13 - 1Jn 2:3-11
1Jn 2:3-11 The exposition of the following verses depends very much on our clear perception of their relation to what precedes. The first thing that helps us to understand that is the verb ἐγνώκαμεν αὐτὸν [“know him”] in the third verse. Unless we assume that this idea enters here without any link of connection, and so leave a yawning chasm between 1Jn 2:3 and what goes before,—which, indeed, the καί [“and”], linking the two portions together, would not allow,—we must find in what we have just been studying an idea of which the development is this γιγνώσκειναὐτόν [“not perceive”]. Now, to get a clearer notion of what it is, we must first of all define who is meant by the αὐτός [“him”], God or Christ. Certainly it cannot be other than the same person who in the second part of the verse is again described by αὐτός [“him”]: ἐὰν τὰς ἐντολὰς αὐτοῦ τηρῶμεν [“if we keep his commandments”]. Now, as in all that follows God is invariably the source of command, and Christ is introduced only as the pattern we must imitate in obeying His commandments; as, besides this, Christ is distinguished as ἐκεῖνος from Him who is marked out by αὐτός [“him”],—it will appear that αὐτός [“him”] here can be only God the Father. But then, in that case, the γιγνώσκειν αὐτὸν [“know him”] cannot attach itself to 1Jn 2:1-2; for they contain no element that enters into the knowledge of the Father, while they point to the knowledge of Christ if to any knowledge at all. We may suppose, perhaps, that the train of thought which begins with 1Jn 2:3 is a continuation of the passage, 1Jn 1:8-10: he who walks in the light must first of all confess his sins, and, secondly, keep the divine commandments. But that is made simply impossible by 1Jn 2:1-2. We have seen that these two verses sum up by way of recapitulation the whole contents of 1Jn 1:6-10; and consequently 1Jn 2:3, when it begins again, must be the continuation of this whole section. But that, after a resuming summary of the whole, the thought should recur to one particular part, and rest upon it without actually and expressly mentioning what, is hardly to be supposed. If, however, we ask to what γιγνώσκειν τὸν Θεον [“know God”] may positively be referred, 1Jn 1:5 points the way; for it tells us expressly that God is light; and the most obvious explanation of the idea in our passage is, accordingly, that to know God is to know His nature of light, to know Him as light. Then, in that case, 1Jn 2:3 would immediately join on to 1Jn 1:5, and introduce a new second section which runs parallel with the entire section from 1Jn 1:6-10, 1Jn 2:1-2. The construction of the whole, to which we have thus been guided by the idea of γιγνώσκειν τὸν Θεον [“know God”], would receive its strong confirmation from the ninth verse; for it is clear that the clause ὁ λέγων ἐν τῷ φωτὶ εἶναι, καὶ τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὑτοῦ μισῶν, ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ ἐστὶν [“the one who says he is in the light, but hates his brother, is in the darkness”] corresponds precisely to the sentence in 1Jn 1:6. But this evidence is effectual only on the supposition of its having been already proved that 1Jn 2:9 is part of the section begun with 1Jn 2:3, and that this section therefore does not end with the sixth verse. Such proof, however, requires us to point out and establish that the ἐντολαὶ Θεοῦ [“commandments of God”], 1Jn 2:3, the λόγοςΘεοῦ [“word of God”], 1Jn 2:5, the περιπατεῖν καθὼς ἐκεῖνος περιεπάτησεν [“walk just as he walked”], and the commandment of brotherly love, 1Jn 2:9, have substantially the same meaning. It is in favour of this that, if we make the section end with 1Jn 2:6, the clause concerning brotherly love is absolutely wanting in any, whether external or internal, connection with what goes before. Without that link the reader would not by any means have understood the seventh and the eighth verses concerning the old and the new commandment; for the previous verses, which on this supposition speak of sanctification in quite general terms, furnish no point of help to the interpretation. But if we suppose that the apostle, from 1Jn 2:3-6, has already the commandment of brotherly love in his eye, the readers are already put in a right position to perceive the meaning in which he speaks of an old and of a new commandment. In fact, they might at once have perceived, from the whole tenor of the paragraph from 1Jn 2:3-6, that brotherly love was the subject treated. True it is that the first expression, τηρεῖν τὰς ἐντολὰς τοῦ Θεοῦ [“to keep the commandments of God”], is quite general, and signifies obedience to the will of God in all directions and in all the particulars of obedience. But then the following τηρεῖν τὸν λόγον αὐτοῦ [“to keep his word”] reduces back the universality of that first expression to its unity again, as we saw, indeed, already in 1Jn 1:10 that the meaning of the latter sentence is, that the full manifoldness of the words and teaching of our Lord is summed up in one living and life-giving unity. But those who are acquainted with St. John’s Gospel, as these readers were, know at once that this unity is nowhere else to be sought but in the commandment of love.
What thus in the word λόγοςτοῦ Θεοῦ [“word of God”] lies wrapped up as a germ is clearly unfolded in the words ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ Θεοῦ τετελείωται [“the love of God is made complete”] of the following clause; if, indeed, we can suppose from other considerations that ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ Θεοῦ [“the love of God”] here means the love which we have to Him. Certainly there are some other reasons for adopting the inverted sense of the expression: the love of God to us. First, there is the parallel clause that forms the pendant and sequel of the fourth verse. Then the result of disobedience to the divine commandments is declared to be the inference, ἡ ἀλήθειαοὐκἔστινἐνἡμῖν [“the truth is not in you”]; and we have seen in the interpretation of the preceding chapter that ἀλήθεια [“truth”] means the real fulness of the divine nature. Hence it commends itself to our feeling, that in the fifth verse there is found a parallel thought: if we keep the commandments of God, His love is in us in a perfected sense, analogous to His ἀλήθεια [“truth”] being in us. Again, when we compare other passages, such as 1Jn 4:10, ἐν τούτῳ ἐστὶν ἡ ἀγάπη, οὐχ ὅτι ἡμεῖς ἠγαπήσαμεν αὐτὸν ἀλλ᾽ ὅτι αὐτὸς ἠγάπησεν ἡμᾶς [“in this is love, not that we loved him but that he loved us”], and such as 2Ti 2:19, where it is specified as the seal of belonging to God that He knows us, not that we know Him, then in our passage also, thus looked at, the subjective genitive becomes probable, as in the interpretation: “the love of God to us.” Nevertheless, there are equally strong reasons for taking it as the genitives objectivus, or our love to God. For we have from 1Jn 1:6-10, 1Jn 2:1-11 a number of conditional sentences, the conclusion of which in every case exhibits the blessing attached to a right posture of heart required in those conditions; but in every case it is a blessing which we receive for use and application, not only for enjoyment. So it is when it is said, ἡ ἀλήθειαἔστινἐνἡμῖν [“the truth is in you”], or the purification from sin is ascribed to us. The same should we expect here also. But the meaning of God’s love to us does not harmonize with this; for that is indeed an experience or enjoyment of which we are partakers, but not something with which we can operate, and of which we can make any use. Further, the love of God to us is a thought which in the present context is by no means brought into prominence, but would enter here as an abrupt and isolated idea. If, then, on the one side there are the strongest reasons for taking Θεοῦ [“of God”] as a genitivus subjectivus, and on the other side equally strong reasons for understanding something to be spoken of that we receive for use and application in ourselves, how are we to decide between them? The materials for decision are presented to us in the text. It is purely arbitrary for one half of the expositors to speak of God’s love to us, and the other half to speak of our love to God: we read nothing but ἀγάπη τοῦ Θεοῦ [“love of God”],—that is, the divine love, love as it is in God, without the addition of any object for that love. The right meaning has escaped them simply through the interjection of an object for the love. The apostle says that he who keeps the commandment of God—that is, the commandment of love—has the love of God, has love as God is love, and as it is in God, dwelling and ruling within him as a power of life. As in the former passage the truth, which God is and which God has, comes upon us as a power filling and penetrating our being; so here the love of God, which He is and which He has, attains in us its perfected sway. He who keeps the divine commandment, the apostle means, has in himself the love from which God’s commandment flows, and which is in God. Thus the preceding λόγοςτοῦ Θεοῦ [“word of God”] is, in the conclusion of the fifth verse, more closely defined; the reader receives into himself the idea of love.
St. John takes one step further towards his end in the sixth verse, in the requirement of περιπατεῖν καθὼς ἐκεῖνος περιεπάτησεν [“walk just as he walked”]. Looked at on one side, the word περιπατεῖν [“walk”] contains an enlargement of the τηρεῖν τὰς ἐντολὰς, τὸν λόγον τοῦ Θεοῦ [“to keep the commandments, the word of God”]. We have seen—that is, on 1Jn 1:6—how περιπατεῖν [“walk”] denotes the whole complex movement of life, not only in the outward act, but in the collective expression of it, inward as well as outward; and therefore in this closer definition the τηρεῖν τὰς ἐντολάς [“to keep the commandments”] must embrace not a greater or less number of individual acts, but the essential habit of the entire life. On the other side, the addition καθὼς ἐκεῖνος περιεπάτησεν [“just as he walked”] gives another and additional point to the previous thought. As the ἐντολαὶ Θεοῦ [“commandments of God”], ordered πολυτρόπωςκαὶπολυμερῶς, [“many times and many ways”] find their ideal unity in the λόγοςτοῦ Θεοῦ [“word of God”], in the annunciation of Christ, which forms one living whole; so the real, visible, concrete unity is found in the life of Jesus Christ itself. But the question how He walked is answered in the whole Gospel. In Joh 13:1, His entire life is gathered up in one word: Ἰησοῦς ἀγαπήσας τοὺς ἰδίους ἠγάπησεν εἰς τέλος [“Jesus loved his own, he loved to the end”]. Now, then, at last in 1Jn 2:9 the apostle’s thought, to which he had been converging in ever-narrowing circles, bursts into clear expression: he is treating of brotherly love.
If it has been established in detail that the four expressions now considered have as to their matter the same substantial meaning; that the apostle has before his eyes in the first and most general of them, αἱἐντολαὶ τοῦ Θεοῦ [“the commandments of God”], the last and most special of them, and aims to bring the reader only by degrees to the unity and central point of these ἐντολαί [“commandments”]; and thus that 1Jn 2:9 forms the pith of the whole discussion,—then it has been demonstrated that we must not think of separating 1Jn 2:3-6 from what follows, but must make the whole from 1Jn 2:3-11 as one connected whole. Again, as not only the expression ἐγνωκέναιτὸν Θεον [“to know God”] points back to 1Jn 1:5, as we have seen, but also 1Jn 2:9 stands in express dependence on 1Jn 1:5, and is parallel with 1Jn 1:6, it is further demonstrated that the section 1Jn 2:3-11 runs strictly parallel with the section 1Jn 1:6-10, 1Jn 2:1-2. As we have further perceived that the contents of the new section are simply brotherly love, we have already half found the mutual relation of the two main divisions of our Epistle which we now have in hand. The subject of the first section, 1Jn 1:6-10, 1Jn 2:1-2, may be briefly stated to be the relation of man to God. He who walks in the light, says the apostle, receives the purification from sins on the one band through deliverance from them, 1Jn 1:7