48 - 1Jn 3:17
Ὃς δ᾽ ἂν ἔχῃ τὸν βίον τοῦ κόσμου, καὶ θεωρῇ τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὑτοῦ χρείαν ἔχοντα, καὶ κλείσῃ τὰ σπλάγχνα αὑτοῦ ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ, πῶς ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ Θεοῦ μένει ἐν αὐτῷ; With this requirement, that we lay down in this sense our life, is associated the antithetical observation (δέ [“but”]), how it is with him who does not act thus: it is most natural—as the rhetorical question really says—that there can be no relation to God in that case. If I give not τὸν βίον [“resources”], what I possess for the need and nourishment of bodily life, that signifies no other than that I will not myself lay down my life in the very least, in the most external circumference of it, for the advantage of my brother. The apostle says βίοςτοῦκόσμου [“the world’s resources”], in order by this appendage to make prominent the triviality of the matter: if ye do not in this which is least evince your love, how will ye do it in that which is greater? Such a man as St. Paul would surrender the very highest thing, his fellowship with Christ, for the brethren (Rom 9:3); and will ye not surrender the least important of all things? And it is yet more base, since ye must absolutely shut your heart against sympathy (κλείειν [“to shut”]), and suppress the most natural impulses, natural even in the world.1 The entire unnaturalness of such hardheartedness appears in all its prominence in the θεωρεῖντὸνἀδελφὸναὑτοῦχρείανἔχοντα [“to see his brother in need”]: his need is supposed to be well known to me, my eye rests upon it, my thoughts are concerned with it, sympathy urges its claims; but yet I bolt the doors of my heart. We need not here assume, any more than in the case mentioned by Jas 2:15-17 ff., that such lovelessness had occurred in a marked and express manner among the disciples; it is everywhere so common that we may understand the exhortation without any more especial occasion for it. But if the unnaturalness of the behaviour thus rebuked is so great, its deviation from the required τιθέναι τὴνψυχήν [“to lay down life”] so wide, it is clear how little consistent it must be with any near relation toGod.
St. John has from the beginning of his discussion of the subject exhibited brotherly love as the test of εἶναι ἐκΘεοῦ [“to be of God”], and therefore as its result; if this love be absent, the being born of God must be absent too. As in the negative section, 1Jn 3:12-15, brotherly love was considered to be the reflection of our relation to God, not of the relation of God to us; so also here the ἀγάπη τοῦ Θεοῦ [“love of God”] is not God’s love to us, but our love to Him. We might indeed here, as in 1Jn 2:5, take the ἀγάπη τοῦ Θεοῦ [“love of God”] quite generally to be love, as it is in God and will have its reflection in us, and therefore as a unity which contains reference to both its directions; but since in what precedes the specific love of Christ to us had been spoken of, the other view just presented is the more appropriate. The μένειν [“abide”] is here to be explained as in 1Jn 3:14-15: since the apostle is writing to Christians, he obviously presupposes the right sentiment of the heart; but through hardness against brethren that must needs be lost. For the rest, our verse plainly enough shows that the profound speculation of St. John is laid at the service of the most immediate practical requirements of Christianity: there is here andnowhere a gulf between them. footnote
1ἀποκλείειντινός [“to shut up something”] is a phrase well known in classical Greek; but κλείειν ἀπὸτινός [“to shut off from something”] seems, on the other hand, formed simply after the type of the Hebrew סָגַּר מִפְּנִי. [“shut up because of” cf. Jos 6:1]