68 - 1Jn 4:20
Ἐάν τις εἴπῃ ὅτι ἀγαπῶ τὸν θεὸν καὶ τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ μισῇ, ψεύστης ἐστίν· ὁ γὰρ μὴ ἀγαπῶν τὸν ἀδελφὸν αὐτοῦ ὃν ἑώρακεν, τὸν θεὸν ὃν οὐχ ἑώρακεν οὐ δύναται ἀγαπᾶν.
It is now unfolded that the love of God without the love of the brethren is a thing impossible. Of love to God not a word had been hitherto said; only of the divine love which is infused into us, and which must approve itself as brotherly love. That we must love God enters here as a new thought, which, however, is so self-understood that it is introduced simply as a matter taken for granted. The emphasis lies only on the evidence that the love of God is not conceivable without love of our brother. The form of the exposition has been made familiar to us by 1Jn 1:1-10 and 1Jn 2:1-29 : here we have ἐάντιςεἴπῃ [“if someone says”], there it was ἐὰνεἴπωμεν [“if we say” cf. 1Jn 1:6,1Jn 1:8,1Jn 1:10] or ὁ λέγων [“the one who says” cf. 1Jn 2:4,1Jn 2:6,1Jn 2:9]; we may compare also the ἀλλ’ἐρεῖτις [“but someone will say”] of Jas 2:18;[N]1Co 15:35; only that in this last passage we have objections introduced, while here there is no theoretical denial of the apostolical doctrine, but a delusive assertion of being in the true state. Similarly the ψεύστηςἐστίν [“is a liar”] has been familiarized by the first division of the Epistle, and this severe sentence the apostle justifies by the clause with γάρ [“for”]. The question now arises, how far the invisibility of God as such, for on it the stress is evidently laid, demonstrates that we cannot love Him without loving the brethren. It is not to be thought that the apostle should mean to deny the possibility of loving generally what is invisible. This would not only contradict our experience that we are capable of loving with all our hearts persons whom we have never seen, but the consciousness of all true Christians who know that they love God notwithstanding that He is unseen. If it be said that we at least know something of the men whom we love without having seen them, and that this knowledge is the ground of the love, then we say in reply that such a knowledge of God also we may have in the fullest degree. The error of this explanation lies here, that πῶς [“how”] is taken too hastily as rhetorically used; so that the clause is made to express the simple affirmation οὐδύναται κ.τ.λ. [“not able, etc.”], as, indeed, some codices have actually substituted this οὐ [“not”]. But the fact is that the πῶς [“how”] has the emphasis in the sentence. “In what way can he love God who loves not his brother?” Obviously the love of which St. John speaks is the same of which he had said in 1Jn 3:18, that it consists not in words, but ἐνἔργῳ [“in deed”]. Love in mere words is no love; all genuine love presses to its demonstration in act. But the act requires, as we have been reminded in another connection, a material on which it may exert itself. God, as in His nature and being withdrawn from visibility, does not present in Himself absolutely such a material on which we may work; but He has given Himself a body, si verbis audacia detur, in man who is made after His image: that is then the only material on which my love to God may show its energy and reality. If I scorn that, πῶς [“how”], in what other way, in what other sense, can I then love God, scilicet, ἐνἔργῳ [“in deed”]? But all this has not done full justice to the tensefnἑώρακε[V-PAI-3S] [“he has seen”]: if the matter were of visibility or invisibility in general, we should expect rather the present, or simply ὁρᾶνδύναται [“able to see”]. But the point of view from which all is regarded indicates the right sense: if the matter here is the demonstration or love in any way whatever (πῶς [“how”]), it is clear that I can approve my love to my brother only if I know the precise point in which he needs it; in short, love requires for its exhibition a specific opportunity. Hence I must have seen, if he is to present such an opportunity to me; without having seen him, I cannot approve my love to him in act; whence naturally the ὁρᾶν [“see”] is to be taken in so wide a sense that the hearing about him is involved in it also. Such occasion for the expression of love, however, such stimulant to testify love to God as if to His own person, is not possible without the medium of the brethren. My deeds of charity to my neighbour may indeed and must spring from love to God; but there are no means (πῶς [“how”]) of testifying our love to Him in act, to Him as invisible, or to Him in and for Himself, without such a mediating element.