Ch. 3:1-3. The Child of Grace, Cherishing A Hope of Glory, Purifies Himself.

The Christ-nature as a nature of righteousness, taught in 2:29, suggests much of the thought of this new chapter. " Verse 29 is the conclusion of the preceding part: but it is in such a manner, that it is the organic germ out of which the following part is developed." (Ebrard.) Again and again, by the tender epithet of "little children," John has reminded his faithful readers of their new-birth relation to God. But in 2:29 he has brought this position of Christians into more distinct view, and this it is — this sonship, or rather divine childship of the believer — which calls forth the admiring exclamation, with which the present section opens.

1. Behold. See, all of you. Let it fill, for the moment, all your thought. Let it stand out before the mind as a lofty object before the natural eyes. What manner of love. "What peculiar kind of love, and how great love. The quality and the degree of the divine grace in the case are both marked. As to its kind, there was nothing like it among men. As to its degree, it was without measure and beyond expression. Such is that love that lies behind all the power and privilege of salvation. (John 3:16; Rom. 5:8; Titus 3:4; 1 John 4:10.) The tree of life in any soul is rooted in the love of God. The river of life has its fountain in the bosom of God. ^{note 1} The Father hath bestowed upon us — literally, given to us. The name is suggested by the particular grace relating to sonship, and uttered with a personal sense of the filial relation. By the giving of love (James 4:6) is meant the bestowal of it in its expression and effect. Doubtless this gift of love connects itself in the writer's mind with the gift of Christ. That we should be called the sons of God. Better, children of God; since the term points not only to relation, privilege, or honor, but to a nature received by the divine begetting. Every true Christian is one whom God has begotten; he has been made a partaker of the divine nature; hence his spiritual childhood. The word ' that ' (ἴνα, in order that) brings forward the purpose, or designed effect, of the wonderful love bestowed. 'Should be called,' by whom? By God himself, and by all intelligent beings in heaven or earth, who sympathize in God's judgment. It is by the Father primarily that one is named his child. It is a divine title. It implies divine recognition, and adoption. To be called thus a child of God is the public acknowledgment of the relation instituted in regeneration. Nor will God at any time disown the relation. To confess it is of his love and delight. As an earthly child better realizes and rejoices in it when an honored parent fondly recognizes him as his child, so the Christian better realizes and prizes his divine child-relation when assured that the Father owns it. John counts it a great thing that such as we should receive this divine name. Here is an humble sense of his own, and his brethren's, ill deservings, which enhances the wonder of their recognition by God himself as his children. The saved sinner feels the unworthiest of all. (1 Tim. 1:15.) Divine love touching a sinner and lifting him to an acknowledged place in the divine family! Evidently our apostle views the title, 'children of God,' as peculiar and distinctive, and belonging to only a portion of mankind. A certain class of religionists speak of all as the children of God. There is a remote sense in which all are children of God — that is, in virtue of creation. But this is rarely alluded to in the Bible. The true sonship is by the new birth, and spiritual kinship with Christ. We are children of God in virtue of regeneration, and union with Christ — union with him so as to stand in his relation, and receive his very name. The fatherhood of God is to be defined in this relation. God is pre-eminently the Father of Christ, and of those in him. " And (such) we are." (Rev. Ver.) This clause, inserted by the best text, asserts the reality of the childship, justifying the name, and meeting a possible cavil. Therefore the world knoweth as not. On this account. Since we are children of God by a new nature, raised into a new sphere of life, endowed with the principles and attributes of a new race, clothed with traits and privileges appropriate to this higher relation — for this cause the world does not know us. The world has some general judgment of the Christian by his outward fruits. But the new life within, the new spiritual nature, which makes one a child of God, the world does not know. It has never experienced it. It is a spiritual thing, and must be spiritually discerned. The world has no way of discerning between a natural amiability and a grace of the Spirit. Because it knew him not — namely, Christ, when he was on earth. The person and the fact were too well known to require the name to be given. The inability of the world to discern the Christian's nature was manifest in men's treatment of Christ himself. (John i:5, lo; i6:3:i Cor. 2:8.) The world could not see that in Christ which did most to make him what he was, and so rejected him. And if we have received any part of Christ's nature, we need not expect any better appreciation. A people to a great extent not understood must we be. We should count the cost, in making friends with Christ. (4:17; Matt, 10:25; John 15:19.)

2. Beloved. Not appreciated by the world, yet known and appreciated. The epithet means (1) loved by God and fellow-Christians, (2) possessed by the love-grace, (3) impliedly, lovable. Now. Temporal, not logical. Emphatic, in contrast with the ' not yet ' which follows. Though esteemed as earthen pitchers (Lam. 4:2), yet are believers even now the precious sons of Zion comparable to fine gold. Though earthly eyes see it not, they are already children of God, allied to him in a new nature. And it doth not yet appear (it is not yet made manifest) what we shall be. What we shall be is no uncertainty, but it is not yet manifested. Our being already God's children is the guaranty of the fullest perfection, which some time will be manifested to all beings. What God sees inwardly shall as plainly be seen outwardly. The light within must shine out, as Christ was transfigured. What the divine childship involves must be evolved; the latent must become patent. We know. As a fact (οἶδαμεν). How much John says about knowing! In the presence of Christian revelation and experience, we do not conjecture: we know. The connective but (δὲ) is erased in the critical text, and the new sentence begins with perfect independence. That when he shall appear (or, if he shall be manifested). The subject seems to be, on the whole, Christ, and not the 'what we shall be' of the preceding sentence. That our verb should have a personal subject best accords with the mention of ' him ' in the next clause; and that this personal subject is Christ is shown in 2:28. Compare Col. 3:4; Phil. 3:20, 21. The manifestation of Christ and all his people is to be at his second coming, in the end of the world. We shall be like him— namely, Christ, who is our pattern. The likeness (see Rom. 8:29) will be in the unfolded spiritual nature and in the resurrection body — in other words, in the manifested glory of the risen and perfect human nature. Until that event, our life is hid with Christ. (col. 3:3.) Even through the state between death and the resurrection, though we shall be with the Lord, we shall not have reached the state of glorious manifestation, and that likeness to Christ which our passage anticipates. For or, because we shall see him as he is. (Gen. 22:14.) The One referred to is plainly Christ; but the relation of the sentence to the preceding context is difficult to decide. It certainly states the reason (ὄτι) for something. Is it (1) the reason for the likeness? Is the final vision of the glorified Jesus instrumental in bringing about the likeness to him, according to the principle involved in 2 Cor. 3:18? Does John state this in our present sentence? Or (2) is it the statement of an evidential reason? In other words, the reason why in the last day we shall know that we are like Christ, or why now we may have confidence that the full likeness shall be? It is certain that we are to see him just as he is; that is proof that we shall have already become like him, since a perfect likeness is necessary to a perfect vision. Or (3) is our sentence a statement confirming the fact supposed in the words 'if he should be manifested '? In other words, does it relate to the protasis rather than the apodasis of the preceding sentence? And that he will be manifested is certain, because we are surely to see him, even just as he is, and that involves his literal manifestation. Either of these three explanations is plausible, and easily understood. Probably, in the present instance, we most serve the reader by clearly stating them, without making an absolute decision for one of them. We know that (1) is the more common interpretation, but the thought is rather forced and refined, the philosophy a little remote. Besides, it implies an order in the transformation at and following the resurrection not otherwise to be thought of. For it implies that the elect will be raised up in some unnamed moral and physical form, then get a vision of Christ, and then, upon that, be further transformed into his full likeness. It is also more probable that the likeness should precede the seeing and appreciating of Christ, and be necessary to it (Ps.17:15), as (2) implies. As for (3), it is new, but is at least worth considering.

3. And every man that hath this hope in (literally, upon ἐπὶ) him. That is, upon Christ, the ground on which the hope rests; the hope, namely, of resurrection glory and likeness to Christ. Purifieth himself. Here in this world, and as an on-going thing. The confidence of the glorious end, modeled to us in Christ, will lead those who feel it now to imitate him. We tend to become like that which we hope for. Even as he (ἐκεῖνος) is pure. The demonstrative ' he,' that one. refers back to the pronoun 'him' (αὐτῶ), and hence to Christ. The model of the purity is complete.

4-9. Righteousness, AND NOT SIN, is THAT Grand Characteristic of the regenerate.

Sin is incompatible with birth from God. John had just stated that he who hopes for Christ-likeness at the resurrection will now seek to copy him in holy living. This leads him to present the true moral ideal of the Christian, which he does in explicit language, with the aid of those spherical and mutually exclusive conceptions so common to this writer. He implies that this ideal is a constant argument against sinning, a prevailing motive to personal holiness.

4. Whosoever committeth sin. In contrast with the one seeking purity. It is the doer of sin. That is his nature and character, as the evil tree bearing evil fruit. He lives in the sphere of sin. Transgresseth also the law — literally, doeth lawlessness, that which is a deviation from law (ἀνομία). The sinning may be of any sort, small or great, of the heart or of the life; it is not merely something bad in itself; it is also in every instance a transgressing of God's law, a violation of his personal will, an affront to God himself. A man may plead that he is only a little sinner; that though he fails towards God he does his duty by his fellows, and so lull his conscience. But John will not let a man rest there. He declares that the doer of any sin is a transgressor of law, a criminal in the eyes of God. We are under the divine government, and it is one of omnipresent law; and the sinner, of whatsoever sort or dimensions, is a rebel against it. Both the offense and the rightful condemnation are thus exposed. For sin is the transgression of the law. The violation of the will of God. (Ps. 51:4) What better definition of sin? Both subject and predicate in the Greek have the article. "Each term being thus an abstract or universal, the resulting statement is that sin and breach of the law are identical to the full extent of each." (T. S. Green, "New Testament Gram.," p. 36.) [Would it not then be better to omit the article before "transgression" as well as before "sin" in translating, thus: Sin is transgression of law? — A. H.] All sin is law-breaking. The Christian by subtle sophistry may think a sin is not for him as criminal as it would be for another. Our apostle rebukes and corrects this by declaring all sin to be against the will and nature of God. Another might imbibe the antinomian idea that, having been saved by Christ, he is out of the pale of law, and cannot be controlled or judged by it. John dissipates this fancy. He says that any defect or deflection from the right is transgression of law in the saved man as well as in others. The law searches and tries every man. It is the measure of character. And this transgression of law is the transgression of the whole law considered as a unity (James 2:10), as it is the violation of the one will of God, and touches the one God. Christ was God's law embodied. In him we can see that the law is holy, just, and good; is spiritual, reaching the thoughts and feelings of the heart; applies not merely to outward matters, but to all the inward moral life. Hence, every failure to reach the pure spirit of Christ may be known as the transgression of law.

5. And ye know (the fact, hence οἶδατε) that he (that one, Christ) was manifested (in the flesh) to take away our sins. The 'our' of the Common Version is not in the now accepted text. The very statement that Christ was 'manifested' implies his pre-existence. (John 8:58.) But why did he come in the flesh? It was ' to take away our ' (' our ' is not in the Greek) 'sins' — to lift up and bear away (ἄρῃ) the sins of men (Matt, 1:21; John 1:29; Heb. 9:28; 1 Peter 2:24) by his Sacrifice as the Lamb of God. [See a careful article in the Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol. 32, p. 475 seq., on " The New Testament View of Christ as Bearing Sin," by Rev. W. H. Cobb.— A. H.] All 'sins' (plural) need atonement, and this confirms what had been just said of their criminality; and that there is atonement inspires hope in the midst of the dark array of sins which the apostle has made. The deep conviction properly awakened by ver. 4 is followed by the great! salvation of ver. 5. Sin, sin, then, was the dreadful occasion of Christ's coming in the flesh. Our sins called him here. These tried and oppressed his soul. These nailed him to the cross. These led him to provide for pardon and moral purification by the su9"ering of death. It would seem from the general context that John's phrase, 'to take away sins' has a double meaning — namely, pardon and purifying. Christ's death for sinners provided both. Thereby the penalty of sin was borne, and we, repenting, are freed from guilt; thereby the Holy Spirit is procured, and we, appropriating that agent, are purified. And the whole work is one. For we are pardoned, not that we may go on sinning, but that we may more surely have a holy character. The manifested Christ is the source, not only of pardon, but of moral purification; and the latter because of the former. It is all embraced in the idea of taking away sins. (1 Peter 2:24.) Sanctification follows justification as fruit follows blossom. Moral fruit comes out of the legal transaction. A religion that does not purify does not pardon. Christ's advent looked to the nature of sin as well as the guilt of sin. The object of Christ's manifestation in the flesh being thus comprehensive, John wishes to know if it is being accomplished in his brethren. If they are not aiming at the same thing that Christ came for, how are they in sympathy with him? How can they claim salvation while indifferent about its moral effects? If Christ thought enough of sins to come from heaven and die on account of them, shall we think lightly of them? can we lightly live in them? The passage terribly arouses the slumbering conscience of the careless religious professor. And in him is no sin. The complete moral purity of Christ is here recalled for several reasons: 1. To show that he was prepared in character to be a sin-bearer for others; 2. To suggest that he would specially desire the purity of his people; 3. To give them a strong motive to this in his own example and position with regard to sin; 4. To prepare the way for the doctrine of the next verse.

6. Christ came to get sin out of the way; not only so, he stood apart from sin in his own character. And this last assertion prepares for the words that follow. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not. The abiding in Christ is the state of vital union with him. If in him there is no sin, then those absolutely united to him and identified with him must partake of his sinless character, and be like him in that respect. What! do they not sin at all? Is the Christian a sinless being? If John's reasoning means the sinlessness of any Christians, it means the sinlessness of all who in their conversion have entered into union with Christ, and their sinlessness during all the period of salvation. But this contradicts 1:8 and that progressive work of purification which the Christian in 3:3 is said to carry on. It contradicts our conscious life. Now, what is the interpretation of John's language? We answer by saying that in this and similar cases he states an ideal or principle. He presents what the divine union involves in its fullness, that which will be when our union with Christ shall be developed in experience and actual life to its normal and perfected state. Abiding in Christ in its fulfilled degree will involve a partaking in full of the holiness of Christ. This ideal had not yet been fully reached by John and his brethren, though the union had richly commenced and was going on. But he looks forward to their perfected union with the Lord, and predicates of it complete purity; nay, he even speaks of it as if it were present, since the beginning in all grace involves the ending, the germ the full unfolding; as the New Testament calls every Christian a saint, not because he has reached that ideal, but with reference to the perfection which is yet to be. John gives us the law, or principle, of union with Christ. Purity characterizes this union; and so far as the union is realized and fulfilled, 80 far there will be purity, until the ideal becomes fully real, and then, by the very law of the union, there will be utter sinlessness. The union is a holy principle, and the more it is developed the more it bears personal holiness with it. The Christian, therefore, by the very law of his union with Christ, is one who is reaching on to moral purity; and if not approaching the ideal, he may doubt his spiritual state. Purity is the law, the tendency, of divine union. Whosoever sinneth hath not seen him (Christ), neither known him. Has not had either a vision of him, or an experience of him; is now in a state of spiritual blindness and ignorance. "The Greek perfect denotes an abiding present effect resting on an event in the past. In the Greek perfect the present predominates." (Alford.) John states antithetically a truth implied in the former part of the verse — a truth that comes out from the mutual exclusiveness of the sin character and the Christ character. John states here the law, or tendency, of the sin character. He who sins as his law, the on-going, developing law of his life, knows nothing of the saving vision or purifying knowledge of Christ. Sin is blinding. Sin is the foe of divine fellowship. If this be the total effect in the unregenerate, is it not to the Christian dust in his spiritual sight and a palsy in his spiritual love?

7. Little children. An appeal of affection and a reminder of the spiritual standing of those addressed. Let no man deceive you. Lead you astray, or cause you to wander. If little children, they need caution against the wiles of false teachers, as sheep need guarding against devouring beasts. False teachers, antichrists, had already appeared, and it would seem that some of them were teaching that one might be a Christian, and so belong to the class of the righteous, yet go on sinning as before, without condemnation. "Be not deceived," says the apostle, "with such teaching. Know that if one is a Christian he is of the class of the righteous, and his doing, the fruit of his life, will agree with this fact. He will reflect Christ, who, righteous himself, was for that reason a doer of righteousness. The being proves itself in the doing. The good tree brings forth good fruit"

8. He that committeth (or doeth) sin. Defined as in the note on ver. 4. The sin doer is here contrasted with the righteous doer of the preceding verse, as to his ideal likeness and relationship. Is of the devil. Who, with this verse and ver. 10 in mind, can doubt the personality of the devil? And why doubt it any more than that of an angel? What is gained, in any interest of reason or religion, by doubting it? The devil is the ideal, the fully developed, sinner. The sinning man finds the goal to which he is tending, the type to which he is approximating, the same moral nature of which he has partaken, in the devil. There is his kinship. To be of the devil is to have his moral likeness, and the same law of sin. In this sense the sinner on earth is a child, and the devil a father. (John 8:44; Acts 13:10.) From the beginning. Of human history, when there was man to slay morally. (John 8:44.) For this purpose (or to this end). The purpose is stated in the last part of the sentence. The Son of God was manifested. In his total earthly career, including his death. (Heb. 2:14.) 'The Son of God,' begotten through the Holy Spirit. (Luke 1:35.) A historical, not a metaphysical name. That he might destroy the works of the devil. "Those works which he incites men to perform" (Hackett) — namely, sins. These Christ destroys (λύσῃ), dissolves by his death (Heb. 9:26) and his Spirit (Rom. 8:13), and by weakening Satan himself, (Gen. 3:15.) Christ is the opposite of the devil in character and works. Whom will the believer take sides with? Will he make that his law which Christ came to destroy?

9. Whosoever (that is, every one) is born of (ἐκ) God. And (perfect participle) now possesses the new-birth nature. [It might be translated, " Every one who has been born of God." — A. H.] Doth not commit (or do) sin. Does not do it (present and continuous tense) as the law of his life, as the ideal tendency of his being; does not belong to the sin sphere. He belongs rather to the sphere of light, having God's nature through the new birth. The states of being begotten of God, and of sin, are viewed as mutually exclusive. This is the normal, ideal fact. "And John sets up the ideal as the true reality." (Godet.) See explanation of ver. 6. For (or because) his (God's) seed abideth in him — that is, in the one born of God. The seed (sperm) is the word of God quickened in the heart by the Holy Spirit, and so made the principle of regeneration. (1 Peter 1:23; James 1:18; John 5:38.) It is holy as God is holy; and as seed it germinates and expands, filling the being, making real the holy ideal. [It is by no means certain that the expression 'his seed' (σπέρμα αὐτοῦ) means " the word of God." Many interpreters think it means the Spirit of God; others think it is the new disposition generated by the Spirit. This new disposition, implanted by the gracious influence of the Spirit, is however called into action by the light of divine truth, and appears to the eye of consciousness as faith, love, hope, etc. " The good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one." (Matt, 13:38.) The figure is not precisely the same in this parable as in the verse before us; but it favors the view that the word 'seed' has reference to the vital principle, or holy disposition imparted to the soul, rather than to Christian truth — a more objective reality. How can truth be vitalized, made to germinate? — A. H.] And he cannot sin. To sin, in the sense explained at the opening of the verse. Because he is (literally, has been) born of God. And it is as impossible (όυδύναται) for him to sin, in the sense explained, as it is for the nature of God to sin. And as the nature of God in us abides and grows, as the child becomes the man, the old sin nature is sloughed off, and absolute holiness is reached. The divine germ and potency are the law, and what is law must be fulfilled.

10-18. That Righteousness which Distinguishes THE CHILDREN OF GoD FROM THE Children of the Devil Includes, in Particular, Love of the Brethren, WHICH Love must be Practical as well AS Professional.

We are impressed with the explicit, direct, and positive nature of the apostle's statements under this section. There is no such thing here as a halting or timid utterance; no disposition to cover the edge of truth, in order to spare the feelings of any who cannot stand the gospel tests. Our heading of the present section has sufficiently indicated its outgrowth from the preceding section.

10. In this. In this evidencing fact. The children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil. 'Are manifest' to all who will look into the matter, and reflect upon it. One might say to John, " You have divided the world into these two classes, the one bearing in their soul the image of God, the other the image of the devil. They are mixed up together; how shall they be distinguished? By what test are they 'manifest'?" By this criterion, says John, which follows: Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. A very plain, short rule. Doing righteousness is doing that which likens us to Christ. See 2:29 and note. The child of God will do this righteousness naturally. To further define this righteousness John mentions brotherly love as a part of it and co-ordinates it with it. An important part of practical righteousness is this love, which is so essential that he who lacks it cannot be a Christian. (John 13:35.) It is that which shows what the hidden child-nature is. It is preeminently the revealing grace. Our verse, then, tends to unfold what practical righteousness is, and fairly introduces us to the subject of brotherly love, as marking the new nature.

11. For introduces proof of the position that the righteousness of brotherly love must distinguish God's children. It was one of the first things taught by the gospel, that Christ's people should love one another, that the family of God should have the family grace. It is therefore that manifestation which we expect to find distinguishing the children of God from the children of the devil. For explanation of beginning, see on 2:7, and of love one another, see on 2:8. This love is not love to all men, but is that which springs out of our relationship as children of one Father, and such as Christ had for his own (John 13:34); it is involved in the kinship of nature. That (ἴνα). "Purpose and purport." (Alford.) "Declarative." (Hackett.)

12. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. The words, and so be, supplied at the beginning of the sentence, would complete the sense, and connect it with the last words of ver. 11: "should love one another and so be not like wicked Cain." But the brief form in the text is in the interest of vividness and force. Compare John 6:58, for construction. The example of Cain strikingly illustrates the love-precept by way of contrast. He wickedly violated the brotherly relation. Instead of loving his brother, he hated and slew him, acting out the nature of Satan, who was a murderer from the beginning. His deed showed what his nature was, with whom allied. Instead of making a sacrifice of love for his own brother, Cain took that brother and sacrificed him to his god, the devil. If Christians will not love another, they violate their assumed brotherly relation, and repeat the spirit of Cain and the devil. What a tell-tale mirror for an unloving Christian to look into. [The Revised Version translates: not as Cain was of the evil one, etc. The sense would then be, "that we should love one another, not being (of the evil one) as Cain was of the evil one, etc. — A. H.] And wherefore (χάριν τίνος). On account of what. Because his own works were evil. (Omit the word 'own,' for which there is nothing in the original.) Morally evil, hence wicked; bearing the nature of the wicked one. What is meant by the 'works' (ἔργα) of the two brothers? The term is plural as related to each of them, and therefore suggests something more than the one work of each just preceding the murder. The customary deeds, the manner of life, the opposite moral characters, of the two men, are meant. The act of murder on Cain's part was no accident of his moral life. It had a reason in the natural character, the habitual deeds, of the heart. It was the fruit of an evil tree. Moreover, it was the outcome of a heart in contrariety to a righteous heart such as Abel's was. The evil nature is in antipathy to the righteous nature. It does not love it, is averse to it, envies it, hates it, even as Satan's nature antagonizes God's nature. The carnal mind is enmity against God and whoever is like God. This is John's deep philosophy of the murder.

13. Marvel not. A negative command in the present looks to the discontinuance of an act. In John's conception, his readers had begun to wonder. My brethren. Omit the ' my ' of the Common Version. The love-relation of those addressed is recognized, and their distinction from those who hate. If the world hate (hateth, Revised Version) you. 'If with the indicative shows that the hypothesis is a reality. The world does hate you. Do not marvel. For you see, as in the case of Cain and Abel, that the world-nature and the Christian nature are contrary. This explains it. "Because ye are not of the world, . . . therefore the world hateth you." (John 15:19.) The Very principle of the new nature which binds Christians to each other is an occasion of repulsion to the world. In referring his readers to the hatred they have from the world, he affords them, 1. A further example of the principle of opposition between the seed of God and the seed of the devil; 2. A motive for them to love each other the more. Hatred, want of sympathy, from the world, should draw them to each other the more closely, as the cold blast of winter makes the children of the family press to each other's warmth.

14. We. Emphatic, as set over against the world. Know. As a fact (οἴδαμεν). That we have passed. And are still in the state thus reached. From death unto (that is, out of death into) life. This life is the new life, the life of the Spirit, the eternal life, the divine life. The death is the state opposite; not of non-existence, for they existed while unregenerate; but of separation from the true life; in the darkness outside of God's nature of light. What a change, then, is that from death to life! Because we love the brethren. Members of the spiritual family. The love is the new life in action, and the sure proof that the life is present, (ver. 10, 11.) After the severe testing of the preceding verses, the assurance of these words would be most comforting. And how many self-distrusting souls of trembling faith in all the gospel times have by them been helped to the assuring evidence of their regeneration. They find in their hearts that they feel a drawing to Christians, which they do not feel towards the society of the world, a delightful love for them, though poor, or marred, or imperfect, a peculiar pleasure in being where they congregate, relishing their exercises and enjoying their fellowship, and this tells them, and manifests to all (John is:35), that in them is that new nature which allies them with God and all his people. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. 'His brother' does not belong to the approved text. The absence of spiritual love from the character, which of course includes love of the brethren, is the sure sign of still abiding in death, where all men are by nature. The unloving heart has never passed over from the death state. If a child of God is no more to us than anybody else; if the society of the Church is no more to us than the society of the world; if God's love does not work consciously in us and have its willing response — we are simply not converted.

15. 'Whosoever hateth his brother. Hatred soon comes of not loving; it is of the same root and kind, only in a more positive form. The negative state is by no means a neutral state. The heart that does not love has the seeds of positive hatred, which will start up when occasion comes. This hatred, however hidden, is essential murder, man-killing (ἀνθρωποκτόνος). It is that germ whence all murder comes. He who looks on the heart sees there embryonic and responsible murder. The private malice, the secret grudge, the throbbing vengeance, the envy cherished in the heart, is murderous in its tendency. It is that from which Cain's murder sprang. The principal part of sin is in the heart. (Matt. 15:19.) The present participle "hating" (translated ' hateth ') probably suggests a hate which is a principle, something kept up and cherished. A good Christian may fall into the temptation temporarily, and still have the principle of eternal life abiding in him. But he will not cherish the evil feeling. He will cast it away, as a man will kick off the snare that has begun to entangle his feet. He will cry, ' O Lord, pardon my murder.' And God will pardon and save.

16. Hereby (or, in this) — namely, that Christ laid down his life for us. Perceive (or, know) we the love. (The sense is best given by omitting the article before love, as in the Revised Version.) ' Know ' it sympathetically, spiritually, as something that has touched us, and affected us. Know what it is (4:10), how great it is, how much it will move us to sacrifice for its dear object. Because he (εκεἶνος, that one, ever present to the thought of the apostle) laid down his life. For the usage, in case of this peculiar expression, see John 10:11, 15, 17, 18. It means a voluntary self-sacrifice. It expresses not only the extent of the sacrifice, but the absolute voluntariness of it. Laying down one's life is the same as giving: one's self. (Gal. 2:20; Eph. 5:2.) And in Christ's case it is the action of the very highest love. (Eph. 5:2, 25.) For us. In our behalf; for our good. And for us while we were yet sinners. (Rom. 5:8.) And we (emphatic, we the followers of Christ) ought. Are under obligation to him who has planted divine love in us, and has appointed the relation between love and sacrifice for its object, and has exemplified it to us in him whom we follow. To lay down our lives for the brethren. If needful; if their true good shall require it. This is love in practical action. It is love's proof. (John 15:13.) "We must love each other, therefore, not only at convenience, but at cost, even to the giving of ourselves. Love is the giving of self.

17. But. Contrast the above law of low with a certain example. Whoso hath (a supposed case) this (literally, the) world's good (or, goods), and seeth (or, beholdeth) his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him (not giving his pity, or his goods, much less his life, as required in ver. 16), how dwelleth the love of God in him? How is the true abiding element or principle of love in him? "It is put as a wondering question which challenges in vain a satisfactory answer." (Hackett.) It is an argument, a question, from the greater to the less. If, not laying down his life for the good of his brother, he cannot even pity him or give him alms, how much Christly love can there be in him?

18. My little children. Omit 'my.' See explanation at 2:1, 12, 13, 18,28. Let ns not love in word, neither in tongue. Better, with the tongue. The last term has the article in the best text. Word and the tongue are mere instruments of profession. Do not love by these only; by profession only. The love of the professed brother described in the preceding verse was only profession and talk. Let not yours be so. But (on the contrary, let it be) in deed and in truth. (1 Peter 1:22, 23.) In the element of these. In actual doing, and in the way of God's truth in the case. How fittingly, how forcibly, this exhortation closes the searching discussion of the section! How much in the manner and spirit of the aged John, as we think of him! The love-exhortation was his most ready word, and his ministry uttered it most affectionately to the very end. Godet, " Com. on John," Vol. I., p. 61. Nor has the sound of that appeal yet died away, or its influence on renewed hearts.

19-24. THE Exercise of Brotherly Love IS Attended by an Assurance of our Christian State, by a Peacefulness of Conscience, by Effectual Prayer, and BY Abiding Fellowship and Union with HIM WHO Gave the Commandments, and WHO Gives us the Spirit.

19. And hereby (literally, in this). Connection with the preceding verse is close. The loving of our brethren in deed and truth, so loving them as to endure self-denial for their sakes, is referred to as that, in the presence or exercise of which, not on the ground of which, we realize other great spiritual blessings. We know. The verb is future to the fulfilled condition, and also expresses certainty. Translate, we shall know (experimentally) that we are of the truth, of one nature with the truth, as if born of it. To be of the truth is more than to be truthful or true men. It is to be in a state of spiritual affinity with the truth of God as it is in Jesus, and including him. It is to be of the light of God (sons of light, John 12:36), the reflection of his own nature. Spiritual attainments do not come single. If we have brotherly love, we have much with it. It brings other experiences with it; and one of these is the consciousness that we are neither deceivers nor self-deceived, that we belong to the spiritual sphere, that we are true Christians. Before him. Before God. (ver. 20.) In his very sight. Even before the searching eye of his holiness. The position of the expression in the Greek suggests emphasis. The judgment day does not seem to be referred to as the day of final revelation, but the present period of experience, as the preceding sentence and the following verse make most natural. Shall assure (or, persuade). Co-ordinate with 'shall know,' and springing out of the same condition of love. Our hearts. As the seat of moral feeling, conscience, yielding disturbing accusation or pacifying approval. The tenor of the next verse makes this evident. The term elsewhere may include other springs of feeling. ' To persuade our hearts ' is to make a plea before them as if they were judges; to satisfy the questionings of conscience, to bring it upon our side, so that it clears us and speaks peace. Of course, guilt and fear are removed from the conscience by the blood of Christ, but the full assurance of this work in its peaceful effects comes in connection with brotherly love, not apart from it. If the love be absent, the assurance of forgiveness, the consciousness of a clean conscience, are absent also. Love does not cleanse the conscience, but it supplies to it a satisfying argument that the guilt is taken away. One grace may be the advocate and light of another.

20. For if our heart condemn (know aught against) us (it is because), God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things. Hence, if conscience is assured, it must be before God. John gives this verse as the reason (ὄτι) for emphasizing ' before him ' (ἔμπροσθεν αὐτοῦ) in connection with the assuring of the heart, in the preceding sentence. 'Before him ' has the place of emphasis, and upon it hinges our present verse. This is so evident that the wonder is how the expositors could generally miss this key of the interpretation, as they have done. If conscience is persuaded and pacified merely in and by itself, that may be insufficient; but if it be done under the searching eye and full knowledge of God, then it is well done; and not otherwise can it be well done, since God is greater than our conscience and knows all things, and his holiness and knowledge must judge more perfectly. Conscience, " if not forcibly stopped, naturally and always goes on to anticipate a higher and more effectual sentence, which shall hereafter second and affirm its own." (Bishop Butler.) In the presence of brotherly love, the heart is peaceful in its own court and in God's. The second 'because' states the reason for the heart's condemnation. That condemnation is the echo of the voice of him who is greater and knows all things. The reason of the heart s sentence is back in God himself. In the action of conscience, therefore, there is a certain revelation of God. The relation of the word 'because' we have indicated in the translation by assuming an ellipsis, and supplying the simple words ' it is.' The ellipsis is not foreign to John's peculiar style. See 2:19; 3:12.

21, 22. Beloved. See note on ver. 2. If our heart condemn us not. Being pacified in the presence of God. Then have we confidence (or boldness) toward God. Which is an advance upon a state of peace. This boldness is the sense of freedom and confidence. See note under 2:28. When free from condemnation, we are more than free; we look up to God in perfect childlike confidence, and so come boldly unto a throne of grace. See next sentence. And whatsoever we ask (in the confidence just spoken of) we receive of (from, ἀπὸ, not παρὰ) him — namely, from God, to whom we come with freedom of conscience and supplication. The asking is that of those who are in the sphere of brotherly love, and bear the name of beloved. It is one form which the spiritual freedom of the child in his Father's house takes. God receives it as a proof of our confidence in him if we ask him for what we need, and he is not annoyed, but pleased. The free feeling toward God must go out in prayer. And the asking that conies of this child-spirit of the life of divine love, will he in faith, and in the Holy Spirit, and according to the will of God; and whatsoever a Christian asks of God with these conditions, he will receive from him, whether it be a temporal good or a spiritual grace. That word 'whatsoever' is of wonderful range, and includes temporal things as much as it does spiritual; but it is true of him who prays in union with God and in the Spirit of supplications, (Zech. 12:10; Rom. 8:36.) The prayer, then, for small thing or great is a divine thought. Like a river, the spiritual child's prayer flows down into the ocean of God, and returns in dews and rains upon him. True prayer corresponds to the system of veins and arteries in the human body— life rising to the heart and coming from the heart. Because we keep his commandments. This marks the thoroughly obedient spirit that underlies effectual praying, and recalls the already implied relation of such praying to loving the brethren. For the commandments spoken of include in particular, as in 2:3, the one on which John has dwelt so much, that of loving a brother with the love of Christ. The man who does this, which is the very essence of obedience, will obey in other things, and he will pray effectually for all things that truly concern him. (Ps. 138:8.) He is the righteous man of whom James speaks, and whose fervent prayer availeth much. He is the righteous one to whose cry the ears of Jehovah are open, as the Psalmist declares. As a rule, save in the case of the sinner first crying for pardon, effectual praying is the fruit of a godly tree. " If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you." (John 15:7.) It is not the occasional exertion of a lean, disobedient soul; it is the overflow of an habitual spirituality. And do those things that are pleasing in his sight. Keeping the commandments, especially that enjoining brotherly love, is beautiful in his sight, and is a reflection of his own nature. We ought to keep the commandments, in order to please God.

23. And connects the previous reference to commandments with an added unfolding definition. This is his commandment — namely, a brotherly love with its root in belief in Christ, or belief in Christ with its outgrowth in brotherly love; for so are they viewed as one by the writer, and called one commandment. They are inseparable. Inevitably, faith works by love. But though they develop as vitally one, they have a logical order, which is given in the statement of the verse. John's word surely suggests that what is cardinal in Christianity is belief in the Lord Jesus, and brotherly love, developed in a gracious unity. The term ' his' has its natural antecedent in God. That (ἴνα) states the end as well as substance of God's command. The command looks directly to the act of obedience, as well as the rule of it Believing on the name (dative because that to which the action is given and on which it terminates) of Jesus Christ is believing in him as fulfilling all that his name and his revelation express. "It is to believe the gospel message concerning him, and him as living in it in all his fullness." (Alford.) As he (Christ) gave us commandment. If 'he' were God, the present statement would only repeat practically the first words of the verse. But making it Christ, the writer adds the confirmation and pattern of a wellknown historical fact.

24. And resumes the subject of keeping the commandments (plural) begun in the last part of ver. 22. He that keepeth his commandments. Including the double cardinal command of ver. 23, and others. In the present verse these commands are referred to Christ as their author, to whom the last preceding words have called the writer's thought. The following words about a mutual indwelling refer more naturally to Christ, and to some of his very words in the Gospel of John. The ease with which our apostle can glide, in thought and affirmation, from Father to Son, in the discussions of truth and grace, shows what equal honor and what relation of unity they had in his mind. On the keeping of the commands, see note under 2:3. The abiding of us in union with Christ, and of him in union with us, is presented as something which attends, accompanies, goes along with, keeping his commands, and is evidenced by this keeping, and is itself in turn fostered by it. And hereby — namely, by the Spirit given us. We know. As a continuous consciousness. That he (Christ) abideth in us. This is a matter of realization, of a knowledge as certain to us as a part of ourselves. From what shall such assurance spring? By the Spirit which he (Christ) hath given (or gave) us. 'Us' Christians, when we believed. The gift of the Holy Spirit is from the Father. But it is also from the Son, as many passages show. The Spirit, dwelling in us as a personal presence, reveals and witnesses of our union with Christ. It is his office to make our new life a consciousness. And this gift of the Spirit, working this knowledge, is the privilege of all believers. But not all who profess to have the Spirit have received him; hence the need of caution, which leads on to the earnest charge in the following section.

Note 1) Huther remarks that "ποταπός (a later form of ποδαπός, properly = whence), never used in the New Testament for a direct question, is not strickly = quantus, but = qualis (compare Luke 1:29; 2 Peter 3:11), but is often used as an expression of wonder at something specially glorious (compare Matt. 8:27; Mark 13:1; Luke 7:39), so that the meaning of qualis plays over into that of quantus. So here."— A. H.]