius nos caritas ad bene sperandum fleetat. Quod si desperata quorundam impietas non secus nobis apparet, ac sic Dominus eam digito monstraret; non est quod certemus cum justo Dei judicio, vel clementiores eo esse appetamus.”—Alford sums up: “Certainly this seems, reserving the question as to the nature of the sin, the right view of the οὐ λέγω. By an express command in the other case, and then as express an exclusion of this case from that command, nothing short of an implied prohibition can be conveyed.”—
Secondly, the question: What is the sin unto death?—The canons of interpretation for its solution, and some of the principal divergences, chiefly from Düsterdieck, collected by Alford, are here produced.
“The First canon of interpretation of the ἁμαρτία πρὸς θάνατον and οὐ πρὸς θάνατον is this: that the θάνατος and ζωή of the passage must correspond. The former cannot be bodily death, while the latter is eternal and spiritual life. This clears away at once all those commentators who understand the sin unto death to be one for which bodily death is the punishment, either by human law generally, as Morus and G. Lange, or by the Mosaic law (Schöttgen),—or by sickness inflicted by God, as Whitby and Benson; or of which there will be no end till the death of the sinner (thought possible by Bede, and adopted by Lyra). This last is evidently absurd, for how is a man to know, whether this will be so or not?
“The Second canon will be, that this sin unto death being thus a sin leading to eternal death, being no further explained to the readers here, must be presumed as meant to be understood by what the Evangelist has elsewhere laid down, concerning the possession of life and death. Now we have from him a definition immediately preceding this, in 1Jn_5:12, ὁ ἔχων τὸν υἱὸν ἔχει τὴν ζωήν ὁ μὴ ἔχων τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ θεοῦ τὴν ζωὴν οὐκ ἔχει. And we may safely say that the words πρὸς θάνατον here are to be understood as meaning, “involving the loss of this life which men have only by the union with the Son of God.” And this meaning they must have, not by implication only, which would be the case, if any obstinate and determined sin were meant, which would be a sign of the fact of severance from the life which is in Christ (see 1Jn_3:14-15, where the inference is of this kind), but directly and essentially, i.e. in respect of that very sin which is pointed at by them. Now against this canon are all those interpretations, far too numerous to mention, which make any atrocious and obstinate sin to be that intended. It is obvious that our limits are thus confined to abnegation of Christ, not as inferred by its fruits otherwise shown, but as the act of sin itself. And so, with various shades of difference, as to the putting forth in detail, most of the best commentators, both ancient and modern: e.g., Aretius, Luther, Calvin, Beza, Piscator, Corn. a Lapide, Tirinus, Baumgarten-Crusius, Lücke, Huther, Düsterdieck.
“The Third canon will help us to decide, within the above limits, what especial sin is intended. And it is, that by the very analogy of the context, it must be not a state of sin, but an appreciable act of sin, seeing that which is opposed to it in the same kind, as being not unto death, is described by ἐὰν τις ἴδῃ ἁμαρτάνοντα. So that all interpretations which make it to be a state of apostacy, all such as, e.g., Bengel’s (see above), do not reach the matter of detail which is before the Apostle’s mind.
“In enquiring what this is, we must be guided by the analogy of what St. John says elsewhere. Our state being that of life in Jesus Christ, there are those who have gone out from us, not being of us, 1Jn_2:19, who are called ἀντίχριστοι, who not only “have not” Christ, but are Christ’s enemies, denying the Father and the Son (1Jn_2:22), whom we are not even to receive into our houses nor to greet (2Jn_1:10-11). These seem to be the persons pointed at here, and this is the sin: viz. the denial that Jesus is the Christ, the incarnate Son of God. This alone of all sins bears upon it the stamp of severance from Him who is the Life itself. As the confession of Christ, with the mouth and in the heart, is salvation unto life (Rom_10:9), so the denial of Christ, with the mouth and in the heart, is sin unto death. This alone of all the proposed solutions seems to satisfy all the canons above laid down. For in it the life cast away and the death incurred strictly correspond: it strictly corresponds to what St. John has elsewhere said concerning life and death, and derives its explanation from those other passages, especially from the foregoing 1Jn_5:12 : and it is an appreciable act of sin, one against which the readers have been before repeatedly cautioned (1Jn_2:18 sqq.; 1Jn_4:1. sqq.; 1Jn_5:5; 1Jn_5:11-12). And further, it is in exact accordance with other passages of Scripture which seem to point at a sin similarly distinguished above others: Mat_12:31 sqq., and so far as the circumstances there dealt with allow common ground, with the more ethical passages, Heb_6:4 sqq., heb 10:25 sqq. In the former case, the Scribes and Pharisees were resisting the Holy Ghost (Act_7:51), who was manifesting God in the flesh in the person and work of Christ. For them the Lord Himself does not pray (Luk_23:34): they knew what they did: they went out from God’s people and were not of them: receiving and repudiating the testimony of the Holy Ghost to the Messiahship of Jesus.”—M.].
Assurance of redemption. 1Jn_5:18; 1Jn_5:20.
1Jn_5:18. We know that every one who is born (out) of God, sinneth not.—Each of these three concluding verses begins with οἴδαμεν; Bengel: anaphora. The Evangelist refers to εἰδῆτε 1Jn_5:13, and thus describes the proper consciousness of the Christian in his attitude to sin (1Jn_5:18), the world (1Jn_5:19), and the Redeemer (1Jn_5:20). Πᾶς γεγεννημένος ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ signifies every one who is, and abides, born of God; the power of regeneration, of the life given and received in regeneration, operates from the past into the present; as such οὐχ ἁμαρτάνει, as such sin is foreign to him, Rom_7:20; cf. 1Jn_3:9.—It is unnecessary to supply πρὸς θάνατον (Bede, Beza and al.), and arbitrary to understand an abiding in sin, or a falling from grace (Calvin), or the not frequent occurrence of the sin unto death and sin in general (de Wette).
But he that hath been born of God, keepeth himself, and the wicked one doth not touch him.—The opposite (ἀλλὰ), refers not only to the predicate, but, since the subject is particularly specified, to the whole clause, and the two clauses (οἴδαμεν ὅτι—and ὅ γεννηθεὶς κ. τ. λ.) are independently coördinated. The Aorist indicates the historical fact; that hath been born again (in opposition to Sander who discovers this in the Perfect, and Bengel, “præteritum grandius quiddam sonat, quam aoristus; non modo qui magnum in regeneratione gradum assecutus, sed quilibet, qui regenitus est, servat se.”) Τηρεῖ αὑτὸν indicates moral effort and self-exertion; οὐ φύσει εἰς ἀναμαρτησίαν προβαίνει (Oecumenius); sin occurs, approaches, but he sustains the conflict, guarding himself in his peculiar nature and the Divine gift of eternal life, which hinders, spoils and drives away sin. Thus sin destroys man himself; it is in virtue of his self-guarding that the σπέρμα τοῦ θεοῦ abides in him (1Jn_3:9); we must neither supply ἁγνόν (1Ti_5:22), nor ἄσπιλον (Jam_1:27. Carpzov, Lücke, al.), nor take τηρεῖσθαι in the sense of being on one’s guard (Ebrard). Cf. 1Jn_3:3. [Alford justly objects to this and similar expositions, and retaining the reading αὑτόν A. B. Vulg. Jer., renders “it keepeth him,” viz. the Divine birth, adding, “it is this, and not the fact of his own watchfulness, which preserves him from the touch of the wicked one, as in 1Jn_3:9, where the same is imported by ὅτι τὸ σπέρμα αὐτοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ μένει, καὶ οὐ δύναται ἁμαρτάνειν, ὅτι ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ γεγέννηται. The rationalistic commentators insist on τηρεῖ ἑσυτόν, as showing, as Socinus, “aliquid præstare eum atque efficere, qui per Christum regeneratus fuerit;” and the orthodox commentators have but a lame apology to offer. Düsterdieck compares ἁγνίζει ἑαυτόν, 1Jn_3:3. But the reference there is wholly different—viz. to a gradual and earnest striving after an ideal model; whereas here the πηρεῖσθαι must be, by the very nature of the case, so far complete that the wicked one cannot approach: and whose self-guarding can ensure this even for a day? Cf. Joh_17:15, ἵνα τηρήσῃς αὐτοὺς ἐκ τοῦ πονηροῦ, which is decisive.”—M.]. The clause annexed by καὶ notes the difficult but successful conflict. The enemy, ὁ πονηρὸς, 1Jn_3:12, is Satan, οὐχ ἅπτεται αὐτοῦ, though he would fain do it, hostile attacks, Satanic assaults, temptations are not wanting (1Pe_5:8); but the point of complication between Satan and the regenerate is not reached, the wrestling is wanting; the regenerate keeps Satan at a distance, wards him off; Bengel: malignus appropinquat, ut musca ad lychnum, sed non nocet, ne tangit quidem. “In the πανοπλία he is guarded against all the μεθοδεῖαι τοῦ διαβόλου Eph_6:11 sqq.” (Huther). Luther and Calvin also refer to the armour of God, so that, as in Joh_17:11-12; Joh_17:15; Rev_3:10, God is the Preserver [Calvin: “Utut malignus renatum ad peccatum solicitet, tela tamen illius irrita cadunt, quoniam renatus scuto fidei munitus ea repellit et diabolo per fidem resistit.”—M.]. But here the Apostle contemplates only the result, and not the way to it. Additions such as letaliter (Calvin), finaliter (E. Schmid), are unnecessary. But ὁ πονηρὸς οὐχ ἅπτεπαι αὐτοῦ depends of course on the careful τηρεῖν ἑαυτὸν (Düsterdieck, Huther). [Alford: “As the Prince of this world had nothing in our blessed Lord, even so on His faithful ones who live by His life, the Tempter has no point d’ appui, by virtue of that their γέννησις by which they are as He is.”—M.].
1Jn_5:19. We know that we are (out) of God.—The second οἴδαμεν repeats by way of introduction and in pregnant abbreviation (ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐσμέν), and with application to himself and his church, the believer’s consciousness of his Divine sonship. There is no occasion whatever to understand here the peculiar revelation vouchsafed to the Apostles, or to explain εἶναι ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ=a Deo pendere illique adhærere (Socinus). The principal sentence is the independent clause, annexed like 1Jn_5:18; 1Jn_5:20, by καὶ, viz.:
And the whole world lieth in the wicked one.—For the world is the territory and domain of Satan, on which account, and because ὁ πονηρὸς occurs in 1Jn_5:18, and we have here an antithesis to ὁ θεὸς, τῷ πονηρῷ is masculine, and not neuter (Lyra, Socinus, Grotius, who however allows an allusion to Satan, Spener, Rickli and al.). Ἐν τῷ πονηρῷ κεῖται denotes like ἐν τῇ συγκλήτῳ κεῖται (Polyb. VI. 14, 6), both the competency of Satan and dependence on him as the controlling power; in (ἐν) him lies the world, [it is circumscribed by him and in his power—M.]; κεῖται denotes the passiveness of the state, of the situation; he ἅπτεται τοῦ κόσμου continually in the most powerful and destructive manner The ethical medium of sin is not expressed here, only the result is indicated. Referring here, with Spener and Steinhofer, to Isa_46:3, and explaining it in analogy with regeneration, as if the world were lying in the wicked one like a child in its mother’s womb, is false per se and not warranted by that passage wrongly rendered by Luther.—Ὁ κόσμος ὅλος refers to all the unregenerate; God’s children do not belong to the world, though ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ, yet are they not ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου (Joh_17:11; Joh_17:16), not ἐκ τοῦ διαβόλου (1Jn_3:8). Bengel well observes: “Totus mundus, isque universus, eruditos, honestos, aliosve complectens omnes, exceptis duntaxat, qui Deo se et Christo vindicarunt, non modo non tangitur, sed plane jacet (remains lying), per idololatriam, cæcitatem, fraudem, vim, lasciviam, impietatem, malitiam omnem, in malo, expers et vitæ ex Deo et διανοίας (1Co_5:10; 1Co_11:32). Brevi hac summa vividissime denotatur horribilis status mundi. Commentarii loco est ipse mundus et mundanorum hominum actiones, sermones, contractus, lites, sodalitia.” Hence our passage does not contradict 1Jn_2:2; 1Jn_4:14. God aims at the redemption of the whole world through Christ and He is enough for the whole world; but Satan also, as the antagonist of God, aims at the whole world. The world is to be taken as the territory which embraces all, not as the sum-total produced by the adding together of all individuals. [Alford: “Had not Christ become a propitiation for the sins of the whole world, were He not the Saviour of the whole world, none could ever come out of the world and believe on Him; but as it is, they who believe on Him, come out and are separated from the world; so that our proposition here remains strictly true: the κόσμος is the negation of faith in Him, and as such lies in the wicked one, His adversary.”—M.].
1Jn_5:20. But we know, that the Son of God is come.—The third οἴδαμεν whose object: ὄτι ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ ἥκει, i.e., has come; he conditions the εἶναι ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ which continues in εἶναι ἐν τῷ θεῷ; had He not come, we should still lie like ὁ κόσμος ἐν τῷ πονηρῷ. Hence it is=ἐφανερώθη 1Jn_3:8 and not adest (Bengel referring to Mar_8:3).—[“δὲ closes off and sums up all: cf. 1Th_5:23; 2Th_3:16; Heb_13:22 al. This not being seen, it has been altered to καί, as there appeared to be no contrast with the preceding.” Alford.—M.].
And hath given us a sense that we know the true One.—The subject of δέδωκεν is ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, not as Bengel Deus, as the Sender, ordaining the coming of Jesus. For Jesus is also the Mediator of the truth and of knowledge [i.e., He bestows to us the truth and this knowledge—M.], (Düsterdieck). Διάνοια is the faculty or sense of knowing, not insight or knowledge (Lücke, de Wette), nor the activity of thinking out all the points in contrast with a faith void of thought (Paulus), 2Pe_3:1; Eph_4:18; Eph_1:18 (ὀφθαλμοὶ τῆς καρδίας or τῆς διανοίας), or mind (Mat_22:37; Luk_1:51; Eph_2:3; Col_1:21; 1Pe_1:13; Heb_8:10; Heb_10:16), sensus cognoscendi (Lyra), sensus et gustus rerum divinarum (a Lapide), the spiritual sense (1Co_2:12; 1Co_2:14), whose aim (ἵνα), but not whose substance is γινώσκειν τὸν ἀληθινόν. Cf. 1Jn_2:3-4; Joh_17:3. The object of this cognition is evidently God, qui re vera Deus est, ut eum ab idolis omnibus discernat (Calvin), in contrast with every Deus fictitius. Bengel refers to the Son without any warrant for doing so.
And we are in the true One, in His Son Jesus Christ.—Another independent proposition annexed by καὶ, as in 1Jn_5:19. Ἐσμὲν ἐν τῷ ἀληθινῷ, designates, as before, God, which is also evident from the pronoun in ἐν τῷ υἱῷ αὐτοῦ. This is the extreme antithesis of κεῖται ἐν τῷ πονηρῷ, the climax of εἶναι ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ. The words ἐν τῷ υἱῳ υἱῷ αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ fully denotes the Mediator, the ground and stay both of the knowledge and of the position of the believing child of God, and it denotes this by ἐν, not by διά, in, not per, in order to mark the permanent character of this life-fellowship; inserimur in Christum et unum efficimur cum Deo. Cf. 1Jn_2:3-6; 1Jn_3:2. It is therefore no opposition, as seems to be assumed by the Vulgate (which connects by et simus with the clause beginning with ἵνα), Lyra, Erasmus and al.
This is the true God and eternal life.—Οὖτος like ἐκεῖνος, does not refer, as it were, in a merely mechanical manner, to the literally or locally nearest or more remote noun, but also to the noun, psychologically nearer or more remote. Winer, p. 175. Thus in 1Jn_5:16, ἐκείνη did not refer to the grammatically and locally distant ἁμαρτία μὴ πρὸς θάνατον, but to the immediately preceding ἁμαρτία πρὸς τὸν θάνατον. So here the mediating Son is not in point of sense the nearest, but ὁ ἀληθινός. Under the influence of the christological conflicts it may have been natural, with reference to the Arian heresy which was joined by the more modern antitrinitarians, to refer οὖτος to the Son; but the discipline of grammar and language requires us to refer it to the Father (this has been done by most commentators, also by Hofmann, Schriftbeweis I. 146, down to Sander, Ebrard, Besser, Stier [ad Joh_17:3. Vol. 5, p. 392] of our time), though the arrangement, the reference taken locally, might induce us to think of Christ, yet this is not the case, if the internal structure of the thought,—in which God the Father is the chief, and the Son simply the Mediator,—is attentively considered. But what does οὖτος refer to? To ἐν τῷ ἀληθινῷ. That would make: οὖτος (ὁ ἀληθινός)=ὁ ἀληθινός θεός, but that would be weak and shallow. But if we take οὖτος, δεικτικῶς, of Christ, it is a terse and strong conclusion of the Epistle, and a powerful motive for the concluding exhortation.—The words: καὶ ζωὴ αἰώνιος belong to οὖτος. Grammatically it is not singular (Winer, p. 144), still less in point of thought: for God is essentially ζωή, and so is Christ (Joh_14:6), even ζωὴ αἰώνιος. In like manner He is called φῶς (1Jn_1:5), ἀλάπη (1Jn_4:8; 1Jn_4:16), πνεῦμα (Joh_4:24). Bengel, on vita æterna, has the subtle note: “initium epistolæ et fines conveniunt.” It is therefore wrong to contend, that οὖτος ἐστιν ὁ ἀληθινὸς θεὸς καὶ ζωὴ αἰώνιος ought to be referred to the Son, as if His Divinity rested on this passage, and at the same time to overlook, that ἐν τῷ ἀληθινῷ denotes primarily God the Father, nor is it right to overlook here the tautology (this One, the true One, is the true God), and to apprehend an identification of the Father and the Son, which would be un-johannean, if the clause were referred to the Son. Now John distinguishes between the Father and the Son, but not between God and not-God. In the Son from the Father we have the Father, eternal life, and all that which is the Father’s, and only in Him; hence this turn to the Son and the warning against all idols; the Son is the living Image, the Christian is in no point idolatrous! [Alford: “The grounds on which the application to Christ is rested are mainly the following: 1. that οὖτος, most naturally refers to the last mentioned substantive: 2. that ζωὴ αἰώνιος, as a predicate, more naturally belongs to the Son than to the Father: 3. that the sentence, if understood of God the Father, would be aimless, and tautological. But to these it has been well and decisively answered by Lücke and Düsterdieck: 1. that οὖτος more than once in St. John belongs not to the nearest substantive, but to the principal one in the foregoing sentence, e.g., in 1Jn_2:22 and in 2Jn_1:7 : and that the subject of the whole here has been the Father, who is the ὁ ἀληθινός of the last verse, and the Son is referred back to Him as ὁ υἱὸς αὐ̇τοῦ, thereby keeping Him, as the primary subject, before the mind; 2. that as little can ζωὴ αἰώνιος be an actual predicate of Christ, as of the Father. He is indeed ἡ ζωή 1Jn_1:2, but not ἡ ζωὴ αἰώνιος. Such an expression, used predicatively, leads us to look for some expression of our Lord’s, or for some meaning which does not appear on the surface to guide us. And such an expression leading to such a meaning we have in Joh_17:3, αὔτη δὲ ἐστιν ἡ αἰώνιος ζωή, ἵνα γινώσκωσιν σὲ τὸν μόνον ἀληθινὸν θεόν, καὶ ὃν ἀπέστειλας Ἰησοῡν Χριστόν. He is eternal life in Himself, as being the fount and origin of it: He is it to us, seeing that to know Him is to possess it. I own I cannot see, after this saying of our Lord with σε τὸν μόνον ἀληθινὸν θεόν, how any one can imagine that the same Apostle can have had in these words any other reference than that which is given in those; 3. this charge is altogether inaccurate. As referred to the Father, there is in it no tautology and no aimlessness. It seems to identify the ὁ ἀληθινός mentioned before, in a solemn manner, and leads on to the concluding warning against false gods. As in another place the Apostle intensifies the non-possession of the Son by including in it the alienation from the Father also, so here at the close of all, the ἀληθινὸς θεός, the fount of ζωὴ αἰώνιος, is put before us as the ultimate aim and end, to be approached ἐν τῷ υἱῷ αὐτοῦ, but Himself the One Father both of Him and of us who live through Him.”—M.].
Final request. 1Jn_5:21 : Little children, keep yourselves from idols.—Τεκνία indicates the affectionate warmth and depth of the Apostle. The exhortation φυλάξετε ἑαυτούς reminds them of great danger, against which they must be courageously on the alert; they themselves are exposed to great corruption. Bengel: “Elegantia activi verbi cum pronomine reciproco plus dicit, quam: custodimini. Custodite vos ipsos, me absente,—neque solum ab eorum cultu, sed etiam ab omni eorum communione et communionis specie.” Ἀπο τῶν εἰδώλων denotes, that believers must withdraw from the idols, surrounding and in immediate proximity to them, in order to be guarded against them. The εἴδωλα are figures of imaginary deities, and as contrasted with the true God, who is Eternal Life, denote the manufacture of the creature; the decisive point, or the thing decided here is not whether they are made with hands for the grossest forms of heathenism, or in imagination and thought for its more subtle forms; the real point is that they are self-made, untrue, unliving, and strictly speaking, nothing. 1Th_1:9; 1Co_10:19; 1Co_12:2. Düsterdieck, therefore, is wrong in following here an Etymologicum ineditum in Biel, sub voce (τὸ μὲν εἴδωλον οὐδεμίαν ὑπόστασιν ἔχει, τὸ δὲ ὁμοίωμα τινῶν ἐστιν ἔνδαλμα), and making εἴδωλον tritons or centaurs, and ὁμοίωμα, constellations, men and beasts; the Diana of the Ephesians, forsooth, was also an εἴδωλον. Cf. Rom_1:23; Rom_1:25.—We are fully warranted to refer here, with Tertullian, Oecumenius, Düsterdieck and others, to idols proper, but equally warranted to refer also (with Bede, Rickli, Sander and others) to the self-made representations and ideas of the false teachers and their dupes, which, like the truth, they require to be received and submitted to. We may even see, with Ebrard, a reference to images of God or gods or saints in reality, or in imagination, for whom heathenish worship is required. The εἴδωλα are so dangerous because they are the objects of εἰδωλολατρεία. As this applied then to the church-frontier in contact with heathenism, so it applies at this time to the Mariolatry in the Church of Christ, and to the worship of genius, to Schiller-worship, etc., in His Church. [The literal and figurative reference in this closing charge, seems to be required by the context, and, in fact, by the whole tenor of the Epistle; the reference being both to literal idols, and to spiritual idolatry.—M.].
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The assurance that our prayers will be heard rests upon the life-fellowship with God the Father through faith in Christ, and forbids its being circumscribed, as to the substance of our prayers, within limits narrower than those given by the Lord Himself (Mat_6:9-13), but neither pursues any other course than that indicated in Mat_6:33, sq., viz., it expresses in the way of ethical effort what life really stands in need of. So St. Paul in Rom_8:14-17. Absolutely exaudible21 is the prayer for the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts (Luk_11:13), relatively exaudible are our prayers for temporal gifts quantum non est impedimento ad salutem (Mat_26:39).
2. Intercession is very potent (1Jn_5:16); it is a work of love, an act of kindness.
3. Every sin is, properly speaking, unto death, which is the wages of sin; there is no sin, which is not per se unto death, unto condemnation. In this respect, the maxim of the Stoics and Jovianus holds good, that omnia peccata paria, no matter how different they may be; and there is only one way towards the forgiveness and cancelling of sin, viz., Christ and His high-priestly work, and the fellowship of faith with the Sinless One. Consequently it is not the species or greatness of sin, per se, which constitutes it a sin unto death, but rather the effect of sin on the sinner’s relation to the Redeemer, or the nature of the disturbance of this relation, as evidenced by sin. The sin which indicates a permanent falling away from Christ, is sin unto death. The Romish distinction of peccatum mortale and peccatum veniale and the restriction of the former to seven, is wrong; for there is always the danger that the sin assumed to be peccatum veniale, and received in excuse of it, may turn into peccatum mortale, and that that which from a lower standpoint appears as peccatum, veniale, is afterwards in its further progress peccatum mortale.
4. Intercession for those who sin unto death is improper, because such intercession is inexaudible, because such sin cannot be forgiven. Cf. Riehm, Lehrbegriff des Hebräerbriefs, II., pp. 763–775. The words ἀδύνατον—πάλιν ἀνακαινίζειν εἰς μετάνοι—αν (Heb_6:4-6), as well as οὐκ ἀφεθήσεται αὐτῷ οὔτε ἐν τούτῳ τῷ αἰῶνι οὔτε ἐν τῷ μέλλοντι (Mat_12:32) distinctly indicate the reason why the Apostle neither requires, nor advises us to make intercession for those sinning unto death. Cf. Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, II., p. 340, sqq. Intercession for suicides must, at all events, be judged from this stand-point.—[Jeremy Taylor: “Every Christian is in some degree in the state of grace, so long as he is invited to repentance, and so long as he is capable of the prayers of the Church. This we learn from those words of St. John: ‘All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not unto death,’ that is, some sorts of sin are so incident to the condition of men, and their state of imperfection, that the man who hath committed them is still within the method of pardon, and hath not forfeited his title to the promises and covenant of repentance; but ‘there is a sin unto death;’ that is, some men proceed beyond the measures and economy of the Gospel, and the usual methods and probabilities of repentance, by obstinacy, and preserving a sin, by a wilful, spiteful resisting, or despising the offers of grace and the means of pardon; for such a man St. John does not encourage us to pray; if he be such a person as St. John described, our prayers will do him no good; but because no man can tell the last minute or period of pardon, nor just when a man is gone beyond the limit, and because the limit itself can be enlarged, and God’s mercies stay for some longer than for others, therefore St. John left us under the indefinite restraint and caution; which was derogatory enough to represent that sad state of things in which the refractory and impenitent have immerged themselves, and yet so indefinite and cautious, that we may not be too forward in applying it to particulars, nor in prescribing measures to the Divine mercy, nor in passing final sentences upon our brother, before we have heard our Judge Himself speak. ‘Sinning a sin not unto death’, is an expression fully signifying that there are some sins which though they be committed and displeased God, and must be repented of, and need many and mighty prayers for their pardon, yet the man is in the state of grace and pardon, that is, he is within the covenant of mercy; he may be admitted, if he will return to his duty: so that being in a state of grace is having a title to God’s loving-kindness, a not being rejected of God, but a being beloved of Him to certain purposes of mercy, and that hath these measures and degrees.”—M.].
5. The regenerate, as such, according to the spirit, does not sin, though the flesh ever and anon causes him to fall.
6. The sins of the regenerate are not unto death, because forgiveness and atonement are sought and found in Christ.
7. None but believing Christians, born of God, are not subject to the world-power of Satan; those who are subject to it, are least sensible of it; the Christian, who has become free, perceives and feels it in its hostility to him and his resistance to it.
8. Vital piety finds rest only in God, from whom it comes.
9. Although the absolute and immoveably fixed assurance (certitudo) of salvation, such as the Methodists and Baptists suppose to possess, is neither possible nor biblically established, yet we may attain unto a sure confidence (fiducia), and maintain it in opposition to the Romish decrees, which not only reject the impossibility of final apostasy, but also deny this confidence of the Christian (Conc. Trid. Sess. 6:9, 15, sq.).
10. The Reformed are fully justified in their rejection of altars, images and similar instrumenta superstitionum with respect to the abuses of the Roman Catholics, and even down to the present time with their extreme Mariolatry, but they err in confounding the abuse of the several objects with the objects themselves and in changing the one into the other, in lodging complaints against the natural sphere of art instead of pressing it into the higher service [of religion—.]. The liberty of the Lutheran Church cannot be over-estimated.—Images of God will always remain hazardous, not only in the Zwinglian or Puritan sense.—
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Care for thy friends, that they may be and remain assured of the possession of eternal life, despite the temptations and troubles on earth.—Thou hast confidence in the purity of mind of some loved man, how much more shouldest thou confide in the true God?—If distrust is disgraceful and fraught with much unhappiness in our intercourse with men, how much more disgraceful and productive of unhappiness is distrust of the glorious God?—Seeing the light of the world in regeneration is no warrant that this Sun will always smile in His brightest light, unclouded and without stormy days, on the firmament of the soul; but we know, without the gift of prophecy, as the children of God, as Christians, that it is day.—Pray for everything, but be urgent unto intercession for thy erring brother. Prefer to speak of an erring brother to God than to other men.—Dismal is the high-mindedness which fancies that it can never fail with God, but equally dismal is the pusillanimity, which afraid that all is to no purpose, conducts to despair.—As a Christian be not a minor, but volunteer also to act as guardian.—Sin violates not only the Divine command before us, and the Majesty of God above us, but also the Image of God in us!—Every sin may become a sin unto death, as long as it remains unforgiven.—Every sin checks and disturbs the eternal life in thee; the greatest danger, however, is not the commission of, but consenting unto sin, and this is the more dangerous, as your sensibility has become more acute and your will more resolute under the growth of sanctification.—Beware of genius-worship!—
Luther:—Thou must learn to cry and not sit down by thyself, or lie on a bench, with drooping head, or shaking it, and lacerate or consume thyself with thy anxious thoughts, caring and fretting how to get free, and regarding nothing except thy own misery and ill-fortune, and wretchedness. But come, idler that thou art, fall down on thy knees, lift up thy hands and eyes to heaven, sing a psalm or say the Lord’s prayer, and lay thy trouble before God, and with streaming eyes pour forth thy supplications and make known thy wants.—Prayer, the opening of our grief, the lifting up of our hands, are the sacrifices which are most acceptable to God.—He Himself desires thee to acquaint Him with thy distress, instead of burdening and oppressing, of torturing and lacerating thyself with it, and thus multiplying one calamity into ten or a hundred. He wants thee to be too weak to carry and overcome such a load, that thou mayest learn to grow strong in Him, and that He may be glorified in thee through His strength. Behold the opposite course makes people who are called Christians, but nothing else than vain babblers and praters, who see much of faith and the Spirit, but know not what it is, or what they see.
Starke:—Holy Scripture is our Epistle of God to us, in which He reveals to us His gracious will, as it were, in His own handwriting, and His purpose to give us eternal life.—Faith is never too strong, it may and must grow stronger. Where is confidence of faith, there is joyfulness. The more faith gets filled with the riches of God, the more jubilant is its rejoicing in the abundance of its satisfaction: it is heaven on earth!—The prayer of the lip must be joined to the desire of the heart.—Wouldest thou pray so that thy prayers shall be heard, thou must be full of faith, holy, and a child of God, otherwise thou art abominable.—Prayer is not only a Christian duty, but a glorious benefit. Simplicity is not ignorance. The former befits the Christian, but not the latter. Christians must know. Ignorant Christians are unchristian.—Learned but ungodly men are unlearned; the regenerate are truly learned, as those who through the knowledge of Christ have been made apt for the kingdom of heaven and eternal salvation.—Subtle idolatry is not better than gross idolatry.
Bengel:—The lamentable state of the world is most aptly described in the brief summary: “The whole world lieth in the wicked one,” and the world itself, the doings and workings of the children of the world, their sayings, their dealings, their society, etc., are the best exposition of this passage. It is not so much matter of surprise that they are so wicked, as that they are not more wicked.—
Heubner:—A sin is not excusable, because it is not yet a sin unto death. A pardonable sin may become a sin unto death; therefore we should abhor every sin.—The wicked one will not touch him: 1. The power of Satan is not irresistible; 2. The Christian, while he continues in a state of regeneration, is proof against all the assaults of Satan.—Fine threads are often more dangerous than coarse chains.—Faith in the Son of God. I. A holy, blissful, assured faith: a. as to its substance: in the Image of God, in the Saviour of love; b. as to its ground: in the testimony of God; c. as to its effects: eternal life. II. It is a faith possible unto all: a. provided they diligently read and lay to heart what is written, in order to attain unto faith; b. provided they pray God with child-like trust, to give unto them the true faith.—
Besser:—A singular saying! They believe, and he writes that they may believe. What need is there of an exhortation to believe, if we believe already? (Luther). It is not possible to have to-day’s life through yesterday’s faith. Here no stand-still is allowed; he that believes, let him go on believing.—After every prayer of a child of God, the Father hears the expressed or unexpressed petition: Thy will be done.—I have read of a pious Christian who was in the habit of keeping a record of his daily prayers and intercessions that he invariably concluded his daily record with the passage 1Jn_5:15.—Sin is to the children of God like a robber, against whom they defend themselves all their life long. As a sentry stands before a king’s palace, so there stands a sentry with shield and sword before the habitation of God in the heart of His children.—The Epistle of St. John itself is such a preservative.
[Ezekiel Hopkins:—God’s will, in bestowing a desired mercy upon us, is best known by the promises that He hath made to us. Which promises are of two kinds: some refer to temporal blessings, and others refer to grace and glory.
1. Grace and glory are promised absolutely. It is that, which we are commanded, all of us, to seek after: and, therefore, here we cannot mistake, while we beg these; for there is no doubt while we pray for grace and glory, but that we do it according to the will of God. Here, we may be earnest and importunate, that God would sanctify and save our souls: and, while we ask this, and make this the matter of our requests, we are under an impossibility of asking amiss; yea, and the more violent we are, and the more resolute to take no denial at the hands of God, the more pleasing is this holy force, since it shows a perfect conformity and concurrence in our wills to His will, who hath told us, It is His will, “even,” our “sanctification:” 1Th_4:3. This was one part of that violence which our Saviour saith the kingdom of heaven suffered in the days of John the Baptist. It is an invasion that is acceptable to God, when we storm heaven by prayers and supplications, with strong cries and tears: when we plant against it unutterable sighs and groans, this is such a battery, that those eternal ramparts cannot hold out long against it.
2. Though we may pray thus absolutely and with a holy boldness, for grace and glory, saying to God as Jacob to the angel that wrestled with him, I will not let thee go, until thou hast blessed me with spiritual blessings, in heavenly things, in Jesus Christ: yet, secondly, for the degrees of grace and for the comforts of the Holy Ghost, we must pray conditionally: if the Lord will. For these things are not absolutely necessary, neither are they absolutely promised to us by God. Neither any degree of grace, nor any consolation of the Spirit is absolutely promised to us. But, however, our prayers ought to be so much the more fervent and importunate for these things, than for outward, temporal things; by how much more these are of far greater concern than the other.
3. To pray for outward and worldly blessings is not contrary to the will of God, for He hath promised to bestow them.—But then, as His promise is conditional, if it is consistent with our good: so, truly, must our prayers be conditional, that God would give them to us, if it is consistent with His will and with our good. Whatsoever we thus ask, we do it according to the will of God; and we are sure of speeding in our request, either by obtaining our desires, or by being blessed with a denial. For, alas, we are blind and ignorant creatures, and cannot look into the designs and drift of Providence, and see how God hath laid in order good and evil in His own purpose: oftentimes, we mistake evil for good, because of the present appearance of good that it hath; yea, so short-sighted are we, that we can look no farther than outward and present appearance. But God, who sees the whole series and connection of his own counsels, knows, many times, that those things, which we account and desire as good, are really evil: and therefore it is our wisdom, to resign all our desires to His disposal, and to say, “Lord, though such temporal enjoyments may seem good and desirable to me at present, yet Thou art infinitely wise, and Thou knowest what the consequence and issue of them will be: I beg them, if they may stand with Thy will; and if Thou seest they will be as really good to me, as I suppose them now to be. If they be not so, I beg the favour of a denial.” This is the right frame, in which a Christian’s heart should be when he comes to beg temporal mercies of God; and, whilst he thus asks any worldly comforts, he cannot ask amiss. It was an excellent saying of the Satirist, “We ask those things of God which please our present humors and desires: but God gives those things which are best and fittest for us: for we are dearer to Him,” saith the heathen, “than we are to ourselves.” “And,” says another, very well, “It is mercy in God, not to hear us, when we ask things that are evil:” and when He refuseth us in such requests, it is that He might not circumvent us in our own prayers; for, indeed, whilst we ask rashly and intemperately, whatever we foolishly set our hearts upon, God need take no other course to plague and punish us, than by hearing and answering us.”—M.].
[Bp. Hall: 1Jn_5:16 :—“If any man see his brother fall into and continue in such a sin as may be capable of forgiveness, let him earnestly sue unto God for pardon of that offender: and God, who is great and infinite in mercy, shall graciously incline His ear unto his prayers, and give remission and life to such an one. There is indeed a sin unto death, for which there is no forgiveness with God, because there is no capacity of repentance for it in the committer of it; I mean the Sin against the Holy Ghost; when a man having received the knowledge of the Gospel by the illumination of the Holy Spirit, and professed the belief thereof, shall in a devilish malice wilfully blaspheme and persecute that known truth.”—M,].
[Jortin:—“What makes sin exceedingly sinful and most provoking, is a determined insolence and an obstinate impenitency, a guilt without remorse, and without relenting, without shame and without fear. This is what appears most odious and offensive in the sight of God, as also in the sight of man; and to this incorrigible temper, and abandoned behaviour, indignation and wrath are denounced by Him, who will by no means acquit those that are guilty in this way. “There is a sin unto death,” saith St. John, “and there is a sin not unto death.” The sin unto death, of which the Apostle speaks, was in some manner peculiar to those times. It was an apostasy from Christianity, and these apostates were persons who had seen the miraculous proofs of its truth, and had themselves been partakers of some extraordinary gifts. When such persons renounced Christ, and fell away from the Church, it was plain that nothing more could be done to amend and reclaim them. And even now it is possible, that sinners may offend so long and so heinously as at last to provoke God, either to take them out of the world by a secret judgment, and so it is a sin unto temporal death; or to give them up to their own hard hearts, and so it becomes a sin unto spiritual death. But let an observation be added, which may be necessary to quiet melancholy and desponding minds; and it is this: If any one be afraid that he is in such a condition, this very fear shows that in all probability he is not in such a condition; because it is usual for such sinners to have no consideration, no shame, no remorse, and no fear at all.”—M.].
[Ezekiel Hopkins:—“Beware therefore, then, that you do not entertain any slight thought of sin: nor think, with the Papists, that there are some sorts of sins, that do not deserve death; which they call venial sins, in opposition to other more gross and heinous sins, which they allow to be mortal. Believe it, the least prick at the heart is deadly; and so is the least sin to the soul. And, indeed, it is a contradiction, to call any sin venial in their sense, who hold it is not worthy of damnation, for the wages of sin is death; if it be not, how is it venial?”—M.].
[Rieger: on 1Jn_5:21 :—“Those who were called to the light of God, readily knew that an idol is nothing in the world, and that idolatry and idol-worship are abominable. But there were at that time temptations which did not render superfluous this concluding admonition. They might be invited to idol-sacrifices and thus be drawn into a sort of communion with idols, Rev_2:20; 2Co_6:16. Sometimes, in order to escape bitter persecution, Christians might venture to go too far. Yes, notwithstanding idols have at this present time sunk into still greater contempt, there yet arises always something which injuriously affects the knowledge of God in Christ Jesus, or the worship of God in spirit and in truth, which tries to find out some other way to God than by Christ, and to seek acceptance with God in another service than in His Son. It becomes therefore every one who is of the truth to sigh, O God, keep me in the mind, which Thou hast given me of Thy Son, and in which thou hast strengthened me by this testimony of St. John! Amen.”—M].
[Sermons and Sermon Themes.
1Jn_5:13. If we must aim at assurance, what should they do who are not able to discern their own spiritual condition? Thomas Doolittle. Morn. Exerc. I. 252.
1Jn_5:16. Lightfoot, John. A sin unto death. Sermons; Works, 6, 331.
Chalmers, T. The nature of the sin unto death. Sermon: Works, 9, 225.
1Jn_5:16-17. Benson, G. Concerning a sin unto death, and a sin not unto death. A Paraphrase, etc. 2, 647.—M.].
Footnotes:
[1]1Jn_5:13. [German: “These things wrote I.”—M.]
[2] 1Jn_5:13.τοῖςπιστεύουσιν B. Cod. Sin.; οἱπιστεύοντες A.; this reading is preferable on account of the witnesses and because it is difficilior.—Text. Rec. inserts after ὑμῖν, “τοῖςπιστεύουσινεἰςτὸὄνοματοῦυἱοῦτοῦθεοῦ” and continues after αἰώνιον, “ἵναπιστεύητεεἰςτὸὄνομα κ. τ. λ;” but this reading is not sufficiently authenticated, and probably not without dependence on Joh_20:31. [The Codd. A. B. Sin. al. Vulgate, Syriac, Coptic, Aethiopic, Armenian, Cassiod., Bede, al. are all against the reading of Rec.—But the reading οἱπιστεύοντες, though found in A, and many Versions, is not clearly established; it seems to have been the basis of the reading of Text. Rec.—Αἰώνιον before ἔχετε Sin. G. K. al. Theoph., Oecum.; after ἔχετε A. B. al. Vulg. Syr. Rec. Cassiod., Bede.—The most probable reading is: ὑμῖν, ἵνα εἰδῆτε ὅτι ζωὴν ἔχετε αἰώνιον, τοῖς πιστεύουσιν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ. Huther, Alford.—M.]
[German: “These things wrote I unto you, that ye may know, that ye have eternal life, ye that believe in the name of the Son of God.”—M.]
[3]1Jn_5:14. [German: “towards Him.”—M.]
[4]1Jn_5:14. ὅτι ἐὰν τι B. Sin.; ὅτιἄν A. [German: “If we ask something.”—M.]
[5]1Jn_5:15. καὶ ἐὰν οἴδαμεν, ὅτι ἀκούει ἡμῶν, omitted in A. and Sin., but added by a later hand. [German: “And if we know, that He heareth us.”—M.]
[6]1Jn_5:15. ὃ ἐὰν Sin. B. G. al.; ὅ ἂν A. K. al. The Codd. are undecided here, and in the beginning after καὶ, between ἐὰν and ἄν [German: “whatsoever we may ask.”—M.]
[7]1Jn_5:15. ἀπ’αὐτοῦ B. Sin.; παρ’ αὐτοῦ A. G. K. [German: “which we have asked from Him;” Lillie, Alford.—M.]
[8]1Jn_5:16. [German: “If any man see his brother commit a sin not unto death;” Alford, Lillie: “sinning a sin.”—M.]
[9]1Jn_5:16. [German: “Concerning that I do not say, that he shall pray.” Similarly Alford, Lillie, al.—M.]
[10]Verse l7. οὐπρὸς θάνατον is well authenticated; Vulg. Aeth. omit οὐ; μὴ is too feebly sustained.
[11]Verse l7. [German: “Born of God” as in the beginning of the verse; the variation is unnecessary.—M.]
[12]Verse l7. [German: “And the wicked one.”—M.]
[13]1Jn_5:19. [German: “And the whole world lieth in the wicked one.” So Alford, Lillie, following Syriac, Vulg. And many others.—M.]
[14] 1Jn_5:20. οἴδαμενδὲ B. K. Sin.—A. al.καὶοἴδαμεν.—G. al. omit δὲ and καὶ, as in the beginning of 1Jn_5:18.
[German: “But we know,” so Lillie; Alford “Moreover, etc.”—M.]
[15]1Jn_5:20. German: “a sense.”—M.]
[16]1Jn_5:20. γινώσκομεν A. B.* G. Sin.;γινώσκωμεν, B.** K. al.
[17]1Jn_5:20. After τὸνἀληθινόν A., several minusc., versions, al. insert θεόν; Sin. had originally τὸ, but corrected into τὸν. [German: “The true One,” so Lillie. Alford, following many translators.—M.]
[18]1Jn_5:20. ζωὴαἰώνιος, without the Article, is well authenticated; some minusc., add it. John nowhere makes use of ὴζωὴαἰώνιος, but ζωὴαἰώνιος, or ἡαἰώνιοςζωὴ, or ἡζωὴἡαἰώνιος.
[19]1Jn_5:21. ἐαυτοὺς is better authenticated than ἑαυτά.
[20]1Jn_5:21. ἀμὴν G. K. al.; [it is omitted in A. B. Sin. al.—M.]—The subscription: ΙΩΑΝΝΟΥ A., Sin. and al.
[21][I coin this word, which signifies “that which may be heard or granted,” for want of a better term.—M.].
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv11–13 hath given--Greek, aorist: "gave" once for all. Not only…
hath given--Greek, aorist: "gave" once for all. Not only "promised" it.
life is in his Son--essentially (Joh 1:4; Joh 11:25; Joh 14:6); bodily (Col 2:9); operatively (Ti2 1:10) [LANGE in ALFORD]. It is in the second Adam, the Son of God, that this life is secured to us, which, if left to depend on us, we should lose, like the first Adam.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv11, 13 3. The results of faith are eternal life, with…
3. The results of faith are eternal life, with present answered prayer, 1Jn_5:11-17.
11, 12. Of this testimony, so divinely sure, we now are to have, through the rest of the chapter, the result. It is summed up in the word life; life in Christ and Christ in us, so that in us is the life. In the background, death, 1Jn_5:16, and the wicked one, 18, and the world, 19, shadow a dark contrast. So we have the great antithesis, the battle-array, in which faith is the sure conqueror, 1Jn_5:4, and life, present and future, the sure prize.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv11–13 11. And this is the record] Better, as R.V.,…
11. And this is the record] Better, as R.V., And the witness is this, as in 1Jn_5:9 : this is what the external witness of God, when it is internally appropriated by the believer, consists in; viz. the Divine gift of eternal life.
eternal life] See on 1Jn_1:2 and on Joh_3:36; Joh_5:24. ‘Hath given’ is more literally gave; but perhaps this is a case in which the English perfect may represent the Greek aorist. But at any rate ‘gave’ must not be weakened into ‘offered’, still less into ‘promised’. The believer already possesses eternal life.
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this life is in his Son] This is a new independent statement, coordinate with the first clause: it is not, like the second clause, dependent upon the first. Eternal life has its seat and source in the Son, who is the ‘Prince’ or ‘Author of life’ (Act_3:15): see on Joh_1:4; Joh_5:26.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On v13 [4. The Conclusion (1Jn_5:13-21).
[4. The Conclusion (1Jn_5:13-21).
(1) FRESH STATEMENT OF THE PURPOSE OF WRITING, equivalent to that at the beginning of the Epistle, but differing from it (1Jn_5:13).
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(2) WHAT CAN BE DONE FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT COME UP TO THE STANDARD ASSUMED THROUGHOUT THE EPISTLE (1Jn_5:14-17).
(3) SOME PRACTICAL POINTS RECAPITULATED (1Jn_5:18-20).
(a) God’s sons do not sin (1Jn_5:18);
(b) Personal assurance that we are God’s sons (1Jn_5:19);
(c) Personal assurance that Christ is come, of the gift of the spiritual sense, and of abiding in the God of Truth through His Son (1Jn_5:20).
(4) LAST WARNING (1Jn_5:21).]
St. John, thinking perhaps of the close of his Gospel, where he states the same purpose (Joh_20:31), and reminded by 1Jn_5:11 of the supreme importance of having eternal life, and of the necessity of finding this in the Son, sums up the object of his Letter in these two ideas. He tells his friends again that he writes to them because they believe on the name of the Son of God, and explains his wish to be that, by the thoughts which he has put before them, they may feel certain that the eternal life which ought to be theirs is theirs already, and that their belief may not cease, but may be really vital. Thinking then of those who would be deceiving themselves if they pretended to any such hopeful assurance, he reminds the faithful of the power of prayer. Beginning with the general statement that confidence in God means that He hears us, he goes on to show that hearing must imply that our petitions are granted; and next, that it would be a petition quite in accordance with God’s will, and therefore likely to be heard, if a believer were to pray for a sinning brother. At the same time it must be recollected that there is such a state of wilful, hard-hearted rebellion that it is past praying for. Meantime they must remember again that as far as they were born of God they could not wilfully sin; that if they were what St. John thought them they had ample proofs that they were of God, and must not forget that the whole world was corrupted; and that there could not be any doubt that the Son of God was come, and had given them the spiritual sense necessary to discerning the true God. In that true God they were, through His Son. The God of whom the Son had spoken was that true God, and to know Him as such in His Son was eternal life. The last request was, that they should strictly guard themselves against any appearance or tendency whatsoever which might claim their sympathy or allegiance apart from God.
(1) FRESH STATEMENT OF PURPOSE (1Jn_5:13).
(13) Comp. Joh_20:31. The expression here is more positive than in the Gospel: there, “that ye might believe, and that believing ye might have life;” here, “that ye may know that ye have.” He wishes to produce in them a good hope. The specific object at the beginning of the Epistle was the communication of joy through fellowship with the Apostles the knowledge of possessing eternal life and the continuance of their faith would be precisely that joy.
(2) WHAT CAN BE DONE FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT COME UP TO THE STANDARD ASSUMED (1Jn_5:14-17).
(14) And this is the confidence.—The assurance intended in 1Jn_5:13 implies confidence, and confidence means the conviction that God is not deaf to our prayers. But these must not be contrary to His will. The Lord’s Prayer reminds us that the Person referred to here is the Father.
(15) That we have the petitions.—The goodness of God as Light and Love is so fully established that if our petitions are according to His will it follows necessarily that He grants them.
(16) If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death.—Here are meant such stumblings as do not imply any distinct, wilful, deliberate severance from the faith of Christ. To divide sins, on the authority of this passage, into venial and mortal is to misunderstand the whole argument of the Epistle and to seduce the conscience. St. John only means that though prayer can do much for an erring brother, there is a wilfulness against which it would be powerless: for even prayer is not stronger than freewill. (Comp. 1Jn_2:1; Luk_22:31-32; Joh_17:9; Heb_7:25.)
And he shall give.—The interceding Christian is regarded as gaining life for the erring brother and handing it on to him.
There is a sin unto death.—The limit of intercession is now given: such conscious and determined sin as shows a loss of all hold on Christ. Such a state would be a sign of spiritual death. Hardened obstinacy would be invincible; and as it would not be according to the will of God that prayers, by the nature of the case in vain, should be offered to Him, St. John thinks that intercession ought to stop here. At the same time, he is careful not categorically to forbid it; he only says that in such cases he does not recommend intercessory prayer. (Comp. Mat_12:31-32; Mar_3:29; Heb_6:4; Heb_6:6; Heb_10:26-27.) “His brother” is here, of course, a nominal Christian.
(17) All unrighteousness is sin.—Here St. John reminds them that all Christians might, at one time or another, stand in need of intercessory prayer, even those who, on the whole, might be considered as “sinning not” (because their permanent will was against sin, and for holiness), because every declension from the perfect righteousness of God is error or sin. Nothing that was not hopelessly deliberate need be considered a sign of absolute spiritual death. (Comp. 1Jn_3:4.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv11–13 "And the substance of the internal testimony is this…
"And the substance of the internal testimony is this we are conscious of the Divine gift of eternal life, and this we have in the Son of God." St. John"s zwhniov is not "everlasting life:" the idea of endlessness may be included in it, but it is not the main one. The distinction between eternity and time is one which the human mind feels to be real and necessary. But we are apt to lose ourselves when we try to think of eternity. We admit that it is not time, that it is the very antithesis of time, and yet we attempt to measure it while we declare it to be immeasurable. We make it simply a very long time. The main idea of "eternal life" in St. John"s writings has no direct reference to time. Eternal life is possessed already by believers; it is not a thing of the future. (Joh_3:36 Joh_5:24 Joh_6:47, 54 17:3) It is that life in God which includes all blessedness, and which is not broken by physical death. (Joh_11:25) Its opposite is exclusion from God.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv11–13 And this is the record, that God hath given…
1Jn_5:11
And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son
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The Divine record
It is obvious that the designs of God respecting the work of His hands entirely depend on His own will, and that, unless He please to favour us with an express declaration of those designs, we may, indeed, by debating about the probabilities of the case, bewilder ourselves in all the mazes of metaphysical conjecture; but, as for anything like certainty respecting what so deeply concerns us, that is a point which it is utterly beyond our abilities to attain.
Such a declaration, however, God has been pleased to make. In the record of the Old and New Testaments we have an express revelation of His will.
I. The unmerited grant of our God.
1. The nature of the blessing here said to be granted to us.
(1) It is life, life worthy of the name, a life perfectly exempt from every kind and degree of evil, and accompanied by every conceivable and by every inconceivable good.
(2) This life is eternal, not like our present life, which is but as a vapour that appeareth for a short time and then vanisheth away.
(3) It is a life, too, which includes everything that appertains to it, the pardon of our sins, reconciliation with God, adoption into His family, and all those sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit which constitute the foretaste of this eternal life in the heart of the Christian.
2. The person to whom this grant is here also said to be made. To us, the sinful children of sinful parents; to us, miserable sinners, who thus were lying in darkness and in the shadow of death, provided only we will accept the boon in His appointed way; to us hath God given eternal life.
3. The gratuitous nature of the grant. For in what way but in that of a free gift could eternal life be made over to those who have both forfeited the blessing and incurred the curse?
II. The channel through which this grant is conveyed to us.
1. The obstacles which stood in the way of this grant were of the most formidable description. These were no other than the severer perfections of the Divine nature, and the honour both of Gods law and of His universal government.
2. But by the determination that this free gift of life should be in the Son of God, to be sought for through Him alone, all the obstacles to the grant, which presented themselves from the quarters just referred to, were at once removed.
III. The character of the individuals who will obtain the benefit of this grant and of these who will fail of it. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.
1. It is clear, then, on the one hand, that we are interested in this grant of eternal life if we have the Son.
2. And it is the undisputed testimony of the record that he that thus hath the Son hath life, and that he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. (John Natt, B. D.)
Eternal life a gift
I. The subject of the record--eternal life. What is it? It is not endless existence. The record refers not to this point. The Bible assumes mans immortality. Eternal life consists in the souls well-being--its intrinsic, internal blessedness: the kingdom of God is within you. This life is eternal. It is drawn from the Eternal One; His principles of rectitude imbedded in the heart and springing up into everlasting life.
II. The doctrine of the record, god hath given to us eternal life, and this is in his son.
1. It is gift. Not something for which men need to toil, but something to be simply received.
2. It is a gift already given. God hath given, etc. The believer has its foretaste.
3. It is a gift already given in His Son. Not in systems, churches; grace and truth come by Jesus Christ.
4. This is for record. It is testified that men may know it on Gods authority and live. (Homilist.)
Eternal life
Before opening up the passage there are two preliminary questions that press for answer. In the first place, what is meant by the Scriptural phrase, eternal life? The term, eternal life, is hardly at all one of quantity, but of quality. Just as there is wheat life in the wheat plant, bird life in the winged creatures, lion life in the lion, so there is Christ life in the Christian. It is a condition of existence in which the very life of God pulsates through every faculty of the life of man, bringing him into affinity of love and purpose and aspiration with the Eternal Himself. Eternal life is, therefore, the imparting of Christs own life to those who accept Him as Saviour and Master. A second preliminary question presses for answer. When and where is this eternal life attained? It seems clear from the Word of God that it is attained in this world and not in the world to come. Men do not go to heaven to get it, but they go to heaven because they have it. If these things are true it surely becomes a pressing interest to every thoughtful man as to how this priceless gift may become his own personal possession, as to how he may grow in eternal life and eternal life grow in him, and as to how he may have the joy, the power, and the prospect of it. These questions are all clearly answered in the text.
I. Eternal life is provided in Christ. This life is in His Son. It is of the very last importance to note well the fountain of this eternal life. It is not in man as natural, for as natural he is fallen, and the fall implied the loss of this life of God in the soul of man, the passing away of all conscious affinity with God, and the coming in of a spirit of alienation and hostility. And as it is not in man naturally, neither does man find it in what is called his environment. We think that the power of environment over human life is greatly exaggerated in our day, and is essentially the reversal of a central principle in Gods dealings with the world. It is never the new environment that makes the new man, but it is the new man that creates the new environment. Let us, therefore, face the fact that eternal life is provided only in Jesus Christ our Lord. Those in quest of it have, therefore, not to wander over a wilderness of abstract thought, and not to whip the energies of mind and heart to attain this great end; but, as a person deeply convinced that this gift is not now theirs, to come humbly and trustfully to the feet of the living personality of the Lord Jesus Christ, who alone has this gift to give, and who is longing to bestow it.
II. Eternal life is published in Christ. This is the record that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son essentially. The whole Word of God is an apocalypse or unveiling of Christ. The testimony of God Himself, of the Holy Spirit, of inspired historian, poet, prophet, and evangelist, all converges on the Lord Jesus Christ.
III. Eternal life is possessed in Christ. God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son; he that hath the Son hath life. The gift has not only been provided and published, but it has in a very real sense actually been given. God has given to us eternal life. We stand firm on the ground that Christs part, both in provision and offer, has already been finished; but salvation by gift implies the part of the receiver as well as the part of the giver, and while the gift has been offered there is no salvation, and there can be no salvation till the gift is accepted. This view of the possession of eternal life delivers man from all perplexity as to the ground of his acceptance with God, and as to his humble assurance of the certainty of his salvation. It causes feelings, for example, to fall into due perspective in spiritual experiences. When a man comes to see that he possesses Christ, and on that possession can call eternal life his own, there will come, and must come, those feelings of peace and rest and certainty and enjoyment, and until he is quite sure that he possesses Christ, and with Him all things, the feelings will be fitful and the whole life will be clouded.
IV. Eternal life is perpetuated in Christ. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. The entrance of eternal life into the soul of man is the entrance of Christ Himself to dwell and reign and unfold the nature that He inhabits and permeates. The whole Christ, and only Christ, is needed to save, and the whole Christ in perpetual indwelling is needed to sanctify. There is no possible life for the Christian apart from his abiding in Christ and Christ abiding in him. Out of this flows all the sweetness of sanctity, all the dignity of lowliness, all the enlarging of love, all the practical power of obedience, and all the finished graces of a complete character. (G. Wilson.)
Example and life
It will be admitted, of course, that Christ has given us a perfect example. He has not only told us what to do, He has shown us how to live. He was Himself, by the method which He followed, the great object teacher, and His life was the great object lesson. Example is more powerful than precept; its influence goes deeper and takes hold of us with a stronger grasp; but after all it is of the same nature as precept. You can give a child in words some idea of the rules of polite behaviour; you can give him an example of politeness which will be much more instructive and effective in forming his manner than any verbal rules; but the rules and the example would both operate in the same way; they would reach and influence him through his intellect and his will. In both cases the effect produced would be the result of a voluntary effort. It is easier for him to imitate your actions than it is to remember and obey your rules; but both address the will through the intelligence. Now, while the imitation of an action is easier and pleasanter than the obedience of a precept, there is still a great lack of beauty and of vigour in the conduct that is simply the result of imitation. There is a perceptible hardness and stiffness and unreality about it; it is artificial. So, then, if a perfect example were put before us, and we should set ourselves resolutely and carefully to the copying of that example, we should be sure to fail; our lives, though they might seem outwardly very like the life we were trying to imitate, would resemble it only as the artificial flower resembles the real one. When God gave you being He gave you character and personality of your own. What He meant you to be is indicated in the very constitution of your soul, And although by disobedience and alienation from Him you may have badly injured your own character, though the Divine perfection in which it ought to shine may but dimly appear in it, yet the ground plan, so to speak, is there, and that is the plan on which your character is to be built; the thing for you to do is simply to become what God meant you to be, and this you cannot do by trying to imitate the character and conduct of some one else. What men most need is the healing, the quickening, the replenishing of their spiritual life. It is not a model to live by, it is new life and fuller that we want. And this is the want that Christ supplies. I am come, He says, that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. How is it that He imparts to men this life? Ah, I do not know that. How does the sun impart life to the seeds and roots and bulbs that during all this long winter have been waiting for him under ground? I do not know how he does it, but I know that he does it. Some of them have heard his voice already and have come forth from their graves. The subtle might of his regenerating rays is seeking them out; they begin to feel in every fibre the influence of his power; life is quickened within them by his genial influence. And as many as receive Jesus Christ, as many as will accept Him as the Lord of their life, and will let Him instruct them and lead them and inspire them, sweetly yielding to the influences of His grace, will find that He is doing for them something like what the sun does for the germs beneath the soil; that He is imparting spiritual life to them; that He is kindling in their souls the love of all things right and true and good, and increasing in them the power to realise such things in their lives. This is what He does for all who will receive Him. But the text says that this life is eternal life. The witness is that God has given to us eternal life and the life is in His Son. Yea, verily! The life whose organising principles are righteousness and truth and love is a life that takes hold of the aeons to come with a sure grasp. God has so made the universe that these principles are indestructible; in the nature of things virtue is immortal; the life that is incorporate with it has the promise of an everlasting day. (W. Gladden, D. D.)
Life in Christ
Mark the grammatical form. The statement is not part of the record, but the record itself, as if God had given none else. This is the record, standing out alone in its sublime grandeur. This is the record that transcends all others by its brilliancy, upon which every conscience might rest. So in 1Jn_2:25 he uses exactly the same emphatic expression--This is the promise that He hath promised us, even eternal life, as if not a single star shone in the firmament above except this; as if not one promise had been given except this, standing out distinct, full, alone in hopes and comfort to all. And not only he, but St. Paul, so different in the characteristic order of intellect, uses the same kind of expression--The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Rom_6:23); the gift, as if no other boon had been granted--the gift towering out above all, and standing in its holy Alpine grandeur, the noblest blessing God had ever given to His people. Put these three passages together, and then we have brought before us this glorious truth, that He is emphatically the gift, the record to us, the promise of God of life eternal through His Son.
I. The religion which we profess, true practical Christianity, is life. This truth lies at the foundation of this passage; and what type can be more glorious of good conferred? The most despised creature upon earth clings to life. I need not say that the life here spoken of is not physical life, not a life in common with an ungodly man, not a life in common with the beasts that perish, but spiritual life, life in the soul, life in the thinking elements of our nature, life in that part of our nature which links us with God Himself, and which, if lost, consigns us to everlasting ruin. Such then is the boon; the Christian lives. Religion is no dead thing; it is not formalism, it is not mere professionalism, it is not the assent of the understanding to certain dogmas, it is not the experience in the heart even of certain sentimental emotions. Religion, if it be anything at all, is a living, practical reality. I have the conviction that I have spiritual life, because I think with God, I feel the presence of God, I move in the ways of God. The Christian, then, lives; that life may be mysterious, but it is the distinguishing character of the Christian man that he has this spiritual life in him. I add that it is, moreover, a progressive thing. Here religion harmonises with all the phenomena and rules of life.
II. This life is divine in its origin--God hath given to us eternal life. All life is of Divine production. Pierce as far as you may into eternity, the deeper and closer our examination of its realities, the more fully and simply are we thrown on our conviction of the Divine origin. All life is the production of the eternal God. The spiritual life of which I speak is, therefore, certainly of His production. The old Greek fable, myth, to use the fashionable expression of modern times, brings out the truth in a simple shape--You may take a man and set him up by the pillar of the temple, but unless the god who inhabits it touches him he cannot move a step. Or, according to another Greek fable, you may take clay and form and fashion it into the mould of a man, but unless the celestial fire penetrates the frame and imparts life it has no power of action. Paul may plant, and Apollos may water, but God gives the increase. All means and appliances are in vain until the power of God Himself shall visit the Church--all in vain until Jesus Christ, who, when His message is proclaimed, shall accompany that message with His own living power and waken up dead spirits into eternal life.
III. This life is in Christ. The source, I say, of that life which is the gift of God, the source of all life, is Christ Himself. Again, for this purpose He is described as having life in Himself. Mark the emphatic expression. It corresponds with that expression of the living God, I am that I am--Jehovah. Pray for this gift, but pray for it in union with Christs sacrifice, for without His death the Spirit never had come down.
IV. This life is not only through the Son, but is in the Son, and will just be in us as it is in Him. In other words, the character of the life of the Son of God is a model character to all the brotherhood of Christ; every Christian is a Christian just in the degree that he is Christ-like.
V. This life, this divine gift, is eternal. Now the soul is eternal, and as such, therefore, this life must endure forever. That man is a fool who tries to procure something by great labour which will last only till tomorrow. But this eternal life never conies to a close. Moreover it is a life which shall expand. I can set no limits to it.
VI. Who have that life? What man possesses it? Who has a distinct credential that he does possess it? He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him. Tell me not of spasmodic enjoyments of spiritual elevation, of occasional paroxysms of spiritual life. I ask, is Christs life in you? Is His law in your hearts, and is it exemplified in your lives? If so, you have clear proof of the possession of that gift which is everlasting. (T. Archer, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv11–13 11–13. This is the witness (Revision). God gives us…
11–13. This is the witness (Revision). God gives us eternal life through this Son. We know that we have it because we know that we have a new life.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v13 1Jn_5:13-21 may be treated as a summary and conclusion.…
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
1Jn_5:13-21 may be treated as a summary and conclusion. They divide into three parts:
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1. Faith in the Son of God, eternal life, and love of the brethren showing itself in intercession, are recalled to mind.
2. Three great facts which believers know are restated.
3. A last practical warning is given. In the first part the new thought is, the association of boldness in prayer with the love of the brethren (1Jn_5:14-17).
1Jn_5:16. Sin not unto death … sin unto death.—The usual distinction between sins of frailty and sins of will. Sins of frailty are possible to the child of God; sins of will indicate that, for the time, the child-spirit is dead—he cannot sin wilfully who is born of God. St. John deals very carefully with the latter case. “Not concerning that do I say that he should make request.” Wilful sin in one claiming to have the Divine life does not come into the range of Christian prayer for the brethren, because such a case is not regarded as possible. St. John does not go so far as to say that it is not a subject for prayer at all.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—1Jn_5:13-17
The Rights of the New-begotten Sons.—1Jn_5:13 recalls to mind the explanation St. John gives of his purpose in writing his gospel. “But these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that, believing, ye may have life in His name.” Life is St. John’s great word, and by it he means that life as a son of God, in loving and obedient relations with the eternal Father, which is seen in Christ the Son, and becomes ours as by faith we are linked with that Son so as to receive His life. When we are thus made sons, we enter upon the possession of three rights or privileges, and we ought thankfully to use them.
I. The right to eternal life.—The right to live a higher kind of life than can be attained by other men,—a spiritual life, a human-divine life like that which the Lord Jesus lived; for His life on the earth is precisely described as the “eternal life.” That is not life in heaven: it is the Christ-life lived on earth. But the right to this life involves the right to everything that is needed for sustaining, developing, and perfecting the life. If God calls any one into being, His creative act implies a continuous providential act, for the well-being of the creature made. So St. Paul tells us that all things are at the command and use of the sons of God.
II. The right to expect answers to prayers (1Jn_5:14-15).—The prayers here thought of are those bearing relation to the believer’s own life, circumstance, and need. Answer to prayer, following on attention to prayer, is involved in Fatherhood and sonship. A father who neither hears, nor heeds, nor answers, his Children’s requests is no father at all. If God be our Father, He must heed and answer all who keep child-like souls.
III. The right to intercede for others (1Jn_5:16-17).—The very fact that there is a limit to Christian intercession asserts the right to intercede within the limits. And this is the right which belongs to the brotherhood. Brothers ought to be concerned with brothers’ welfare, and be ready with all sympathy and help in times of frailty and trouble.
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
1Jn_5:13. Knowing that we have Life.—The arguments and persuasions of St. John were intended to bring a personal confidence and assurance to the believers. He wanted them to know that they had the eternal life.
I. Personal assurance is possible.—But too often it is assurance founded on mere feelings. St. John’s assurance is founded on facts and truths. Emotional assurance is of but little value: it seldom does more than soothe the soul to a sleep of self-satisfaction and indifference; and it has a strangely evil tendency to make men think themselves the special favourites of God, and to despise others. Assurance founded on facts and truths has a graciously bracing influence; it ennobles a man, makes him feel like a co-worker with God, and want to be an active co-worker. And it brings the man nearer to his fellows, because, taking form as assurance of sonship, it cannot fail to bring on the responsibility of brotherhood.
II. Personal assurance is to be sought.—It is not only a desirable attainment; it is a necessary one. Upon it the strength of the Christian life depends. But it is even more important to see that upon it the brightness and cheeriness of the Christian life depend. The uncertain man is depressed, and can put no joy into his work. No man should rest anywhere short of the “full assurance of faith.”
III. Personal assurance is gained through apprehension of higher truth.—Not in the most hopeful way through experience, because experience always has too much of the variableness of self in it. Assurance comes by soul-growth, through spiritual and mental apprehensions of the higher truth. And that can be fully apprehended when we recognise that the higher truth brings the fuller knowledge of God, and in the going out of ourselves to ever higher and worthier thoughts of God we gain our best confidences and satisfactions.
The Knowledge of Eternal Life.—This being the declared object of this epistle, we are not surprised to find the words “know” and “eternal life” conspicuous. The whole epistle is occupied with the signs of sonship. Light, love, and life are the grand words which interpret the epistle, and under which all these evidences of the new nature may be arranged. God is here directly declared to be light and to be love, and it is everywhere implied that He is also life. Hence His own children must partake of His light, and love, and life, because partakers of His nature.
I. Light is here used as the equivalent for higher knowledge, as darkness is for ignorance. The child of God walks in light. Light is a revealer. Hence he knows God, knows himself and his sin, and knows the truth. He that is in darkness knows not God, denies his sin, denies Jesus, and denies the truth, embraces a lie, etc. The signs of being in the light are mainly these three: recognition of sin, belief and confession of Jesus, and knowledge of God. Of many truths we may yet be in ignorance or doubt, but of these the true child of God must be assured.
II. Love, this is the synonym for a pure, unselfish affection and benevolence. Love is found in the world—natural affection, selfish affection, the love of sympathy and of complacency. But this love is not of this world; like the warmth of the sun, it is the outgoing of something that aims to bless others rather than benefit ourselves. “He that loveth is born of God and knoweth God.” This love is expansive, expulsive, and explosive. It enlarges the heart, it expels evil, and it demands expression and action. It expels the love of sin, the love of the world, and the hatred of man. It demands vent in benevolent action and in confession of Jesus as Lord.
III. Life. Here we touch another class of mysteries. The life-principle of God is in the believer, and is opposed to death. Hence there is:
1. A quickening power—obedience.
2. A sanctifying power—purification. He that is born of God doth not commit sin, and cannot sin—observe the force of the Greek present tense, continued action—doth not go on sinning. There is that in him which constrains him to do righteousness and put away iniquity. He has affinity with God. He purifies himself, even as Christ is pure. No sinner ought to be in ignorance of the way of salvation with the gospel of John before him. No saint should be in doubt about his saved state with the first epistle of John before him. To be saved one has only to believe on Jesus as the Saviour, to receive the gift of God’s love. The disciple has only to examine himself as to whether he is in the light, the love, the life of God. If he sees and confesses his sin; if he accepts Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God; if he finds a love of God and of the brethren which expels the love of sin, of the world, and of self; if he feels the life of God impelling him to obey the commands of God, to renounce sin, and to live for God,—all this is the work of God, and of Him alone.—Anon.
1Jn_5:14. The Condition of all Answers to Prayer.—The one condition is repeated again and again, as if St. John foresaw with what difficulty Christians through all the ages would realise it. All his effort was directed to persuading men to believe fully in the Sonship of Christ. He says that he wrote to them precisely as those who professed to believe on the name of the Son of God. He wrote to them in order that he might persuade them really to believe on the name of the Son of God. The life is in the Son. It is not “he that hath Christ hath life.” It is, “he that hath the Sort hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.” And this is the ground of our confidence in prayer—we have the Son; and when a man has the Son, he has the sonship; and in the quiet, happy trust of his sonship, he is as sure that his heavenly Father hears and answers prayer, as any happy loving child is in an earthly father’s home. Does God answer prayer?’ That child, who is a child indeed, never asks the question, and never likes to have such questions asked. He says, with deepest feeling, “Don’t ask. He is my Father.” “If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give good things to them that ask Him? “But there is a particular matter in St. John’s mind. The one thing he is urging is the “love of the brethren,” which we must feel if we love the Father, and have in us the mind of the only begotten Son. If we love them, we shall want to do something for them; and then we shall be sure to intercede for them, to ask things of God in their behalf. And we may ask with confidence of answer, if we have the spirit of sons, because we shall only ask what is in harmony with God’s will, and only ask in a becoming spirit. The prayer of the brotherhood, the prayer of the family for one another, is evidently in St. John’s mind, as is clear from 1Jn_5:16-17. It is true that answer to prayers for ourselves rests on the same condition; but it comes freshly to us to find that our intercessions are conditioned on our maintaining our sonship.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On v13 13. The great end of all Scripture is that…
ARGUMENT 14
THE UNPARDONABLE SIN
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13. The great end of all Scripture is that all human beings may have eternal life, which is only in the Son of God, the Second Adam, who represents the entire human race in redemption, just as Adam the first represented all in condemnation. When the countless millions of Adam’s race shall assemble before the great white throne all will be in Adam the first or Adam the Second, the latter all acquitted with full approval, and the former all turned away into hopeless doom.
15. Here we have another grand and glorious confirmation of prevailing prayer. It is the transcendent privilege of God’s saints to be so cleansed by the blood and led by the Spirit as actually to come in touch with God so as to prevail in prayer, like Elijah.
16... “There is a sin unto death: I do not say you may ask concerning it.”
17. “All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not unto death.” Here we find John’s second definition of sin, “unrighteousness,” which means inbred sin, his first definition, “transgression,” meaning actual sin. 1Jn 2:4. Now what is this sin for which we are not to pray for pardon, since there is no pardon possible in the case? This question is abundantly answered in the general trend of the epistle. The great solvent fact of Gospel truth presented in this letter is the Christhood, out of which salvation is utterly impossible, since God out of Christ is a consuming fire. Consequently this unpardonable sin is the following after those Antichrists, or false prophets, so conspicuously exposed and scathingly anathematized in this letter. When people reject the Christhood, it is useless to pray for them, because they can not be saved in their present attitude. If you can prevail on them to forsake their un-Christly heresies, then they are open to conviction, subjects of prevailing prayer and candidates for salvation. This same great, though sad, truth is brought out by Christ (Mat 12:31-32) in the blasphemy of the Holy Ghost, denominated the unpardonable sin. Since the Holy Ghost is the Successor and Revelator of the risen and glorified Christ, it is utterly impossible for any one to receive the benefit of the Christhood without the office of the Holy Spirit in illumination, conviction, regeneration, sanctification and glorification. Hence, the unpardonable sin is following Antichrist and blaspheming the Holy Ghost.
18. “... The wicked one toucheth Him not.” All committing of sin is under the direct administration of the devil. He must get his hand on you before he can work you. This verse certifies that no regenerated person commits sin, since Satan is not permitted so much as to touch the soul that is born of God. That soul must voluntarily go over to him before he can muster him into service.
19. “We know that we are of God and the world lieth in the wicked one.” Since all the world is in the devil, and under his control, worldly churches are simply Satan’s greased planks over which to slide people into hell. All of God’s people belong to the divine Ecclesia (Church), i.e., the called out, consisting of those who, responsive to the call of the Holy Ghost, have left the devil and the world and separated themselves unto God. While regeneration takes us out of the world, sanctification takes the world out of us.
20. Oh, what burning emphasis John constantly pours forth descriptive and expository of the Christhood.
21. “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” After people are well sanctified and established in holiness, there is very little probability of their deflection into idolatry. Young converts need constant vigilance and admonition lest they be led away on some line of worldliness, all of which is idolatry.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v13 A Concluding Summary.
A Concluding Summary.
The trust of the Christians:
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v. 13. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
v. 14. And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us;
v. 15. and if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him.
The letter is finished, and the apostle now speaks his closing words, summarizing the principal points which he made in the body of the epistle: These things I wrote you in order that you might know that you have eternal life, since you believe in the name of the Son of God. The apostle is referring to everything that he wrote in this letter. His entire discussion had the aim and object of confirming the readers who have centered their faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as their Savior, in the knowledge that they thereby were the possessors of eternal life. Faith has nothing in common with doubt and uncertainty, it is not a matter of personal opinion and feeling; it is glorious, certain knowledge based upon the Word of the Gospel. We know that we have eternal life through faith because the Scripture tells us so.
And this faith has another effect in us: And this is the boldness which we have toward Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. The prayers of the believers, the real prayers, are always heard, they never return unanswered. This cheerful assurance, this frank boldness, we hold. We enter into the very presence of the Lord with the calm certainty that our petitions will be heard as we make them in faith, in firm reliance upon the sonship which was given to us in Christ. It is self-evident that we, as children of God, will ask only such things as are in accordance with the will of our heavenly Father. In other words, we leave the answering of our prayers in His hands, knowing that His wisdom and mercy always find a way to give us what is best for us, regardless of the form in which we clothe our petitions. Note that His promise is not to grant all that we ask, but to hearken to our prayers: He answers in His own way.
This assurance should influence our entire attitude toward God: And if we know that He hearkens to whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we asked of Him. God always listens to the prayers of His children, reading their content even better than they intend it. We are sure of obtaining our requests, that which we are in need of, probably not always as our petition was worded, but always as it was best for us, and as we should have offered our prayer had we been wiser. Prayer is not a dictation to God to do thus and so, but a statement of our needs as we see them. And it is our heavenly Father who gives us more than our short-sightedness permitted us to know. If we have reached this point in our Christian knowledge, then our relation toward our heavenly Father will be unclouded by any lack of trust in Him.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv11, 13 And the witness is this
And the witness is this
"This is what God says"
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life
Here "life" stands for the right to live forever by God's grace and love. See how you translated this in 1 John 1:1-2. (See: Abstract Nouns)
this life is in his Son
"this life is through his Son" or "we will live forever if we are joined with his Son" or "we will live forever if we are united with his Son"
Son
This is an important title for Jesus, the Son of God. (See: Translating Son and Father)
The one who has the Son has life. The one who does not have the Son of God does not have life
Being in a close relationship to the Son is spoken of as having the Son. AT: "He who believes in the Son of God has eternal life. He who does not believe in the Son of God does not have eternal life" (See: Metaphor)
translationWords
eternity
Son of God
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v11 5:11-12 Whoever has the Son has life: Those who…
5:11-12 Whoever has the Son has life: Those who have the Son of God living in them have God’s eternal life now—they enjoy the presence of God’s Spirit (2:20, 25, 27), and they have the guarantee of eternity with God (see Eph 1:13-14).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.