14 - 1Jn 2:3
Καὶ ἐν τούτῳ γινώσκομεν ὅτι ἐγνώκαμεν αὐτὸν, ἐὰν τὰς ἐντολὰς αὐτοῦ τηρῶμεν·
Let us now descend to the particulars. The sentence at the outset, which gives us our point of view for the whole, is to the effect that we know God only if we keep His commandments. If γιγνώσκειν τὸν Θεον [“know God”] means, as we have seen in full, to know Him as light, as He alone is described, it is obvious of itself that the γιγνώσκειν [“know”] must be taken in its ordinary meaning, and by no means as equivalent to ἀγαπᾶν [“love”]. But certainly this knowing is throughout the New Testament never a merely external knowledge; it is rather, so to speak, a knowledge full of soul, which involves and establishes of itself a fellowship with Him who is known. In the same sense as St. Paul uses the composite word ἐπίγνωσις [“full knowledge”], which is not found in St. John, St. John uses the simple word. In this plerophoric meaning the term often occurs in the Gospel: Joh 1:10, where the οὐκἔγνω [“not know”] answers to the οὐκατέλαβεν [“not perceive”] of Joh 1:5[N]; Joh 8:55[N]; John 14:7, and others. It is not altogether strange to the Synoptics; comp. Mar 9:18[N]. If, then, to know is, in our apostle’s use of it, the appropriation or the personal reception into I ourselves of another and foreign nature, it is clear that the knowledge of God includes in itself a participation of His nature as known; and that thus the γνῶναιτὸν Θεον [“know God”] here is essentially related to the περιπατεῖνἐνφωτί [“walk in the light”] of 1Jn 1:6: the rather as here also the connection requires us to assume that God is known as light. Such fellowship with God should declare itself in the τηρεῖν τὰς ἐντολὰς αὐτοῦ [“keep his commandments”]. This sentence, laying its foundation for what follows, is then further unfolded in two verses containing two antithetical clauses.